ARUSHA, Tanzania -- They may not be the best that the African continent has today in terms of leadership, but they are certainly the most acceptable in terms of nurturing regional cooperation.

This is the single most plausible reason we will have to listen to them no matter how much we disagree with them on a lot of domestic issues back in our home countries.

For starters, just two weeks ago, Museveni relinquished his chairman of the IGAD regional outfit to Mwai Kibaki after his term ended at a recent IGAD meeting in Nairobi. During his tenure Somalia and Sudan signed very important peace accords in Nairobi that are still holding to this day. Despite teething problems for the two nations, there is strong hope that Sudan and Somalia will never go back again to the destructive civil wars that engulfed their citizens for decades.

Later last week, Jakaya Kikwete of Tanzania, yet again relinquished his chairmanship of the East African Community to the very Mwai Kibaki of Kenya for another year as per the articles of the Community.

For the delegates that attended the Seventh Summit of the East African Community, that was also attended by Burundian President as well as the Prime Minister of Rwanda, the message that came from the three East African Community presidents was clear and pregnant with real hope despite sporadic voices of pessimism in the crowd.

Jakaya Kikwete set the pace by stating categorically his unswerving belief and dedication to the realization of the East African Federation in the shortest time possible. He wasn't afraid to state that leaders come and go but the community was there to stay and outlive all of us. That the benefits of the Federation far outweighed any disadvantages that may arise. That it was time East Africans overcame their unfounded and sometimes misplaced fears and forged ahead with the union.

Mwai Kibaki was emphatic that the biggest challenge and certainly the most important assignment for the three Heads of State was to conclude the Federation as soon as possible. For that reason alone, they had created two institutions to deal with the issue. First they had appointed three special cabinet ministers solely for the East African Community. Second, the Summit had approved the appointment of a third Deputy Secretary General in charge of Fast- tracking the Federation. It is the same special project that was steered by Hon Amos Wako of Kenya in mid 2004.

Kibaki was particularly thrilled that Rwanda and Burundi had applied to join the Community and that the process was in its final stages with the likelihood that they would get full membership before the end of 2006. This in effect means that by the time the East African Common Market is fully operational in three years time the two French speaking countries will have become members of the East African family.

But perhaps the most pointed speech of the day was made by Yoweri Kaguta Museveni of Uganda when he challenged the rest of Africa to wake up and move away from failed leadership all over the place.

Museveni categorically blamed the plight of Africa on misguided leadership that, "left things undone what they ought to have done yet went ahead to do things they ought not to have done. Therefore, there was no truth in them", quoting from the book of Deuteronomy in the Bible.

He reiterated Mwai Kibaki's pledge that fast-tracking the federation was the most important project this time round for the Community adding that African leaders had a penchant for doing the wrong things at the wrong time all the times.

In his opinion, reviving the dream of one East African State was the best gift the present leadership could give to their people, noting that long before colonialism arrived on our shores, the whole region lived as one community; trading and socialising together.

According to Museveni, creating a single state in the region would make us stronger economically and reduce our dependence on foreign powers that were prone to giving us orders and instructions from time to time. He opined that any sovereign state that allowed itself to take orders from another foreign power was a cursed nation according to the Bible.

He gave an example of the current energy crisis in East Africa which he didn't think was an energy crisis but rather a crisis of self esteem and fear of powerful nations that were keen to continue dominating our politics and economies. He said that in the last two to three years, Uganda had planned to build enough dams that could have made the region sufficient in energy generation despite the drought, but his "foreign masters would not hear of it!" He pledged that from now hence, Uganda would go ahead and build the same dams with Ugandan money whether foreigners like it or not.

Amanya Mushega's parting shots were as stinging as they could be. He proposed that Kiswahili must be given its rightful place in the Community by making it the language of choice. He humorously suggested that all future employees to the secretariat that came from Kenya and Uganda would undergo compulsory Kiswahili training program before taking up their duties.

Amanya also found it strange that ten years after establishing the East African Community, we were yet to declare all flights domestic, standardize hotel and game park fees, school fees and internationalize our East African Passport.

Explaining an analogy of "a thumb before the eye blocks a mountain", the outgoing Secretary General lamented that had the East African Community not been massacred way back in 1977, we would be very far in development today. We would today not be talking of admitting Rwanda and Burundi. We would today be boasting more than ten countries in Eastern and Central Africa. We would today not be talking of infrastructure, energy, health, famine and disease. We would today be negotiating with the European Union and America on how to develop our nuclear facilities for peaceful purposes.