Under Gaddafi, Africa could explode

New AU chief Gaddafi says coups are welcome so long as they are staged peacefully, and that there is nothing wrong with piracy since it is a way to “correct colonial wrongs.’’

At the same time, the AU is preparing for the “Africa Women’s Decade’’ to run from 2010 to 2020 and putting in place its argument against what it calls “abuse of Principles of Universal Jurisdiction,’’ under which Africans have been charged in Europe, among them Rwanda’s Rose Kabuye.

This is the perfect time for Col Gaddafi to take the reins of leadership. He can push his agenda. There are actually very few leaders who can challenge him.

In the past, South Africa’s Thabo Mbeki could challenge Gaddafi at AU meetings but he is no longer in office and his replacement, Kgalema Motlanthe is an acting president who is due to hand over to his mentor Jacob Zuma at elections set for mid this year.

On the other hand, Africa’s most populous state, Nigeria, has a president who is perennially sick and who was on holiday as the AU met in Addis. Umaru Musa Yar’Adua instead sent his vice-president Mr Goodluck Jonathan, a man who cannot challenge Gaddafi.

In the past, retired general Olusegun Obasanjo was a man Gaddafi could not ignore but his presidency ended in 2007.

What happened in Addis is that many heads of state simply did not show up because they did not want to commit to Gaddafi’s grand project of a single government for Africa.

But, there was one leader for whom going to Addis was out of the question after an attempt on his life during a past AU summit. That is none other than Egyptian president Hosni Mubarak, a man who has been in power for 28 years.

Currently, many African leaders are very fresh off the ballot box or off the barracks and the ones who have been in office for long have too many problems. Take the case of Sudan’s Omar al-Bashir. True, he has been in office since 1989, but the indictment planned against him by the International Criminal Court (ICC) over the Darfur conflict leaves him very little breathing space.

In fact in Addis, there was talk that the AU would recall its support for Bashir over the indictments but this did not take place.

Ask Zambia’s Rupiah Banda, in office since October 2008 or Ghana’s John Atta Mills in office since January and who did not even bother to show up in Addis or Sierra Leone’s Ernest Bai Koroma who took power in 2007 if they are planning to take on Gaddafi at the next AU summit in July and what you will get is “no comment.’’

But, the fact is Africa is at a turning point. It is like 1963, the year the defunct Organisation of African Unity was formed. At that time, the man calling the shots was Ethiopian Emperor Haile Selassie.

But even at that time, there was a group of African states that wanted the continent to unite under a federation. This idea was pushed by Ghana’s leader Kwame Nkrumah and the countries supporting him were: Libya, Algeria, Guinea, Morocco, Egypt and Mali.

Those against were led by Leopold Sedar Senghor of Senegal. This group comprised Nigeria, Liberia and Ethiopia.

Major split

Just as in 1963, there is a major split between those leaders who want the single government created now and those who want a gradual move to a continental government.