The African Union has lost direction and is sterile now

The just concluded African Union (AU) summit by African Heads of State will go down in history as the most hopeless gathering of persons entrusted with leadership. There is no doubt that the AU is an exclusive club with a sizable membership of despots and hypocrites, who have no regard towards the challenges facing Africans.

Here was an opportune time to address serious issues such as the volatile situations in Burundi and South Sudan, but a non-issue such as the International Criminal Court (ICC) topped the agenda.

I was particularly ashamed to see President Uhuru Kenyatta, leading in the ever-useless chorus of mass withdrawal from the ICC by African countries.

This only served to put the image of Kenya as a country in a rather tight spot. It should be understood that majority of Kenyans and Africans for that matter, do not and will never approve of their countries severing links with the ICC.

We know the ICC issues which keep popping up whenever these leaders meet are and will always remain personal issues for some individuals; for this reason, it is only fair for the same to be dealt with privately.

The just ended summit was crowned with an anti-climax of some sort due to the speech given out by President Robert Mugabe, Zimbabwe’s president and outgoing chairperson to the AU.

President Mugabe is known the world over for his hatred towards the West, and for his use of foul language, sometimes even defying decorum. He talks of Africa being denied greater representation in the UN, while he himself has denied alternative leadership to thrive back in his country.

He wishes Africans to be economically free from the West, while he has deliberately continued to impoverish his own people.

He calls the US and Britain modern day tyrants, while he is one of the longest serving despots we have in Africa. He once tried to trash Nelson Mandela’s idea of moulding South Africa into a one peoples’ nation. He has even side-lined some of his country men and women who took part in the struggle to liberate Zimbabwe. You call Mugabe a liberation hero? I cannot be fooled, I do not see any liberation hero here.

My point is that, Africa will continue sliding back to the past as long we continue to have the crop of leaders the continent is currently having.

There is great need, like never before, for a revolution to sweep through Africa and usher in a generation of leaders who literally hate corruption, uphold human rights, include all persons in their development agenda and do not rely on their tribesmen and sycophants to win an election.