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He said the continent was confronted with “greater challenges” which need immediate tackling, rather than setting up a union government.
However, Senegal and a number of African countries have disagreed with Nigeria’s position, saying the continent would only survive if it united now under one common government to enable it stand the tide of globalisation.
Speaking in Accra, Ghana at the ninth session of the African Union heads of state meeting, President Yaradua said Nigeria favours a “gradualist approach” to the establishment of a Union Government in Africa in view of the critical need for African countries “to focus more on the urgent task of strengthening and consolidating internal governance and growth structures at the moment”.
Before his formal reception into the Assembly of African Heads of State and Government along with his Mauritanian counterpart, Oud Cheikh Abdallahi, Yar’Adua said although Nigeria had always supported the principle of the ultimate goal of the African Union being “full and political integration leading to the evolvement of a United States of Africa”, he warned that care must be taken not to relegate from the front burner the key issues confronting the continent.
He also called on the leaders of the continent to be more committed to ideals of the AU if the goal of an integrated African continent would be achieved.
“Dear colleagues,” he said, “there are clear and present threats and challenges which we must face up to. We cannot ignore the social, economic, and political inequalities within and among our member States, which if not bridged, would pose daunting obstacles on the march towards viable political and economic union.”
Defending Nigeria’s position, Yar’Adua said “our perspective is mediated by the critical need at this point in our continent’s developmental process, for the nations of Africa to focus more on the strengthening and consolidation of internal governance and growth structures, and on more robust regional integration.
“Focus on inter-regional collaboration is equally critical especially considering that all the five regions of Africa face essentially the same challenges of poor infrastructure, inadequate energy, endemic poverty, and the twin bane of HIV/AIDS and tuberculosis.
“Conversely, these issues, along with the challenges of conflict, disease and poverty, drive the imperative for us to present a united and common front in the global arena. There is strength in the synergy that is only possible from functional unity.
“This brings me to another critical variable in this debate: the degree of our commitment to our continental body and the essence of our Africanness. To the extent that we continue to subscribe and owe more allegiance to extra-continental bodies to the neglect of the AU, our steps towards functional integration will remain faltering.”
The president enjoined his colleagues to pay attention to the improvement of continental infrastructure such as transportation, communication, and power, as well as common agricultural, education, migration, and other policies which he said are fundamental to the integration of Africa.
He thanked the leaders of the African countries gathered for the “overwhelming felicitation and solidarity on our historic political transition” which brought him in as Nigeria’s President.
“As I present my first address to the political leadership of the African continent under the aegis of the African Union, I wish to reiterate Nigeria’s unmediated commitment to advancing the cause and ideals of the AU,” he said.
But delegates at the Accra meeting said the atmosphere was charged as a group of states led by Libya's Muammar Gaddafi and Senegal's Abdoulaye Wade argued with a “gradualist group” led by South Africa's Thabo Mbeki and Yar’Adua.
Speaking on the heat the AU Government initiative generated, Senegalese Foreign Minister Cheikh Tidiane Gadio said: "I think everybody is a little bit tense, because they know how serious this is. It is getting heated between Gaddafi and the southern Africans.”
While almost all the 53 member nations agree with the goal of African integration and eventual unity, most of the continent's leaders at the summit want this to be a gradual process.
But passions ran high among the proponents of unity, who want a federal government immediately as the only way to fight poverty and myriad other challenges including globalisation.
On this note, the Senegalese Foreign Minister said: "Some of us think that Africa's unity has become a matter of survival... my president is here with his pen ready to sign," Gadio said. He held out the prospect that a small group of states could forge ahead by themselves and sign up to federation.
"If Senegal wants to build this union with two, three, four more countries, there is not a country in this room that has enough power to tell Senegal you cannot do it. Some will start and the others will follow. Now, who is ready to start? Senegal is ready," he said.
Gaddafi, known for his impassioned rhetoric, was more restrained yesterday despite a speech on the summit's eve invoking the spirit of pan-African icon Kwame Nkrumah, who led Ghana to independence 50 years ago, to support his vision of a United States of Africa.
Asked by a crush of journalists during a summit recess whether he was optimistic about unity, Gaddafi, wearing dark glasses and a black cap, declared: "I am always optimistic."
The Libyan leader, describing himself as a soldier for Africa, is impatient with the slow pace of integration. He did not attend the summit's opening session on Sunday and believes the decision over unity must be made by Africa's masses and not leaders closeted in a conference hall.
Kenya's President Mwai Kibaki, a member of the gradualist camp, expressed strong support for unity on Monday.
"The advantages of Africa's unification are enormous for our people. A unified Africa will have stronger bargaining power," he said.
But reflecting the views of many of the leaders, Kibaki added that at a recent conference on the issue in Kenya, "opinions were varied on the pace this process should take".
Kibaki said Africa's eight regional economic communities should be the building blocs of a united continent and their integration must be accelerated.
The summit leaders have come under criticism for largely ignoring pressing issues like Sudan, Somalia and Zimbabwe at this meeting to concentrate on unifying the continent. Many regard this as an unrealistic, if noble, dream. Skeptics point to decades of wars, coups and massacres that often sprang from ethnic and religious fault lines on a continent artificially carved up by former colonial rulers.
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