In C te d'Ivoire, mostly Muslim Northerners are getting fed up with the political dominance of Abidjan. Most Sahelian states are devided between northern pastoralist peoples and southern agriculturalist peoples. Only countries, such as Mali, which have seeded power from the central government to local entities, close to the people, have been able to curb conflict and secessionism. Mali's courageous road to decentralisation and power sharing truly represents one of Africa's recent successes and the implementation of the people's power alternative. Mali's recent positive economic development also demonstrates that such a policy can pay off.
Empires belong to the past.
These new unions equal the old empires in size and external force, but beat them in economic and internal force, as they are created by voluntary participation by auto-determining peoples. The peoples of Africa will also find their way to unity, but it goes through auto-determination and voluntary participation. Although a country like Botswana is not ethnically monolithic, its democratic and enlightened government manages to represent the Setswana people. And unity might be found through the voluntary participation of hundreds of seceded peoples in an African Union. Africa and its peoples is on the road to claim the millennium.