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AS THE African Union (AU) Summit draws near many Pan-African commentators are concerned about the outcome.

The sole agenda item for discussion in July is the proposed merger of all African states into one nation state, to be known as the United States of Africa.

Although a majority of commentators from Africa and the Black diaspora advise caution in approaching the proposed merger, there are enthusiasts.

Already, campaigners for the utopian state, notably the Wood brothers of Greenwood, California, co-founders of the USA4USAfrica lobby, are painting numerous advantages that await such merger.

On their website, the USAfrica campaigners already display a flag of the proposed new nation state and even the photograph of former secretary-general of the United Nations (UN), Kofi Annan, whom they want “installed” president of the new USAfrica.

USA4Africa’s Mark Wood, comments: “In a United States of Africa, a citizen could freely travel anywhere on the continent to seek education, opportunity, commerce, or the simple pleasure of tourist travel within their vast country.

“A common African currency much like the EU model affords the ability to buy and sell throughout the continent with a reliable, backed currency.”

Furthermore, “much of Africa’s debt could be relieved if freedom and capitalism were able to thrive in any African state from taxes paid by companies involved in business in any African location”.

However, in a February forum on the subject of a USAfrica, organised by the BBC World Service, many Pan-African commentators expressed their reservations about the merger.

In response to the forum’s topic, Is African unity a dream worth pursuing? , 32 contributors wrote in from 14 countries in Africa, Europe and the Americas.

Two-thirds of them either expressed caution in embracing the concept of the new Africa, or were downright sceptical about the whole idea.

On the other hand, there were those who showed enthusiasm for the project, with no concern for its pitfalls.

Writing in from Khartoum, Sudan, John Moi, while drawing attention to the situation in his own country, raised the fundamental question of the identity crisis that has continually plagued the continent, of who an African really is.

“A majority of people will accept that the question of who is an African is still problematic. Culturally, the guys in North Africa, including our own Sudan, consider themselves Arabs,” Moi explained

He added: “In secondary school days we learned about the map of the Arab world to really emphasise that my country belongs to that part of the world.

“Pan-Africanism and Pan-Arabism oppose each other to the effect that North Africans have very little to do with the rest of sub-Saharan Africa. We cannot subscribe to the idea of United States of Africa without answering this genuine identity question in clear terms.”

But Dennis Turner of Middlesex, England, thought otherwise.

He prescribed unity as the only panacea for the survival of Africans: “It’s time Africa united. With Africans putting aside selfishness and greed, religious, tribal and cultural differences, a united Africa would be one of the most powerful states on earth.

“Otherwise, I foresee an extinction of the African race purely because of selfishness and greed.”

But how could the ideal of African unity be attained without addressing the very fundamental human problems pointed out by the sceptics, by purely dreaming, without a concrete plan of action?

On a cautious note, Clement Kuol Biong of Mahe in the Seychelles referred to this anecdote: “A veteran Sudanese politician once compared the Sudan Socialist Union of Jaafar Numeiri’s rule to a shadow of a tree where we come just to share the shade but what each person under the tree is thinking about is not necessarily the same.

“So how can Africa be united when we are still tribally fragmented and no African leader is interested in uniting his own people? How can African unity become a dream come true when different groupings of the AU have their own hidden agendas?”

He concluded: “The Arabs have never stopped their dream of imposing Islam culture on African masses by the sword, a practice which is still widespread in Sudan.”

However, despite the caution and concerns raised by well-meaning Pan-Africanists about the feasibility of a United States of Africa, the continent’s leaders, it would seem, are determined to ignore the dangerous pitfalls.

It would be recalled that on January 31, African leaders at the Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, summit adopted as the sole agenda item for discussion at the forthcoming Accra summit the theme A n AU Government: Towards the United States of Africa.

The proposal was referred to the heads of state and governments of the AU by President Abdoulaye Wade of Senegal – who was absent at the summit.

Wade’s proposal was carried to the summit and presented on his behalf by that country’s foreign minister, Cheikh Tidiane Gadio, with the support of Nigeria.

According to Gadio, “President Wade suggested that the heads of state seize the opportunity offered by their next summit in Accra to devote a special session to the issue of the United States of Africa”, while adding that it is necessary to prepare a new roadmap to better determine the next steps to be taken.

By proceeding without a known and public mandate from the people of Africa and, especially, by drawing attention only to what they naively consider the potential benefits of USAfrica, and by trying to restrict their town hall discussions to implementation alone, the promoters are behaving like a used car salesman who doesn’t want the customer to raise awkward questions about faulty aspects of the car.

However, the issues raised suggest that it is time for Africans to wake up and do the hard thinking and ask – and honestly answer – the tough questions we have avoided for 50 years about the sanity of unifying Africans and Arabs under one continental government.

For example, why is a USAfrica necessary? What problems will it solve that the Organisation of African Unity (OAU) could not and the AU cannot?

Who are the shadowy godfathers of this project and what is their hidden agenda?

The forum comments indicate that many ordinary Africans are doing some of this hard thinking.

The AU presidents should follow suit and do, and be seen to do, the same. They should not rush to implement this shady project before they and the public have, together, thought things through and in the greatest detail.

There was no popular debate before the formation of the AU and the adoption of the New Partnership for Africa’s Development by Africa’s presidents. Will there be a full and free debate before this USAfrica project proceeds any further? Will the promoters, seen and unseen, of this USAfrica, allow it?

Regardless of the promoters, let us all debate it, every aspect of it, not just how to implement it. Let us all debate the merits and demerits of continental government and do so for the next five years, or till we arrive at an enlightened consensus.

Let us debate it in light of black people’s experience in Sudan, Mauritania and the rest of the Afro-Arab borderlands – and in light of the four decades of the OAU and AU, too.

Let the summit on it be postponed for at least five years while the people debate it.

Before we, the African people, instruct the AU presidents on how to vote, let us examine the motives, objectives, sponsors – overt, as well as covert – modalities and feasibility of this USAfrica and do so in the context of what Africa needs to survive and prosper in this century.