ADDRESS BY THE CHAIRPERSON OF THE AFRICAN UNION, H.E. PRESIDENT J.A. KUFUOR, AT THE OPENING OF THE NINTH ORDINARY SESSION OF THE ASSEMBLY OF THE AFRICAN UNION IN ACCRA, GHANA

Your Excellencies - My Sister and Dear Brother Heads of State and Government of Africa,

Your Excellency, Mr. Mhammoud Abbas, President of the State of Palestine,

Your Excellency, Dr. Asha-Rose Migiro, Deputy Secretary-General of the United Nations,

Your Excellency, Professor Alpha Oumar Konare, Chairperson of the Commission of the African Union,

Your Excellency, Mr. Amir Moussa
Secretary General of the Arab League,

Your Excellencies, Ministers and Ambassadors,

Your Excellencies, Commissioners and Members of the African Union Commission,

Distinguished Ladies and Gentlemen,

It is with great pleasure that I welcome all of you, leaders from Africa and beyond, who have traveled in your numbers to Ghana to participate in the Ninth Ordinary Session of the Assembly of Heads of State and Government of the African Union. For some of you, this is your second visit this year, having joined us on 6th March to celebrate the 50th anniversary of our country's Independence.

Ghana welcomes you with a joyful heart and sincere hospitality. Ghanaians are resolved to do everything possible to make your stay enjoyable, productive and memorable. So, I say welcome to you all.

Excellencies, as decided at our last meeting in Addis Ababa in January this year, today's Summit is devoted exclusively to the Grand Debate on the Union Government of Africa. This assumes that the question of unification is not in doubt. Indeed, the many resolutions and declarations made by the leadership of the continent since the inception of the OAU to date, confirm this. What remains is the form of government, and how and when to attain it. This then should be the content of the Grand Debate to join in.

Excellencies, it is, indeed, significant that this historic and momentous debate should be taking place here in Accra.

On Ghana's Independence Day, in 1957, the founding President, Dr. Kwame Nkrumah made a portentous statement here in Accra, (and I quote) "the Independence of Ghana is meaningless unless it is linked up with the total liberation of Africa". (End of quote) With that statement, he linked this country's destiny irrevocably to that of the continent. Subsequently, and over the next decade, in his writings, and on numerous platforms around the world, his chosen recurring theme was "Africa Must Unite".

In pursuit of this vision, he and his illustrious colleagues including Emperor Haille Sellassie of Ethiopia; King Mohammed V of Morocco; Presidents William Tubman of Liberia; Julius Nyerere of Tanzania; Jomo Kenyatta of Kenya; Sekou Toure of Guinea; Modibo Keita of Mali; Gamel Nasser of Egypt and others, laid the foundation for continental unity by establishing in Addis Ababa, in 1963, the Organisation of African Unity (OAU) which is the predecessor of the African Union of today.

Indeed, in 1965, Dr. Nkrumah hosted a Summit of the OAU here in Accra where the project for the Continental Government was first discussed. It is therefore an uncanny coincidence that here in Accra, on the 50th anniversary of our Independence, this same subject of continental government should return to the agenda of the Summit of the African Union as its sole item for deliberation.

With this background, your Excellencies, permit me to feel that your unanimous decision in electing me chair of our Union this year, thereby vesting in Accra the venue for the 9th Summit of our Assembly is an act of providence. Indeed, I feel both humbled and called upon to perform my role with a deep sense of history and singular honour.

Excellencies, geographically, our continent is the second largest in the world when you divide the Americas. In terms of natural resources, it is second to none. But, in spite of this, it is has been described in many unsavoury terms including "the last frontier for economic and social development" and "a scar on the conscience of humanity". Over the centuries, Africa has suffered harsh and diverse acts of inhumanity, many a time self-perpetrated, but more often than not, from outside its borders.

The litany of factors which have combined to slow the continent's advancement includes slavery, colonialism, imperialism, the wild diversity of cultures, language and even geography. Illiteracy and poverty, famine and diseases especially malaria, tuberculosis and now HIV/AIDS, gender imbalance, ethnic and religious intolerance and conflicts, and recently, border tensions generated by artificially imposed colonial boundaries have also contributed to Africa's woes. But perhaps the worst of all the causes of Africa's dysfunction were the unwarranted external interventions and geo-political manipulations.

It is from this background that our pioneering leaders resolved to liberate the continent and try to overcome the monumental social and economic challenges for development by launching the project for the unification of the continent. Through the mechanism of the OAU, the pioneers succeeded in shaking off imperialism, colonialism and apartheid.

But, as Africa's great statesman, Nelson Mandela, has observed, you climb one mountain only to find that there are more mountains to climb. For, after liberating the individual countries on the continent the pioneering leaders were confronted with the looming mountains of economic and social challenges which dogged their developmental efforts in the immediate decades after Independence. To be candid, your Excellencies, we must also admit that those decades were marked by bad governance and impunity in most of our nations. This is why at the turn of the century, the current crop of leaders of Africa decided to create the African Union and also adopt the New Partnership for Africa's Development.
Resolved to overcome the mountain of political and economic emancipation through integration, the leadership passed the Constitutive Act of the African Union in Sirte, Libya, in 1999. This law thereby provides the legal framework for the realization of the vision of the Union Government. Through NEPAD which the African Union adopted as its development paradigm in Maputo in 2002, the Renaissance of the continent was also formally declared.

With the establishment of these two mechanisms, the immediate challenge to the realization of our goal becomes institutional development. Such a development should bring all sides of the continent together in a functional and participatory order that will give ownership of the eventual Union to the peoples. Thus, the various sub-regional groupings have come to be perceived as critical building blocks for the integration process. Their co-ordination and streamlining to service the central institutions of the African Union are therefore prerequisites for unification.

Unfortunately, over the past two decades or so of their establishment, these groupings have not performed to the degree of efficiency and purposefulness which would assure an objective observer of hastening the day of the attainment of the Continental Government. There has been lack of political will and commitment on the part of the component governments in implementing the various protocols setting up these regional groupings thereby, slowing down the pace of integration.

Similarly, the Commission of the African Union itself has not been constituted and nurtured enough along the lines of an eventual competent and efficacious Administrative Nerve-Centre of a Continental Union Government. This nurturing is the responsibility of all of us member governments of the Union.

Excellencies, in the light of global developments, including the formation of political and economic groupings on other continents, and inspite of some economic and political progress, Africa can be said to be running against time in its efforts at integration. For this reason, the continent must leapfrog to attain a dignified and promising place in the globalization process.

This challenges our various governments to sincerely commit to implementing the protocols dedicated to the integration programmes. Among these are the free movement of peoples and goods; the establishment of customs unions, common currencies and markets; harmonization of the security policies and programmes, and the creation of stand-by forces to underpin peace and stability, without which there cannot be development. Also, critical infrastructure programmes including transportation and telecommunication networks, and pooling of energy must be undertaken as top priority to open up the continent.

Excellencies, we all know these conditions as the major hurdles to jump in the path of integration. This is why NEPAD was established as the mechanism to identify, study, cost and implement strategic projects for realizing the integration programme. Given this awareness of what to do to hasten the process, why has the impression been created so powerfully that the continent is not ready or able to come to grips with the challenge of designing the sort of government that Africa's integration will dictate pragmatically and when to establish it?

Excellencies, permit me to state unambiguously that, given the complexities and practical difficulties in the path of attaining this Union Government in one form or the other, the topmost prerequisite facing us as leaders of the continent should be mutual respect and trust among us all. We must also acknowledge the necessity for shared values in terms of respect for human rights, principles of good governance and the rule of law. These values should constitute the fabric of the Union's budding institutions like the Pan-African Parliament and the Union Court of Justice and Human Rights.

Whatever position any of us will espouse in the debate should be attended to with tolerance and critical analysis, even when we disagree with such positions.

Excellencies, since it was agreed that this all important issue of Union Government should be debated upon within our various countries by our respective citizenry, it is hoped that whatever we the leaders would put forward as our view-points will reflect the views of our peoples. This should make our contributions human-centred and clearly owned by our peoples. With this as our guiding principle, everything else should be secondary. Gender, religion and country should all be subsumed under the welfare of the peoples of Africa who empower us as their leaders to meet at this Summit. Only our peoples' ownership of this debate will give this conference its legitimacy and sustainability.

Excellencies, there cannot be a better grounding for the projected Union Government than the AU and its agencies being perceived to be pursuing people- centred "Basic Needs Agenda". This prioritizes provision of the basic needs of most of our citizens for food, water, electricity, education, health and security. In our respective countries, this is the rationale for government, and so it must be for the Union Government when we realize it. Therefore, the provision of these basic needs through what may be described as "Continental Projects", feasibly studied, cost and implemented within the framework of NEPAD, should move the continent fastest and irreversibly to the realization of the Union Government.

Permit me to suggest that, It is suggested that, under the auspices of NEPAD, countries that are endowed with abundant critical resources like energy, water or great potential for commercial agriculture should be encouraged technically and financially to launch the necessary investment projects in them, to benefit the continent as a whole at affordable cost. Such investments must be managed on business lines tempered with conscionable profit margins.

Happily, the African Union, even in its present form, should be able to realize some of these objectives in the short term rather than the medium to long term. Hopefully, some of these matters will form part of the debate.

Today, by exclusively devoting this Summit to this noble debate, and with the benefit of the outcome of the comprehensive brainstorming of our Ministers, and the all-inclusive consultations conducted at national, regional and continental levels, we have the unique opportunity to elaborate clear-cut modalities and signposts on how to achieve our collective objective of the Union Government.

I am confident that at the end of our deliberations, we should be able to arrive at a common understanding of the sort of "Continental Government" we want for ourselves and how to develop a roadmap with time lines towards its realization.

Excellencies,

The task before us is enormous but exciting. We are at the crossroads, and at the same time the threshold, of a new era, with great opportunities but also many challenges and responsibilities for Africa. We therefore must not fail the people of Africa and the future of our continent by unexamined decisions during this Grand Debate.

Given our high sense of responsibility to the cause of Africa, I am confident that this Summit will rise to the occasion and the challenge. I am sure that we will come out with far-reaching resolutions and relevant recommendations.

We need only to enter the debate with positive attitudes, political will and the confidence that whatever challenges lie ahead can be overcome. As the adage goes, "where there is a will, there is a way". Let us therefore appeal again that we all engage in the debate with mutual trust, mutual respect, fellow-feeling and abiding faith in the great future that awaits our continent, Africa.
I thank you.
Akwaaba - which is to say welcome!
Merci.
Obrigado.
Shukran.
Asante Sana.
Gracias.
May God Bless Africa!