The local debate on when Africa should unite to form a single country has sharply divided Ghana's intelligentsia into those who believe it should be now or never and those who think Africa must advance towards oneness slowly.

This dichotomy between the conservatives or gradualists and the radicals or 'unity now' group became evident on Tuesday afternoon when a crop of intellectuals convened at the Teachers Hall in Accra to deliberate on the topic: "Achieving United Nations of Africa by 2025."

Judging by the applause in the filled-to-capacity hall, one got the impression that Ghanaians wanted Africa to unite without any further delay after tinkering with the idea.

When the most outspoken speaker of the radical group, Kwesi Pratt Jun¬ior, ended his 11-minute speech by the command that, "The progressive forces of Ghana and Africa should fight against the machinations of the agenda of Western monopolist oppressors and their ideologies ..." he received a standing ovation for a full minute.

The not so popular gradualist approach was epitomized by Minister Joe Ghartey and Prof. Kwame Boafo Arthur, Dean of the Political Science Department of the University of Ghana, Legon, who was the first among five speakers billed to address the gathering of intellectuals, Pan-Africanists and the media.

Though reckoning the need for Africa to unite into one nation, Prof Arthur stressed that Africa's march should be guided and systematic.

The don traced the efforts made by African leaders so far towards changing the African Union into a United States of Africa and various meetings held as well as decisions reached, noting that a final blue print would be implemented in 2015, which will mark the beginning of full integration. To Prof. Boafo Arthur, the problems of logistical constraints, low ministerial capacity, abject poverty and many others necessitated that Africa opted for the gradualist approach.

Above all, citizens of all Africa should be familiar with the objective, method and roadmap of unity after they have been engaged in through discussions, he argued.

The evolving dichotomy is reminiscent of the clear disagreement on the way forward, when some scholars, businessmen and chiefs of the Gold Coast undertook to wrest power from the colonialists in the 1940s and '50s. While the mainly elitist United Gold Coast Convention led by J.B. Danquah harped on Independence Within the Shortest Possible Time, the Kwame Nkrumah-led Convention People's Party demanded 'Independence Now."

It was not clear whether the disagreement would degenerate into a National Democratic Congress/New Patriotic Party diatribe; what was clear was that, those calling for gradual move into unity were considered reactionary by the radicals who considered themselves progressive.

Africa, a land of 900 million people, has a Gross Domestic Prod¬uct smaller than that of Belgium, one small country in Europe. It has been suggested that total unity in which Africa can harness all its resources properly and wield a more effective bargaining power against other economies is the way out of the abject poverty, disease and ignorance.

Dr. Ben Kumbour, NDC MP for Lawra/Nandom whose contribution generally placed him in the camp of Mr. Pratt, nonetheless, cautioned that first and foremost Africa should decide on which type of unity it wants; the American type or the European.

The Minority spokesman on Finance warned that the American unification, which was made possible by years of annihilation of native Indians by immigrant Europeans, couldn't be copied by Africa now. Likewise, the European Union model, which took decades to transform itself from the European Economic Commission, would also be unsuitable for the African cause.

"What type of African unity are we opting for? We need to make the contextual unity before we move on."

Prof. Ama Atta Aidoo who once served as Provisional National Defence Council Secretary for Education, on her part, opted for adequate preparation before Africa moves to unite but she also stressed more on the need to carry along women of the continent.

"If this Africa we have today is what we want to take into the United States of Africa, in relation to how we treat our women, then we might as well go to sleep which is what we have been doing in the last few years," she stated.

The Attorney-General and Minister for Justice, Joe Ghartey, belongs to the group which believes that Africa must move slowly, systematically towards unification and, though he used "my comrades" while addressing the gathering, the differentiation was hardly lost on them.

He assured that Africa was on the path towards unity; having set up an African Parliament, whose role at now is largely advisory, and an African Court of Justice whose role will accelerate the process. He acknowledged the existence of the African Peer Review Mechanism and the New Partnership for African Development, suggesting that their roles should be harmonized. "The path of African Unity should not be elitist nor exclusivity of the ruling politicians: the involvement of the mass of the people should be painstaking and gradually done," he stressed.

The polarizing of the speakers was best acknowledged by Ken Ofori Atta, Chief Executive of Data Bank Group who clearly belonged to the Conservatives. Called directly after the ovation-earning Kwesi Pratt, Mr. Ofori Atta remarked: "After listening to Kwesi Pratt, I now see how Danquah felt always speaking after Nkrumah had spoken."

Culled from The Heritage