The recent withdrawal of three founding members of the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) was a watershed moment. The tension between Mali, Burkina Faso, and Niger – all states that have succumbed to military coups – and the West African politico-economic bloc justifies a growing consensus among academics. The consensus being that African intergovernmental organisations are inefficient.
In my contribution to this point, I will direct particular focus on the largest and most significant intergovernmental organisation on the continent, the African Union.
The African Union (AU) is an important example of why one should never overpromise and underdeliver. Old and long-drawn-out empty affirmations from this once-revered institution are an insult to the very Africans that they claim to serve. Different opinions abound as to why and who is to blame for these failures. I will reassert a few.
AU bureaucrats have long displayed a habit of being taken with the theoretical ideas of what role the AU is supposed to serve. It is in this regard that contradictions have long abounded. For example, the organisation often presents itself as a supranational body, while in practice it is more a platform for sovereign states to assert the very sovereignty which they are not prepared to cede.
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Academics and intellectuals associated with the organisation have long fantasized about the idea of the “United States of Africa”, an Africa united as a single state – with one leader, one economy, one military, etc. – but it is those same intellectuals who in turn advocate for the decentralisation and devolution of state power in African states.
Kleptocratic tyrants, of whom Africa has never lacked, have long challenged the idea of a stronger AU, as such an organisation would warrant greater scrutiny of their unjust rule. African integration, and regional integration in general, demands transparency from constituent member states. So an AU dedicated to its pursuit would require African leaders to be held to account by their peers/counterparts – a prospect that frightens many African leaders.
What is sad is that most of these African leaders publicly profess to favour the idea of an effective AU, but hold very different views in private.
The formation of AU offshoots such as ECOWAS, the East African Community (EAC), and the Southern African Development Community (SADC) all point to the failures of the mother body. Furthermore, the structure of these subregional bodies reasserts colonial spheres of influence. One cannot think that it is a coincidence that former colonies of the same European empire huddle amongst themselves instead of uniting to pursue the common interests of the entire continent.
Going back to the withdrawal of the three nations from ECOWAS, one would be naive to assume that these military juntas took this action solely on the basis of the organisation’s failures. It is well known that these three states are neocolonial battlegrounds of the West and Russia, and thus the decisions taken by their Russian-backed juntas are not grounded in the interests of their people but attempts to appease their handlers in Moscow.
To conclude, I would like to suggest that we as Africans go beyond the fallacies of what we would want the AU to be. The expectation that 54 sovereign states would resolve to follow the same path anywhere is unrealistic. Instead, more rational integration is necessary, starting with honouring already agreed-upon resolutions such as the common market and other agreements of economic cooperation.
We should always remember that we all have the same destination in mind, but we should all acknowledge each other’s need to follow different routes.
~ written by Neo Malebana Ndlalane, Public Administration student at the University of Pretoria.
