Zuma Lights OAU 50th Anniversary Celebration Torch

The AU Commission, on Monday in Addis Ababa handed a symbolic anniversary torch to AU member states to mark the commencement of OAU's 50th anniversary celebrations. The formal ceremony of the anniversary of the celebrations had been scheduled for between May 19 and 27 to coincide with the AU summit in Addis Ababa,

AU's Chairperson, Dr Dlamini Zuma said lighting of the torch and its subsequent hand over to AU member nations symbolised the collective desire to reverse Africa's current story of despair into the real story of opportunities and potentials.

Zuma said, ``These torches are symbol of our collective will to brighten Africa's future. They also symbolise achievements with regard to development, democracy and governance, as well as our pride to belong to Africa.``

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According to her, commemorating OAU's 50th anniversary also coincides with the 10th anniversary of the existence of the AU, which was constituted to promote an integrated, prosperous and peaceful Africa.

She said the anniversary would facilitate the narratives of Africa's past, present and future.

``we hope to enthuse and energise the African population and use their collective energy to accelerate a forward-looking agenda of Pan-Africanism and Renaissance in the 21st century.’’

Zuma said the AU adopted thematic focus areas in its programme, to provide a platform for focused discussions that recognise the areas in which progress were recorded in the past 50 years.

`` These themes include Regional integration, Education and Human Resources as well as Health and Women.``

She said the impact of the main event, which comes up from May 19 to 27 and the subsequent year-long celebrations would assess the extent to which the Pan-African values would have been promoted.

`` These values will underpin the Africa Agenda over the next five decades with the hope that all the delegations will bring these messages back home so that in unison with each African, we memorably celebrate the Golden Jubilee of OAU-AU.``

Zuma urged African people to take their destinies in their hands, as the current realities and future of Africa can only be developed by Africans.

The News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) reports that the Torch of the OAU 50th anniversary was handed over to the Ethiopian Foreign Affairs Minister, Dr Tedros Adhanom of Ethiopia being the current chair of the African Union.

Similar torches were handed to all the Foreign Ministers of all AU member countries for celebrations ahead of the official ceremony.

NAN recalls that Nigeria was among the 32 independent African countries that formed the Organisation of African Unity (OAU) in 1963 in Addis Ababa.

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