Can the United States of Africa still be created an will Nigeria get itself together so that the continent can focus on progress?


Black History Month: The United States of Africa and African Diaspora’s remittances in 2012
http://dilemma-x.net/2013/02/10/black-history-month-the-united-states-of-africa-the-diasporas-remittances-in-2012/

The disUnited States of Nigeria has not worked yet.

Our corruption and religion affiliation will not allow it to last.

Africa is too tribal for complex arrangement,nest century maybe,not this one.

Even europe is finding it difficult to handle united europe,talkless of africa where tribes men like bluetooth calls themselves educated.

noblezone: The disUnited States of Nigeria has not worked yet.

lol

noblezone: The disUnited States of Nigeria has not worked yet.

The United States of Africa will have different borders for the states that don't currently coincidence with the borders of the existing countries. It will have borders that more fit with ethnic groups.

Nigeria is an example of maybe what not to do. Because of a few things.

First, Nigeria kept the name its former colonizer gave it. That's something very unlike what took place in the Gold Coast that became Ghana or what took place in Rhodesia that became Zimbabwe.

Why on Earth didn't the people want to take a new name when it was some British tramp that named the place Nigeria?

This is the mother of Nigeria.
Flora Louisa Shaw, Lady Lugard



Part of Nigeria's issues today is tied to the fact that the British convereted those in the South to Christians and let the north remain Muslims and followers of traditional African religion.

When you think about Europe and Asia...how many European and Asian countries have borders that were drawn over the population without either a war creating the borders or the ethnic groups wanting their own borders?

China has lots of ethnic groups and over 1.3 billion people an yet they live under one border.
India has 1.2 billion and they live under one border.

The UK has 3 main native ethinic groups (English, Scottish, Welsh and Irish) and they live under one border even though they have a very long history of fighting one another. The Scots fighting the English, the Irish fighting the English and the Welsh fighting the English. Keep in mind no one forced these people from the outside to be one country. People from outside of Africa force people to be Nigeria.

France has many native ethnic groups and formed itself from Gaul into a country called France.

States would mean that the ethnic groups of what is now Nigeria could split to form their own states and then unify to form a United States. As the United States of America is made up of many people of many races, many ethnic groups and many religions. The most diverse population on Earth live in the United States and they are able to be one nation.

slimming: Our corruption and religion affiliation will not allow it to last.

Humm, how come it seems to last for the United States and they have a lot more of this than the people of Africa?

It is not a question of IF but WHEN the nations of Africa will unite under a single political nationality. The African nationality.

It is part of the AU Charter. All AU nations are signatory to it IN PRINCIPLE. Debates are only ongoing over the speed of the process.

Rossikk: It is not a question of IF but WHEN the nations of Africa will unite under a single political nationality. The African nationality.

It is part of the AU Charter. All AU nations are signatory to it IN PRINCIPLE. Debates are only ongoing over the speed of the process.

Gaddafi is dead, bro.
United States of Africa was his brain-child.


I think we should focus our energies on making our individual countries work first. why put the cart before the horse?

Let's create a UNITED STATE OF NIGERIA before thinking of United State of Africa.

c.fours:


Gaddafi is dead, bro.
United States of Africa was his brain-child.


I think we should focus our energies on making our individual countries work first. why put the cart before the horse?

You don't know what you're talking about. African unification was ABSOLUTELY NOT Ghadaffi's 'brainchild'. It's been on the table of the OAU since before Ghadaffi was born. Nkrumah and Marcus Garvey were among its early pioneers. And it is a major tenet of the AU Charter. So leave Ghadaffi out of it and go learn a thing or two about the idea. As for making individual countries work first, that's putting the cart before the horse. The reason why 'individual countries' are not working as well as they should is precisely because of their respective dependent, vulnerable states, which is what continental unification is meant to redress. China was once a mish mash of unviable, competing, 'independent' states, until their elite decided to bring them all under a single Chinese umbrella, language, and central govt. And we can see the result.

Well as far as I'm concerned, political integration should come LAST. Let's prioritise ECONOMIC and CULTURAL integration first.

1. Harmonise trade, tax and regulatory policies across the continent to encourage African businesses to spread across the continent. Eliminate tariffs, quotas and other protectionist measures as they relate to goods produced in fellow African countries.

2. Eliminate visa regimes to encourage mobility of Africans across the continent.

3. Improve transport links (thereby opening up the interior of the continent) by building a trans-continental railway from Cape Town to Cairo and from Durban to Rabat.

4. Work towards harmonising school curricula to teach our children about past African heroes and teach them to have pride in their colour.

5. Adopt an "African first" mentality by purchasing African clothes, eating African food etc.

Steps like these should be undertaken first. Over the course of a generation we will have developed stronger ties and weaned ourselves off the apron strings of our former colonialists. Then political integration can become a more feasible policy to undertake.

c.fours:


Gaddafi is dead, bro.
United States of Africa was his brain-child.


I think we should focus our energies on making our individual countries work first. why put the cart before the horse?

It was not his brain child. You didn't look at the history of it. It started long before him.

Take a read and look at the videos too.
http://dilemma-x.net/2013/02/10/black-history-month-the-united-states-of-africa-the-diasporas-remittances-in-2012/

Rossikk:

You don't know what you're talking about. African unification was ABSOLUTELY NOT Ghadaffi's 'brainchild'. It's been on the table of the OAU since before Ghadaffi was born. Nkrumah and Marcus Garvey were among its early pioneers. And it is a major tenet of the AU Charter. So leave Ghadaffi out of it and go learn a thing or two about the idea. As for making individual countries work first, that's putting the cart before the horse. The reason why 'individual countries' are not working as well as they should is precisely because of their respective dependent, vulnerable states, which is what continental unification is meant to redress. China was once a mish mash of unviable, competing, 'independent' states, until their elite decided to bring them all under a single Chinese umbrella, language, and central govt. And we can see the result.

You are correct.

miiraaj: Let's create a UNITED STATE OF NIGERIA before thinking of United State of Africa.

Nigeria needs to start with getting rid of its colonial name given to it by that British tramp.

We're too segmented as a continent to come together as one country. Except the united states of Africa will be similar to the European Union(EU).

why dont we have two countries in Africa only. That is: federation of African countries and Nigeria.

This Thread is not being treated with the severity that the question demands. It is an important question, but it presumes and treats as given various positions that first need to be debated before any cohesive discourse can take place.

scarred: This Thread is not being treated with the severity that the question demands. It is an important question, but it presumes and treats as given various positions that first need to be debated before any cohesive discourse can take place.

Add your own angle to the debate na!?

HNosegbe: Well as far as I'm concerned, political integration should come LAST. Let's prioritise ECONOMIC and CULTURAL integration first.

1. Harmonise trade, tax and regulatory policies across the continent to encourage African businesses to spread across the continent. Eliminate tariffs, quotas and other protectionist measures as they relate to goods produced in fellow African countries.

2. Eliminate visa regimes to encourage mobility of Africans across the continent.

3. Improve transport links (thereby opening up the interior of the continent) by building a trans-continental railway from Cape Town to Cairo and from Durban to Rabat.

4. Work towards harmonising school curricula to teach our children about past African heroes and teach them to have pride in their colour.

5. Adopt an "African first" mentality by purchasing African clothes, eating African food etc.

Steps like these should be undertaken first. Over the course of a generation we will have developed stronger ties and weaned ourselves off the apron strings of our former colonialists. Then political integration can become a more feasible policy to undertake.

You do realize that a lot of these developments you envisage above would probably not work without a central executive govt initiating and overseeing it?

That's the dilemma many fail to see. I doubt we can fully realise majority of those things without having the unified African govt in place, or at least some sort of political entity with wide ranging powers over the current African states. The AU as it stands simply lacks the political will/muscle to push through these reforms, in my view.

Pipe dreams.

Africans are extremely tribalistic, and widespread illiteracy coupled with greed and constant strife means nothing is changing in the next century.


Jizz on this thread.

Rossikk:

You do realize that a lot of these developments you envisage above would probably not work without a central executive govt initiating and overseeing it?

That's the dilemma many fail to see. I doubt we can fully realise majority of those things without having the unified African govt in place, or at least some sort of political entity with wide ranging powers over the current African states. The AU as it stands simply lacks the political will/muscle to push through these reforms, in my view.

Well this "dilemma" as you called it may well be seen as your typical chicken-and-egg situation, but the key thing is whether African leaders are even thinking along this line. I doubt that the issue is even in the consciousness of those that claim to represent us.

I also agree that some form of central organization is necessary to coordinate the execution of the ideas I proposed. Truth is, unless we can make the AU work, integration will remain a pipedream.

Sad.

jackbauersballs: Pipe dreams.

Africans are extremely tribalistic, and widespread illiteracy coupled with greed and constant strife means nothing is changing in the next century.


Jizz on this thread.

Says our resident western plant.

How much are you paid to do this?

First of all, colonial borders will have to be thrown out. After that, US of Africa will have to be a tribal union with each African tribe joining the union.

To start this, Africa needs one military. not under any organization like OAU or some allegiance.. It will just be African military with bases and camps across Africa.

This way, Africa can stand on any economic policies they make without oppression and threats from outside. Any uprising from Jihadists or any form of militancy will be dealt with by African military without any form of foreign boots on African soil. Every tribe control their resources and contribute to African military both human, financial and land. Whatever is necessary. Land disputes between tribes will have to be settled before the union. Any tribe seeking to join the union will have to settle her land disputes with tribes not in the union before entering the union. Your space to develop. No matter the amount of Yorubas in Ogoni land, it can never change from Ogoni land forever.. ETC.. That way, there will be no threat of extinction to any tribe no matter how small..

YES! Union of African tribes is possible but if we try to form a union with colonial borders, we are doomed!

^^^The first step is to do away with the racist colonial term, ''tribe'', commonly used to describe African ethnicities and nationalities.

But, a reasonable contribution all the same.



African Unification

by MUKOMA NGUGI

When in 1946 Winston Churchill called for a United States of Europe, so soon after World War II, many must have thought him still shell-shocked. Then it was unimaginable that a mere generation later there would be a European Union with a single market and a common parliament, or that Germany would not only be re-united but host the World Cup finals in which Italy would defeat France. But even with this living example, to speak of African unification to Africans or Westerners alike is to be seen as an impractical dreamer or simply insane.

One is lectured that Africa is too big, too poor, too corrupt, too undereducated, always at war, undemocratic. In a candid moment, someone might add that with centuries of ethnic enmity Africans cannot unify because they are, well, Africans. As if none of these problems existed in one form or another in the Europe of 1946.

This is not to say that the problems are not real. In the Darfur region of Sudan, an agonizingly slow nightmare unfolded as the African Union (AU) idly watched. The heavily flawed Nigerian elections promise more conflict in the Niger delta. In the Congo, where millions of lives have been lost, embers of war keep reigniting. There is worsening poverty, more money being lost through unequal trade than gained in foreign aid, an AIDS epidemic with a genocidal fury, and a leadership without political imagination. This is a continent mired in quick sand.

Kwame Nkurumah of Ghana once said “Africa must unite, or perish”. We are uniting less and perishing more.

But does a Ugandan, for example, see a Ghanaian as an African and in terms that can translate into policy? Kwame Nkrumah’s major failing, which the AU now emulates, is to have seen unification as only between governments and not amongst African people. We have not had a single presidential race on the continent influenced by the question of African unification, or peaceful marches and public debates in favor of unification in individual nations. Regional cooperation treaties are signed without consulting respective citizens. In short, Pan-Africanism has as yet to belong to the people themselves.

And xenophobia is on the rise. South Africans, both black and white, want to protect their borders from the Amakwerekwere, the amaXhosa word for the black peril. In Kenya one finds a caricaturism so ingrained in national psyche that in parliament, members are banned from wearing African clothes. In Ghana, Nkrumah’s failures become a rejection of Africa and in Egypt or Morocco – the horror, are we even African they ask?

There have to be more conversations between African peoples themselves. One of the topics will, of necessity, be the nature of difference. Difference arbitrated the 1994 Rwandan genocide. But a unified Africa does not mean erasure of different cultures and languages; rather it would allow each fluid culture to flourish under equal protection. It does not mean that enmity ends, but rather that there are no ill political winds of nationalism to fan into a full blown war every disagreement.

Unification means access to the best that the continent has to offer and a shared burden when it comes to the many problems. It means having a unified voice in international politics and economics. A unified Africa would take Europe and the United States to task for providing farm subsidies to their farmers that in turn cost Africa millions of dollars each year. Africa would be able to demand that all nations with nuclear weapons abandon them as a threat to a common humanity. Or take a unified stand against pharmaceuticals and manufacturers of generic drugs for AIDS. Africa would be able to create solutions and implement them and not always wait for handouts. In short, Africa would have a bark… and a bite.

In life, individuals die where they stop dreaming. It is the same for countries and continents. Certainly for Africa, death finds new life where the dream of unification ends.

Mukoma Wa Ngugi is the author of Hurling Words at Consciousness (Africa World Press) & Conversing with Africa: Politics of Change (KPH).


http://proudlyafrikan.org/africa-uniting-less-perishing-more/