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On April 28, 2020, Uganda’s President Yoweri Museveni addressed the nation, albeit on the country’s response to COVID-19, he remarked on the work of the late Tanzanian President, Mwalimu Julius Nyerere, in forging the building blocks for East African Federation and the his current role in galvanising the East African Community towards achieving this vision.
The desire to achieve regional integration on the African subcontinent is rooted in the post-colonial struggle for political and economicindependence buttressed by a belief that regional cooperation is vital to tackling development challenges that cannot be solved at a national level and strengthens the bargaining power of developing African nations when negotiating with their developed Western counterparts.
Thus, regional integration has long been high on the agenda of African countries, captured in the great dream of a United States of Africa,as articulated by pan-Africanists such asJulius Nyerere,Kwame Nkrumah, Leopold Sedar Senghor,Patrice Lumumba and Muammar Gaddafi.
These visionaries saw Africa’s future through a global perspective and envisaged a united and self-sufficient Africa as the ultimate objective.The regional integration in East Africa is a step towards that vision.
The East African Community was formed in 1967. However, 10 years later, the community broke down over political and ideological differences, fuelled by protectionism...