By Stephen Asiimwe
The long awaited East African integration is around the corner, which will be operationalised in Jan-2010. The East African presidents will sign the protocol for common market on 20th Nov. 2009, and celebrate 10years of the community’s existence and there after we will go for a common currency and hopefully by 2015 we will be a federal state. East Africa integrations will be the single most important decision that any group of Africans will have taken since continental independence in the early 1960’s
Kwame Nkrumah, Jomo Kenyatta, Julius Nyerere, Milton Obote, Gamel Abdul Nasser and Tom Mboya must be impatiently waiting in their graves, for the big East African day of integration, as prelude Africans integration.
We expect a bigger, richer and more diversified economic homeland, we expect a wider integration of the people and richer political and intellectual canvass and equally a stronger voice and in put into international relations, and for these reasons we must unite or perish.
When the base of integration is clear, sectarianism, tribalism will slowly disappear our political and economic aspirations will gradually shift to Arusha, leaving Kigali, Bujumbira, Nairobi, and Kampala as mere provincial cities.
However strong the Luo, Banyankole,Bachagga, Tutsi Or Baganda are, there is no way each of them can politically dominate East Africa, However each can and will contribute their well known and not known emergencies to building a sustainable East African Federation.
Although he challenges are still enormous we shall work as the community e.g. issues of National parliament being stronger than East African Legislature assembly, movement of labour, fear of being swallowed. Talking to Ugandans about the community is still a challenge but many are optimistic that the community can handle the issues of East Africa.
It’s important for political actors to include the issues of East African community into the manifesto’s or policy papers. The idea of East Africa n integration was not simply grandiose or pedestrian concept. The pioneer presidents and prime ministers looked into the future and realized that East African states were too tiny and weak economically and politically to survive in the emerging world order, president Museveni has spoken passionately on this, what I am not sure is his of cadres at cabinet and parliamentary level, having witnessed the gradual challenges in organizations like pan African movement, which was the centre of intellectual acceleration of regional and continental integration. We must seriously begin to redesign and re-think a better future for this generation as a Fratz Fannon, said “every generation must out of relative obscurity discover its own destiny or betrays it”.
These vulgar habits of stealing and plundering government’s resources by self styled goons should stop and focus on delivering services. The CHOGM, Global fund and NAADs generals should give Uganda a chance, so that we only sell good practices into the federation. I am sure our line ministry has attempted to do something but it is better to do more rather than only federating offices instead of people, I wish all East Africans happy Celebrations, marking 10 years of the establishment of the East African community. As Nkrumah, put it, “Forward ever, Backward Never”
The writer is a pan Africanist and works at Uganda Media Ce
