A disunited continent? Mogadishu 74’ revisited

The 1974 OAU summit in Mogadishu revealed a disunited continent pulling apart, struggling to reconcile its competing blocs 

Fifty years ago this month, Mogadishu hosted the eleventh summit of the Organisation of African Unity. Simultaneously, in 1974, President Siad Barre’s socialist project was at its high point. The OAU meeting was a chance to showcase his new Somalia. Barre’s government had spared no expense, acquiring a fleet of Mercedes-Benz to whisk its guests around the capital. The conference convened at the gleaming white modernist People’s Hall – perhaps among the architecture that Nuruddin Farah had in his sights when the novelist decried Barre’s “showy pieces of tumorous architecture” in Sweet and Sour Milk.  

In his opening speech, Barre declared that “the Somali people are a revolutionary people, who believe in revolutionary Africa where justice and peace prevail” and who were “now engaged in full battle against imperialism and neo-colonial exploitation”. Yet behind this bravado, he recognised that the summit came at a turning point for Africa. In April, a revolution in Lisbon signalled the collapse of the Portuguese empire, but the future of its liberated colonies remained uncertain. At the United Nations, third world states agitated for the creation of a just ‘New International Economic Order’ to redress global inequalities. The Cold War appeared to be entering a lull. A moment of geopolitical and economic reckoning demanded decisions and choices. “It is my earnest belief”, stated Barre, “that the only way Africa can meet such a challenge is through greater unity and cohesion coupled with more forceful action in matters relating to inter-African cooperation.” 

But those ideas of unity, cohesion, and cooperation among African states were more strained than ever before. The OAU – the predecessor of today’s African Union – had been formed in 1963. It was a compromise that watered down the ideas of a ‘United States of Africa’ championed by the likes of Kwame Nkrumah. Rather than pool the power and resources of independent states into a strong federal government, the OAU protected the national sovereignty of its member states. An administrative secretariat, based in Addis Ababa, coordinated its activities, including the annual summit, where Africa’s heads of state sought to establish common ground in ongoing struggles for anticolonial liberation and economic independence.   

At the time of the Mogadishu summit, those national interests revolved principally around the question of oil. In late 1973, Arab-led oil price hikes introduced against the backdrop of conflict in the Middle East had rocked Africa’s fragile economies. While the continent applauded Arab states for seizing control of their natural resources from exploitative foreign oil firms, Africans were left struggling to pay spiralling petroleum bills. The OAU’s secretariat had rushed to coordinate Africa’s response, as its members severed relations with Israel and pledged support for Palestine. Delegations jetted off to Arab capitals in the hope of obtaining oil at reduced prices. They returned empty handed. Bitterness towards the Arab petrostates grew. Somalia occupied a pivotal position in these debates, having been admitted to the Arab League in February. At the Mogadishu summit, Barre defended the Arab position in his opening speech and called for his audience to use the moment to deliver the ‘unlimited’ potential for African-Arab cooperation. It proved wishful thinking, as proceedings descended into acrimony over the mundane matter of a bureaucratic election.  

The trials of Nzo Ekangaki  

In late January 1974, the Paris-based magazine Jeune Afrique received what its editor described as a “very short and very interesting” telegram. “A large European consultancy group has offered to provide free help for African countries to overcome, in all areas, the energy problems facing them. Its offer has been accepted by the OAU”. Intrigued, Jeune Afrique investigated.  

The magazine’s 25 February issue carried its sensational findings. ‘Scandal at the OAU’ screamed the front cover. Inside, Jeune Afrique exposed an agreement signed between the OAU’s administrative secretary-general, the Cameroonian Nzo Ekangaki, and the multinational firm Lonrho. Nzo Ekangaki had been a surprise candidate for the position of administrative secretary-general when he was elected in 1972. But his CV fitted the bill: aged 38, Ekangaki spoke both English and French (and German), had studied in Britain and Nigeria, where he built a platform in student politics, and had attended the landmark 1958 All-African People’s Conference in Accra.   

As the oil crisis unfolded in late 1973, Ekangaki took up a prominent role. Clearly, the global dimensions of the crisis and Africa’s weak bargaining power demanded a common response; negotiations on a nation-by-nation level would only lead to fragmentation and division. An emergency OAU meeting in Algiers established a committee of seven member states, tasked with approaching the Arab League to address the oil issue. This ‘Committee of Seven’ met for the first time on 29 December. Prior to setting off on a tour of Arab capitals, the Seven also authorised Ekangaki to appoint a consultant who could provide expert technical assistance to allow member states to secure adequate supplies of oil.  

Ekangaki quickly found his consultant. The trouble was that he plumped for a multinational with a troubled reputation: Lonrho. Originally incorporated in 1909 as the London and Rhodesian Mining and Land Company, the company’s history was tightly bound up with settler colonialism in southern Africa. While it maintained major commercial interests in Rhodesia and South Africa, by the 1970s the firm had broadened its operations. As researchers Suzanne Cronjé, Margaret Ling, and Gillian Cronjé wrote in their damning examination of the firm;  

Lonrho is a multinational company whose main sphere of operations is in Africa, both the white-ruled south and the independent African states. It has over five hundred subsidiaries and associated companies, and its interests are extraordinarily diverse: they include gold and copper mines, sugar-cane plantations, shipping lines and property, breweries and newspapers.  

The same African states that vociferously opposed the white minority regimes quietly welcomed Lonrho’s investments in their own countries. The firm’s sprawling activities were headed by its chief executive, ‘Tiny’ Rowland, who moved easily among friends and acquaintances in Africa’s elite circles. While the continent reeled from the oil crisis, Rowland sensed an opportunity to expand his empire. Even prior to the oil shock, Lonhro was exploring the potential to act as an intermediary in transporting petroleum from Arab exporters and African importers. Indeed, Lonrho had actually approached the OAU secretariat offering support in securing oil supplies before the Seven had instructed Ekangaki to seek out a consultant.   

The Committee of Seven had authorised Ekangaki to appoint consultants to advise on petroleum matters – that was not in dispute. Thereafter, memories differed. John Malecela, the Tanzanian foreign minister, said that the committee had instructed Ekangaki to choose his experts from a non-aligned state, such as Yugoslavia. More broadly, members resented how Ekangaki, a civil servant, had signed the contract with Lonrho before placing it in front of the foreign ministers. Ekangaki had clashed with Malecela the previous year, as the former sought to wrest control over the activities of the Dar es Salaam-based African Liberation Committee, which coordinated the struggle against white minority rule, into the hands of the OAU’s bureaucracy. There were other grumbles about his behaviour too: critics felt that he had mismanaged the secretariat, abused his financial privileges, and appointed too many of his Cameroonian compatriots to top jobs.  

There were further issues with the agreement. Lonrho had no prior experience in the oil sector. Yet Ekangaki’s arrangements gave the firm wide scope for involvement in all commercial aspects of future operations to supply oil to Africa. Lonrho officials were to have been issued with diplomatic ‘laissez passer’ documents, effectively giving them the same travel status as members of the OAU secretariat. Jeune Afrique reproduced a telegram sent to Ekangaki by Uganda’s Idi Amin, describing Lonrho as “one of the leading imperialist and Zionist companies with roots in southern Africa where it specialises in supplying racist minority regimes with military weapons, propaganda machinery and petroleum products”. Amin’s accusations stretched the truth: there was no evidence that Lonrho supplied weapons to white minority states or that it had Zionist tendencies. But his words fuelled the fires now raging around Ekangaki. Kenya’s Daniel arap Moi announced that it would be ‘contrary to the UN sanctions against Rhodesia’ if the OAU employed Lonrho ‘to be an oil agent between us and the Arabs.’  

At an OAU foreign ministers meeting in Ethiopia on 28 February, Ekangaki attempted to defend his decisions, but the weakness of his position was clear. Only civil unrest on the streets of Addis Ababa, which led to the abandonment of the conference (and eventually the downfall of Haile Selassie) gave him a stay of execution. Meanwhile, Lonrho sought a swift exit from what had become a toxic deal. On 11 March, it revoked the contract with the OAU to limit damage to its brand in Africa. But Ekangaki’s critics still scented blood and demanded his resignation. Eventually, he recognised that his position was untenable and resigned in May, just days before the summit opened in Mogadishu.  

A divided house: black smoke in Mogadishu  

Proceedings in Mogadishu, which should have been devoted to the pressing questions presented by the oil crisis and ongoing fight for liberation, were instead dominated by a chaotic struggle over Ekangaki’s successor. In his opening speech, Barre himself made only an oblique reference to “the problems that have bedevilled the OAU secretariat during the past year”. Whereas previous OAU elections had been the outcome of negotiations prior to the conference, there was little time (or perhaps inclination) to follow this pattern in Mogadishu. As one journalist noted, “The OAU had reached a point where the procedural rules were sufficiently established for them to be used by member states for political purposes”.  

The vote was held behind closed doors, but quickly became a public affair. Somalia’s foreign minister, Omer Arteh, took the unprecedented step of holding a press conference to declare his candidacy. He received support from the Arab bloc, which perceived an opportunity to close up the divisions which had been opened by the fallout from the oil crisis. But Somalia had a poor reputation among the senior cohort of African statesmen, led by Tanzania’s Julius Nyerere and Zambia’s Kenneth Kaunda. Its claims to Ethiopian and Kenyan territory and irredentist activities contravened the OAU’s firm defence of Africa’s national borders inherited from colonial rule. So a second, rival candidate emerged: the Zambian foreign minister, Vernon Mwaanga (who, ironically, was the sometime editor of the partly Lonrho-owned Times of Zambia). In turn, a group of francophone countries viewed this move as an anglophone, Commonwealth claim to power, and so chose to back Arteh. Cameroon’s President Ahmadou Ahidjo also believed he had the right to put forward a replacement to see out Ekangaki’s remaining term in office, but his suggestion of William Eteki Mboumoua received little support.  

The political vortex created by the Lonhro affair and Ekangaki’s resignation appeared to lay bare fundamental divisions in Africa’s supposedly united continental bloc: anglophone versus francophone, Arabs against the rest. The international media lapped up these tensions. There was a grain of truth in these verdicts, especially as the oil shock had led to mutterings – mostly private, but occasionally public – that Arab petrostates had betrayed poorer relations south of the Sahara. But, as South African Observer journalist, Colin Legum, reported, opposition to Arteh’s nomination was driven by a distrust of Somalia’s regional policy and unease at the behaviour of the oil exporters, rather than anti-Arabism per se.  

The result was a deadlock. In a situation resembling a papal conclave, twenty separate votes were held to find a winner between Arteh and Mwaanga. According to some reports, at one-point Arteh fell just a single vote short of the necessary two-thirds majority. An informal ad hoc subcommittee, chaired by Zaire’s Mobutu Sese Seko, had no more success in breaking the impasse. But as day turned to night and then to day again, the need for compromise became clear. Barre, as OAU chairman, suggested that Cameroon name a candidate. Exhausted, delegates voted for William Eteki Mboumoua – Ahidjo’s initial proposal – as the new administrative secretary-general.  

In Jeune Afrique, the same magazine which had exposed the Ekangaki affair, Eteki set out his vision for a new Africa. In time-honoured fashion, he called for unity and solidarity between member states, challenging Africans to overcome factionalism based on the divisive legacies of colonialism. Yet he oversaw an increasingly divided house: the following year, Tanzania and Zambia boycotted the OAU’s twelfth summit in Kampala in protest at human rights abuses in Idi Amin’s Uganda. In 1977, Somalia launched an ultimately disastrous invasion of Ethiopia, desecrating the reputation of the Barre regime at home and abroad, and causing material damage to its socialist project from which it never recovered. African attempts to gain favourable oil prices came to nothing, with Arab support for the rest of the continent channelled through a new landscape of development funds. These were done in the name of African-Arab cooperation, but were directed from Riyadh and Abu Dhabi, rather than Addis Ababa – a turning point that, seen from today’s perspective, appears all the more significant.