Addis Ababa — Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi wants to stay on as African Union chairman despite a rule on rotating the post.
Diplomatic sources at the African Union in Addis Ababa say Gaddafi is moving to fight for extension of his chairmanship and seeks to reactivate the United States of Africa agenda which was rejected last year.
AU chairmanship has rotated yearly by five geographical regions and in 2009 Libya took the chairmanship on behalf of Northern Africa region.
This year chairmanship turn is for Southern Africa and Malawi has been endorsed by Southern Africa regional bloc SADC to the job. Malawi's President Bingu wa Mutharika is preparing to take over the post.
Prepare agenda
The 53-nation African nations' ambassadors gathered in Addis Ababa AU headquarters on Wednesday to prepare agenda for the leaders' meeting scheduled this weekend hinted Libya is indicating unusual move to stay in the chairmanship position.
Diplomats refused to give either recorded information or be named over the issue. Southern Africa's most influential leader Jacob Zuma was on stopover in Tripoli Libya on his way to Switzerland Davos World Economic Form on Wednesday.
Relevant Links
Reports said Mr Zuma and Gaddafi had a discussion on the peace and security effort of African Union and other relevant issues.
Earlier Gaddafi himself met with Ugandan president Yoweri Museveni and President Francois Bozize of Central African Republic to discuss AU summit preparation. Gaddafi has a very strong influence and support in Africa and is lobbying better than Malawi.
Comments 1 to 5 of 6 Post a comment
Well; the big powers of Africa always win. Libya going to end up having the AU chairmanship for another one, or two years. Beleive that !!
It would be a travesty if Africans VOLUNTARILY allow colonizing arab invaders in positions of dictation.
What should be upper most on the agenda is removing of continued arab domination in Sudan and in North Africa.
And while we are at it, how about Africans becoming more away and casting off the IMPOSED, FOREIGN and inimical islamic insanity, which has been the evil engine driving much self-destruction in Nigeria!
How is this being taken lightly, Gadaffi is a self proclaimed King who believes in crushing dissent and an embarrassment as a represantative of the AU. Africa is full of power thirsty leaders like Mugabe that bring destruction to their own countries but the AU is not a place where such behavior ought to be tolerated. We cannot continue to throw away the rule book, it is there for a reason and we wonder why we are not going anywhere...
African leaders should remmber the advice and expieriance of late president Nekrumahe of Gahna and Nyerere of Tanzania. Africa is better off in solving the problems of the Continent without the Arab countries of North Africa; at least Nyerere said it before his death. Arab Countries of North Africa always side together against the African Countries south of the Sahara on any important issues concerning the Continent in the Afican Union, in doing so making AU ineffective Insitution.
Gaddafi is just a wicked dictator nobody should beleive him.
See All Comments