Union of African States

  
 

In January 1963 President Nkrumah wrote a letter to the presidents of independent states, proposing the Union of African States. (In May of that year the African leadership created the Organization of African Unity (OAU)). He postulated that the economic and social well being of Africa depended upon our ability to create a Pan-African Political union. President Nkrumah proposed these fundamental points:

  1. Common foreign policy and diplomacy... we need a process of political socialization that would "enable us to speak with one voice" in the fora of the world
  2. Common continental planning for economic and industrial development...."building up a common market of a united Africa" that would bring about the material conditions we need to improve our collective quality of life in the global economy
  3. Common currency a monetary zone and a central bank of issue...that we "need to orientate the economy of Africa and place it beyond the reach of foreign control" to be able to implement our social economy
  4. Common defense system..."one over-all (land, sea and air) Defense Command for Africa" is needed to defend the social economy we create
    5.

To implement the above proposal, a Central Political Organization with its own constitution would have to be drawn up as a matter of urgency. It is suggested that this Union of African States should consist of an Upper House and Lower House...The overriding concern of the Union of African States would be to give political direction in regard to the implementation of the proposals mentioned above.

Today the OAU is attempting to implement some aspects of this program in the context of the Abuja Treaty of 1991 creating the OAU-African Economic Community (AEC) structures.

A cornerstone of the OAU-AEC plan is an African Common Market, a common currency and a central bank. Such financial and economic changes requires the "full faith and credit" of the issuing authority and control of actual physical commodities (resources such as platinum, palladium, antinomy, bauxite, copper, diamonds, uranium, gold, coffee, tea, cocoa, petroleum, natural gas, cotton, wheat, tropical fruits, sea food and the like) as pre-requisites. Both the intangible and tangible legs of this stool, the faith and credit, and physical assets, have to be maintained by defensive capabilities. The defense capabilities are themselves functions of the degree of centralized political socialization leading to the development of Pan-African Technical Means.

All of these depend upon the qualification of the human factors. That is the key the political and social psychological state of the African individual must develop along dialectical lines oriented to retrieving the positive values of collective African culture.