Statement by CPP Patriots on anniversary of Nkrumah's death

Commemoration of the 35th Anniversary of the Death of Osagyefo Dr. Kwame Nkrumah

Fellow Ghanaians:

We gather here today not to observe the death of Osagyefo Dr. Kwame Nkrumah as such, but to celebrate the life of the greatest leader that this country has ever had, the man voted by Africans as the African of the Millennium. Thirty-five years ago, through a cruel and diabolical twist of fate, he passed away in far away Romania thousands of miles away from his beloved Ghana, the country whose independence from British colonial rule he championed uncompromisingly.

When we say Nkrumah Never dies, we of course do not mean that he physically never dies; he did. In the end, we all will die. It is so ordained by the Almighty. But it is what we do in this life that always determines whether we die and be forgotten – as has happened with so many – or we die but continue, through our good and memorable deeds, to live on in the hearts and lives of others.

We remember Osagyefo today – indeed, today, we proclaim that Nkrumah Never Dies – precisely because he lived the kind of selfless and fulfilling life that touched on all of us. We are the living embodiments of that life – a life that filled us with pride and self-confidence.

When Nkrumah proclaimed that “the Black man was capable of managing his affairs,” he believed it and he proved it. Like his hero Marcus Garvey before him, he saw a sprawling industrial and technologically advanced Africa brimming with some of the greatest achievements in contemporary human civilization.

He talked about nuclear power 50 years before the Iranians ever dreamed of having one. That’s vision. His ambitious educational programs gave Africa and the world some of the brightest minds we have today. That is vision! And he talked about a day when no Ghanaian child would go to bed hungry; indeed, his government knew exactly how much fish we needed to catch in order to meet our nutritional needs. Now, that’s vision that no one can dispute!

But like all visionaries, Nkrumah was misunderstood. He even became a threat to those for whom Ghana and Africa’s emancipation and progress posed an uncomfortable challenge. And so they concocted stories and slandered him and even made numerous attempts on his life. In the end, they couldn’t even take him down in his presence. They had to wait for him to leave this country and then under cover of darkness and through the barrel of a gun set Ghana back over 50 years. Cowards that they are!

Today, we continue to pay a heavy price for that singular act of treachery by a handful of Ghanaians and their foreign paymasters. When we look around, we see not Ghana at 50, but Darkness at 50! What a shame for a country whose per capita income in 1965 was 70.0% higher than that of South Korea. Today, South Korea is so rich that it gives Ghana foreign aid. The once proud Ghana is now on its knees, begging. What a shame.

But all is not lost. Nkrumah never dies. His spirit lives in us. He preached selflessness, and we believe in selflessness. He put Ghana before himself. And so do we. He believed that Ghana deserved better, which was why when others were calling for “independence in the shortest possible time,” the son of a goldsmith from Nkroful came from nowhere and declared, “independence now’! And in two short years he had done what those before him had not been able to do in decades!

We believe, more than ever before, that this is the time to reclaim that spirit, that legacy of Nkrumah’s, that is today under assault from all quarters, at home and abroad.

For Nkrumah, it was human beings, not property, that formed the basis of democracy and development. We proclaim to the world that come 2009 we shall put Ghanaians back at the centre of our development!

For Nkrumah, nationhood, a sense of oneness, was a non-negotiable prerequisite for national development. Today, as the state has failed to provide the basic necessities of life, individuals have gradually turned to narrow personal and tribal agendas to fill the void. We shall reverse that. We shall put Ghana above everything and everybody else!

Of course, we can’t talk about Nkrumah without talking about Pan-Africanism. “The independence of Ghana is meaningless unless it is linked up with the total liberation of Africa.” It was true then and it is even more true today, as a fragmented and weak Africa struggles in vain against the mighty waves of globalization.

We have gathered here today, therefore, to remind ourselves that there is work to be done. We can’t go on like this. We must make a stand. We must make a change. We owe it to generations yet unborn to redeem this country and set it back on the path of righteousness and social justice.

And we call on all of you to let us work together to bring to fruition the great vision that Dr. Nkrumah had for Ghana and Africa.

Forward Ever! Backward Never!