Southern and East African leaders are split over plans for a pan-African government, as suggested by Libya’s head of state Col Muammar Gaddafi.

Uganda’s Yoweri Museveni said he backed economic integration but said Africa was too diverse for one government.

“Politically we should only integrate with people who are either similar or compatible with us,” he said, according to Uganda’s state-owned media.

Senegal, however, backed the plans and said a breakaway group could be formed.

‘Bottom-up approach’

On the final day of the African Union (AU) summit, the BBC’s Will Ross in the Ghanaian capital, Accra, says there are clear differences of opinion over the degree of integration and the speed.

Ghana’s Foreign Minister Nana Akufo-Addo believes such problems were inevitable but can be overcome.

“You know the problems that you have in the European Union with 25 members, now 27, to arrive at common positions – we have 53,” he said.

“So clearly there’ll be problems involved for people to adjust and I believe that the 53 states will find a way of sharing and joining in the consensus as to the future direction of our continental organisation.”

Senegal, one of Africa’s most stable democracies, is backing Mr Gaddafi’s call for the immediate set up of a pan-African government.

“We are ready to abandon partially or totally our sovereignty to join a unity government in Africa. So we have no problem. My president is here with his pen ready to sign,” Senegalese Foreign Minister Cheikh Tidiane Gadio said.

He suggested a small group of states could sign up to a federation now and wait for others to follow.

The leaders of Kenya and Lesotho, representing southern Africa, also expressed their doubts.

“We recognise that Africa’s interests would be best served through economic and political integration,” AFP news agency quotes Lesotho’s Prime Minister Bethuel Pakalitha Mosisil as saying.

“However we must adopt a bottom-up approach, not a top-down one – We believe that such integration should be gradual rather than precipitous.”

Our correspondent says the majority of African leaders are likely to call for a gradual approach, preferring to strengthen the existing regional blocs rather than signing away some of their own sovereignty.

‘Take the bull by the horns’

The idea of a single pan-African government was first promoted by Kwame Nkrumah, who led Ghana to independence in 1957.

On Monday, Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe said unity was vital to make the continent truly independent of the West, as he spoke to a crowd of cheering Ghanaians.

 Mr Gaddafi has called for the immediate establishment of a single government, foreign policy and army.

Ghana’s President John Kufuor said in his opening speech to the conference that the question of unifying Africa was not in doubt, but the key issue was how to attain it.

AU Commission head Alpha Oumar Konare told the gathering that Africans needed to “take the bull by the horns and move towards a new country – Africa”.

But campaigners on the sidelines of the summit say delivery is the key problem, with leaders already having shown they are unwilling to give up power to regional economic blocs.

“We have regional economy communities that were put in place for West Africa… but nothing is working. From one country to another… there are still a lot of obstacles,” a campaigner for the organisation Call To Action Against Poverty told the BBC.

This summit is the ninth since the AU was created five years ago.

BBC NEWS | Africa | Leaders split over African unity

THE Libyan leader, Muammar Gaddafi, has called for the creation of a United States of Africa, and appears to be positioning himself to be its first leader.

Flanked by his coterie of bodyguards as the continent’s 53 heads of state gathered for an African Union summit in the Ghanaian capital, Accra, on Sunday, Colonel Gaddafi declared: “My vision is to wake up the African leaders to unify our continent. Long live the United States of Africa, long live African unity.”

The rallying cry preceded the summit’s “grand debate” on pan-Africanism, first mooted by Ghana’s first post-independence leader, Kwame Nkrumah.

It also coincided with revelations that Portugal was to invite Zimbabwe’s President, Robert Mugabe – who also attended the Accra summit – to a meeting of European and African leaders in Lisbon this year despite a European Union travel ban and sanctions against the dictator.

Britain has fiercely opposed Mugabe’s presence at the European summit. But a senior Portuguese official said: “This is a summit for all African countries at the highest level, heads of government or heads of state. All African countries must be invited.”

In Accra, critics accused Colonel Gaddafi of grandstanding, saying the gathering should focus on Zimbabwe, Darfur and Somalia, and on the continent’s chronic corruption and poverty.

Officials from Africa’s leading economies including Nigeria, South Africa and Kenya were “quietly distancing themselves” from Colonel Gaddafi’s statements, sources at the summit said.

But the Libyan leader was supported by Ghana’s President, John Kufuor, and the chairman of the African Union commission, Alpha Oumar Konare. “The question of unification is not in doubt,” Mr Kufuor said. “What remains is the form of government and how and when to attain it.”

However, sceptics pointed to gaping flaws in the operations of the African Union, where only seven of the 53 members are up to date with their annual payments.

Concerns about African poverty were reinforced by a United Nations report yesterday that found that sub-Saharan Africa will fail to meet the goals set seven years ago for eradicating global poverty by 2015.

Boosted by economic progress in China and India, the UN said the proportion of people living on less than a dollar a day had fallen from 23.4 per cent in 1999 and was on track to hit the 15.8 per cent target for 2015.

But the benchmarks for Africa would not be met. Forty-six per cent of African children under five are registered as underweight, while infant mortality is down by one-sixth, against the UN’s target of a two-thirds cut.

In health, sub-Saharan Africa was the only region where the incidence of tuberculosis rose.

The UN Secretary-General, Ban Ki-moon, said: “The results presented in this report suggest that … success is still possible in most parts of the world. But they also point to how much remains to be done.”

Unity talks while Africa starves – World – smh.com.au