Today is AU day; hurray! We’re supposed to celebrate our liberation from the yoke of the white man and look to the future with optimism, or something like that.

Yet you might discover that no one seems to be in any mood to celebrate anything. Thankfully, no one is making a big deal of it on television so I don’t have to feel any more disgust than I’m already feeling.

So on this special day, it seems emblematic that Ghana and Nigeria, brethren in so many ways, are facing very huge challenges that threaten every plans and aspirations to creating healthy economies and subsequently a fitting standard of living for citizens. It is worth noting that we’re certainly two of the biggest and notable economies on the continent, certainly the two biggest in ECOWAS.

So how do these two continental behemoths enter African Union Day? Ghana is grappling with the worst power crisis in her history. I’m sure I do not have to lecture anyone on dumsor and its effects, on virtually every aspect of the economy; and the incompetence it requires to have left it running for three years and counting. That is old news.

What is fresh news though, is that Nigeria is facing an unprecedented fuel shortage that has led to airlines stopping operations and crippled businesses. It also has the butterfly effect of affecting gas supply through the West African Gas pipeline, leading to a ripple effect that affects Ghana and worsens our own crisis.

“Nigeria produces more than two million barrels of petroleum a DAY but imports refined fuel because it does not have enough functioning refineries” This fact, which I read online yesterday, sums up everything that is wrong with Africa and why we have centuries to get to the level where we can have the lives the vast amount of resources we command deserve.

It is an EPIC FAIL on the part of Nigeria to produce so much crude yet suffer a fuel shortage. They are one of the biggest oil producers in the WORLD! To think that 55 years after Independence they still depend on the white man to refine the fuel they produce and then sell it back to them, is mind boggling and sums up everything wrong with the African mentality.

As our leaders have shown, they aren’t any better. So it is a continent wide failure of Africa to produce the required leaders who would take the bull by the horns and do what needs to be done. Instead we have been cursed with opportunistic, self serving hypocrites whose only interest has always been to loot as much as they can and then hand over to the next band of looters.

If Ghana and Nigeria are facing these challenges, just imagine what some of the other less endowed nations are facing. Of course not every country is in such dire straits, but even those showing progress are not showing as much as they should.

So I don’t know if there’ll be a summit or anything to mark this day, but if there is it should be with 53 failures hanging their heads in shame. Instead it’ll be 53 despots happily celebrating their luck to be entrusted with the resources of their nations which they summarily choose to misappropriate.

African Union Day, it should be a day of reflection- to look back and ponder how to avoid all the plethora of mistakes. Because on the individual level, and continent wide; there’s nothing to celebrate.