Why I like Yoweri Kaguta Museveni
In 1953, the colonial government decided to create a federation of Southern Rhodesia, Northern Rhodesia, and Nyasaland. But, our leaders, then freedom fighters for the independence of this part of Africa, adamantly fought against the idea and the implementation of the federation. Kamuzu Banda, Malawi’s founding president, even called federation the stupid. His interpreters described it as chitaganya chonunkha. Ten years later, the federation of Rhodesia and Nyasaland collapsed.
Northern Rhodesia (now Zambia) thanked the Ngwazi with a degree or award nobody else had, has, or will ever receive: Destroyer of the Federation (DoF), the stupid federation.
Sadly, the Ngwazi did not give any valid reason for its stupidity. So, the youths of the 1960s, 1970s, and 1980s went around parroting the Ngwazi’s words. The federation of Rhodesia and Nyasaland was stupid. Chinunkha zedi. No one asked why. In the absence of information about world affairs, very few understood what was good or bad about a federation.
In school, we, youths the 1960-1980s were not taught that some of the most successful countries such as the United States, the United Kingdom, India, the Soviet Union (including Russia), China, Japan, Germany, the Union of South Africa, Canada, Nigeria, and many others were, in fact, federal because they saw value and strength in numbers, in pooling resources, and in geographical size of territory, in allowing interior states have access to the seas and oceans.
That is what Museveni uses to account for the luck of development Africa. I agreed. Too many borders. For goods to get to the interior of the fighting continent there are different taxes as one crosses from country to country.
If the federation of the two Rhodesias (now Zimbabwe and Zambia) and Nyasaland (today Malawi) had been left intact, our federal territory would today be from Mbamba Bay in Tanzania or beyond to somewhere near Kipushi in Zambia, Nsumbu on Lake Tanganyika down to Chikwarakwara on the Limpopo River.
We would have one large army funded by our pooled federal resources. We would have several universities for our combined population of 70 million. We would be benefiting the mineral riches of Zambia and Zimbabwe. We would be benefitting from the abundance of fresh water in lakes Tanganyika, Mweru, Malawi, and others. We would be benefitting from the vast agricultural land to feed ourselves.
The droughts that we experience often would not necessarily lead to food shortages because food stocks in one of our territories would be distributed and sold in other territories within the federation. Smaller States would be benefitting from the stronger and bigger ones. The poor would be benefitting from the rich States within the federation.
With such a large territory, large army, huge wealth, and abundant food, negotiating deals with so-called world powers would be much easier. Deciding the value to attach to our products would have been much easier. Travelling between territories would have been much easier. We would only be presenting our federal passports once when entering neighbouring countries such as Botswana, South Africa, Tanzania and Mozambique.
Today, we would be using one currency to buy goods in Marka, Chambeshi and Msvingo. What that currency would be called, we cannot guess.
Acknowledged, wars of independence from federations have raged and are raging but many countries have benefitted from federations.
Europeans realised late in life but eventually came together to form the European Union. Today, Africans are also slowly realising the importance of uniting; hence the transformation of the Organisation of African Unity into a Union. But schengenisation of Africa is too long.
The African Union should have an effective and authoritative parliament to make Africa-wide laws; a common currency; free movement policy, common defence, and other policies that benefit all its members.
The road to that dreamland, the Africa we want by 2063, is long but clear.
We propose that before we create a United States of Africa (USAf), let’s turn Africa’s regional bodies, namely 1) the Sadc, 2) Ecowas, 3) the East African Community (EAC), 4) Alliance of Sahel States/Confederation of Sahel States and 5) the Arab Maghreb Union (AMU) into five federal African states with five federal presidents, five federal armies, five federal ministries of finance, five federal reserve banks, and five federal parliaments.
Southern Africa, the Sadc, the most peaceful of Africa’s regions, should lead the way. Our region should be the first to federate and demonstrate to other African regions that it is possible to amalgamate our small countries into powerful economic, agricultural, industrial and military blocs.
