The United States of Africa is a good idea and was advocated by great Pan Africanists - Kwame Nkrumah, Zeph Mothopeng, Robert Sobukwe and Cheikh Anta Diop a long time ago.

The United States of Africa is a good idea and was advocated by great Pan Africanists - Kwame Nkrumah, Zeph Mothopeng, Robert Sobukwe and Cheikh Anta Diop a long time ago.

The problem is the lack of exemplary leaders. Political selfishness is killing Africa. Almost all African states are not democratic. South Africa and Botswana cannot claim to be democratic. There can be no democracy where a few people make crucial financial decisions and where attaining education is based on money rather than intelligence. Some members of the ruling parties of both countries are corrupt to the core.

All African rulers latch on to power, which is not in the best interest of the continent. The skewed distribution of wealth, income and class militate against a federated African state.

The late Diop said that the Economic Community of West African States and the East African Community will continue to fail because the links uniting parties to such regional agreements are not binding.

Moreover, all attempts at regional regrouping have lacked an important and indispensable counterpart: a supranational political umbrella to take decisions that are binding. A rational organisation of economies cannot precede a political organisation.

African people will be stupid to give the current crop of megalomaniac leaders a blank cheque to rule.

Sam Ditshego, Kagiso