Head of Political Studies Department of the Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology (KNUST), Dr. Richard Amoako-Baah has described as an honour, President Robert Mugabe’s new appointment as chairman of the African Union (AU).
90-year-old Mugabe, who has ruled his country since 1980, succeeds Mauritania’s President Mohamed Ould Abdel Aziz as the new chairman of the 54-nation AU.
The announcement was made at the African Union’s two-day heads of state summit at the organization’s headquarters in Ethiopia’s capital.
Traditionally, the chairmanship is given to the leader of the country hosting the next summit, but exceptions have been made as in 2005 when it was the turn of Sudan’s Omar al-Bashir but African leaders bowed to international pressures in the uproar over killings in Darfur. They passed over al-Bashir and instead kept Nigeria’s Olusegun Obasanjo for a second year.
Zimbabwe, a once-prosperous nation of 13 million people in southern Africa, has struggled since Mugabe’s government began seizing white-owned farms in 2000. Mugabe is accused of abuses by human rights groups.
But Dr. Amoako-Baah on Adom FM’s News believed that Robert Mugabe’s capabilities have earned him that title.
According to him, since the person is capable of holding that position, age should not be a factor
“If Mugabe can lead at this age, then I must say that anyone at all can also be in that position, In fact, it is an interesting thing and such an honorary position which I think he should be praised for” he said.
