Abubakar Hashim/ Sierra Leone
Coups, conflicts and crises are dotting the landscape of the African continent, as the African Union AU rotates its one-year chairmanship position yesterday, to Mauritania President, Mohamed Ghazouami. He took over from Comoros President Azali Assoumani, whose tenure terminated yesterday 17 February 2024.
From Ethiopia, where the AU is headquartered, to West, East, Central and South Africa, political, economic, security, religious and other crises pervade the continent.
The AU Heads of State confab, with yearly rotation of its chairperson, is now merely ceremonial, with not much impact on conflict resolution in the five regions of the 1.4 Billion people continent.
Africa is rich in sub-soil resources but remains poor and underdeveloped.
West Africa is now prone to coups and insecurity. East, North and Central are reputed for insecurity, desertification and acute famine. South African countries are prone to xenophobia crises and racial inequality.
The new AU Chair, Mauritania President Mohamed Ghazouami, will achieve little as his predecessor, Comoros President Azali Assoumani, who handed over the baton yesterday in Addis. Neither Angola, which is warming up for the Chairmanship position in 2025, is capable of addressing these teething problems facing the continent.
West Africa alone, carries the heaviest weight of crises in the continent. Four of its members in ECOWAS are now under military regimes, and three have already opted out from the ECOWAS bloc.
The mere existence of the 54 member countries of the AU, is the prime achievement of the body that was once called the Organisation of African Unity OAU. The 54-member bloc is still intact.
But the burning problems of coups, which are now globally unfashionable and other multilayered crises, are still besetting the continent that is still an appendage, not only to the Western world but also to new entrants.
African Development Bank AfDB President, Dr Akinwumi Adesina, at the AU summit also added his voice on the African crises, stating that “… Nigeria and other African countries risk further unrests in the form of protests, resulting from economic hardship “.