African leaders should please show some respect. How do others take them seriously when, as The Economist just reported, the African Parliament cannot function because its budget of a miserable sum of $24m is unfunded!

Leading the non-performing states is my own oil-rich Nigeria. South Africa has paid up. Egypt, Libya and Algeria are not paying up. We must be disturbed. I am alarmed.

Now, what can Nigeria say to its admirers or dismissers if it owes the AU, Ecowas, NEPAD or Commonwealth/UN? No matter what we spend elsewhere, including billions on West African crises-plus (Liberia, Sierra Leone, Sudan, Cote d'Ivoire, Guinea, etc), we diminish ourselves by not funding the African Parliament. Period. And we want to represent the continent on the UN Security Council? Strange. Shouldn't our Pan-African, globe-trotting president know better???

I suggest that Nigeria now leads the way to resolving this shameful saga promptly. Let us endow the Pan-African Parliament with $250m, representing its Basic Budget for 10 years, as an insurance against the future. This will guarantee its integrity, and protect its independence. We have enough oil windfall to do so now. This is a block one-off grant. We must continue paying the annual dues - whatever they be.

Once done, Nigeria should pressure others to pay up.

PS: If the present administration fails, not to worry. Things are changing here. The new guys in 2007 will make African Integration more people-oriented, more integration-friendly, more renaissance-possible and less talkshop-bedeviled. Just a few months, folks, this utter smear will be cleansed. Apologies.