By Obiageli Ezekwesili, Alioune Badara Fall and Adama Gaye
Sixty years ago, yesterday, May 25, Africa led the world in creating the first-ever pan-continental political body with the establishment of the Organisation of African Unity (OAU). It was in 1963 when 30 leaders of Africa’s sovereign republics came together in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia to sign the founding Charter of the new body. This is where the celebration of May 25 as Africa Day originated.
The OAU had, from its inception, a bold and transformational mission as it was set up to facilitate the attainment of economic development, social transformation, political freedom, and the completion of independence in the African countries still under the yoke of foreign actors while also launching the struggle to dismantle racists’ regimes in Rhodesia – later Zimbabwe, South Africa and Namibia.
