The African Union and New Strategies for Development in Africa B ...

The unification of Africa and the formation of a continent government in Nkrumah’s view were to achieve three main objectives. The first is facilitating overall, comprehensive economic planning on a regional basis, which would boost Africa’s economic capacity and performance, expand the market, and maximize the exploitation of Africa’s resources for the benefit of the African people. Second is the establishment of a unified military and defense strategy. As those microstates are constituted, Nkrumah argued that they are helpless and defenseless and cannot protect their sovereignty against imperialist aggressors. The third is the need to have a unified foreign policy and diplomacy to give political direction to our joint efforts for the protection and economic development of our continent. These issues raised by Nkrumah remain relevant in contemporary era and constitute core issues in the discourse about the present formation of a union government in Africa.

Organized interests also engaged the discourse on the political framework for Africa’s political development strategy. The All-African People’s Organization (AAPO) Conference was held in Accra, Ghana, in December 1958. On January 25, 1960, the second AAPO conference was convened in Tunis, Tunisia, which was well attended by trade unions and political parties across the continent. The conference resolved to work toward promoting understanding and unity among the peoples of Africa, develop a feeling of one community among the African people, accelerate the liberation of Africa from imperialism and colonialism, and work for the emergence of the United States of Africa, among other initiatives (Ajala, 1988, p. 45).

Nkrumah sought to give political expression to his conviction on Africa’s political development strategy. In 1959 a Ghana-Guinea Union was formed, which he hoped would constitute the nucleus of a Union of West African States. In a consistent manner, Nkrumah argued,