•How practical is that today?

More practical than ever. What Kwame Nkrumah posed as a possibility in the sixties is now being pushed by a continent like Europe as the only way forward. They have common markets and even a common currency. Europe at the time was a much less cohesive project, but look, it’s united today as never before. If they can do it, so can we. The Libyan head of state, Gaddafi has taken Nkrumah’s message seriously, and the former World Bank president, James Wolfenson said recently that Africa “must unite”. If that is coming from the high seat of neoliberalism, surely, it’s a sign. 

•Africa has some very terrifying stories today, like what is happening in Sudan, Rwanda-Burundi, Zimbabwe and even in Nigeria. How can Africa emerge as a united continent with all of this? 

(laughs) We need a pan-African media agency like Al Jazeera is for the Arab world, to give a different perspective on us than what you get. Doesn’t even Europe have problems like Bosnia or Albania? Let us not forget that Europe has had the bloodiest wars that the world has ever seen. Of course we realise we have these horror stories, but we have several success stories too. My country, Ghana itself has seen its fourth free and fair general election, and the second election in its history when power was transferred between parties peacefully after election results. Or look at Kenya’s agricultural cooperative unions and how their local tea and coffee production has helped them buck the ill-effects of the global slowdown. 

... contd.