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NEWS & CURRENT AFFAIRS

The Nairobian

Africa must shed Anglophone and Francophone tags to make progress

Opinion

By Joseph M’eruaki | Mar 20, 2025

**President William Ruto Rt Hon Raila Odinga at AUC Headquarters shortly after the election.**[Emmanuel Wanson]

The African Union Commission (AUC) elections, in which former Prime Minister Raila Odinga lost to Djibouti’s Mohamed Yousuf in Addis Ababa on February 15, 2025, exposed unresolved issues in the continent.

The elections demonstrated that Africa’s Heads of State have always been influenced by geopolitical factors and not the interests of Africans while choosing a person to steer the continent’s agenda.

Kenya’s candidate, Raila Odinga, is a Pan-Africanist who exhibits qualities to steer the continent to posterity. During the signing of an MoU with President William Ruto on March 7, 2025, Mr Odinga said he had been approached by several leaders in Africa, including former Nigerian President Olusegun Obsanjo, who convinced him to contest.

His ideas on African connectivity by building roads linking East and West, South to the North of the African continent and harnessing Africa’s minerals and natural resources, if implemented, would put Africa on the path of progress.

Raila had pledged to fast-track economic transformation, enhance intra-African trade and infrastructure, financial independence, gender equity and equality, agricultural transformation and climate action as well as foster education, women empowerment and counter climate change.

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The most notable chairs who have occupied the AUC were Jean Ping (2008–2012), Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma (2012–2017) and Moussa Faki Mahamat (2017–2024). From 2008 to 2024, the AUC leadership lacked a strong push to have policies implemented largely due to bureaucratic nature of the leaders besides political limitation among member states, and lack of assertiveness within the AUC leadership.

What was clear is that AUC needed a strong leader who would push policy formulation and Raila, with his credentials, would have been the best to take Africa to another level.

However, what came to play was the politics of Anglophone, Francophone, economic blocks and Arab links, not the economic and social interests of Africans. While the other contestants were also qualified, our Heads of State never talked about how we can unite Africa into a formidable solid economic block to rival Europe, Americas or Asia.

What am I driving at? If Africa has to progress we must do away with these colonial imposed mentalities of Anglophone and Francophone that continue to advance the interests of our former colonial masters.

We must stop balkanising ourselves into regional blocks and consider our interests as a united Africa and the benefits we would draw from this unity. What for sure is clear is that our competitors- Europe, America and Asia would like us to remain divided. A united Africa with immense resources and a population of over one billion people would be a force to reckon with and give them a run for their money.

Now that Raila is back home, he should continue working with Dr Ruto for the sake of nation’s unity and progress. The MoU he signed with the President is a starting point and the relationship should be cemented for the good of the nation.

Raila has distinguished himself as a fighter for democratic rights since the advent of multiparty politics in 1992, with a presence in each of the governments formed by presidents Daniel Moi, Mwai Kibaki and Uhuru Kenyatta and now Ruto.

The relationship between Raila and Ruto should not be vilified but supported since it has gone a long way in reducing political tension.

Mr M’Eruaki is chairman of Kenya Plant Health Inspectorate Service and former Igembe North MP