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The reason why Africa is divided among different commands is that Africa is not a monolith geopolitically.
I would quibble with the powers that be over how the demarcation is done - e.g., I would put the Arab-speaking North African states of Libya, Tunisia, Algeria and Morocco in CENTCOM's AOR - but there is sound reason for lumping Egypt with the Middle East and not sub-Saharan Africa. A similar issue arose over Central Asia - the states there, as former SSRs of the USSR, were under EUCOM, but were moved to CENTCOM since the security issues there are more closely related to the Middle East and the war on Islamist-sponsored terrorism. Asia is similarly divided in that PACOM, CENTCOM and (with Russia) EUCOM have parts of the continent in their AORs.
Africa remains an orphan without its own primary command because, however sad the situation is in most African countries, the issues do not significantly impact U.S. national security policy. To the extent they do, it is primarily in contexts, such as North Africa and the Horn of Africa, where another regional command is in a position to exercise leadership. Perhaps this will change - increasing U.S. dependence on oil from the Gulf of Guinea and the South Atlantic might change the calculus of U.S. interests in places like Nigeria and Angola - but for now U.S. interests are primarily humanitarian and are more like putting on bandaids than seeking long-term cures.
I suppose a combined command, incorporating European countries with more direct interests in the region, i.e., Great Britain and France, might make some sense, but it would be seen as neo-colonialist and would suffer from the conflicts of interests among the countries involved. And the U.S. component of such a command would still be the bastard stepchild of more important commands.
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