Dr Kwame Nkrumah - Civitatis Ghaniensis Conditor

As Ghana celebrates 50 years of political independence as a nation, we must recognize that the next fifty rears will present us with more complex challenges than those we faced in the fifty years before Kwame Nkrumah led Ghana and Africa to independence. How we deal with these issues will determine how well we are able to catch up with the next of the world in development terms.

Coincidentally this commemoration happens at the same time as the celebration of the landmark decision of the British parliament to abolish slavery after they had benefited from this inhuman act for several years, using the labour of African slaves to build Europe and America. In so doing some have claimed that they stunted our growth because of the sheer depletion of our viable labour.

Slavery unfortunately was followed up by colonial rule and it is only fifty years ago that we were able to accomplish our right to self determination and self rule. The agitation for self rule had started several years before; from the Aborigines Rights Protection Society through to the United Gold Cost Convention and had been accelerated by the death of Sergeant Adjetey and two other soldiers who had been shot as they matched to the castle the seat of the European government to demand their pay.

At the countdown to independence, there were two distinct groups in our politics; those who because they could not inherit the mantle and therefore felt that we were not ready and those who felt that we were ready and had always been ready and were deserving to govern ourselves. There was no question however that all the major players wanted us to be rid of the colonial government and therefore the roles that all played must be recognized.

But one personality stood out head and shoulders above all who had campaigned for independence; he saw the promised land, so to speak, and he was able to take us there himself. This was Kwame Nkrumah; he was determined, he was resolute and above all he had the confidence to demand our independence.

Nkrumah was savvy enough t realize that the battle for independence in Ghana could not be won by Ghanaians alone, he saw the battle as a concerted effort of a coalition of PanAfricanists without whom independence could not be achieved. So though the leaders of the campaign were Ghanaians, there were great influences on how the battle was fought and won. The real goal was independence of all Africa and the Caribbean.

He managed to transform and sustain that political hotbed that was the Gold Coast in the 30’s and 40’s into a proactive and effective campaign for what he saw was the first stage of our emancipation. In that sense Nkrumah was a thinker and visionary in his own right and easily the most important hero for Africa and the whole black world. He was ahead of his time.

In my view it was the concept of independence he fashioned that resonated with the people, that led to the mass party he founded that led to election victory after election victory. His concept was about emancipation – freedom from slavery, freedom from colonial rule and justice for all in Africa and the rest of the black world.

He strongly believed that we in Africa were capable of running our countries for our benefit better than anyone could; he believed that our interests should never be subordinated to those of the colonial master who had exploited us and would continue to do so even after independence if we allowed them to do so because heir original intention in coming to Africa was to exploit the people.

Nkrumah believed that political freedom for Ghana was not enough; we needed to have economic freedom and eventually social freedom to carry on with our own culture. Nkrumah therefore fashioned for Ghana and Africa a method, a mechanism for ensuring that when the independence was accomplished in Ghana it would sweep not only the rest of Africa but also the Caribbean.

He realized that he could not do it alone; he needed intellectuals and technocrats as well as activists. He needed policy people and he needed managers and he was willing to attract them from the whole of the black world. He needed people who could translate the theories of development into an appropriate path for development in Africa.

The CPP that broke away from and terminally damaged the UGCC was about asserting the rights of the common to participate in politics, an area that had been large left to the elite intelligentsia and intellectuals. So the masses could also, with independence, take hold of their own destiny.

The West had been built on capitalism relevant during those days of near feudalism and socialism had helped transform Russia from a peasant country into a super power in less than 50 years. China had started it Cultural Revolution and its Great March Forward.

To become a leading player we needed to find our own relevant philosophy, so Nkrumah gave us Nkrumaism an African philosophy of development and governance. He insisted on the inculcation of the African personality into Ghanaians to replace the notions of colonial mentality that had taken root so he set up the African Personality for children who then graduated into the Young Pioneers to learn about citizenship, leadership and discipline to make them ready for the adult life of service to the country and the rest of Africa.

But the masses needed jobs so as to be able to care for their families with the dignity they deserved so he created jobs at all levels and in all commercial, financial and industrial sectors. He was conscious that the people who will fill these jobs needed education and skills and therefore he created primary, middle secondary, vocational, technical, academic and professional institutions. He also set up teacher training facilities to train people who would teach and tutor in these institutions. Where in a hundred years of colonial rule the British had set up barely 100 schools in 100 years, Nkrumah provided 1,100 institutions in 10 years.

He believed in a programme of accelerated industrialization as the main driver for economic growth to finance our development. It was important for us in Ghana and Africa to add value to our raw materials through processing into finished goods and products. In every business sector where we there were no Ghanaian businesses to compete with the foreign owned ones he set up state industries most of which have survived till today, some of which though abandoned for the past 40 years are now being rehabilitated by the present government. Nkrumah built the industrial township of Tema but he also ensured that industries were set up in most districts and in all regions in Ghana. More jobs were created under the work and happiness programme, the workers brigade, the builder’s brigade.

The 7 year development plan was formulated to transform Ghana into an industrial competitive country.

Sadly, foreign interests intervened to prevent Nkrumah from completing the job that he had started, to achieve his vision of a united and developed Africa.

So as we celebrate 50 years of independence, we must think of how we can apply the vision of Nkrumah that would serve us in the next 50 years.

We must also reflect on the wasted years, Nkrumah led us on the path of emancipation that we squandered this when we allowed ourselves to be ruled by the military. Let us cherish our freedom be resolute that never again should we be ruled by men in uniforms.

We will also end up wasting the next 50 years if all we are interested is in copying foreign ideologies blindly.

We must cherish our freedom; we must extend our political freedom into economic freedom by devising alternative and serious methods and mechanisms for our economic development. We can only do this successfully by forging links with other African and black nations spread throughout the world, our problems are their problems and we must recognize that without their assistance and without their cooperation and consent and without working in concert with other nations including nations in the Caribbean and with other black people in the Diaspora we shall never gain our economic or our social and cultural freedom.

We can sustain ourselves without the need for handouts from foreign governments, handouts that benefit their countries more than they benefit us. We can run our countries without the plethora of NGO’s falling over each other to intervene in our daily lives breeding the same culture of dependence and subservience that we fought against at independence.

Ghana and Africa can rise up again and as we commemorate this jubilee year let us thank the founding fathers of our nation, from Attoh Ahuma to Mensah Sarbah, from Paa Grant to Danquah, let us also thank those in the Diaspora who assisted, from Garvey to Dubois, from Azikuwe to Padmore and CLR James, but above all let us thank the one person who made all this possible on 6th march 1957, the date on which we are celebrating today. Let us thank Osagyefo Dr Kwame Nkrumah. Civitatis Ghaniensis Conditor'.

Nkrumah never dies

Ade Sawyerr is partner in a management consultancy that provides consultancy, training and research that focuses on formulating strategies for black and ethnic minority, disadvantaged and socially excluded communities. He also comments on political, economic and social, and development issues. He can be contacted by email on [email protected] or through www.equinoxconsulting.net. He is also an active member of [email protected]