On June 7th, 2024, the East Africa Community held its 23rd Extraordinary Summit of the Heads of State of the member countries. The EAC is a regional organization that brings together the countries of East Africa namely Tanzania, Uganda and Kenya, Central African countries of DR Congo, Rwanda, Burundi and South Sudan, and the Horn of African country of Somalia. It is a disparate group of countries which consists of extremely fragile countries like Somalia, countries which have known no peace from birth like the DR Congo, Rwanda, Burundi, and South Sudan and quiet and inward-looking countries like Tanzania and dictatorships like Uganda and wheeler dealer countries like Kenya.

Accordingly, it must obviously have challenges and one such challenge involves one of its latest recruits, the DR Congo, which did not attend the aforenoted Summit, which was, indeed, an important meeting.

The Summit was to appoint the organization’s new Secretary General Her Excellency Veronica Mueni Nduva from Kenya. Kinshasa did not attend the Summit and it did not even bother to apologize for its absence denoting that DR Congo is very unhappy at having joined the EAC and perhaps wants to opt out of it.

But that is not the only problem of the EAC. It appears that Kenya’s role of behaving as the controller and manager of the organization with Ruto, Kenya’s President, appearing to have abandoned his pre-election and even after election African rhetoric.

The economic profile of the region is not all that well as debts and deficit budgets mar the region. They seem all to be reliant on foreign assistance, which only extends and promotes foreign interference in the region’s affairs, thus denying the region’s own goals of internally generated development.

The chaos created by Kenya’s attempts to improve its revenues through additional taxes have raised the ire of its population, which have been demonstrating across the nation leading to the arrest of many and injuring many more on June 21st, 2024.

Almost all the countries of the EAC are mired in internal security crises which threatens not only their own individual securities but also the security of all neighboring countries. The region is also marred by disparities involving not only languages but also cultures, religions, social needs, security and cultural contexts, and indeed, political ambitions. Note Somalia, the latest member to join the EAC is also in the Arab League whose goals differ greatly from the goals of the EAC. Would Somalia abandon the Arab League or the EAC? Down the road, Somalia would have to make a choice as the two organizations differ greatly in culture, outlook and ambitions.

Some of the EAC member countries are also members of other African regional organizations, which do not fully align with the needs of the EAC. Countries like Burundi, Rwanda, and DR Congo are in the Economic Community of Central African States (ECCAS), while Tanzania is also a member of the SADC group of countries. Somalia, South Sudan, Uganda, Kenya, and Somalia are also members of the Intergovernmental Authority on Development (IGAD).

This paints the EAC as an organization whose members are as yet undecided with respect to their final destiny. Perhaps they are looking for some foreign party to decide for them, much like in the nineteenth century when they were all created by Europe. Is this possible in the closing years of the first quarter of the 21st century?

Some of the member countries of the EAC stir trouble in other member countries. Rwanda, Uganda and Burundi are all involved in DR Congo civil unrest and mineral exploitation and smuggling in the DR Congo thus highlighting why the DR Congo may not be at ease with the organization. But Kenya and Uganda are also involved in Somalia supposedly for peacekeeping but actually for other nefarious reasons including keeping Somalia unbalanced, unstable, and fragile. Kenya’s ambitions on Somalia’s waters and its southern regions are all known and documented.

The EAC being a disparate group of countries does not really have a leader nation or hegemon not in terms of military and security, or economic or even standing out leader from any of the countries. No wonder it appears to be an organization, which will break up again into its constituent parts of the original East Africa- Tanzania, Uganda and Kenya while the other members may resort back to their original communities.

One can take a cue from the ECOWAS, which has now broken into the Sahelian countries of Mali, Burkina Faso and Niger and the others. It is what awaits the EAC. The DR Congo and Somalia, after the current administration, may likely be the first countries to leave the group. South Sudan has not benefitted much from joining the EAC and may also likely abandon its membership as soon as it finds another alternative. Some of the countries of the EAC have, indeed, abused South Sudan which appears to have abandoned the idea of exporting its oil through Kenya’s Port Lamu.

The great lakes region of the EAC and most notably Rwanda, Burundi, DR Congo and Uganda have security issues with fear mostly driving all members to extremes. Rwanda does, indeed, has problems with Uganda but also Burundi and DR Congo and all the four countries have similar issues with the others. This is an African issue with resources and ethnicity always at the core.

The core concept of the organization does appear not be internally generated but managed and maneuvered from beyond the region and forces that have no interest in the wellbeing of the region may be pushing the agenda of the EAC. The struggle and competition is between larger countries as to who would have access to the enormous resources of the region.

The DR Congo has known no peace since its birth and so was the case in many other members of the region. It perhaps more opportune to limit the growth of block to manageable sizes such as the East Africa remaining its East Africa, the central Africa remaining its Central Africa and Somalia moving to its Horn African region while South Sudan goes back to its Sudan in the form of new blocks that are closer relations and cultural affinities.

The EAC seems to have erred in expanding and continuing to expand over the years and bringing together countries that share very little such as Somalia and the DR Congo which are as far apart as two continents.

The countries of the EAC are all agricultural-based economies. Even Somalia which has the longest coast in Africa does not have a marine-based economy but agriculture as the basis of its economy in the form of farming and animal husbandry. This would no doubt create disputes as has been the case between Tanzania and Kenya or Uganda and Kenya over many decades. Such disputes involve chicken, milk, meat, sugar, and other agricultural products among members. Despite the close proximity of countries, the distances involved are enormous and hence the region to date faces physical infrastructural challenges in terms of roads, rail, marine, and aerospace.

The instability of the majority of its members is another major weakness of the region. This includes the old DR Congo issues, the dictatorial regime of Uganda which does not pose well for the country, which may cause more problems for the country as the aging ruler weakens by the year. Kenya struggles with its tribal electioneering problems and Somalia remains the marker of a typical fragile state. South Sudan has known no peace with itself since its birth. The issues of Burundi and Rwanda add to the long list of disputes among the members of the region.

Although there is a lot of fanfare in the expansion and the ultimate goal of the region of becoming a federation in the long term, all is not well in the EAC as we often see in print and otherwise. The security matters of the region, the terror groups operating and the political immaturity of many of its politicians add to the fragility of the region. Many of the citizenry of the region have very little idea of the region and its mechanisms, and it remains an elitist organization.