The Heads of State Summit of member states of the East African Community (EAC) wrapped up in Arusha yesterday. As usual, the joint communique was dry, diplomatic and hardly explained much. Going by the Secretary General’s speech, everything is on queue; The EAC had a clean audit report in a long time, centres of excellence are up and running in various member states. The EAC even managed to mobilise more than three and a half times the amount of its operational budget from various developing partners and the African Development Fund. In short, there is progress. There is nothing one would not pay to be a fly on the wall to know what really goes on behind closed doors. Some recent leaked correspondence and unfriendly events taking place in some member states prove that free movement of people is becoming a myth. Did the Heads of State discuss regional instability, its sponsors and called them out in a blunt manner? Otherwise talking about drafting a constitution for a political confederation without dealing with all the bad blood is sweeping the region’s problems under the carpet. It could be because of ignorance for not knowing what is discussed when the leaders meet in private, but citizens of this region need to be told that something is being done to clear the air. Otherwise, we risk seeing EAC’s own version of Brexit even before we are done with the integration process. It is everyone’s wish that there is more to those communiques and that despite the hitches, we honestly all get on the same page as regards to regional federation.
