Lagos — OUTLINING his priorities, as the newly-elected chairman of the fifty-three-nation African Union (AU) the president of the small southern African country of Malawi, Bingu Wa Mutharika, told his fellow heads of state on Monday, February 1: "We have decided to focus on food security, transport infrastructure and energy as priorities for driving the agenda for this year."

At the A.U's headquarters in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, heads of state and government of the pan-African body had assembled on Sunday, January 31, for their annual summit, which, at that time of year, was also convened to choose Col. Moammar Qadafi of Libya's successor as the organization's head. In January last year, the strong man of the oil-rich Maghrab state was elected, though under controversial circumstances, as the leader of the organization, and what a twelve-month period his tenure as chairman was.

On the eve of the two-day summit, which came to an end on Tuesday, February 2, there were concerns that a new leader might not emerge after all. Col. Qadafi, some reports said, had been reluctant to surrender the post because as he was alleged to have claimed, he still had so much to achieve, and in any case, Libya was big time contributor to the organization's 200-million-Dollar annual budget.

Coming against a Malawian chair, it had been feared, in some quarters, that Qadafi had indeed began to throw his country's financial weight around and promising co-leaders hefty monetary help, if they agreed to go to Addis Ababa to support his bid to remain in place as chair.

But, as it turned out, the candidate put forward by the southern African regional grouping, SADEC, namely the president f impoverished Malawi, made a success of his own lawful bid to win the headship of the AU for the next twelve months. Apparently exasperated at Moammar Qadafi's mavericks and oftentimes authoritarian leadership style, including attempts to force his agenda down the throats of co-leaders, most of the assembled heads of state and government called the Colonel's bluff in favour of allowing tradition and procedure to stand. Hence the decision by the leaders to elect seventy-five-year-old Mr. Mutharika, who now becomes the fourth democratically elected leader in five years to be chosen to head the AU.

Last week's gathering was the fourteenth straight summit of the re-named AU and not surprisingly, peace and security, with specific reference to war-torn Somalia, were high on the agenda. Delivering his inaugural speech as chairman, President Mutharika, who only won a constitutional second presidential tenure in his country, following popular elections last year, pledged to make political stability a priority on a continent infested with coup d'états and intra-national conflicts. His agenda is indeed an ambitious one.

In his address, he said it is time for Africa to put a stop to the recent trend toward unconsitutional power-grabs.

"We must declare a war on unconsitutional change of government on the African soil, "he said. "And resolve o take strong and necessary measures against all authors of coup d'états and those that provide the means to unseat constitutional, elected governments."

The newly-elected AU chairman expressed satisfaction at the return to constitutional order in Mauritania and Guinea Bissau over the past year. The president also noted what he termed positive changes in Guinea-Conakry. But, he was to stress that his twelve-month tenure would focus on other trouble-spots, those he referred to as "intractable".

Consequently, he referred to the "awesome challenges in Madagascar, Somalia and Darfur".

He said: "We should remain steadfast in the use of all means at our disposal to resolve what seems to be an intractable situation".

A former World Bank economist President Mutharika also said he would insist on "urgent steps" to improve Africa's food security as well as energy generation capacities. "I'm still determined," he told his fellow leaders. "As chairman of the African Union, to put measures together to ensure that within the next five years, no child in Africa should die for hunger and malnutrition".

As for the outgoing chairman of the organization, Col. Qadafi, he had devoted his farewell speech (On Sunday, January 31) to heaping questions on the AU's "incompetence". He accused the pan-African body of doing little more that "passing resolutions and declarations" claiming that if he known in advance how little power the post of that AU chairman carries, he would not have accepted the job in the first place.

Making a direct reference to that, President Muthrika told his assembled colleagues that it is high time that image was changed.

"May I reiterate the need our organization to go beyond making decisions, declarations and resolutions. We need to take action, now".

Several of the summit's participating heads of state told reporters, at the sidelines of the Addis Ababa summit, that they were glad to show-case the fourth democratically-elected leader to head their organization in half a decade. They said that helped to furnish the A.U's reputation for promoting democratic ideals. Only Libyan leader, Mr. Qadafi, broke the string, because he came to power in his country in the wake of a military coup against King Idris, four years ago.

Following the end of the summit, Tuesday, Mr. Mutharika was still content to speak to journalist. He told them that he will oppose any move to limit the post of chairman to "only constitutionality elected".

Before declaring the summit closed, the octogenarian Malawian leader announced a postponement of the next gathering by continental leaders. By tradition, especially since the beginning of the 2000's, the twice-yearly summits of the AU are held on the first days of February and July. But, this year, the first ten days of July will be consumed with "soccer madness", as Malawi's fellow SADEC member-country, South Africa, will be playing host to World Cup matches. For that reasons, i.e the reasons of South Africa hosting the first Mundial ever to take place on African soil, the next summit has been re-scheduled for July 25 through 27, in Kampala, the capital of the east African nation of Uganda.