This news article may seem sensational to those who are easily attracted to clickbait, but for those who go beyond the headline, it is a call to a healthy assessment of what Ghana’s first prime minister and president stood for, and whether he set the wrong footing for the quagmire we are faced with today.

First of all, I am an Nkrumahist and a believer of his core economic ideology-socialism, which over the years has lost its impact on Ghanaian economy. Be that as it may, I write this piece without a scintilla of prejudice, but with, as my ability would enable me, the best of objectivity.

While most Ghanaians strongly believe that the Nkrumah factor (influence) is what has put Ghana on a high pedestal globally (that is if we are on that high pedestal indeed), earning itself some praises such as the first sub-Saharan country to gain independence, the beacon of democracy in Africa among others, there are some, who, not necessarily anti-Nkrumahists, opine that Nkrumah’s miscalculated attempt at elevating Ghana at the world stage landed us in a pit of confusion, paving the way for neo-colonialism, something he feared would happen as he outlined in his book, “Neocolonialism, the last stage of Imperialism.” But with the web of socio-economic problems we find ourselves in, is Nkrumah really to blame for our owes?

In the first of many rhetoric that sent strong signal to the West and East about Ghana’s preparedness to wean itself off colonial manipulation, Nkrumah did not mince words when he pompously declared on the eve of Ghana’s independence, that “…we are going to demonstrate to the world, to the other nations, that we are prepared to lay our foundation—our own African personality.”


This famous call would be useful if in today’s dispensation, and in an attempt to show to the world that we are self-reliant, we realize what it means to execute the ‘Ghana Beyond Aid’ agenda in its fullest. Unfortunately, Nkrumah’s call that Ghana (Africa) had arrived in managing its own affairs lived with him, and died with him. In the case of Ghana Beyond Aid, it died even sooner after it had been launched in 2017, and rather than lessening our dependence on aid, we have been globe-trotting with our begging palms for aids. Today, our debt has increased to an irredeemable level. Ghana now survives on aid!

Another aggressive challenge thrown by Nkrumah, and which sent many colonialists and imperialists intensifying their conquests in Ghana and thus Africa was through his famous address at the maiden conference of the formation of the Organization of African Union (OAU) on May 24, 1963, that…”Our objective is African Union now. There is no time to waste. We must unite now or perish!”

While this call laid the foundation for the formation of the now ‘defunct’ African Union, many believe Nkrumah’s attempt at unifying Africa was done in a haste, at a time when his backyard, the new Ghana, was making strides in leaps and bounds in economic recovery. I find a reconciliation in that statement for a call for United States of Africa at Addis Ababa with what he previously said at the Old Polo Grounds that …’Our independence is meaningless unless it is linked up with the total liberation of Africa”. It is again noteworthy that Kwame Mkrumah’s ousting and death truncated what would have been his greatest achievement in Africa.

Notwithstanding these popular proclamations, Nkrumah’s attempt at unifying Africa did not come at the expense of then newly independent Ghana. The rapid socio-economic transformational plan he rolled out could point to his willingness to kill two birds with a stone—accelerating Ghana’s growth while focusing on a united Africa. Those who point accusing fingers at Nkrumah do so at the backdrop that unifying Africa was a blunder in the first place. Thus, the Americans, who saw a united Africa as a threat would not sit idly and watch the continent come up against them.

These people believe that the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), America’s powerful secret and spying group thwarted Nkrumah’s efforts at unifying Africa and consolidating his developmental growth in Ghana because Nkrumah’s vision of a united Africa was a war against the Americans, which he waged, and lacking strong support, failed miserably. As he would later write in his book, The Dark of Ghana, ‘’the enemies were within’’, but these enemies were fortified with the able support of the CIA.

Is Nkrumah still to blame several years after laying the very foundation we survive on? Infrastructurally, it cannot be lost on us the countless intervention Kwame Nkrumah made. Even as the working population of this country, particularly the youth spend their hard-earned life savings to rent and accommodation while the Saglemi housing project rots away, could Nkrumah be blamed, when seeing that this problem may mar Ghana’s economic growth, deliberately established Tema as a city and industrial enclave, providing accommodation for the many artisans, harbour workers and industrialists whose contributions to the post-independent Ghana came in handy.

Could any successive government boast of any deliberate initiative aimed at establishing our cities such that we would be saved the headaches of perennial flooding? Has there been any attempt beyond the talk-shows on solving the housing problems the youth are suffering from? Just imagine the millions of tax payers money wasting away in the Saglemi housing project and think for a moment, if we deserve this treatment from our leaders!

As we grapple with power load-shedding, in times when the world has advanced past this minute problem, Kwame Nkrumah’s Akosombo Dam, was and still remains the biggest investment in the energy sector.  Today, a mere maintenance of a gas plant plunges the country into ‘Dumsor’ crafted as ‘Dum sie sie’ because our political office holders have become wordsmiths, crafting words to suit their agenda. Should Nkrumah be blamed for this?

Need I talk about the Komenda Sugar Factory, one of Kwame Nkrumah’s industrial revolutionary projects which was set up in 1964, collapsed and revamped in 2016 still dysfunctional in 2023? May be Nkrumah owes us an apology for not creating leaders who could perpetuate his ideologies of industrializing Ghana at the pace he did after he was gone. Or perhaps Nkrumah should have been heartless with sloganeering like we witness today for his political expediency. For a factory that provided thousands of direct and indirect jobs to remain un-operational can only be blamed on bad leadership, because people who are so crafty with slogans have failed to operationalize it amidst hefty promises.

The 1D1F initiative would have become the biggest industrial revolution post Nkrumah, if robust measures were taken to operationalize the several industries cited under the programme. Recent checks by The Fourth Estate indicate that several of those factories under the 1D1F such as the Akontombra Rice Processing in the Western Region, Casa de Ropa factory in Central Region, Asamoah and Yamoah Farms in Ashanti Region, Unijay Garments Limited to mention but a few are all languishing in weeds after they were commissioned amidst pomp and pageantry.

Should Nkrumah apologize to Ghana for leading the path for political freedom, at a time when Danquah-Busia elitists wrote to the Queen of England to delay our independence? Years later, if they could, the descendants of Danquah-Busia have tried unsuccessfully to erase Nkrumah’s name from the annals of Ghana’s political history.

I believe that the problems we face today are attributive to leadership, and I believe that the words of John C. Maxwell, that  ‘’A great leader’s courage to fulfil his vision comes from passion, not position” is worth an attention. If Kwame Nkrumah fulfilled his vision, or nearly did, such that today, he is celebrated more in many African countries than Ghana, it was not because of his desire to lead, but rather his vision to transform his followers.

There is every indication that Ghanaians are suffering from leadership crisis—leaders who would build roads with the life span of Kwame Nkrumah’s Accra-Tema motorway, which has lasted for generations and not roads that would be washed away with one heavy downpour. It is the leadership crisis we suffer from that would make the government of the day busy with planning on how to win the next elections while people wallow in abject poverty, and instead of providing concrete jobs for the teeming unemployed youth, only provide numbers that can only be illusionary, to claim of high employment numbers. Sad to say that we have not had the leaders who would confront our social problems head-on, and deal with them frontally.

Under the fourth republic, the unfortunate issue of prioritizing party manifesto over a National Development  Plan is a recipe for social disaster, as many projects would be abandoned, and the promise of fulfilling manifesto promises would be a hoax. Such is the kind of leaders we now have, who have become an albatross around our neck.

Many past leaders might have had a good score card. However, when benchmarked against the highest standard set by some contemporary African leaders like Paul Kagame of Rwanda, their performances may be a pale shadow of themselves.

While it may irk many who do not want to hear Kwame Nkrumah in juxtaposing him to our current crop of leaders, I need to once again enumerate few of the many socio-economic programmes he initiated for our growth and sustainability.  The Aboso Glass Factory, set up in 1966 shortly before his overthrow, the Tarkwa Bonsa Tire Factory, established in 1963, the Wenchi Tomato Factory, Kade Match Factory among many others I cannot readily recall. Many of these factories are today reeling under weeds or in ruins. The lack of continuity and the will to consolidate these gains from the legacy of Kwame Nkrumah, mainly due to leaders’ parochial interest have taken us several years back.

No achievement in our contemporary governance is likely to rival the numerous achievement Kwame Nkrumah chalked, but our belief in mediocrity make us praise-singers of those who are struggling to achieve even a quarter of what Nkrumah achieved.

If our backwardness today, resulting in our reliance on a paltry USD 3bn from the International Monetary Fund (IMF) to sustain our collapsing economy when we could waste over GhC20 bn in collapsing indigenous banks, then certainly the conspirators of Nkrumah’s overthrow owe Ghana an apology.

We can make or unmake ourselves, to develop or remain stagnant or build on the foundations laid by the first president of Ghana. Let us swallow our pride and go back to the framework on the seven-year development plan, and other long term plans from 1964 and incorporate them into the forty year workable National Development Plan, which in itself is suffering execution crisis for a smooth sustainable growth.

Unless I am misunderstood on the aforementioned reasons, I still shudder to think, Does Kwame Nkumah owe Ghana an apology for where we are?

____________________________________________________________________

The writer is Kobina Abakah-Fahodzi, Accra., [email protected]

Source: Kobina Abakah-Fahodzi | [email protected]

Source: citifmonline.com