The lights literally went out on the Organisation of African Unity yesterday. The Libyan leader, Col Muammar Gadafy, was cut off in mid-speech when a power cut plunged the annual summit into darkness, leaving hundreds of armed bodyguards bristling nervously in the Zambian hall where Africa's leaders were gathered.
The accident was perhaps a fitting symbol for the ultimate meeting of the pan-African body after 38 years of existence.
Yesterday, the OAU was officially superseded by the African Union (AU), an ambitious project providing for political and economic union, and an African court with jurisdiction stretching thousands of miles, from Egypt in the north to the Cape in South Africa.
Libya's Col Gadafy is the main architect and chief financier behind the union. He has been feted here largely because he has contributed heavily to funding of the summit.
The power cut came as he reached the end of a strongly worded and sometimes bewildering speech.
Railing against "foreign conspiracies", he demanded reparations from Europe and the US for the damage inflicted by the colonial period and spoke passionately about the need for unity. "Africa is one nation with 1,000 tribes," he said.
The Libyan capital, Tripoli, was proposed as the site of the African Union parliament during a closed-door session of the summit, diplomats said. However, it was turned down, partly because Libya - which has been ruled by Col Gadafy for 32 years - has no legislature of its own.
The achievements of the three-day summit, which cost impoverished Zambia at least $20 million to host, were modest.
A controversial motion sharply criticising Britain for its role in the Zimbabwe land crisis was watered down to a call for both sides to come together and find a "final solution to this colonial legacy".
And those decisions that were taken were hard made. An Ivory Coast diplomat, Mr Amara Essy, was elected as interim secretary-general in the small hours of yesterday morning, following eight rounds of voting.
The leaders also discussed the Millennium Africa Recovery Plan, an initiative to prevent Africa being marginalised by globalisation that was launched by the presidents of South Africa, Nigeria and Algeria.
The UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, Mrs Mary Robinson, who attended the summit, told The Irish Times she welcomed the planned African court of justice. "The penny has dropped" among African leaders about the importance of human rights, she said.