Africa News Online

U can take this to Equity or KCB fo ksh 1 million ...

2012-03-10T11:33:44.763+03:00

U can take this to Equity or KCB fo ksh 1 million loan:
Musalia Wa Mudavadi wil b th fourth president of th republic of KE, period!

Interesting article, added his blog to Favorites

2010-11-24T12:05:09.828+03:00

Interesting article, added his blog to Favorites

Nicely done.

2009-05-25T06:44:08.233+03:00

Nicely done.

We seriously do not need the American in our lifes...

2009-05-19T22:53:00.000+03:00

We seriously do not need the American in our lifes, we honoured Obama when he was a senator, visiting Africa! he has choosen to dis-honor Kenyans (not Kibaki and Raila). He never saved Kenya in 2007, Kenyans were saved by God... what we need most is God.

Great article. Welldone Saeed Furaa

2009-05-04T18:33:00.000+03:00

Great article. Welldone Saeed Furaa

Oh Prof, u were my freind and teacher. u taught me...

2009-04-28T11:14:00.000+03:00

Oh Prof, u were my freind and teacher. u taught me that if a lawyer does not contribute to tne development of his nation then his Degree is useless . I WILL MISS U FOREVER AND I WILL NEVER FORGET U.

Uncle Okoth was not only a uncle but also my good ...

2009-04-28T00:10:00.000+03:00

Uncle Okoth was not only a uncle but also my good friend and a dad. May his soul rest in peace. Amen. lilly.

Its so sad especially to loose a dear uncle and a ...

2009-04-28T00:09:00.000+03:00

Its so sad especially to loose a dear uncle and a best friend. For to live is Christ and to die is gain. God's plan is always the best. Uncle will be missed by the whole family. Eternal rest be granted unto professor and let perpetual light shine upon him. Rest in peace

2009-04-28T00:00:00.000+03:00

This comment has been removed by the author.

Thanks for this; there are usually deeper reasons ...

2009-04-26T23:25:00.000+03:00

Thanks for this; there are usually deeper reasons for a collective turn to piracy--at least there were in earlier times.

One interesting thing is that both the Western media and your own piece seem to treat "the pirates" as a single entity, when clearly there are a variety of motivations at play.

What interests me about the current crisis is how those engaged in piracy might improve their region and country, if targets are chosen appropriately, if support is sought in the right places, if the right tactics are chosen, and most importantly, if the benefits of this "industry" develop into widespread investments in infrastructure and the "legitimate" economy.

Your compatriots wouldn't be the first groups to turn apparent theft from richer nations into legitimate development; but they'd be the first in Africa.

Prof Okoth Ogendo was a brilliant scholar and leav...

2009-04-25T22:57:00.000+03:00

Prof Okoth Ogendo was a brilliant scholar and leaves behind a rich legacy. May he rest in peace.

Good point! I was shocked at the rationale of the ...

2009-04-19T10:48:00.000+03:00

Good point! I was shocked at the rationale of the NATO forces! May be there is something the know that they are not telling the World- Editor Africa News On Line

Letting them go only reinforces their belief that ...

2009-04-18T21:43:00.000+03:00

Letting them go only reinforces their belief that the west is weak! Expecting the pirates to respond with gratitude for their captor's generosity in releasing them is naive. They are criminals, and holding them, trying them and convicting them is justified.

For capturing the pirates and freeing the hostages...

2009-04-18T20:56:00.000+03:00

For capturing the pirates and freeing the hostages: A+; For releasing the captured pirates to do it all over again: F-. Where is the law? Who are the enforcers of violations of international law? Why couldn't the captured pirates be held by the captors until they could be turned over to the jurisdiction of the World Court? How long must the world put up with this lawlessness? If more cannot be done to get these criminals under control, then commercial vessels must be allowed to either arm themselves or have their own armed patrol boats to provide security.

Most African leaders felt that Nkrumah wanted to r...

2009-04-16T05:11:00.000+03:00

Most African leaders felt that Nkrumah wanted to rule Africa. And it was common knowledge that he did try to undermine some governments, especially in Francophone Africa. As Nyerere stated: "He (Nkrumah) had tremendous contempt for many African leaders."

Even Nyerere's room was bugged when he attended the African heads of state summit n Accra in 1965 but Tanzania's intelligence chief, Mzena, and other Tanzanian agents who accompanied Nyerere, found that out in advance.

And when one of Ghana's and Africa's leading journalists, Cameron Dodou, returned to Ghana from Tanzania in the early sixties, he was accused by the Ghanaian government - and reportedly by Nkrumah himself - of working for Nyerere against Nkrumah and was arrested.

Also Nkrumah worked relentlessly to undermine Nyerere's attempts to unite Kenya, Uganda and Tanzania and form an East African federation. In one of his books, Basil Davidson says that was one of the worst mistakes Nkrumah ever made. As he states in his book "Black Star: A View of the Life and Times of Kwame Nkrumah":

"Some, like Julius Nyerere of Tanzania, chastised Nkrumah for his interference. East Africa, Nyerere believed, could best contribute to continental unity by moving first towards regional unity. Although knowing little of East Africa, Nkrumah not only disagreed but actively interfered to obstruct the East African federation proposed by Nyerere....It was one of Nkrumah's worst mistakes."

Many shared this assessment.

And according to Oginga Odinga in his book "Not Yet Uhuru":

"As late as 8 July 1965, Nyerere said that Tanzania was still ready for East African Federation no matter that outside influences had interfered in the hope of blocking its formation. He said 'If we listen to foreign influence we should be made to quarrel with Kenya and Uganda, but this we will not do.' He had already told President Kenyatta that if his country was ready to unite, Tanzania was also ready."

That was clearly in pointed reference to Nkrumah who had actively interfered in East Africa in an attempt to block formation of federation of the three East African countries.

Nyerere himself publicly criticised Nkrumah for his opposition to the federation saying we have been told that formation of an East African federation will impede African unity. "Those are attempts to rationalise absurdity."

Still, Nyerere worked closely with Nkrumah on many issues. And according to Ben Bella in an interview in Geneva in 1995, he, Nkrumah, Nyerere, Nasser, Sekou Toure and Modibo Keita had their own secret group within the OAU, known as The Group of Six, and worked closely and secretly together on African liberation and other continental issues including the Congo crisis since they did not feel that other African leaders were serious enough about that.

And as Nyerere said about Nkrumah, "we corresponded profusely" on the subject of African unity and how to achieve continental unification. They differed, of course, on how to achieve it.

Nyerere himself articulated Nkrumah's position even before Nkrumah called for immediate continental unification, although on a regional scale. He said if African countries waited too long to unite, it would be very difficult for them to unite. That's why he wanted Kenya, Uganda and Tanganyika to unite before independence.

Nkrumah wanted all African countries to unite right away in Addis Ababa in May 1963 and in Accra in 1965; an unrealistic goal without even any preparation for such continental unity. In fact, Nkrumah's book "Africa Must Unite" was published just before the first OAU summit was held in Addis in May 1963. It was perfect timing to promote his agenda. But most African leaders did not support him or agree with him and he left Addis after the conference, frustrated.

Earlier in 1960, Nyerere offered to delay the independence of Tanganyika (scheduled for December 1961) so that the three countries of Kenya, Uganda and Tanganyika would unite and emerge as a one country on the same day they won independence. But after they failed to do so, and after they failed again to unite soon after independence, he said he became wary of Nkrumah's approach of immediate continental unification.

Nyerere, Kenyatta and Obote signed a declaration of intent on 5 June 1963 in Nairobi stating that they would form a federation before the end of the year. And Nyerere and Obote asked Kenyatta to be president of the East African Federation but the Grand Old Man refused. As Nyerere stated in one of his last interviews with the "New Internationalist" in December 1998 not long before he died in October 1999:

"I respected Jomo (Kenyatta) immensely. It has probably never happened in history. Two heads of state, Milton Obote and I, went to Jomo and said to him: ‘Let’s unite our countries and you be our head of state.’ He said no. I think he said no because it would have put him out of his element as a Kikuyu Elder....

Kwame Nkrumah and I were committed to the idea of unity. African leaders and heads of state did not take Kwame seriously. However, I did. I did not believe in these small little nations. Still today I do not believe in them. I tell our people to look at the European Union, at these people who ruled us who are now uniting.

Kwame and I met in 1963 and discussed African Unity. We differed on how to achieve a United States of Africa. But we both agreed on a United States of Africa as necessary. Kwame went to Lincoln University, a black college in the US. He perceived things from the perspective of US history, where the 13 colonies that revolted against the British formed a union. That is what he thought the OAU should do.

I tried to get East Africa to unite before independence. When we failed in this I was wary about Kwame’s continental approach. We corresponded profusely on this. Kwame said my idea of ‘regionalization’ was only balkanization on a larger scale. Later African historians will have to study our correspondence on this issue of uniting Africa."

Nyerere also pointed out to Nkrumah that Africa was not going to have an African Napoleon who was going to conquer other countries and unite them by force. Most African leaders during that time thought Nkrumah was trying to do just that, hence his attempts to undermine a number of African governments so that people who danced to his tune would become the new leaders whom he could manipulate at will and achieve his goal to be the imperial president or "emperor" of a United Africa.

In one of the interviews on the subject of how to unite Africa, Nyerere said:

"My differences with Kwame were that Kwame thought there was somehow a shortcut, and I was saying that there was no shortcut. This is what we have inherited, and we'll have to proceed within the limitations that that inheritance has imposed on us.

Kwame thought that somehow you could say, 'Let there be a United States of Africa' and it would happen. I kept saying, 'Kwame, it's a slow process.'

He had tremendous contempt for a large number of leaders of Africa and I said, 'Fine, but they are there. What are you going to do with them? They don't believe as you do – as you and I do – in the need for the unity of Africa. BUT WHAT DO YOU DO? THEY ARE THERE, AND WE HAVE TO PROCEED ALONG WITH EVERYBODY!'

And I said to him in so many words that we're not going to have an African Napoleon, who is going to conquer the continent and put it under one flag. It is not possible.

At the OAU conference in 1963, I was actually trying to defend Kwame. I was the last to speak and Kwame had said this charter has not gone far enough because he thought he would leave Addis with a United States of Africa.

I told him that this was absurd; that it can't happen. This is what we have been able to achieve. No builder, after putting the foundation down, complains that the building is not yet finished. You have to go on building and building until you finish; but he was impatient because he saw the stupidity of the others.

When I clashed with Kwame, it was when we were very close to a federation of East African states and Kwame was completely opposed to the idea.

He said that regionalization - that's what he called it - was Balkanization on a larger scale.

I said 'Look, Kwame, this is absurd.' I thought that historically there were grounds for different groupings of countries trying to come together. West Africans at one one time – under the British – had a common currency. Basically, the French had two huge colonies – French Equatorial Africa and French West Africa. I thought it was possible to move towards unity by putting those areas together. But even that didn't happen.

I thought that these groups could come together naturally, within the OAU. Then there could be propaganda, an incentive, and the push for greater unity. Kwame thought that we all could just sit down together and come out as a United States of Africa.

I think that Kwame was perhaps over-influenced by the way the US and the Soviet Union came together. You know the way the thirteen colonies came together, drafted a charter, and then declared the United States of America. I never thought it would work this way, because these African countries had become independent and the mistake was evident in East Africa.

If we wanted to come together, we should have come together before independence, because if you wait until after independence it cannot be done. With four presidents, four flags, four national anthems, four seats at the UN - ahh! It's extremely difficult!"

The interview is published in a book by Bill Sutherland and Matt Mayer, "Guns and Gandhi in Africa: Pan African Insight on Nonviolence, Armed Struggle and Liberation in Africa," Africa World Press, 2000.

The two leaders clashed publicly at the second OAU summit in Cairo, Egypt, in July 1964. Some African leaders may have been scared of Nkrumah but Nyerere was not scared of him at all. And Nkrumah knew that and didn't like it.

Nyerere saw Nkrumah as his equal and many African leaders were glad he confronted him and responded forcefully. Nyerere was at least 13 years younger than Nkrumah and obviously respected him as elder brother in a typical African tradition but he saw him as his equal as a leader.

The rivalry between the two leaders had become pronounced even before the OAU summit in Cairo in July 1964.

Earlier in May 1963 at the founding of the OAU in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, Dar es Salaam, Tanzania's capital, was chosen by the African leaders as the headquarters of the OAU Liberation Committee to oversee and coordinate the liberation struggle in southern Africa and Portuguese Guinea (renamed Guinea Bissau), and Nkrumah did not like that.

He also felt he had been ignored and rejected by the other African leaders and took it as a personal insult. He had made several determined attempts to have Accra, Ghana, chosen as the headquarters of the African liberation movements but when the OAU chose Tanzania under Nyerere to be the headquarters, he became very frustrated. Other leaders knew that and they gave him a "consolation prize" by choosing Accra, Ghana, to be the headquarters of the OAU Defence Committee.

More than any African leader, Nkrumah saw Nyerere as a challenge and as a threat to his position as the most prominent African leader of continental stature and wanted no competition. The Nigerian newspaper, "The West African Pilot," even taunted Nkrumah in the sixties saying there were now other shining stars on the African political scene and Nkrumah and Nasser were not the only ones. Before then, "the tournament," as the paper put it, had been between Nasser and Nkrumah.

It was interpreted by many people that this was directed against Nkrumah and highlighted the emergence of Nyerere as a leader of continental stature who was seen as a challenge to Nkrumah especially in Africa south of the Sahara.

And many Nkrumah loyalists were offended - as Nkrumah himself probably was since he was still living then - when the internationally renowned Kenyan scholar, Professor Ali Mazrui, said "Nyerere is the most intellectual of the East African presidents and the most original thinker among all the leaders in Anglophone Africa," and Senghor in Francophone Africa. Mazrui articulated the same position in his book "On Heroes and Uhuru Worship: Essays on Independent Africa."

The only other leader - besides Nyerere - whom Nkrumah saw as his rival was Nasser. But he was not worried that much about him because he felt that Nasser could not really speak for "Sub-Saharan" Africa. He saw Nasser as being highly influential in North Africa and in the Arab world but not in Africa south of the Sahara where Nkrumah himself was the dominant figure for racial reasons. In fact, Nkrumah's marriage to Fathia Rizk, an Egyptian Arab woman who became Fathia Nkrumah and Ghana's First Lady, was only for political reasons. It was a political marriage more than anything else.

Nkrumah even dismissed Marcelino dos Santos of Mozambique for the same reason he did Nasser. Before Nkrumah was overthrown in February 1966, Marcelino dos Santos was already the second most prominent leader of FRELIMO after Dr. Eduardo Mondlane and was the international spokesman for FRELIMO and its leading ideologue and theoretician. Both Mondlane and dos Santos were during time based in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania. Marcelino dos Santos later became the vice president of Mozambique under Samora Machel after the country won independence from Portugal in 1975.

Nkrumah said Marcelino dos Santos could not really speak for Mozambique and for the people of Mozambique, a predominantly black African country, because he was a mulatto and not a black African. Marcelino dos Santos became was so offended and felt so insulted by Nkrumah that he never forgave him for that. I knew many high-ranking FRELIMO leaders in Dar es Salaam and they said in the seventies dos Santos was still angry with Nkrumah for saying that and for not acknowledging him as a true African and a true Mozambican.

Nkrumah also wanted to take control of FRELIMO which he felt was under Nyerere's control and leadership, giving Nyerere a high profile as a prominent leader in the liberation struggle in southern Africa. He invited rival Mozambican nationaaist leaders including Adelino Gwambe - one of the main leaders - whom he wanted to lead the liberation struggle in Mozambique but failed in his attempt to do so.

Nkrumah also strongly supported the Pan-Africanist Congress and helped to fund it when Sobukwe and his colleagues left the African National Congress in 1959. This testimony comes from Jordan Ngubane in his book "An African Explains Apartheid." Ngubane knew all the main leaders of the African National Congress from P. ka I. Seme and John Dube - who were the founding leaders of the ANC at Bloemfontein in 1912 - to Mandela and others including Sobukwe.

Some said Nkrumah supported the Pan-Africanist Congress to gain undue influence in the liberation struggle in South Africa by supporting a new organisation which had the potential to become a major player - if not the major player - on South Africa's political scene especially with its strong emphasis on black unity. Nkrumah, of course, also supported and helped finance the Zanzibar revolution. This comes from one of the leading figures in the Zanzibar revolution, the legendary Mzee Thabit Kombo, in a recorded interview not long before he died.

So there's no question that Nkrumah was a major player on the African political scene on a continental scale, at least in sub-Saharan Africa which he may have considered t be his turf or territory, while North Africa was Nasser's. And he wanted no challenge to his eminent position. Nyerere posed that challenge to him.

When Nkrumah and Nyerere went to the OAU summit in Cairo in July 1964, the stage was set for a confrontation between the two leaders. Nkrumah, infuriated that he had lost to Nyerere when the OAU chose Tanzania and not Ghana as the headquarters of the African liberation movements, denounced Nyerere as "an imperialist agent," to use his exact words, asking: how can you trust "an imperialist agent" to be in charge of African liberation movements? As Professor Ali Mazrui - he first met Nkrumah and talked to him at Columbia University, New York, when Mazrui was a student there studying for his master's degree before he went to Oxford for his PhD and knew Nyerere well on personal basis for more than 30 years - stated in his lecture at the University of Ghana in 2002 about the two leaders:

“In reality Nkrumah and Nyerere had already begun to be rivals as symbols of African radicalism before the coup, which overthrew Nkrumah.

Nkrumah was beginning to be suspicious of Nyerere in this regard. The two most important issues over which Nyerere and Nkrumah before 1966 might have been regarded as rivals for continental pre-eminence were the issues of African liberation and African unity....

The Organization of African Unity, when it came into being in May 1963, designated Dar es Salaam as the headquarters of liberation movements. The choice was partly determined by the proximity of Dar es Salaam to southern Africa as the last bastion of colonialism and white minority rule. But the choice was also determined by the emergence of Nyerere as an important and innovative figure in African politics.

Nkrumah’s Ghana did make the bid to be the headquarters of liberation movements but Nkrumah lost the battle....

The great voice of African self-reliance, and the most active African head of government in relation to liberation in Southern Africa from 1967 (after Nkrumah was overthrown in February 1966) until the 1980s was in fact Nyerere....

He became the toughest spokesman against the British on the Rhodesian question. His country played a crucial role at the OAU Ministerial meeting at which it was decided to issue that fatal ultimatum to Britain’s Prime Minister, Harold Wilson - ‘Break Ian Smith or Africa will break with you'....

Nkrumah pointed out that his own country could not very easily join an East African federation. This proved how discriminatory and divisive the whole of Nyerere’s strategy was for the African continent.

Nyerere treated Nkrumah’s counter-thesis with contempt. He asserted that to argue that Africa had better remain in small bits than form bigger entities was nothing but ‘an attempt to rationalize absurdity.’ He denounced Nkrumah’s attempt to deflate the East African federation movement as petty mischief-making arising from Nkrumah’s own sense of frustration in his own Pan-African ventures.

Nyerere was indignant. He went public with his attack on Nkrumah. He referred to people who pretended that they were in favour of African continental union when all they cared about was to ensure that ‘some stupid historian in the future’ praised them for being in favour of the big continental ambition before anyone else was willing to undertake it.

Nyerere added snide remarks about ‘the Redeemer,’ Nkrumah’s self-embraced title of the Osagyefo.

On balance, history has proved Nkrumah wrong on the question of Nyerere’s commitment to liberation. Nyerere was second to none in that commitment.

At that Cairo conference of 1964 Nkrumah had asked ‘What could be the result of entrusting the training of Freedom Fighters against imperialism into the hands of an imperialist agent?’ Nyerere had indeed answered ‘the good Osagyefo’ with sarcasm and counter-argument."

Much as I would have liked for Africa to have united immediately in the early sixties as Nkrumah advocated, I'm also realistic enough to know that there was and there still is - even today in 2009 - so much opposition to such an approach towards continental unity among the majority of African leaders.

In fact, most of them don't want our countries to unite under one government because they don't want to lose their leadership positions as presidents, prime ministers, national cabinet members, as ambassadors and so on. As Nyerere pointed out back then in the sixties and as recently as March 1997 in his speech when he was an official guest at Ghana's 40th independence anniversary in Accra:

"Kwame Nkrumah was the great crusader for African unity. He wanted the Accra summit of 1965 to establish a union government for the whole of independent Africa. But we failed. The one minor reason is that Kwame, like all great believers, underestimated the degree of suspicion and animosity, which his crusading passion had created among a substantial number of his fellow heads of state. The major reason was linked to the first: already too many of us had a vested interest in keeping Africa divided.

Prior to independence of Tanganyika, I had been advocating that East African countries should federate and then achieve independence as a single political unit. I had said publicly that I was willing to delay Tanganyika’s independence in order to enable all three-mainland countries to achieve their independence together as a single federated state.

I made the suggestion because of my fear, proved correct by later events, that it would be very difficult to unite our countries if we let them achieve independence separately.

Once you multiply national anthems, national flags and national passports, seats at the United Nations, and individuals entitled to 21-gun salute, not to speak of a host of ministers, prime ministers, and envoys, you will have a whole army of powerful people with vested interests in keeping Africa balkanized. That was what Nkrumah encountered in 1965.

After the failure to establish the union government at the Accra summit of 1965, I heard one head of state express with relief that he was happy to be returning home to his country still head of state. To this day I cannot tell whether he was serious or joking. But he may well have been serious, because Kwame Nkrumah was very serious and the fear of a number of us to lose our precious status was quite palpable.

But I never believed that the 1965 Accra summit would have established a union government for Africa. When I say that we failed, that is not what I mean, for that clearly was an unrealistic objective for a single summit. What I mean is that we did not even discuss a mechanism for pursuing the objective of a politically united Africa. We had a Liberation Committee already. We should have at least had a Unity Committee or undertaken to establish one. We did not. And after Kwame Nkrumah was removed from the African political scene nobody took up the challenge again."

Some of the people who support Nkrumah contend that Nyerere was the main stumbling block who frustrated Nkrumah's immediate continental unification in the early sixties. What they forget or ignore is that even if Nyerere himself came out swinging in full support of immediate continental unfication as advocated by Nkrumah, African countries still would NOT have united under one government - simply because Nkrumah and Nyerere said so: "Let unite NOW under one continental government." Most African leaders were opposed to continental unification. And they're still opposed to it today.

James, if you have not read "Nyerere and Africa: End of an Era" by Godfrey Mwakikagile, you probably should. It contains the information I have presented here and an even deeper analysis and a lot more material on the subject than what I have provided in this message.

The practical approach to continental unification is gradual. And it is regional. That's why we have today the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS), the East African Community (EAC), and the Southern African Development Community (SADC).

Should African countries unite right away? It's a good idea. But it won't happen. Instead of waiting for that to happen, something that will never happen, do some thing else to unite Africa. Take the regional approach. Otherwise we won't have anything except separate and weak countries as we have them today.

David Kapinga

In Mwananchi@yahoogroups.com, James Chikonamombe wrote (april 12, 2009):

Ndugu Kapinga,

I should have answered this last week.

I was always under the impression that Nkrumah felt that regionalism would get in the way of total continental unity. But this piece states that Nkrumah had no qualms with regionalism as long as he himself was the driver. I still think that regionalism is more attainable at this moment in time. Furthermore, most African countries are non-viable entities: Guinea-Bissau, Togo, Gabon, Eritrea, C.A.R, etc. We need to merge into wider regional, economic groups. Regional, political unity will come later, after all other options have been exhausted.

James,

The main reason Nkrumah was opposed to regional federations was his fear that someone, somewhere, would unite African countries before he did.

He wanted to be the first to do so. That's why he formed the Ghana-Guinea Union in November 1958. And that's why two years later, he invited Mali to join the union and the three countries formed the Ghana-Guinea-Mali Union in December 1960.

Why did he do that if he was really opposed to regional federations? Those unions were regional, not continental in scope.

Nkrumah was the driving force behind those unions and he would NOT have done that if he was really opposed to regional federations. It was after these unions failed that he became vehemently opposed to regional federations, after strongly supporting them because he knew about plans for an East African federation. Nyerere had been talking about that long before he led Tanganyika to independence from Britain in December 1961. And Nkrumah clearly saw that Nyerere would beat him to the finish line and become the first African leader to unite African countries; which he in fact did. The union of Tanganyik and Zanzibar is the only union of independent countries that was ever formed and that still exists on the continent, although Nyerere said he really wanted an East African federation including all the countries in the region. So Nkrumah's fear was well-founded though not justified.

Nkrumah also secretly signed an agreement with Lumumba in Accra in August 1960 to form a political union between Ghana and Congo. That was the THIRD regional union he formed.

And it was agreed that Leopoldville would be the capital of this political union. It was yet another venture, the third one, into regional federation by Nkrumah. Why, if he was opposed to regional federations? He tried three times to form such federations. But they FAILED.

In fact, the Ghana-Guinea Union lasted until 1962, not long before African leaders met in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, to form the Organisation of African Unity (OAU). Did he, Nkrumah, realise only a few months later in May 1963 when the OAU was formed that regional federations were an obstacle to continental unification? Why did he still support the Ghana-Guinea Union until late 1962 if he was against such regional groupings - and then all of a sudden, in Ethiopia a few months later, he turned around saying regional federations would impede continental unification? He had created some of those federations himself - three of them - not long before the African leaders met in Addis to form the OAU.

Nkrumah made a quick turnabout because all the three federations he had started failed.

Yet when Nyerere, the strongest advocate of federation in East Africa together with his friends Oginga Odinga and Joseph Murumbi as well as Pio Gama Pinto, made a concerted effort to unite Kenya, Uganda and Tanganyika - later Tanzania - and form a single political entity, an East African Federation, Nkrumah said such a union would impede continental unification. Did the Ghana-Guinea and the Ghana-Guinea-Mali unions impede continental unification? If they did, why did he establish them in the first place? If they did not, why would the East African federation impede continental unification but not them? If they helped facilitate continental unification, why wouldn't the East African federation, as advocated by Nyerere, do the same thing?

Nkrumah also said the East African federation would be discriminatory and impractical for countries such as Ghana to join. How practical was the union between Ghana and Congo separated by vast expanses of territory and hundreds and hundreds of miles? Ghana did not share a common border with Congo - there were many other countries which separated them.

And how practical was the Ghana-Guinea and the Ghana-Guinea-Mali unions? Ghana does not share borders with those countries - they're far away from Ghana. Yet it was practical for him to unite with them as long as it suited his purpose to become the first African leader to achieve unity and form political entities - federations - which would also be under his control.

I still admire Nkrumah as a great African leader and always will as much as I do Nyerere and a few others including Sekou Toure and Modibo Keita. But it's simply NOT true that Nkrumah was opposed to regional federations ONLY because he felt they would impede progress towards continental unification. There were other reasons. And they were personal.

David Kapinga

I actually lie awake at nights wondering the follo...

2009-04-15T07:21:00.000+03:00

I actually lie awake at nights wondering the following question: Do the pirates pay income tax on the ransoms to the Somali government?

You know why the U.S. doesn't go in and blow them up into smithereens? I know why...there is no oil there! These parasites shamelessly steal from others. You can see that it makes my blood boil when I have to work for 20 years to make what these bastards get for not working at all! Pathetic slime!

Look at these Americans, screaming for violence ag...

2009-04-15T05:17:00.000+03:00

Look at these Americans, screaming for violence against a bunch of poor fishermen in wretched boats and then they have the nerve to wonder why everyone wants to kill them. Go figure.

Look at these Americans, screaming for violence ag...

2009-04-15T05:16:00.000+03:00

Look at these Americans, screaming for violence against a bunch of poor fishermen in wretched boats and then they have the nerve to wonder why everyone wants to kill them. Go figure.

catch the pirates in Somalia and cut their penis o...

2009-04-14T17:46:00.000+03:00

catch the pirates in Somalia and cut their penis off. and fedex the penis to other pirates.

best way to stop piracy is to not allow any boats ...

2009-04-14T17:44:00.000+03:00

best way to stop piracy is to not allow any boats to go past 1 mile off the boarder. if they do the pirates are fair game by any countries military. as for punishement. hang them

I think we should cut off all aid to these foreign...

2009-04-14T16:42:00.000+03:00

I think we should cut off all aid to these foreign countries because they do not give a damn or appreciate what we tried to do for them!The hell with them.We need to take care of our own citizens first!Its just plain out right stupid of our American government to try and feed the whole damn world!

Isn't it about time we rid the world of Somalia an...

2009-04-14T16:32:00.000+03:00

Isn't it about time we rid the world of Somalia and it's never ending problems? Let's bomb these people and this place into dust and move on already...

Any surprises here? Not until it becomes deathly p...

2009-04-14T15:53:00.000+03:00

Any surprises here? Not until it becomes deathly painful to these pirates at sea and on land will this ever stop. These are desperate Islamic nomads; desert cockroaches. I say take the fight to then on land and wipe them all off the face of the earth.

Another day, another bomb, another atrocity commit...

2009-04-05T19:48:00.000+03:00

Another day, another bomb, another atrocity committed in the name of Islam by those who believe that apart from them all other Muslims are "kafirs"as today"s attack was perpetrated on a religious place for Shia community.
Once again it will be agonising to listen to right wing Mullahs and their following in general public who still think that this is the reaction for America"s war in Afghanistan. Please wake up from your deep slumber and at least say that this is bad. If Pakistan needs something today very badly, that is the consensus on what we are faced with. This consensus has eluded us so far but with any luck there will come a point where the "thakedars" of Islam will take notice of the mounting piles of dead and say that what is happening to our country is wrong.
I believe that this is the main problem with the Pakistani counter terror activities that many of the own countrymen believe that this is not our war. I know that India’s RAW is paying these so called Jihadists to wreak havoc in Pakistan and to support such people who are in the payroll of our enemies is a crime in itself.
I would like to ask the readers of this site to comment on this issue today. When will the general public and some of our politician say that this is our war and we have to fight it?

http://real-politique.blogspot.com

By Sikander Hayat

Kenyan leaders are really a sorry lot. Big let do...

2009-04-04T21:21:00.000+03:00

Kenyan leaders are really a sorry lot. Big let down, major disappointment. What are they doing for the country. If indeed Migingo Island is Kenyan territory, then we need to put our armed forces and let the Ugandans know that they cannot encroach on our territory and harass our citizens.

It is totally irresponsible for the military to makes statements that disavow the island and its residents. Such statements only make the Ugandans bolder in there ambitions to distablize this region.

What next will Uganda want from the Kenya?