Afrovision Song Contest anyone?

Eurovision 2009 Winner Alexander Rybak

Source: http://www.eurovision.tv

After the annual Eurovision Song contest.... Yes, you heard me...'Eurovision': the most popular and much-hyped European reality song contest you would have NEVER heard of. Well, at least I should admit I had never heard of the Eurovision song contest until I was in England in 2005. Apparently the contest has been around since the 1950s. It is surprising that I had never heard of Eurovision considering I was brought up on a healthy staple of ABBA classics and subjected myself to camp television that included Pop in Germany in the 1980s. If there is anyone out there who has actually watched Pop in Germany, please let me so I know I did not just imagine this show. Why the ABBA reference you ask? According to the good people over at Wikipedia, ABBA won Eurovision back in 1974 with Waterloo. Waterloo also also happens to be my favorite ABBA song. Anyway, I digress, ever since the hype over Eurovision 2009, I have been wondering...would a trans-African song contest ever work here in Africa?

Too many questions come to my mind:
1. What would the official song language be for the Afrovision competition? Would the Francophones think it is unfair if it is English, would everybody be allowed to compete in their own language?
2. Would the competition be dominated by South Africa or Nigeria....or even the current African bastion of democratic perfection Ghana?
3. Would the Afrovision Song Contest be open to countries on the land mass of the continent like when it comes to football or just us over on the so-called "Sub-saharan Africa" side of the continent?
4. Would the entire world think it is unfair that we devoting time to frivolous things like song contests when we should be worrying about disease, war, poverty, debt and foreign aid?
5. Which country would host the competition? South Africa or Nigeria....or even the current African bastion of democratic perfection, Ghana?

Although it would be a logistical nightmare, I think an Afrovision contest is a possibility. After all, we have done reality shows to perfection across the continent. There was Idols South Africa, Idols West Africa and one of my bestest buddies from high school was in the very first Big Brother Africa. Coming to think of it, all these competitions seem to be a tad Anglophone dominated. *Sigh* let's face it, maybe we are just too diverse for a trans-African competition. We are probably not ready for a trans-Africa union either....Mmmm...no wonder the African Union does not really seem to be working out for us either!