Adopt It Without Delay

Daily Graphic - The President of Liberia, Mrs Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf, has urged African leaders to endorse without delay the concept of a United States of Africa. She has also prodded them to instruct, in no uncertain terms, all regional economic commissions and community institutions to formulate and adopt the road map and the time table for the achievement that goal.

“This will allow institutions to move forward in peace with progress.” she added.

Addressing heads of states attending he Ninth ordinary Session of the African Union in Accra, Mrs Johnson Sirleaf said the gradual approach towards an African Union Government, which had been preached since Kwame Nkrumah mooted the united Africa idea, had not helped Africa in general and Liberia in particular.

She said since the formation of the Casablanca Group in 1961 to promote Nkrumah’s “Unity now” idea and the Monrovia Group by Julius Nyerere and president William Tubman of Liberia, to promote the gradualist approach and the subsequent formation of the OAU in 1963, Africa had been in prosperity and decline in peace and war, and in unity and in disharmony.

She said the fact that Liberia lay in ruins, its people displaced, its infrastructure destroyed, its citizens impoverished and its government facing an awesome challenge of moving the country onto the path of peace, reconciliation and development pointed to the fact that gradualism had not served that country.

“That is why Liberia endorses in principle the spirit of African Unity as expressed in the proposed establishment of the United States of Africa. This is why Liberia is trying to regain the progress lost through the years of conflict by becoming an active member in promoting integration of the continent through regional and sub-regional bodies such as the expanded Mano River Union and the Economic Community of West African States,” she said.

“That is why Liberia plays an active role in the regional integration mechanisms such as the West Africa gas pipeline, the West Africa Power pool and the fully operational ECOWAS passport. That is why Liberia is working towards admission and participation in the process that will lead to a common West African currency,” she added.

She said Liberia would continue the ongoing dialogue among its people, the representatives of the people, its women and institutions. “They will guide our accession, consistent with the constitutional timetable or within a shorter period of time, to the United States of Africa. We are confident that this objective will ultimately be achieved,” Mrs. Johnson-Sirleaf added.

The full text of President Johnson-Sirleaf’s speech: President_Sirleaf_speech.pdf

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