Ernestos
At the time of writing this piece late Monday this week, reports trickling in from Nigeria suggested that the Junta leaders in Niger were now ready and willing to meet President Bola Tinubu’s delegation.
We will all recall that Tinubu is the Chairperson of the Economic Community of West African States - the west African economic bloc that aspires to improve the living conditions of the people of West Africa.
We will also recall that consequent to the 1993 Abuja Treaty that established the pan Africa Economic Community (AEC), these regional economic blocs (such as SADC in the south, EAC in east Africa, IGAD, Maghreb etal, are all enjoined to drive the gradual integration of the continent.g
If we read this text (AEC) correctly and the timelines it provides, we would have already integrated our economies across the continent, that is, the delayed commencement of the African Continental Free Trade Area (Agreement) notwithstanding! It is the AEC which by late 1999, the late Libyan leader, Colonel Muammar Gaddafi was trying to push when he started insisting on fast-tracking the creation of the continental institutions envisaged under this Treaty!
These include the Pan African Parliament, which currently exists and is housed in Midrand, South Africa, but it lacks legislative powers; the African Central Bank; the African Military Command (also exists under the aegis of the African Union’s Peace and Security Architecture) – we may say of it however, that it is a fluid arrangement that operates on the need-to basis and dependant on foreign funding!
These are just a few of the institutions that are envisaged under the AEC. It also speaks about collapsing the artificial colonial borders through free movement of people, goods and services across the continent,
We can agree that on this score, the AcFTA, whose secretariat is in Accra, Ghana headed by Wankele Mene, the South African national, is on course to collapsing the barriers to trade, be they physical boundaries; tariffs or non-tariff measures! Indeed, this (AEC) is the African story that the African Press, the African media should never tire to tell and to bring to life. The total integration of Africa is the single most important agenda that should confront every African scholar, academic, journalist. Researcher, student, or policy-maker.
We must make it our mission to ensure that it comes to pass during our lifetime, for in it, lies all the answers to our economic woes! It is the solution to the poverty that plagues the mother continent. It holds the answers for the cessation of plunder of Africa’s vast resources by foreign multinationals and transnational corporations – all of them agents of imperialism – acting on the authority of their masters in Europe, and the United States of America!
This is why the recent coup in Niger has once again brought into sharp focus the urgent need to reinvent these regional economic communities (RECs), because it is clear that some of them, as in the case of ECOWAS, may have completely derailed from their mandate.
All of a sudden, ECOWAS wants to wade into military excursions in the region in an attempt to restore a deposed leader, who by all accounts and evidence on the ground, is an agent of Western imperialism, or to put it bluntly, a puppet of France! If at all ECOWAS wants to assemble a Standby Force let it do so by all means, but let it deploy such a Force against the so-called Islamic terror groups and all other terrorists that are stalking the whole of the Maghreb region.
Let it deploy such a Standby Force against corruption and maladministration, which are the vices that feed the hunger of despots that sit on thrones posing as ‘leaders’ or ‘presidents’ when they are nothing else but thieves and criminals that don’t deserve the mercy of their peoples.
This coup in Niger has exposed the collaboration between ECOWAS, France, USA, and the European Union. It is clear that ECOWAS did not take the confrontational approach against the coup leaders independently, it is clear that it was coerced!
It was told to do so, or risk losing the funding it receives from these nations! This is the same modus operandi playing out under the guise of ‘human rights’ when nations are being browbeaten into line and instructed to enact ‘gay rights’ laws or risk losing the financial aid from Europe or the USA!
It is nothing else but neo-colonialism dressed as ‘human rights’. It is time that Africa stands up to face her reality, to decide her destiny – as in the words of that great Pan Afrikanist Marcus Mosiah Garvey – ‘Up, up, you mighty race, you can achieve what you will”!
What the African Union should be doing now, is to ensure that the coup plotters in Niger have a transition strategy in place to return government to civilian rule, not condoning the nonsense of military intervention that ECOWAS has suggested.
Not even the sanctions are a solution in a situation as dire as Niger, a country so poor, why would you want to cripple it any further? These ECOWAS leaders have really proven themselves to be a disgrace to the African community.
I am glad that Burkina Faso, Mali and Guinea, as well as Algeria acted decisively when it mattered the most. Clearly, should ECOWAS dream of invading Niger, it will lose members and that will be its demise, it will never resurface!
Let us be clear that such a scenario is what the Neo-Imperialists want for Africa, it is their time-tested modus-operandi – divide and rule! If we Africans have not awoken from our sleep and slumber, if we can still be hoodwinked by such fleeting facades, I am afraid then we are as good as dead.
But these quartet – Algeria, Mali, Burkina Faso and Guinea – have cleared the path to our self-discovery. It is a trod through which we will reinvent ourselves as Africans, reclaim our heritage and our resources, so that they benefit us first and foremost before we share them with any other!
I trust that the SADC Summit in Angola will talk to this reality and not mimic its west African counterpart. Finally, I am watching keenly how Botswana will react to next week’s BRICS Summit in Johannesburg. Will President Mokgweetsi Masisi attend or will he conveniently snub this gathering like he did the recent 2nd Russia-Africa Summit in St. Petersburg, Russia?
Once again, I invite my compatriots, my beloved country, apply for BRICS membership! The Old Order is giving way for the New Order! There is no turning back the hands of time!
A New Reserve Currency for international trade is on the horizon; a New Development Bank (BRICS Bank) is dishing out funds for infrastructural developments at reasonable interest rates!
The Bretton woods Institutions – the World Bank and its International Monetary Fund are relics of the post WWII era! Let new institutions emerge, it is not a crime!
We will all recall that Tinubu is the Chairperson of the Economic Community of West African States - the west African economic bloc that aspires to improve the living conditions of the people of West Africa.
We will also recall that consequent to the 1993 Abuja Treaty that established the pan Africa Economic Community (AEC), these regional economic blocs (such as SADC in the south, EAC in east Africa, IGAD, Maghreb etal, are all enjoined to drive the gradual integration of the continent.g
If we read this text (AEC) correctly and the timelines it provides, we would have already integrated our economies across the continent, that is, the delayed commencement of the African Continental Free Trade Area (Agreement) notwithstanding! It is the AEC which by late 1999, the late Libyan leader, Colonel Muammar Gaddafi was trying to push when he started insisting on fast-tracking the creation of the continental institutions envisaged under this Treaty!
These include the Pan African Parliament, which currently exists and is housed in Midrand, South Africa, but it lacks legislative powers; the African Central Bank; the African Military Command (also exists under the aegis of the African Union’s Peace and Security Architecture) – we may say of it however, that it is a fluid arrangement that operates on the need-to basis and dependant on foreign funding!
These are just a few of the institutions that are envisaged under the AEC. It also speaks about collapsing the artificial colonial borders through free movement of people, goods and services across the continent,
We can agree that on this score, the AcFTA, whose secretariat is in Accra, Ghana headed by Wankele Mene, the South African national, is on course to collapsing the barriers to trade, be they physical boundaries; tariffs or non-tariff measures! Indeed, this (AEC) is the African story that the African Press, the African media should never tire to tell and to bring to life. The total integration of Africa is the single most important agenda that should confront every African scholar, academic, journalist. Researcher, student, or policy-maker.
We must make it our mission to ensure that it comes to pass during our lifetime, for in it, lies all the answers to our economic woes! It is the solution to the poverty that plagues the mother continent. It holds the answers for the cessation of plunder of Africa’s vast resources by foreign multinationals and transnational corporations – all of them agents of imperialism – acting on the authority of their masters in Europe, and the United States of America!
This is why the recent coup in Niger has once again brought into sharp focus the urgent need to reinvent these regional economic communities (RECs), because it is clear that some of them, as in the case of ECOWAS, may have completely derailed from their mandate.
All of a sudden, ECOWAS wants to wade into military excursions in the region in an attempt to restore a deposed leader, who by all accounts and evidence on the ground, is an agent of Western imperialism, or to put it bluntly, a puppet of France! If at all ECOWAS wants to assemble a Standby Force let it do so by all means, but let it deploy such a Force against the so-called Islamic terror groups and all other terrorists that are stalking the whole of the Maghreb region.
Let it deploy such a Standby Force against corruption and maladministration, which are the vices that feed the hunger of despots that sit on thrones posing as ‘leaders’ or ‘presidents’ when they are nothing else but thieves and criminals that don’t deserve the mercy of their peoples.
This coup in Niger has exposed the collaboration between ECOWAS, France, USA, and the European Union. It is clear that ECOWAS did not take the confrontational approach against the coup leaders independently, it is clear that it was coerced!
It was told to do so, or risk losing the funding it receives from these nations! This is the same modus operandi playing out under the guise of ‘human rights’ when nations are being browbeaten into line and instructed to enact ‘gay rights’ laws or risk losing the financial aid from Europe or the USA!
It is nothing else but neo-colonialism dressed as ‘human rights’. It is time that Africa stands up to face her reality, to decide her destiny – as in the words of that great Pan Afrikanist Marcus Mosiah Garvey – ‘Up, up, you mighty race, you can achieve what you will”!
What the African Union should be doing now, is to ensure that the coup plotters in Niger have a transition strategy in place to return government to civilian rule, not condoning the nonsense of military intervention that ECOWAS has suggested.
Not even the sanctions are a solution in a situation as dire as Niger, a country so poor, why would you want to cripple it any further? These ECOWAS leaders have really proven themselves to be a disgrace to the African community.
I am glad that Burkina Faso, Mali and Guinea, as well as Algeria acted decisively when it mattered the most. Clearly, should ECOWAS dream of invading Niger, it will lose members and that will be its demise, it will never resurface!
Let us be clear that such a scenario is what the Neo-Imperialists want for Africa, it is their time-tested modus-operandi – divide and rule! If we Africans have not awoken from our sleep and slumber, if we can still be hoodwinked by such fleeting facades, I am afraid then we are as good as dead.
But these quartet – Algeria, Mali, Burkina Faso and Guinea – have cleared the path to our self-discovery. It is a trod through which we will reinvent ourselves as Africans, reclaim our heritage and our resources, so that they benefit us first and foremost before we share them with any other!
I trust that the SADC Summit in Angola will talk to this reality and not mimic its west African counterpart. Finally, I am watching keenly how Botswana will react to next week’s BRICS Summit in Johannesburg. Will President Mokgweetsi Masisi attend or will he conveniently snub this gathering like he did the recent 2nd Russia-Africa Summit in St. Petersburg, Russia?
Once again, I invite my compatriots, my beloved country, apply for BRICS membership! The Old Order is giving way for the New Order! There is no turning back the hands of time!
A New Reserve Currency for international trade is on the horizon; a New Development Bank (BRICS Bank) is dishing out funds for infrastructural developments at reasonable interest rates!
The Bretton woods Institutions – the World Bank and its International Monetary Fund are relics of the post WWII era! Let new institutions emerge, it is not a crime!
