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| The Underlying Political and Diplomatic Forces in the Formation of the Africa Union (AU) |
Abaneme, Ambrose O. & Oddih, Mike C. PhD
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Abstract:
The paper carefully examines underlying political and diplomatic forces that shaped the formation of the African Union (AU). Effectively utilizing the qualitative approach to data collection and thematic analysis, the study traces the origin and evolution of the AU from the era of the Organization of African Unity (OAU) in segments, and in each of the segments the political and diplomatic factors that shaped actions are fleshed out. The study reveals that what informed the formation of the OAU in the early 1960's was the desire to speed up political liberation of African countries from vestiges of colonial rule and racial discrimination. In the 1980's a new dawn emerged to tinker with the economic integration which began with the Lagos Plan of Action and ultimately given rise to the enunciation of the African Economic Community (AEC) in the 1990's at the onset of globalization. Furthermore, the burning desire to restructure the OAU at the dawn of the new millennium ridden with increasing demands for good governance, handle new types of internal strife and to reflect the political and diplomatic challenges of a changing world heralded the transformation of the OAU to a more robust politico-economic African Union. The study concludes that the essence of this exercise is to foster a proper understanding, that each epochal period in the process of the AU formation were not mere exercise of benign desire to create a supranational institution but out of the existential circumstances prevalent in that period.
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