The Union That Was Proposed and the Union That Was Signed
In May 1963, thirty-two African states met in Addis Ababa to agree on African unity. This is the story of the union government Nkrumah proposed, the compromise that was signed instead, and the question the founders left open.
Addis Ababa, May 1963
In May 1963, thirty-two independent African states gathered in Addis Ababa at the invitation of Emperor Haile Selassie of Ethiopia, with Kwame Nkrumah of Ghana and Gamal Abdel Nasser of Egypt among the leading voices (AU OAU60). Five years earlier, at the first meeting of African heads of state in Accra, only eight independent African countries had been in the room.
This is the story of what was proposed in Addis Ababa, what was signed instead, and the question the founders left open.
Nkrumah's speech: "Unite we must"
On 24 May 1963, Nkrumah rose before the other heads of state and made the case for a continental union government. The African Union's own compilation of the summit speeches records him saying:
Unite we must. Without necessarily sacrificing our sovereignties, big or small, we can here and now forge a political union based on Defense, Foreign Affairs and Diplomacy, and a Common Citizenship, an African Currency, an African Monetary Zone and an African Central Bank.
He proposed a genuine political union of the independent African states, with a common defence system under an African High Command, a common citizenship, an African currency, a monetary zone and a central bank (African Union). Without unity, he warned, the leaders in that room would "tomorrow be the victims and martyrs of neo-colonialism."
A note on a famous line. Nkrumah's speech is often summed up as "We must unite now or perish" (New African). We could not find those words in the African Union's compilation of the speeches, so we quote the text we could check.
The Casablanca group had pressed for political unity since 1961. But the Monrovia bloc, the majority, wanted gradual economic cooperation among sovereign states, not a political federation (Wikipedia OAU; AU OAU60). The argument between the two camps was the argument of the hour: union now, or cooperation first?
The compromise: the OAU Charter
Haile Selassie, who had invited both blocs to Addis Ababa, helped broker the answer. On 25 May 1963, the date now celebrated as Africa Day, the Charter of the Organization of African Unity was signed by the states gathered there (AU OAU60).
The Charter's purposes were bold: to promote the unity and solidarity of African states; to coordinate and intensify cooperation for a better life for Africa's peoples; to defend their sovereignty, territorial integrity and independence; to eradicate all forms of colonialism from Africa; and to promote international cooperation (OAU Charter, Article II).
But its principles told the real story of the compromise: the sovereign equality of all member states, non-interference in internal affairs, and respect for the sovereignty and territorial integrity of each state (OAU Charter, Article III). The OAU was a union of states that resolved to stay states. A year later, in Cairo in July 1964, the heads of state went further, solemnly declaring that all member states "pledge themselves to respect the borders existing on their achievement of national independence" (AHG/RES.16(1), AU Archives).
Nkrumah's union government, with its common currency, common defence and central bank, was not adopted. What was signed was coordination without federation.
What the OAU did deliver
The compromise was not nothing. The Charter pledged "absolute dedication to the total emancipation" of the African territories that remained dependent (OAU Charter, Article III), and the OAU established a Liberation Committee to aid independence movements across the still-colonized continent (Wikipedia). It kept the institutional flame alive until 9 July 2002, when it was replaced by the African Union, its successor and, in name at least, the revival of the original idea.
The question of 1963
The historical record is plain: the OAU was established; Nkrumah's union government was not. Where the founders divided, between cooperation among states and citizenship in one nation, the Charter chose the first.
But look at what Nkrumah proposed in that hall: a common market, a single currency, a central bank, a common defence, a union government. For FedAfrica, that is the significance of 1963: not a failed idea, but an unfinished argument, waiting for a generation with the numbers, the tools and the reasons to take it up again.
Sixty-three years after Addis Ababa, the question the founders could not settle is still on the table, and it is addressed to you: is Africa's unity a matter of cooperation between states, or citizenship in one nation?
That is the question FedAfrica exists to explore.