East Africa must pool resources now rather than wait for equality

Aug 23, 2007

AN EAST AFRICAN PERSPECTIVE<br><br>There are two social diseases that East Africans must be prepared to contend with for many years to come. They are the diseases that are eating away our society and depleting the little integration gains we make from time to time either at the national or regiona

AN EAST AFRICAN PERSPECTIVE

Jerry Okungu

There are two social diseases that East Africans must be prepared to contend with for many years to come. They are the diseases that are eating away our society and depleting the little integration gains we make from time to time either at the national or regional levels.

The two diseases are tribalism that is mainly national and prevalent in Kenya and Uganda. The other is the vicious nationalism that has blinded Tanzanians to anything regional. If tribalism is tearing Kenya apart, abrasive and at times arrogant nationalism makes Tanzanians think that they are a special breed in the region.

This brand of nationalism has made it impossible for Tanzanians to see anything good in other countries of the region. Two weeks ago, I had the privilege to visit the Lake Victoria Basin Commission head office in Kisumu and chat with its chief executive Dr. Tom Okurut. A few hours of sitting together taught me many things I had never known about Lake Victoria; never mind that I was born just 40 km away from that mass of water. As I sat down to share my thoughts with East Africans on the plight of the only truly East African entity, I came across three disturbing articles in two leading East African publications that set me thinking of how far away we must be from regional integration despite a recent sensitisation programme.

The first article that attracted my attention was written by Ambassador Juma Mwapachu who happens to be the chief executive officer of the East African Community. Mwapachu made interesting points regarding the recently concluded sensitisation campaign for regional political federation. Obviously Ndugu Mwapachu must have had some reflections on the whole idea of fast-tracking the political federation, which admittedly must have either sent the wrong signals to Tanzanians and other East Africans, or were inadvertently misinterpreted by national consultative committees. In Kenya we had a lot of problems justifying fast-tracking the political federation because its Kiswahili translation bordered on the vulgar side. However, Ambassador Mwapachu being the CEO of the EAC under whose watch the campaign was conducted, and considering that he is the chief adviser to partner heads of state on matters pertaining to the East African Community, one wondered at what point in time the CEO began sensing trouble with the campaign.

Fast-tracking aside, perhaps it was the headline of the story that sent mixed signals to East African federation enthusiasts and new converts alike. The headline screamed that integration without development is useless! To the ordinary casual reader who may not have the time, I had to read the whole article, he might be forgiven if he went away with the impression that East Africa has to wait to develop first before thinking of integration. And such a reader would happily quote Ambassador Mwapachu, the CEO of the East African Community as having said so!

Quoting substantively from three speeches made by Mwalimu Julius Nyerere and Kwame Nkrumah in 1964, Mwapachu made very valid points about the status of our regional outfit. On Nyerere’s famous Cairo speech at the OAU, Mwalimu had this to say, “The major problem we face as a continent whether united or balkanised, is one of development. It is the problem of realising the standards of living of our people, to a level that is considered reasonable in terms of the possibilities of this scientific age”. Mwapachu interprets this speech to mean that development is paramount with or without integration. And I think this is a fair interpretation within the context of time when Mwalimu Nyerere uttered these words. However, a year later, Nyerere seemed to have had more reflection on his 1964 Cairo speech. He was to later write in The African Forum publication: “If we Africans remain separate, it will take an intolerably long time before our economic growth is such as to bring the standards of living of our people to acceptable levels.”

My own interpretation of Nyerere’s article in 1965 is that he had conceded and taken Kwame Nkurumah’s position that faster development for the continent could only be realised through regional integration. It is true at the time Nyerere was talking; he was referring to the East African Common Market that was a colonial set- up. His gripe with it at the time was that it was skewed to benefit Kenya more than the other partner states; another colonial legacy since the colonial government had set up more economic activities in Nairobi than it had done for Kampala and Dar-es-Salaam; hence the meaninglessness of a higher level of integration unless it can be equally exploited by all who form it. But when Mwapachu implies that integration has to promote social and economic equity, the argument begins to veer into a cliff. There are a number of factors that may militate against this argument. First, if regional blocs have to wait to be equal or wait to develop first before coming together under one Common Market and one Customs Union, then chances are that we will wait again for another 40 years before we integrate because it is impossible for any two or more states to attain the same levels of development at any time.

The 50 American states that form the USA were not equal 200 years ago when they came together, they are not equal now and will never be equal for a 1000 years; yet they integrated. New York will always be the Big Apple while California will always be the big state and Georgia will always be ‘My Georgia’! Montana, Nevada and Nebraska will always be the poorer states that the federal government will continue to support. It is wiser to pool our resources now than to wait for 100 years to be equal because we will never attain perfect equality.

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