GEOGRAPHY AND HISTORY

  Pan Africanism is hampered by the internal problems African states are facing. This has made African states to be more concerned about their internal affairs rather than those of a wider continent. For example when OAU placed trade embargos on Apartheid South Africa, Malawi and Zambia continued to deal with it. They claimed that their economies would collapse without such economic deals with South Africa. The failure to form the United States of Africa as it had been proposed by Kwame Nkrumah and his comrades reduced any chances of strong Pan Africanism to be realized, they had foresighted that with a common African government, army, Africa would be considered as one bloc, very strong to change world politics. However this was turned down and a loose OAU was formed which has not bought the loyalty of all Africans. Therefore in such a situation Pan Africanism has been left at a bay. The first generation of African leaders have been overthrown as a result of military intervention i...

  The rampant outbreak of natural calamities like famine, floods and other epidemics. This compelled the UN and other organizations to take up the mantle of disaster management. Colonial legacy was another obstacle to the OAU. Some African states continued to identify with the former colonial masters eg Anglophone and Francophone. This undermined decisions of African states. Lack of a common continental language made it difficult for the OAU to promote meaningful co-operation. The frequent occurrence of military coups which undermined the work of the OAU in promoting democracy. The presence of dictators in Africa like Mobutu in Congo, Bokassa of CAR, Mengitsu in Ethiopia, Amin in Uganda and Mugabe in Zimbabwe. The OAU was greatly overwhelmed by the growing number of refugees. This presented a burden to the host member countries by sharing the scarce resources. Poorly developed infrastructure between the member states. This limited trade and economic cooperation among the member sta...