According to the EAC Secretariat, the Summit of EAC Heads of State acknowledged that the establishment of a Federation was first agreed upon in 1963 by the EAC’s Founding Fathers—President Jomo Kenyatta (Kenya), Dr. Apollo Milton Obote (Uganda), and Mwalimu Julius Kambarage Nyerere (Tanganyika, now Tanzania). However, it was noted that the bureaucrats entrusted with advancing this goal failed to follow up on the matter.

It was noted that Tanganyika and Zanzibar went ahead to form the United Republic of Tanzania, adding that the federation should be extended to transform the region into one as envisaged by the three Founding Fathers.

The Summit members were speaking on November 29, 2024 at the Arusha International Conference Grounds in Arusha, Tanzania during the High-Level Side Event on the EAC’s 25th Anniversary.

The EAC leaders further agreed on the need to fully operationalise the Customs Union and Common Market protocols to enhance intra-regional trade which is still relatively low.

In his remarks, Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni said that EAC should be celebrating more than 1,000 years of trade interconnectedness within the region instead of focusing on the achievements of the past 25 years only.

President Museveni said that East Africa’s Coastal, Great Lakes and Lake Victoria Basin regions were a Connected Trade Area (CTA) interlinked by trade routes along the current Central and Northern Transport Corridors extending all the way to Mesopotamia in present day Iraq. The partition of Africa into spheres of influence in 1884 by the European colonial powers disconnected the CTA by segmenting it into separate countries.

“The colonial powers succeeded due to the region’s internal weaknesses. We became a DTA – disconnected trade area. Kenyatta, Obote and Museveni took the bold step to form the East African Federation in 1963 in a brave effort to dismantle this DTA,” said President Museveni.

“However, some actors let us down and did not follow up on the three President’s idea of forming a political federation. Tanganyika linked up with Zanzibar to form the United Republic of Tanzania, which played a significant role in liberating southern Africa from the yokes of colonialism,” said President Museveni.

President Museveni said that the formation of the East African Federation would have forestalled Idi Amin’s ascendancy to power in Uganda, solved in good time the problems Burundi and Rwanda, and mitigated the internal conflicts in the Federal Republic of Somalia and South Sudan that caused much suffering to the people of the two countries.

President Museveni affirmed that Uganda was fully committed to promoting free trade in East Africa and was against the practice of banning products, delicensing products to deny them market access or protecting markets to limit competition for locally produced commodities.

On his part, Kenyan President William Samoei Ruto said that a survey taken way back in 2010 indicated that East Africans were fully behind the integration process and supported the establishment of a political federation.

President Ruto hailed the Republics of Burundi, Uganda and Kenya, which have already undertaken national consultations on the drafting of the constitution for the EAC Political Confederation, and thanked Rwanda, South Sudan and Tanzania for having set dates for national consultations on the process.

President Ruto said that EAC was the foremost regional economic community in Africa with intra-regional trade standing between 25 – 28%, which is the highest in Africa.

On trade, President Ruto disclosed that more Partner States were benefiting from the share of intra-regional trade with Tanzania having overtaken Kenya in terms of the volumes of intra-regional trade.

The Kenyan Head of State underscored the importance of peace and security as prerequisites for local and foreign direct investment, adding that it should be a collective responsibility of Partner States to keep the region peaceful and to invest in its stability.

President Ruto said that towards that end, Kenya had provided a forum for South Sudan’s political actors to talk to one another in order to stabilise the country. Kenya was also working with Somalia and Uganda to reduce tension and stabilise the Horn of Africa region.

President Ruto said that Kenya was in agreement with the Democratic Republic of the Congo’s desire to merge the Luanda and Nairobi peace process under the Luanda process, adding that Kenya had no reservations with the Nairobi Process mediator, retired President Uhuru Kenyatta, being enjoined to the Luanda process.

Speaking at the event, Tanzania’s President Samia Suluhu Hassan underscored her country’s commitment to promoting environmental conservation and combating climate change through transition to clean energy and an aggressive afforestation programme.

On his part, Somalia’s President Hassan Sheikh Mohamud said that his country’s entry into the EAC was the culmination of a long desire to join her neighbours in East Africa as part of a robust economic and political entity.

Also present at the event were Burundian Vice President Prosper Bazombanza, EAC Secretary General Veronica Nduva, Ministers, Members of the Diplomatic Community, Development Partners, among other delegates.

EAC heads of state have agreed to expedite the establishment of a political federation as the fourth and ultimate stage in the EAC integration.