The African Capacity Building Foundation (ACBF) Thursday called for the establishment of Africa Central Bank and Africa Monetary Fund.
Emmanuel Nnadozie, the ACBF Executive Secretary, made the suggestion in Lagos at the final plenary session of the 2017 Annual General Conference of Nigerian Bar Association (NBA), saying that these two institutions were needed in Africa to foster economic integration.
“Everybody has a role to play in the regional integration of Africa. We need to ensure that pan African credit institutions are adequately involved in the integration process,” he said, at the conference themed; “African Business: Penetrating through Institution Building’’.
Nnadozie also advocated that the anthem of the African Union (AU) be taken alongside the member states’ national anthems at continental events, also stressing the need to address political issues confronting trans-boundary integration in Africa as well as means of broadening intra-regional infrastructure.
“There is no question that regional integration is critical to Africa’s development.
“A lot has been achieved since the idea of regional integration was introduced to the continent though there is a lot of room for improvement.
“Of Africa’s 55 countries, only five belong to five regional economic committees, while four belong to three of such.
“Regional integration in Africa has tended to follow a top down approach. Most African countries are intergovernmental in nature making it difficult to make decisions.
“It is important to address these issues; we need transformational leadership, Africanness, allow a solid financial capacity and foster a regional citizen development process.’’
Nnadozie said that the ACBF, which was founded in 1991 to address the issues of designing and building the human capital of Africans, had invested over $1billion to help various governments in the continent.
