Title: Organisation of African Unity (OAU) | South African History Online
Headings: Organisation of African Unity (OAU)
Organisation of African Unity (OAU)
Context: The Emergence of a Pan-African Rhetoric
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Content: The Congress advocated for the “complete independence of the African continent and total rejection of colonialism and exploitation in all its forms,” and called for the unification of Africa through regional blocs and the adoption of democracy. The Congress also voiced the importance of economic regeneration to replace colonial economies geared towards primary resource extraction and exploitation resulting in a phenomenon that would later be termed ‘Dutch disease’. Of security matters, the Congress preferred to assume a stance of “positive neutrality” or non-interference, for which the OAU would later come under scrutiny. It was these concerns that had formed the basis of Ghana’s post-independence foreign policy, and Kwame Nkrumah (Ghana’s post-independence leader) categorically linked Ghana’s independence to the continent’s own, recognising that “the independence of Ghana is meaningless unless it is linked up with the total liberation of the continent.” Nkrumah therefore established a series of conferences hosted in Accra between 1958 and 1960 with the aims of assisting countries still under colonial rule, fostering cultural and economic ties between countries and considering the issue of world peace. Nkrumah also hosted the All African People’s Conference which convened liberation groups and African nationalist organisations, attended by the African National Congress (ANC) . The vision of a United States of Africa was, per contra, not supported by all, and not as radically as Nkrumah, Sékou Touré of Guinea and Modibo Keita of Mali would have preferred it. Despite a common vision, differing ideological commitments and diverging opinions regarding strategy and structuring of a continental organisation soon divided and obstructed the pursuit of unity. The division led to the emergence of three ideological blocs on the African continent, split between the Casablanca Group (consisting of Ghana, Guinea, Mali, Libya, Egypt, Morocco and Algeria) which advocated for radical and full continental integration, the Monrovia Group (consisting of Nigeria, Tunisia, Ethiopia, Liberia, Sudan, Togo, and Somalia) which proposed a moderate approach to unification to be undertaken in incremental steps, and the Brazzaville Group (consisting of Francophone countries and led by Senegal and the Ivory Coast) which remained tied to the interests of France. A number of African leaders, including Kenya’s Julius Nyerere and Nigeria’s Abubakar Tafa Balewa, were supportive of the ideal of African unity, but many felt that Nkrumah’s grand vision for a United States of Africa was overreaching and ran the risk of dissolving sovereignty and territorial integrity – a point of particular contention among countries who had recently gained independence and hard-fought-for sovereignty.