1. Successful politicians don't retire voluntarily, any more than driven people in other fields. With the reputed exception of Diocletian, I'm not aware of any dictators who have done so.

Now I'm the king of the swingersOh, the jungle VIPI've reached the top and had to stopAnd that's what botherin' me

Continental and world government is the dream of a bigger climbing frame for the monkeys at the top of the slippery pole.

2. Power cannot abide competition:
Whenever those states which have been acquired as stated have been accustomed to live under their own laws and in freedom, there are three courses for those who wish to hold them: the first is to ruin them, the next is to reside there in person, the third is to permit them to live under their own laws, drawing a tribute, and establishing within it an oligarchy which will keep it friendly to you. Because such a government, being created by the prince, knows that it cannot stand without his friendship and interest, and does its utmost to support him; and therefore he who would keep a city accustomed to freedom will hold it more easily by the means of its own citizens than in any other way. - My emphasis, not Machiavelli's.

Adam Smith put it thus, as is well-known:

People of the same trade seldom meet together, even for merriment and diversion, but the conversation ends in a conspiracy against the public, or in some contrivance to raise prices. … But though the law cannot hinder people of the same trade from sometimes assembling together, it ought to do nothing to facilitate such assemblies; much less to render them necessary.

What's less noticed is the force with which it applies to rulers and regulators, who form cartels against freedom at every opportunity. Almost all international organisations exist only to abridge choice and retain the exclusivity of power.

HTML incompetence: Sorry for mangling in first quote.

The United States of America was only possible because the states shared enough common characteristics that unity was feasible! How are Arabs and black Africans going to agree on anything? Sudan, one state of Africa, is already being torn asunder because of these differences!
And aren't there different rules of the road? British Africa rides on the left, the rest drive on the right, I believe.
I don't believe that Africa can achieve sufficient unity for such a grouping to be anything but a name. To take just one difference with the USA, what language would be the 'Federal' language? Libyan Arabic? Swahili? One of the Nigerian dialects? English? French?

...black Africans...

Actually, forget the split in the Sudan, it is because the world - even 'black Africa' - focusses on categorising people by ranges of skin colour, to the exclusion of other human variation, physical or cultural, and makes that politically significant in itself, that the absurdity of the present African Union, or a future United States of Africa is overlooked. Statesmen, even black statesmen, are trying to say that a common 'blackness' is enough to permit all differences of interest or desire to be overridden. Likewise the pro-Bono anti-globo: "all those suffering black people need our help". It's a pervasive racism, and racism at its most abstract and absurd, given the massive genotypic, cultural, educational and material variation that there is in and between Africans.

Gaddafi has been preaching pan-Africanism for years already; he didn't get the idea from Blair. And before that he was all about Arab Unity and even Muslim unity. He's been suffering from delusions of grandeur since at least 1969.

With the reputed exception of Diocletian, I'm not aware of any dictators who have done so.

Sulla.
At least according to that ace Rubicon book.

"With the reputed exception of Diocletian, I'm not aware of any dictators who have done so."

Diocletian reing of terror lasted 19 years, and he only retired after almost dying from an illness. I wonder if you meant Cincinnatus.

Well, that's Diocletian, Sulla and Cincinnatus, although Cincinnatus was more of a special case than a Sulla type murderous bastard. Add to that list Maximian? Does he count? Or was he pulled by Diocletian?

Back on topic,

given the massive genotypic, cultural, educational and material variation that there is in and between Africans.

Jeez, genetic variation between humans within Africa is greater than that between all human populations in the rest of the world. Pretty much the same culturally as well. The idea of a United States of Africa is an unworkable absurdity; I cry at the thought of time, effort and resources chasing a nonsense will-o'-the-wisp like this while ignoring the real problems of the continent.

Place needs less government, not more.

No. Blair is a recent member of the Bonkers Club.
Gaddafi was a founding member, along with Amin, Mugabe and pretty much every other petty dictator we handed power to after colonialism.
As Guy said at the beginning, no Leaders retire willingly.Especially in Africa.
The United States of America is the only United States of anywhere that is ever likely to exist, given current trends and circumstances worldwide.
The Founding fathers, very wisely saw that 8 years is the maximum time a leader can hold power without going completely off their trolley, and so limited the Presidency to 2 terms of 4.
Gaddafi is just grandstanding before the African Union meeting (oh what a joke that name is!!)
If mr Flatulence ( he has a problem worse than Adolf Hitler apparently!) starts spouting this drivel from the podium and gets excited, he may well unite Africa temporarily, but in the car park outside, because of the stench in the Hall.
As to Tony (I'm Bonkers me!) Blair , If he goes anywhere near the Middle East, I bet he is killed within 3 years. Might as well get that old Op Art Who T shirt out now Tone. You know, the one with the big bullseye on the front.

Blair isn't bonkers - he's delusional. I suspect he really believes that folk think he's "A pretty straight sort of guy".

And let's hope if he's assassinated it isn't on the road to Damascus after his conversion to Catholicism. St Tony of Sedgefield would be a little too much.

I fear Blair might be infectious. For example, on flicking through the channels last night, I caught Elton doing his bit for Diana at Wembley. Imagine my horror on finding, as the camera panned across the band, that a Blair looky-likey was thrashing the drums, inance grin blairing out for all to see. Did anyone else spot this sinister development?

I suspect he really believes that folk think he's "A pretty straight sort of guy".

After the last ten years of Constitutional vandalism, economic vandalism and a failure to equip our Armed Forces with the tools to perform the job he asked them to do-
Well that kind of "Delusional" is bonkers in my book.

RAB,
I dont believe it was the founding fathers who limited Presidential terms, but a much more recent amendment to keep either Roosevelt (Teddy) or Eisenhower out.
Could be wrong here but that sticks in my mind.

Quite right Robert.
I knew that I had somehow got it wrong, almost as soon as I posted.
What I kind of meant was it was a convention before Roosevelt that nobody served more than two terms.
He served 4, which pissed off a lot of people.
Hence the 22nd Amendment.

The Bishop of Zimbabwe just requested that Britain invade the country and knock out Mugabe. Of course, that won't happen, nor will anything else save the people of that unfortunate dictatorship from their increasingly grim fate.

People look at the prosperity and strength of the US and assume that the key is a continental union. They forget that the current huge economic engine is the end result of a much smaller and weaker collection of states banding together in a specific form of republic which gradually, and with enormous, painful effort, spanned the continet, and created the widely diverse free trade zone which is ultimately responsible for most of our current prosperity.

Any continental empire put together by the likes of Gha-daffy would have more chance of ending up like Zim that the US or the EU.

Besides, the current trend seems to be for states to split along ethnic or religious lines, not consolidate across previous borders and divisions. My guess is if the people of Africa were given any popular referendum, they would choose to split into even more and smaller states than at present, just to preserve tribal, religious, and ethnic purities.

But, as long as they tolerate regimes like Mugabe's, or the disaster in the Sudan, it won't matter how large or small the national entities are---they'll still be monstrosities.

With apologies to Alan Coren, would the AirForce 1 plane be a Mumbo Jumbo Jet?

He is infectious indeed. For the helfansafey of the greater society he must be immediately quarantined.