Page 163 - Afrika Must Unite

148 AFRICA MUST UNITE
Lumumba, who had seen and suffered from the evils of disunity
in the Congo, held this view very strongly when he came to
Accra in August i960. It may not be generally known that he
agreed then to work in the closest possible association with other
independent African states for the establishment of a Union of
African States.
There are bound to be differences between the independent
states of Africa. We have frontier troubles, and a host of other
inter-territorial problems which can only be resolved within
the context of African unity.
At the Lagos conference of independent states, held in January
1962, North Africa was not represented at all. This was because
the Algerian provisional government was not invited. The Casa­
blanca powers, and the Sudan, also declined to go to Lagos for
this reason. Nevertheless, with the Congo and Tanganyika
taking the place of Tunisia and Libya, the Lagos attendance was
as large as that at Monrovia, 20 of Africa’s 28 independent states
being represented.
The conference agreed upon a whole new complex machinery
for inter-African co-operation. It included a semi-permanent
council of ministers, a biennial representative assembly, and a
perm anent secretariat of the African and Malagasy states.
Among resolutions passed were those calling for a development
bank, a private investment guarantee fund, an organization for
health, labour and social affairs, an educational and cultural
council, and certain other commissions to deal with various
practical matters.
In the early flush of independence, some of the new African
states are jealous of their sovereignty and tend to exaggerate
their separatism in a historical period that demands Africa’s
unity in order that their independence may be safeguarded. I
cannot envisage an African union in which all the members,
large or small, heavily or thinly populated, do not enjoy legal
equality under a constitution to which all have laid their hand.
But the insistence on not wanting to cede certain functions to a
central unifying political authority in which all the members
will have an equal voice is unrealistic and unfounded. On the
other hand, an association of a confederate or even looser nature,
which does not give effective powers to a central authority and