Following President Dr. Alhagie Yahya Jammeh’s contention on the formation of an African union government in an interview he granted GRTS recently, Mr. Halifa Sallah, a former Gambian parliamentarian in the Pan-African parliament, a bigwig in the opposition camp, has given his reaction to Jammeh’s assessment of the issue.

Speaking at a press conference last week, Mr. Sallah described the just concluded African Summit in Ghana as a success, adding that the objective of the summit was to engender a grand debate on the feasibility of establishing an African Union government and founding a United States of Africa.

According to Mr. Sallah, The Gambia had a study prepared in May 2006 entitled, “Study on an African Union government: Towards a United States of Africa,” and that it was the duty of the APRC government to review the document, adopt a position and present it in Ghana.

A government, he went on, has no moral authority to criticise a proposal that it considers to be more viable, adding that a head of state could even give reasons why a union government and a United States of Africa are unachievable.

“If The Gambia government does not have a position paper, it should set up a multi disciplinary force to formulate one before the next AU Summit, otherwise it would be left behind.
“African unity is an idea whose time has come. We must unite or perish individually. This was true yesterday but it is more so today than ever before,” he said, adding that even President Jammeh acknowledges that African leaders are not given the importance they deserve.

He recollected Dr. Kwame Nkrumah’s avowed belief that no African micro state had a future outside of a United States of Africa.

On issues regarding NEPAD, Halifa said the document deals with general concepts and contains valuable ideas, which could form a subject for brainstorming on Africa’s problems. “What they are discovering is that NEPAD contains pledges and not programmes. What is significant is how to transform the pledges into programmes,” he noted.

He went on to add that this requires a comprehensive study of the development needs of all African countries and the identification of areas of complementarily which requires continental programmes and projects to facilitate development.

“There is no need to write NEPAD off. What is needed is its restructuring and reorientation so that it will be under the assembly and commission rather than a special group of heads of state,” he concluded.

It could be recalled that in a television interview occasioned by the 13th anniversary of the July 22nd Revolution, President Jammeh lamented what he called the marginalisation of African leaders. He in the same vein dismissed the AU Summit in Accra, describing any hopes of forming an African union government as a forlorn hope and an insult to Africa. He also questioned the viability of the Africa Peer Review mechanism.