African Nations and the Drive for Unification: The Case for the United States of Africa

Abstract

Regional integration and international cooperation is a fundamental goal that most countries in the world strive to achieve. In Africa, the struggle for unity and integration has been on for many decades with mixed results. The defunct Organization of African Unity (OAU), now transformed to African Union (AU) is a manifestation of such struggles. However, the most recent agitation for greater unity is the quest to create a supranational political union to be called the United States of Africa (USA). Advocates of the supranational political union believe that, it will immensely promote peace and development in the crisis ridden continent. This paper argues that, though the „United States of Africa‟ vision stands to benefit the African continent because it will give Africa a strong voice in international affairs and promote development within the continent, there are unfortunately several factors that make the realization of the unification agenda currently not feasible. The reason being that, African states which place high premium on protecting their sovereignty, will be reluctant to surrender their treasured possession to a supranational body. More so, the continent is replete with cases of internal conflicts, structural poverty, and bad governance, among others.

Key words: Unification, Pan-Africanism, Integration, Cooperation