...nationalism in the 21st Century?
On 6th March 2007, Kwame Nkrumah, Ghana’s first independence leader set in train a process that the then colonialists could not stop. Nkrumah’s agenda went beyond Ghana. Nkrumah set African nationalism on the march…. As the independence celebrations move on from country to country, it is becoming imperative that sub-Saharan Africa’s survival lies in her economic unity. No one country in sub-Saharan Africa can go it alone. We are one people with diverse cultures and traditions…..but we are one. Dr Kwame Nkrumah made this clear at the dawn of Ghana’s independence. His words can still be heard today, from Bamako, through Nairobi, Kigali, Kinshasa, Accra, Lome, Abuja, Freetown to Cape Town and Johannesburg, as every minute a young African loses his life through hunger and opportunistic diseases that can be cured elsewhere. Dr Kwame Nkrumah, Father of Sub-Saharan Africa, young Africans wants you back!!! Kwame Nkrumah gave pride and self esteem to blacks all over the world. Nkrumah, who experience racism at first hand when he was a student in United States and later in United Kingdom vowed to liberate his people. That experience (which unfortunately most blacks in the colonies, United States and South Africa were subjected to on daily basis by the white racist’s police and the judiciary) left a huge mark on the young African, who vowed never to allow his compatriots anywhere to be taken for granted again. His mission was to complete the work started by honourable Marcus Garvey. Garvey’s “back to the motherland” project had a great impact on the young African student, Kwame Nkrumah. Nkrumah was fire.
From the moment that young Nkrumah set sail from United States to England, his faith was sealed as the “Chosen One”. Nkrumah’s mind was troubled from the blatant discrimination that he was witnessing against his race. He was to become the unofficial spokesman of the entire black race. Nkrumah became the wise one who was to “take us home to our motherland”. Kwame carried on his shoulder the hope and aspiration of an entire race under the banner of the BLACK STAR.
From the moment Ghana became independent, Kwame Nkrumah became a forceful and vocal advocate for the total liberation and economic integration of continental Africa. His mission was to liberate Africans and blacks elsewhere.
Garvey prophetically said “the journey home would be completed by young continental African who is blessed with intellect and fired by the desire to make our race free at last”. That was the task that young Nkrumah carried on his shoulders, to help free a whole race that has seen sorrow and suffering, from slavery to colonialism both in diaspora and on the continent.
After his overthrown, the west and their corrupt stooges on the continent tried every means to tarnish his name and wipe his memory from the continent……what a futile and nonsensically idea that they had in their minds……….to change the course of history? Nkrumah unleashed a phenomenal that only came to a halt when the stooges thwarted his advance to unite our economies……because they want to continue from when slavery was abolished to economic exploitation and subjecting our peoples to sub standard living. Band Aid, Rwanda, Darfur, economic crippling of Zimbabwe, economic stranglehold of South Africa, instability in Congo Kinshasa and structural adjustment policies were all predicted by Kwame Nkrumah in Manchester, England during the Pan African Congress in the 1940s, he predicted this in Accra in 1958, a year after Ghana became independent. In December 1960 during the All African Peoples Conference Kwame stated, “Unite your forces. All Africa shall be free in our lifetime. For this decade is the decade of African independence”. The audience, including many freedom fighters instinctively knew Kwame was the chosen one. Today, 50 years later, young Africans, both unskilled and skilled are leaving the continent in large numbers, because economically they have been failed by the corrupt leaders. Today young sub-Saharan Africans are stigmatised as dirty asylum seekers and looked on with disdain in the west. This is fact. The word “African” has been turn into a derogatory word by the west that is using every means to divide, rule by default and loot Africa’s resources by any means through the guise of NEPAD. This is fact. At the forefront of Africa’s economic demise and liquidation are the IMF, the World Bank and the World Trade Organisation, aided by the mushrooming NGOs. This is fact. The sad fact is sub-Saharan Africa is still deemed as the richest continent in resources. This is fact. Money flight from sub-Saharan Africa is the highest than any other region. This is fact. Today, the west sees the poor of Africa as the poorest of the poor. This is fact.
Yet some 50 years ago, Dr Kwame Nkrumah, standing at the Old Polo grounds of his former colonial masters proclaimed that without economic, political and social unity, sub-Saharan African can never go it alone. Nkrumah, who is now seen as the father of independent Africa, foresaw our plight and urged Africans to unite to safeguard the people and the riches of the continent. Today, the sorrow plight of Africans, shown across the globe in “Band Aid” and “famine in the horn of Africa” would have been avoided had Kwame Nkrumah been listened to.
In 2000, his message, which was delivered over 4 decades ago, still resonates across sub-Saharan Africa. This message has re-awakened young Africans to call for the economic and social unity that Nkrumah fought for. In 2000, the young of Africa voted Nkrumah as their “African of the century” ahead of many great Africans. In 2000, the young of Africa, many were not even born when Nkrumah died in 1972, sent a clear message to the corrupt elites that the “independence anniversaries of the entire sub-Saharan Africa is meaningless unless it is linked with the total economic integration of the whole African continent”. This message was loud and clear. The Ghanaian 50th independence celebration in Accra is bringing back the painful struggles that Nkrumah mounted to try and unite the entire continental Africa. No one person has dominated an entire race and continent as Dr Kwame Nkrumah. Nkrumah single-handedly set in motion the independence train for the entire continent. Unfortunately his economic agenda was thwarted by the imperialists and their co-conspirators on the continent. Africa is the only continent where her colonial masters still control her national budgets. Aid still form over 40% of their national budgets. Even in South Africa (Azania), the economy is firmly in the hands of the whites. This is fact…..anyone who challenges this notion should look at neighbouring Zimbabwe.
After agreeing at the Lancaster conference to give blacks half of the land to farm, they blatantly turn their back on their word….what hypocrisy!
Young Africans are now looking for the next continental leader to push forward the economic independence for their generation. They expressed their gratitude to Dr Kwame Nkrumah at the turn of the century when they voted him the greatest African of the 20th century. Until the economy of the entire sub-Saharan continent is united, the continent shall remain poor. 200 years after the abolition of slavery, and 50 years after Kwame Nkrumah set the independence train in motion, sub-Saharan Africans still find themselves in bondage, this time not in chains but economics. Rise Up the youth of Africa!!! Your future lies in your economic unity. Continue the good fight started by Dr Kwame Nkrumah. You voted him as your greatest African of the 20th century, thus it is incumbent on you to unite and safeguard the sub-Saharan African continent for posterity. Forward Ever, Backward Never. Kwame Nkrumah Never Dies! Long Live Pan Africanism!
Views expressed by the author(s) do not necessarily reflect those of GhanaHomePage.
