| Chapter 1: | Introduction: Transition, Continuity, and Change |
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As more states gained independence, the debate about the direction of Africa’s integration process heightened and remained fierce, especially among the political leadership. The leaders were pitched into two broad camps, which were later referred to as the Casablanca and the Monrovia blocks. The former block’s members were the fervent advocates of the urgency and primacy of an immediate, continental political union; the latter block’s members preferred a gradualist approach1 (see Ajala, 1988; Akindele, 1988; Eyinla, 2005). Maitama Sule, leader of the Nigerian delegation to one of the negotiations, aptly captured the views of the Monrovia group regarding which direction continental unity should take. According to Sule, “[A]t this moment the idea of forming a union of African states is premature. At the moment, we in Nigeria cannot afford to form union by government with any African states by surrendering our sovereignty” (as cited in Ajala, 1988, p. 47).
About 5 decades later (2007), this debate reopened with Nigeria taking the same stance. Umaru Yar’ Adua, Nigeria’s president during the Special Summit of the Heads of State and Government of the African Union on the Formation of a Union Government in Accra, Ghana, from July 1–3, 2007, noted,
Nigeria therefore opted again for what it called “gradual incrementalism” toward the formation of the regional integration project.