Nkrumah Lives!

(Killed by the CIA, Commemorated by Pepsico)

“See them praising Old Marcus Garvey
Hear them extolling his name, No, he’s great yeah
But all these time, all they do is fallacy
If he was ill right now, he goes to jail the same.” – Peter Tosh

Were hypocrisy capable of killing, the world would, mercifully, have been rid of people of the European stock (apology to Baffour Ankomah).

Forty Three years after agents of America’s Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) toasted themselves for successfully organizing the overthrow of Africa’s leading light, Osagyefo Kwame Nkrumah, an American corporation, Pepsico, organized a beach bash to celebrate the great man’s 99th birthday anniversary.

A friend invited me to a party to celebrate Nkrumah’s day at the Accra La Pleasure Beach in Accra. Sunday, September 21st was the day. A die-hard Nkrumahist, I would not miss it for the world. So I joined my friends and trooped to La Pleasure Beach to share ideas about the great man whose ideas still remain so relevant to Africa as they were when he made them those long years ago.

To my utter consternation and anger, I discovered that the event has been organized by American soft (they say) drink giant, Pepsico, the manufacturer of Pepsi among other sugary stuffs that are killing our folks slowly by giving them such debilitating illness like diabetes. No coke for me, thank you very much. What would Nkrumah be thinking were he to gaze down upon us and see how shameless we have become that we see nothing ironic or wrong that we have to accept Pepsico offer to organize a party for him. What exactly is wrong with us as a people that we seem to be beyond irony? They have killed Nkrumah for us but we need not insult the great man by accepting blood dollars from those whose hands are dripping with his blood.

No matter what his detractors, who today hold the reins of power and are doing their damndest to obliterate his legacy say, Nkrumah legacies are as relevant and are as pristine as they were when he enunciated them. History attested that he’s greater than all his critics combined. With the possible exception of the great Marcus Garvey, no other African ever worked as assiduously as Nkrumah to make our continent relevant. It was little wonder when Africans overwhelmingly voted him the African Personality of the Millenium. Say what you may, Nkrumah lives!

Those who say that we harp too much on what the Albinos, whom some called White, did and continue to do to us should go and read up on their history. It is not the properly educated African who will question our condemnation of those who made it their stock in trade to destroy all that is beautiful in Africa, only to turn around and sneer at us. The Albinos since the dawn of history have made it their business to negatively impact on our lives. The slavery and the colonialism are just recent examples of the perfidy the Albinos have committed against us. Go and get and read ‘The Destruction of Black Civilisation,’ by Chancellor Williams. It is a classic which, if we know what is good for us should be compulsory read at all our tertiary institutions. I believe that Chancellor Williams book together with ‘The Isis Papers,’ are two books every African should do herself the favour of reading.

It is sad commentary on us that when we look around us, we do not see any street or monument named after these great two great sons of Africa. Nkrumah is grudgingly acknowledged in the country he helped founded. The park named after him at the Brong Ahafo region (which he created) has since been nebulously renamed ‘Jubilee Park.’ Even in death, his enemies who sold their conscience and their country to the CIA would not leave him alone. Contrary to hallowed African tradition, they continue to pursue their perfidious vengeance against a dead man whose only crime was to want the best for his country and his continent!

Sadly, the stories of Garvey and Nkrumah are not being taught at our schools. Our children are cramming their heads full with fable stories of Arabian Desert gods and their Son and Prophet, yet I have seen an African got out of university without having heard the name: Marcus Garvey! Kwame Nkrumah’s name is being lumped together with those of traitors as though he were their equal.

Marcus Mosiah Garvey didn’t invent the idea of Pan Africanism, but he did more than any human being to popularize and brought it to the consciousness of Africans everywhere. He gave Africans hope when they were at their lowest point in life. His genius was in realizing the simple fact that until the Blackman (no sexism intended here) can build a viable country of their own and through their own efforts, no one anywhere would respect the African. Any Blackman who has ever travelled outside the continent will not fail to recognize the truism of Garvey’s prophetic words.

Yet, our mis-educated elite, with their colonial mind-sets, are doing their best to promote us as Non-People with no history, no identity and no Personality. They have successfully turned back the tide of time so much so that today we do not produce a single thing that we consume.

Winning the Nobel Prize was not enough to save Professor Wole Soyinka from being humiliated by White immigration officers. Garvey urged Africans to look back and draw inspiration from their well-tapered history. He urged Africans to build the institutions which they will own and control. He believed passionately that there is no force on earth that can withstand a United Africa.

Which Patriot’s heart will not bleed today when he sees the low point to which our dear land has sunk. To all intent and purposes Ghana has been successfully re-colonised. Our dear land is a classical case of a vassal state. Let’s leave all pretenses alone who, in his right mind, would argue that a meeting between our President and the President United States of America is a Meet of EQUALS?

The Albinos now control almost every facet of our lives. Those who believe that we are a Gold nation only need to go to any of our mines where it is as clear as crystal who the true owners are. The water corporation was given to the Dutch with the demented argument that private ownership is inherently superior to a social ownership.

What exactly are the ideas propounded by Nkrumah which are still germane today? The most profound, I believe, was his call for continental unity. Many are still today who sneer at the great man’s call. But we are all witness to the vast tragedy that has befallen our motherland in the years that followed our so-called independence.
Many pseudo-intellectuals faulted the Osagyefo’s idea on purely jejune premises. But one does not need a Nobel Caliber intelligence to recognize the simple logic in Nkrumah’s clarion call. Apart from Ethiopia and Egypt all the so-called countries in Africa are colonial inventions. And apart from the two none make any historical or geographical sense and nations like the Gambia simply makes no sense at all. When Nkrumah asked that we unite he was simply asking the so-called Ghanaian to look at the so-called Ivorian as a brother because Akan-speaking people formed the majority in both countries. A very good book to read on this subject is ‘Partitioned Africa,’ by Professor Asiwaju. And those who seek solid knowledge on the links that bind Africans should get and read Cheikh Anta Diop’s classic, ‘The Cultural Unity of Black Africa.’

In fact, it takes only common sense, good eyes and good ears to see that Africans are the same people wherever they find themselves on the continental. Check out the ceremonies, the mode of dressing, the way food are prepared, the way birth are celebrated and children are named. Check out the burial rituals. Study the relationship between and among people. Listen to the songs and watch carefully the dances.

Coupled with Nkrumah’s clarion call for continental unity was his idea of self-reliance. Africa is vastly blessed with mineral resources. How good and pleasant it would be were we to be blessed with leaders with courage and with vision! That (visionary leaders) is the only thing lacking in our quest for equation for sustainable development. No matter and regardless of how long we continue to delude ourselves, our developmental strategies and efforts shall come to naught until we can forge patriotic leaders very passionate about their love for the motherland.
Let our pitiable leaders stopped deluding us with the lies that so-called ‘our friends’ in the West will somehow helped us to develop our economies. This is a lie as outrageous as it is senseless. First of all, international relations are not based on friendships; they are based on self-interests. The Europeans, the Asians, the Arabs are not in Africa to look for friendship; they are here to look after their interests. It is as pure and as simple as that. Secondly, no nation has been developed by foreigners and none shall ever be. We can make that Femi’s first principle on Economic development.

We are all witness to how our ‘friendship’ with the West has wiped away our manufacturing sector. Our ‘friends’ continue to dump their subsidized products on us. Oh, they borrow us the money to buy their products. Of course, they charge usurious interests on these loans; after all they are such a nice people. What a wonderful friendship!

Those who understand a colonial relationship will not fail to realize how thoroughly Ghana has become a vassal state. Our mis-rulers have totally wiped the productive sector of our economy. In the 1960s Ghana used to produce the shoes her citizens wear. We had factories refining our gold – however rudimentary. We had canaries that canned our processed fishes and other products. We had textile mills where our men folks earn honest living in order to cloth us. Today our folks continue to clothe themselves in thrown-away junks from Europe. Even our women are buying used (or abused) panties and bras! In those days, we had large plantations of rubber, oil and cocoa which were feeding our nascent industries.

Today, we are nation of petty traders. Those who call themselves businessmen in our country are those scourging the rubbish bins of Europe, Asia and America to scavenge ancient electronics, panties and other junks to come and poison our environment.

Maybe those who argued about fifty years ago that the whiteman should stay as we were not ready for independence still hold the same opinion today.

Surely, we are moving forward!