President Yoweri Kaguta Museveni has deepened his move to have the Federation of East Africa.
“A federated East Africa would make it easier to handle issues of insecurity such as the insecurity in Eastern Congo, Somalia, Mozambique and also create a united market for the businesses of 200 million people, President Museveni said.
President made the statement during his three-day state visit to Tanzania where he observed that an unresolved problem of insecurity in any East African country and its neighbor affects even stable countries.
“East Africa is quite homogenous, around the language of Swahili on top of the shared heritage of the Bantu, Nilotic, Nilo-Hamitic and Cushitic peoples. This should enable East Africa to achieve maximum unity,” President noted.
President said he never supported the proposal to have one Government for the whole of Africa that was being rooted by the former Libyan President, Lat Muamar Ghaddafi.
“At the Continental level, you do not have the same similarities like you have in East and Central Africa. You may even have some irreconcilable contradictions that would not permit the maximum level of integration,” His Excellency noted.
President Museveni however maintained that he so much desire to have one common market of Africa saying it would give business a market of 1.4Bn people today, that will grow to 2.5Bn by2050.
“The two levels of integration; political and economic for East Africa as well as economic for Africa-would create a bloc to negotiate durable market access internationally,” President said.
Last week the EAC Council of Ministers approved DR Congo’s application after Kinshasa reportedly ticked all the boxes required to qualify for membership starting 2022.
The EAC Summit of six presidents will go through the motions to endorse and then Felix Tshisekedi will join their select club as the seventh member.
Currently, the East African Community has a total of six member states including Uganda, Rwanda, Kenya, Tanzania, Burundi, Southern Sudan and once approved by the six heads of states, DR Congo shall become the seventh member state.
