As a torchbearer for the new Africa - young, dynamic, and committed to Pan-Africanism - the AU's first six years have not been easy. Launched in 2002 in Durban, South Africa, the union is a result of Africa's demand for change, and is tasked with delivering it. The Constitutive Act of the African Union imposed the highest standards on the continent's leaders - unconstitutional changes in government were to be prohibited and intervention in the internal affairs of member states was to be allowed in the case of gross human rights abuses.

In that bright dawn of the African renaissance, there was vigorous debate about the new Africa. The idea of uniting the continent captivated many people - it suggested freedom of movement, integration of economies, curbing of corruption, and creation of continental institutions such as the Pan-African Parliament. The New Partnership for Africa's Development (NePAD) held out the promise of accelerating growth.

The flame burnt brightly in the hands of the leaders that Africa chose: a principled, elected Pan-Africanist, Thabo Mbeki, as the first president and a former democratic Head of State, Alpha Oumar Konaré, as the first fully-constituted AU chairperson.

Change was the slogan. Today, that charismatic son of Africa, Barack Obama, has galvanized a generation of young American voters with the promise that "we are the change". America has an inexhaustible capacity to regenerate itself, to tap the energy of the young and to recreate itself. Africa is a much younger continent - half of our people are twenty or younger - and our youth are an ever-creative fountain of new ideas.

But, where are they among the ranks of Africa's top leaders and officials?

At the birth of the AU, the promise of change burned bright. Today, that torch is flickering. The promise has not been kept. At the AU summit three months ago, the assembled Heads of State were faced with the challenge of picking a new Chairperson to lead Africa's premier institution. The man or woman they chose would be the most senior civil servant in the continent, an individual whose leadership would shape its future. Africa demanded a new face, promising energy and commitment.

This was the opportunity for a continent-wide debate. There should have been a vigorous debate among African leaders and opinion-makers about the man or woman to lead it. Ordinary people across the length and breadth of Africa should have been canvassed.

What do they expect from the AU? What sort of institution do they want? How can the AU be in the forefront of creating a new Africa that is the dream across the continent? Should it continue to take on peacekeeping challenges, as in Darfur and Somalia, or should it hand these responsibilities to the UN and focus on the politics of conflict prevention and management? How is the AU to be led? Does the AU need another charismatic leader, or should it, instead, choose a technocrat who can put in place the administrative and financial systems necessary for the AU to grow?

That debate never happened. There was no campaigning. And a critical opportunity for rejuvenation was missed.

The ageing leadership generation, among them many committed pan-Africanists, fought long and hard for the liberation of the continent. Many of them were young when they embarked on the struggle - look at the photographs of the independence generation of African leaders, today revered for their vision, and you will see young men in their 30s and early 40s and maybe even younger. Yet today, there is no readiness to hand the baton on to a new generation. And the current pan-African challenges are very different to those of 30 years ago.
 

When the AU set up its "Panel of the Wise", it simply assumed that the wise had to be old. Where were the youth? When mediators are chosen to lead efforts to settle Africa's conflicts, the AU automatically looks to the ranks of superannuated diplomats. Many of them are good. But today's conflicts are not those of the past, and the leaders who are fighting - especially the rebels - are usually 30 or 40 years younger than the men (and they are almost always men) appointed to win their confidence, understand their aspirations, and lead them to peace.
 

Our political systems seem expressly designed to exclude the bristling energy of youth!

Africans have been galvanized by the U.S. presidential campaign, because it matters a great deal to Africa who leads America, and because one of our own is enthusing voters with the promise of change.

Where is the comparable campaign here? Where is the African Obama? Why do African political systems end up recycling the same old faces? Why does every election on the continent seem preordained to end in a deal between the same old elites, where the people's choice is regarded as no better than a distracting nuisance? Should we wonder that young people find the political atmosphere stifling and alienating?

The AU is a great and noble institution. Yet history teaches us that those organizations that refuse to adapt and be innovate eventually stagnate and die. Ultimately, the quality of the African leadership will best be shown by its readiness to bring younger people into senior responsible positions of pivotal institutions, including the AU Commission, so that a new generation can, at last, take over. The people of Africa deserve nothing less. A luta continua!