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Zimbabwe’s veteran leader President Robert Mugabe has revived the late Libyan leader Colonel Muammar Gaddafi’s call for a ‘United States of Africa’, bewailing the divisions on the continent.
He was speaking to journalists in Zimbabwe’s capital Harare on Tuesday after meeting African Union (AU) chairman and Benin president Boni Yayi.
Mugabe said the forthcoming AU summit in Ethiopia must discuss Pan-African integration adding that the continental body was losing touch with the vision of its founding fathers.
While advising leaders to change from regional blocs to full integration of the continent he said, “Get them to get out of the regional shell and get into one continental shell,” President Mugabe pleaded.
“The continent of Africa…That is what we must become and there we must also have an African head.
“This is what we must go and discuss, and we also discuss the issues that divide us.” He added
He said the AU founding fathers had a vision of a continent that was united politically and economically and that we are not there yet.
“That’s our continent, we belong to one continent. We may, by virtue of history, have been divided by certain boundaries and especially by colonialism.”
The idea of a united Africa with one leader was a brain child of fallen Libyan leader Muamar Gaddafi although it did no garner enough support.
Gaddafi argued that having a unity government in Africa would help the continent progress minus the influence of western powers.
But many African countries were against the idea, which they saw as impractical and a threat to their sovereignty. Some preferred first achieving regional integration before embarking on the larger African unity.
The matter was discussed at the 2010 AU summit held in Kampala, Uganda, but nothing tangible was agreed upon.
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