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Francisco Kofi Nyaxo Olympio Correspondent
One does not need to explicate the symbolic meanings of the African village tree located at the very centre of the village or in small and remote communities.

In the main, it is not only the site for manifold economic transactions and other valuable exchanges and social communication but also a place of assembly to discuss matters of public interest in a face-to-face, honest interaction and mutual social learning.

For strangers, sojourners, and the stranded it is the place for topographic orientation, a warm-nest and hospitality.

It is a place where no one is left behind when dusk begins to fall and active day’s life fades into obscurity just to wait for the dawn of another brighter day of interwoven human interaction. Is it long overdue for the African Union to forge a post-national identity by making its novel institutions and policies accessible and meaningful at the grassroots? In other words, isn’t the time ripe for the AU to create the space for true Africanisation of its institutions and ownership of its processes by the people at home and in the diaspora?

The political character of the individual member states of the AU reflects how the union engages with its citizens as well as how it safeguards national coherence as a pedestal of genuine continental unity. In 1975, to the chagrin of many Ugandans and the wider Pan-African community, Idi Amin was elected the chairman of the Organisation of African Unity (OAU), forerunner of the AU. There is no continental unity to be protected or to be promoted when our heads of state and government continue to divide and rule their populations. Until the demise of the Cold War, many of us were witnesses to how a ruthless club of military leaders trespassed, tampered, and trampled upon the basic rights and aspirations of millions of Africans. More than two decades of re-democratisation seem not to have transformed our political elites.

Given the “unique” challenges we face in our continent, we must adopt a holistic perspective in analysing the AU as a true representative of the African people.

At the level of organisation, it is also high time that as true Pan-African citizens we intensify our collaboration and appropriate some of the new institutions of the AU we deem will make our voices and actions come to bear on our leaders.

We also cannot delink the realities in our villages, communities, and constituencies from the functions of the AU bearing in mind the duties of states and our civic responsibilities.

These are also the natural sites of the AU’s legitimacy, and the founding fathers wanted first and foremost to create Pan-African citizens who are conscious of their rights, capable of shaping their development path as well as resolving their internal conflicts in peace and prosperity. Thus, political and economic independence are directly intertwined and therefore the basis of inclusive citizenship. As stated by one of the architects of the OAU:

“We shall measure our progress by the improvement in the health of our people; by the number of children in school, and by the quality of their education; by the availability of water and electricity in our towns and villages, and by the happiness which our people take in being able to manage their own affairs. The welfare of our people is our chief pride, and it is by this that my Government will ask to be judged”. (Osagyefo Dr. Kwame Nkrumah, First President of Ghana — a Broadcast to the Nation, 24 December 1957.)

The formation of the OAU on 25 May 1963 and transformation of the regional body to the AU in 2002 corroborate the fact that institutions are created in response to existing challenges while we make room for emergent and unanticipated developments. As the problems of the world ease past existing political orders and institutional arrangements at an unprecedented speed, policymakers without proactive response strategies are overwhelmed on a daily basis by unpredictable events. In this connection, since the early 1960s intergovernmental cooperation has been identified as a conduit for collaborative interaction, communication, and information sharing to enhance the problem-solving capacity of the collective African leadership. Without any doubt, many Africans were hopeful that the OAU could solve some of the problems of the time.

The to-do list included cementing African unity and solidarity in a divided world marked and marred by Cold War animosity and belligerence between the superpowers; speeding up decolonisation and liquidation of Apartheid; and shaping a development path that would lead many of the beleaguered post-colonial states to peace and prosperity.

While the OAU tilled the soil in a hostile international political environment, the emergence of the AU in the immediate aftermath of the new millennium was greeted as an historical opportunity to sow the seeds to regenerate the continent and its peoples, their aspirations and dreams in a moment of relative international peace and stability.

Moreover, while one also cannot deny the diligence behind the institutionalisation of the AU, such as its renewed identification with the diaspora, commitment to resolve conflicts, and a new orientation towards its people, the balance sheet is that the benefits of these efforts are yet to trickle down to ordinary Africans.

The battles for freedom and basic rights in the 1990s are yet to be fully won as some leaders continue to be glued to political power in contradiction of existing constitutional arrangements thus reversing some of the gains of re-democratisation in the recent past (Plattner & Diamond, 2010).

Decision-making processes in many states have become short-circuited as political elites abuse existing peace dividend in a democratic context to shield themselves and their ill-gotten wealth from the masses. Many politicians collude with foreign extractive companies to plunder the continent’s natural resources and use their share of the booty to consolidate their personal wealth and that of their political parties, and serve their clientele networks while mining communities are dragged into wanton destitution and a looming environmental catastrophe (Olympio, 2013).

Concurrently, many leaders have embraced democracy just to appease their external partners while they close their ears to the African peoples. The state of affairs of politicking at the triadic levels of polity, policy and politics leaves much to be desired as lack of ‘political listening’ has increasingly become a ‘new democratic deficit’ (Dobson, 2012). These developments are contradistinctive to the dreams of the founding fathers of the OAU whose fundamental goal was to achieve a people-centred union (-unifying process). This is an anomaly – in an era where many governments have already expressed their commitments to the Constitutive Act of the African Union (CAAU). It is a slippage in the continent’s re-democratisation process since ‘the most effective and insidious way to silence others in politics is a refusal to listen’ to them (Dryzek, 2000: 149).

Our strength as a people lies in our complex and diverse social configurations, strong kinship ties, and social networks, which we can deploy not to weaken the state and vice versa but to collaborate across spaces to revamp state-society relations for the common good. It is in our firm beliefs as Pan-African citizens and consciousness about our civic responsibilities, which will catapult us to a true post-national identity in an uncertain and a rapidly changing world. Of course, this is a long process, and may the wisdom and virtues we have accrued from our Ubuntu village life guide us navigate the tortuous path towards true Pan-African citizenship. — Pambazuka