Franklin Cudjoe wrote in Critical Opinion:
Positions at the AU are divided between the so-called “gradualists,” who believe that individual countries should first build working economies and integrate them through regional blocs, and the “radicals,” who believe a supra-national authority would somehow allow Africa to compete internationally. Neither side, however, is talking about the real issue: economics. Right now, Africans cannot compete locally or regionally, let alone internationally: we need economic freedom for Africans to raise themselves out of poverty, unshackled from State serfdom. The life-changing power of trade has been demonstrated historically and not just in the West. At the height of their glory, many pre-colonial African states and empires found trade to be a better way to prosperity than through conquests. Gold was shipped from Wangara in the Upper Niger across the Sahara desert to Taghaza, in Western Sahara, in exchange for salt, and to Egypt for ceramics, silks and other Asian and European goods. The old Ghana empire controlled much of the trans-Sahara trade in copper and ivory. At Great Zimbabwe gold was traded for Chinese pottery and glass. From Nigeria, leather and iron goods were traded throughout West Africa.
Today, Africa has lost that trade and many conspiracy theories abound for its backwardness. But the blame game ignores the devil within: the internal and regional barriers that hobble trade, making tariffs within Africa far higher than any tariff barriers by outside blocs . There are even politicians, bureaucrats and many aid activists who argue that these tariffs make essential contributions to government revenue--meaning government offices are more valuable than citizens or the economy.
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