AFRICAN EYE

By Rawlings Magede When the Organisation of African Unity (OAU) was formed some 60 years ago, one of the key founding principles was on the right of the African people to control their own destiny. This was against a background where several African countries were still under the shackles of colonialism. Years later, through its vibrant leaders such as Kwame Nkrumah and Julius Nyerere, independence became a reality in Africa. In 2002 when the OAU transited to become the African Union (AU) its focus slightly shifted to encourage political and economic integration among member states and to eradicate colonialism and neo-colonialism from the African continent. Although this seemed noble, questions on how it was going to be achieved continued to occupy public discourse. This was so because even after independence several African countries continued to institute disastrous Structural Adjustment Programmes (SAPs) and kept them in perpetual debt thereby creating a dependency syndrome on f