African Union Day: Nkrumah- The Flute Players Who's Dancers Could Not Interpret the Rhythms of his Tunes

As I was scribbling something in my dairy, trying to list my schedule for the day, the Joy FM’s news jiggle started playing. This signaled me that it was six o’clock AM already. I strained my ears to listen to what the news had for me. As usual, I was expecting to hear something about the vultures who are eating themselves up within the New Patriotic Party (NPP) and possibly, our struggling economy under the seemingly confused government. But no, I heard more than that! Today was also the African Union Day. All of a sudden, my thoughts were set in motion. Names of our great forbearers resounded in my ears, names including: Dr. Kwame Nkrumah, Jomo Kenyatta, Julius Nyerere, Haile Salasie, Sekou Toure, Abdul-Nasser and the rest.

But the only one whose name re-echoed in my ears and swept me on my feet was Kwame Nkrumah. A man whose monumental achievement and effort gave birth to the African Union of today, and this bears testimony in his statute which stands magnificently at the edifice of the African Union building in Addis Ababa.

Growing up as little boy, the only name I could hear was Nelson Mandela and in my naïve judgment, I perceived him as the greatest African ever lived. But going through literature, it became apparent to me that even though Nelson Mandela fought hard to end apartheid in South Africa, Kwame Nkrumah lit the flames of the struggle of nationalism. As our sages advice “a person whose corn matures first is the person who started stinginess” and therefore no matter what Mandela did, he could not be compared to Nkrumah.

To our current generation and specifically Ghanaians, when we talk of Nkrumah’s greatness we cite only the physical projects that he left—Tema Harbour, Akosombo Dam, Tema Motorway, KNUST and my own alma mater, the University of Choice, among others.

But Nkrumah greatness lay far, far beyond those projects. This seems to vindicate the great academic, Charles Abugri’s suggestion that “Dead politicians are different things to different people…Their good is usurped, their failures exhumed and magnified as appropriate and in accordance with creed”. Maybe this also explains why as a little boy, Nelson Mandela’s name sounded more important in my ears than Nkrumah.

The achievement of Nkrumah lay deep like the roots of Odum tree, they are firmly stalk deep in the soil and cannot be blown away even by the hurricane or tsunami. His achievements are cast in iron and are well documented.

But our elders say, when we reach the cemetery, it is prudent we remember the heroes of the past. This will help us make a retrospective attempt to understand the origin of the current crisis. Kwame Nkrumah’s legacies include his inspiring effect on the black man, his singular contributions to the liberation of our continent and his hold on the masses stemming from his brand of retail politics.

Having acted the Organizing Secretary of the 1945 Pan-African Congress in Manchester which included other great Pan-Africanists such as W.E.B. Du Bois and Nkrumah's longtime friend, George Padmore, Nkrumah was inspired about the need for Africa to be liberated and be united under one union government. His influence was inspired by the wealth and power of the United States of America(USA) and the now defunct, Union of Soviet Socialist Republic (USSR).

Having suffered racial discrimination during his student days in the USA when the civil right movement was at its peak, Nkrumah developed a non-violent yet a militant approach to the struggle for independence when he returned to Ghana in 1947 upon his invitation by the United Gold Coast Convention (UGCC). The UGCC leadership had already stoked the fire for the liberation struggle, but they were reacting with kid gloves.

At a point, Nkrumah had to break away from the UGCC and formed the Conventions People’s Party (CPP) which eventually won independence for Ghana in 1957.

After Ghana’s independence, Accra became the mecca of Pan-Africanism and all the liberation fighters trooped to the shores of Ghana for the “baptism of fire” for the liberation of the continent. Nkrumah forcefully preached the need for Africa to unite urgently to elude neo-colonialists and imperialists from infiltrating within their ranks, but this went unheeded by his compatriots who were still enjoying their new found sovereignty.

As the elders say, “the sore that will kill the dog starts from its head”. Nkrumah’s ideas were consigned into the dustbin, but today, the bones of those leaders who opposed to Nkrumah’s ideas would be gnashing and turning bitterly in their graves with regrets, but the ship has already sank deep in the ocean.

Today, Africans are blaming their leaders. There seems to be leadership crisis on the continent. “Dumsor” is suffocating and roasting Ghanaians and businesses are folding up. Boko haram insurgency continued to terrorize innocent people in Nigeria whilst their outgoing president, Goodluck Jonathan, was busy doling out gold-plated iPhones at his daughter’s wedding. Thousands of Burundians are mourning the murder of the opposition leader, Zedi Feruzi, whilst their president, Pierre Nkurunziza is busy exhibiting his skills in soccer. What a continent!

The continent is the richest in the world yet the poorest in terms of human and infrastructural development. Millions are still dying from common preventable diseases and our resources are being carted away everyday by the imperialists and the neo-colonialists Nkrumah preached about. Was Nkrumah not right in calling for African Unity?

Even though Nkrumah’s critics have always argued that Nkrumah’s personal posture indicated that he was a new form of black imperialist, the true must be told, Nkrumah’s ideas were superb but his contemporaries were too naïve to interpret the rhythm of his tunes.

He introduced one party system, Preventive Detention Act (PDA) and was also accused of assassinating Sylvester Olympio of Togo, as well as masterminding to overthrow other leaders in Africa including the Nnamde Azikiwe and Tafawa Balewa of Nigeria and Félix Houphouët-Boigny of Ivory Coast.

His cynics often say, he should be nailed on the cross because of these reasons, but they forget that the exigencies that raised its ugly head in his attempt to Unify Africa called for a more radical and brutal approach. The west imperialists were working on the backdoor to overthrow Nkrumah for the mere reason that he was a socialist. They were using their puppet governments and some selfish individuals to execute their plans.

Every person has his own flaws. Just like Mandela who was hailed as a hero but today, we are witnessing  xenophobia which I prefer to call “Afrophobia” in South Africa, which many people would want to put the blame on his doorsteps, Nkrumah had his own flaws because of the exigencies of his time.

Today, as we commemorate of African Union’s Day, I see it as the celebration of the funeral of Nkrumah’s abortive ideas. The ideas which continue to ignite lively debates among rational thinkers. Today, Africans would wish they could reverse the hands of time but that seems too late. Nkrumah is indeed a great hero of Africa and his name and Africa Union are siamese twins which cannot be operated on by any surgeon.