In May 1963, thirty-two independent African States,
with genuine hopes and visions for the continent of Africa, came together in Addis Ababa,
the capital of Ethiopia, to create the Organization of African Unity (OAU).
The OAU is the predecessor of the current AU, also known as African unity.
It started its operations on 13 September 1963, when its Charter was adopted, committed to bring
about change and freedom to many African countries and restore the dignity of African people.
But the origins of the OAU were difficult in fact.
The idea almost collapsed before it could get off the ground because of ideological
differences that were deeply rooted in the continent's colonial past.
The formation of the OAU was rooted in the idea of Pan Africanism,
which originated in the USA in the late 19th century.
Thousands of blacks, with African origins, found it intolerable to bear the agonising experience
of racial discrimination and alienation. Some of their prominent leaders were W E B DuBois
and Marcus Garvey, who raised the flag of revolt against the prevailing injustice.
Building on this, Marcus Garvey, a Black nationalist, urged the return of Africans
to the continent, which he attempted to facilitate through the establishment of a shipping company,
the Black Star Line, aimed at transporting Black African back to Africa.
On the continent itself, several prominent intellectuals and heads of state
such as Kwame Nkrumah of Ghana, Julius Nyerere of Tanzania, Sékou Touré of Guinea,
and Kenneth Kaunda of Zambia took up the cause of advancing the Pan-African ideal.
A series of Pan-African Congresses were convened to further the interests of African peoples
and discuss methods to achieve unification.
When Ghana became independent in 1958, Kwame Nkrumah linked Ghana’s independence to Africa,
recognising that “the independence of Ghana is meaningless unless it is linked up with the total
liberation of the continent.” Nkrumah, therefore he established a series of conferences hosted in
Accra between 1958 and 1960 with the aims of assisting countries still under colonial rule.
During the conferences, Nkrumah presented that a
vision of the United States of Africa. Unfortunately To his disappointment,
the majority of those in attendance were overwhelmingly against the idea.
The disagreements led to the emergence of three ideological blocs on the African continent,
which included the Casablanca group, Monrovia group, and Brazzaville group.
And it's these groups and their differences that would give birth to the OAU.
Meeting in Casablanca, the capital of Morrocco in early 1961, Kwame Nkrumah (Ghana), Sekou
Toure (Guinea) Gamal Abdel Nasser (Egypt) and Modibo Keita (Mali) resolved to strongly
oppose colonialism, racism, neo-colonialism and formation of an African military high command.
Other members of the group included Libya, Morocco and Algeria.
This was during the height of the Katanga secessionist movement in Congo.
The Casablanca powers extended support to Patrice Lumumba's efforts to oust the Belgians from Congo,
demanded French withdrawal from Algeria and condemned the apartheid system in South Africa.
Apart from being critical of French nuclear testing in Sahara,
the group was worried about neo-colonial ties between France and its former colonies.
So Ghana and Guinea provided support to anti-west parties,
which attempted to topple pro-French regimes in Francophone Africa.
By mobilising the support of radical forces from within and outside Africa.
The members of the Casablanca group aimed at building a United States of Africa of which
Nkrumah would be the head. With a common monetary, foreign and defence policy.
In contrast to the Casablanca group, was the Monrovia group
named after the capital of Liberia, where they held their first-ever meeting in May 1961
Monrovia bloc allied with the Brazzaville group which included Francophone states
such as Ivory Coast, Gabon, Niger, Senegal, Upper Volta, Mauritania.
In addition, it had members like Nigeria, Somalia, Liberia.
The Monrovia group stood for protecting national
sovereignty, territorial integrity and independence of its members and they
were strictly opposed to the idea of the United States of Africa.
The group strongly defended the principle of mutual non-interference in inter-state relations,
although they welcomed inter-state technical and economic cooperation.
Instead of snapping the ties with the west, the Monrovia states
sought western cooperation in the process of promoting development.
With this, they adopted a moderate position on Congo and Algeria by
urging the concerned parties to sort out their differences on the negotiating table.
Several African leaders, including Tanzania's Julius Nyerere and Nigeria’s
Abubakar Tafa Balewa, were supportive of the ideal of African unity,
but many felt that Nkrumah’s grand vision for the United States of Africa
was overreaching and risked dissolving sovereignty and territorial integrity.
A point of particular contention among countries who had recently gained
independence and hard-fought-for sovereignty.
By the early 1960s, most of the independent African states had pledged allegiance to either
the Monrovia or the Casablanca Group. And at this stage majority had sided with the Monrovia bloc
with 20 supporters out of the 27 independent African states at the time .
To attract more members of their sides, both groups reached out to Ethiopia in January 1962.
They sent out invitations to Ethiopia to attend their conferences.
The Casablanca group had a conference in Cairo,
while the Monrovia group had a conference in Lagos.
Ethiopia's take on the matter was important since it was the only country that wasn't
colonised on the continent,was already independent and neutral
Emperor Haile Selassie, the Ethiopian leader,
used the invitations as an opportunity to mediate between the two factions.
So he attended the Monrovia group conference in January 1962
in Lagos Nigeria. While there he lobbied to host the next conference
in 1963 and promised to have the Monrovia powers in attendance.
The emperor received no resistance since Ethiopia was seen as an acceptable venue
by both groups who were desperate to get a solution to their disagreements.
With the Monrovia group on board, the Ethiopians, through its foreign minister Ketema Yifru,
reached out to the president of Guinea Sékou Touré.
During the Casablanca group conference in June 1962.
Haile Selassie invited Sékou Touré for a state visit to Ethiopia, which he duly accepted.
At the visit, the emperor pointed out that the conflicting views of
the Monrovia and the Casablanca Groups could create a permanent division on the continent
and advised the Guinean delegation that it was in the best interest
of both governments to stop such a drastic occurrence from taking place.
In the end, the two heads of state issued a communique that stated that
both governments believed the gap between the two blocs was soaring.
Therefore, to protect the continent from falling into harm's way,
the governments of Ethiopia and Guinea had called an all African Summit Conference in Addis Ababa,
hoping to resolve the differences that existed between the Casablanca and the Monrovia blocs.
By May 1963, thirty-two independent African States had accepted the invitation to attend the all
independent African conference in Addis baba that included above all issues drafting a new charter.
Reconciling the two rival groups was simple because both the groups were
moving in the same direction and had a lot in common.
Eventually, they concentrated on cooperating on the issues of common concern
coupled with mediatory efforts of Ethiopia.
During the conference, The Charter of the OAU was adopted
as an outcome of a compromise between the two contradictory approaches.
On the one hand, it pledged to oppose colonialism, racism, and neo-colonialism which satisfied the
Casablanca powers and on the other hand it comforted the Monrovia group by upholding
the principle of non-interference and defence of territorial sovereignty in inter-state affairs.
After some deliberations, thirty-two Heads of
State - Algeria, Benin, Burundi, Burkina Faso, Cameroon, Central African Republic,
Chad, Congo-Brazzaville, Congo-Leopoldville, Egypt, Ethiopia, Gabon, Ghana, Guinea,
Ivory Coast, Liberia, Libya, Madagascar, Mali, Mauritania, Morocco, Nigeria, Niger,
Rwanda, Senegal, Sierra Leone, Somalia, Sudan, Tanzania, Togo, Tunisia, and Uganda - signed
the OAU charter in Addis Ababa, on May 25, 1963.
One of the OAU’s greatest achievements was the help it provided to liberation
movements like the ANC and ZANU in southern Africa to dismantle the white minority rule.
African states under the OAU provided training grounds and sanctuary to these guerillas
until the south African states achieved their independence.
A further achievement of the OAU was its encouragement of the development of regional
economic communities such as the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS),
the South African Development Coordinating Commission (SADCC), the North Africa-Greater Area
Free Trade Area and the Central Africa-Economic Community of the Great Lakes Countries.
It was also more successful over the years in trying to mediate in conflicts between states.
For example, it helped mediate a border dispute between Algeria and Morocco
and between Somalia, Ethiopia and Kenya.
Apart from bringing about a reconciliation between the two groups to African unity, the
OAU charter had to own up Africa's colonial past.
To perpetuate inter-state harmony, the founding fathers of the OAU charter legitimised the
inter-state boundaries drawn by colonial powers, primarily, during the Berlin conference of 1885.
By accepting the status quo on the issue of state frontiers
the OAU charter left the gate for likely outbursts of ethnic
and secessionist movements wide open sowing one of the important seeds of inter-state tensions.
Against the backdrop of the Cold War,
the OAU faced considerable challenges to the execution of its objectives.
Since its inception, the organisation was widely mocked as a bureaucratic "talking shop" with
little power whose summits had no tangible achievements other than lavish spending.
The founders squandered state resources when governments competed for the privilege of
holding the annual conference of the Organisation of African Unity
at the time their countries faced economic hardships.
Nkrumah set the precedent in 1965 by building a palace containing sixty
luxury suites and a banqueting hall capable of seating 2,000 guests costing £10millions pounds.
Nkrumah dreamed that it would also serve as a future capital for the United States of Africa.
However, the conference turned into an abject failure. Because Nkrumah’s foreign policy
had alienated so many governments. A group of fourteen leaders, led by Félix Houphouët Boigny,
agreed to boycott it in retaliation for Nkrumah’s support of subversive
activities against their governments. In the end, twenty-eight out of thirty-six
members of the OAU attended the meeting, but only thirteen were represented by heads of state.
President Omar Bongo of Gabon, ordered the construction of several seafront hotels in
Libreville for an OAU summit and a special new palace for himself with sliding walls and doors,
rotating rooms and a private nightclub, all costing well over $200 million.
President Siaka Stevens spent two-thirds of Sierra Leone’s national budget
to host an OAU summit meeting.
Togo spent $120 million – half of the national budget–on building a thirty-storey hotel
and conference centre in Lomé, which included fifty-two presidential suites,
hoping to persuade the OAU to transfer its permanent headquarters from Addis Ababa to Lomé.
But the OAU did not agree to the move
The founders of the OAU had deliberately created a weak organization. " The Charter
forbade member states from interfering in the affairs of the other member states
and declared sovereign equality of all members.
The very thinking of its Members, coupled with the powers given to it,
made the OAU virtually powerless to deal with coups, Counter coups even if
they resulted in the overthrow of governments that were staunchly committed to its goals."
When one of the founding members, Emperor Haile Selassie, was overthrown,
murdered, and buried under a toilet. The man responsible for his overthrow Colonel
Mengistu Haile Mariam, subsequently welcomed delegates back to OAU headquarters in Addis Ababa,
who thanked him for his "warm and generous hospitality."
A quite similar trend would happen in Ghana where
Nkrumah was overthrown and exiled. The military Junta sent a delegation that was
warmly given a seat to represent Ghana on the principle of Non-interference.
Further government overthrows occurred in Mali, Nigeria, Sierra Leone, Liberia, Gambia, Chad,
Guinea Bissau, the Central African Republic and the Democratic Republic of Congo in a series
of coups and countercoups which established military dictatorships and set African states
on a path to perpetual civil war. All that the OAU could do was just watch and look on.
The OAU established no proactive conflict prevention and resolution mechanisms,
rather than receiving aid from Europe, the United States and the United Nations.
It struggled to enforce its decisions, and its lack of an armed force made intervention
exceedingly difficult. Civil wars in Nigeria, Rwanda, Sudan and Angola continued unabated
for years, and the OAU could do nothing but look on as millions and millions died
By the late 1990s, people in Africa had lost faith in governments
so governments lost interest in the people. In its 39 years of existence, OAU did little to
protect the rights and liberties of African citizens from their own political leaders,
often dubbing it as a "Dictators' Club". if anything the OAU gave protections,
legitimacy and freewill to dictators to do as they want without fear of any repercussions
The Organisation had made little attempt to prevent the factionalisation of member state
groupings which had been responsible for infighting within the OAU, and by
the time the Organisation was dissolved in 2002 it had become, in the eyes of its critics, “an
elite club of leaders largely cut off from their people,” protecting kleptocrats and dictators.
At the 35th OAU Summit of Heads of State and Government held in Libya,
talks began of reforming and re-conceptualising the OAU. Former Libyan President Muammar Al
Gaddafi called on the OAU to convene its fourth extraordinary session which would further consider
the reformation of the OAU into a more capable and less constrained African Union (AU), which came
into force in 2002.
In 1999 he invited African leaders to a special summit in Sirte
where he revealed his plan for a ‘United States of Africa’, complete with a continental presidency,
a single military force and a common African currency, all to be approved
then and there. The outcome was that in 2001 the OAU was replaced by the African Union,
an organisation adorned with a plethora of new institutions, including a Pan African Parliament,
a Pan-African Court of Justice, an African central bank and a Peace and Security Council.
It was also granted greater powers. Whereas the OAU was required by charter to refrain
from interference in individual states, the African Union was given the right to intervene,
without consent, in a member state in order to ‘restore peace and stability;
to ‘prevent war crimes, genocide and crimes
against humanity; and in response to ‘a serious threat to legitimate order’.
To this day nothing much has changed.