*Title: BUILDING NKRUMAH‘S CONSCIOUSNESS AND RALLYING AFRICA/AFRICANS AROUND HIS MISSION AND VISION.*
For Africa to be totally transformed, we need to rise to Nkrumah’s level of consciousness and beyond. Nkrumah was by all standards, a highly conscientious personality. Volumes have been written for and against Kwame Nkrumah. In my estimation, the most dissected and discussed African personality is Kwame Nkrumah. In writing this piece, I pay special tribute to the man I like to call the USAIN BOLT of Africa emancipation. The speed at which he set out to ensure the total emancipation of the African continent and the larger African world was breathtaking. If he had not been stopped in his tracks, he and the African world would have set a world record in the field of human emancipation and progress. He once said, “The emancipation of the African continent and the black man could be the emancipation of man”. How true. We shall not rest until the African emancipation goals are finally scored.
In an article entitled “The Nkrumah vision lives” written by one Kofi Akordor in acknowledgement of the statue erected in his honour at the newly AU headquarters in Addis Ababa, he stated and I quote:
“There was no doubt that Ghana would have been a nuclear power by now had the initiative Nkrumah took in the early 1960s with the institution of the Ghana Atomic Energy Commission not been terminated with the collapse of his administration.” Another home truth.
On assumption of office in 2009, the new Government of Ghana set out to reintroduce subtle policies and programs to Conscientize the population on Nkrumaism and put Nkrumah at the center of Ghanaian and African politics.
1) The government set out to distribute free exercise books to all primary school children. “The 80-page exercise book whose covers were designed in the national colors has its front and back covers embossed with a portrait of Osagyefo Dr. Kwame Nkrumah, Ghana's First President and his biography”.
2) A new Ghana 2-cedi note was introduced embossed with Nkrumah pictures
3) The government launched Nkrumah's centenary celebrations and set aside every 21st September, Nkrumah’s birthday as a national holiday, a day known as Founder’s Day.
4) The AU unanimously accepted the Dr. Nkrumah’s centenary birthday and put it on the AU’s calendar of “Special Events”.
5) The government has launched a book under the auspices of National Youth Authority with the title ““Kwame Nkrumah - The Greatest African Leader” aimed at inculcating in the Youth values of Nkrumah.
6) The Ghanaian Government engineered the decision of the AU to honor African Scientists with the “African Union Kwame Nkrumah Scientific Awards (AUKNSA) in recognition of Nkrumah’s role in launching the African version of the Scientific and Industrial Revolution on the day the Ghana Atomic Energy Commission was established in 1964.
*INTRODUCTION TO THE AUKNSA*
The Commission of the African Union is committed to support the use and development of science in Africa and has initiated with its key development partners the African Union Scientific Award Programme. In July 2010, the African Union Heads of State and Government took a decision to rename this Programme as “African Union Kwame Nkrumah Scientific Awards”. This decision reflects and underscores a success story and the critical role of science and technology in the development and integration of Africa. The objective of this Programme is to award Cash Prizes and Recognition Certificates to excelling African researchers for their achievements in Earth and Life Sciences, and Basic, Science, Technology and Innovation sectors.
7) Finally, through the strong advocacy of the Ghanaian government, the African Union unanimously accepted to erect the statue of KWAME NKRUMAH at the foreground of newly built AU complex at Addis Ababa. This endorsement by the AU was described by the continental body as the “automatic choice”
All these and many more have been done as in the words of the current Ghanaian President by “repositioning the country’s first President, Osagyefo Dr Kwame Nkrumah, firmly on the mind of the Continent”.
The aim of all these is to achieve the ULTIMATE GOAL of Nkrumah, which was to see a continent and people living in a *“ harmoniously organized free and independent Africa, possessed of its own unique personality which stands in equality before the rest of the world, accepted, honored and respected.".*
I have championed the re-emergence of Nkrumaism as I believe an Africa rallying around Nkrumah’s vision and mission will surely recapture the Center in African affairs and end the centuries of operating at the periphery of our affairs. Nkrumah unlocks and unearths the potentials of Africans.
At home and at away, we are always disadvantaged. It is time to take charge of our affairs as Nkrumah said, it was about time the African proved that the “BLACKMAN IS CAPABLE”.
*The renewed Pan African mission ought to be:*
To enlighten the African eye
To awake the sleeping African spirit
To bring awareness to the inactively wrongly conditioned African mind
And empower the African hands and breathe fresh spirit to our somehow ‘lifeless’ bodies.
We need to come alive. We need to reverse the false beliefs and mistaken beliefs which have been built in the consciousness of our people that the African is not capable.
Our mission must be to preach and demonstrate that the “AFRICAN IS CAPABLE”.
* Kwame Nkrumah, Paper War and The Science of Mass Mind Control:*
Nkrumah talked about a PAPER WAR and the power of distorted and twisted images. What is known as disinformation and misinformation which is the biggest weapon of the Imperialist. Unfortunately most people ignore the powerful effects of the PAPER WAR. Nkrumah proposed a way to battle and win this WAR.
We need to counter the imperialist powerful, deadly mind games. AHIA has developed a well-crafted strategy to counter the powerful paper/media warfare of the West. In the conventional/high-tech war, we cannot fight them. Our capability lies in adopting the low-tech, unconventional paper warfare. With this strategy, we can engage our people powerfully and neutralize the imperialist machinations thus deprogramming and reprogramming our people. We have experimented with the idea for many years and seen its powerful effects. Powerful images have powerful effects on peoples psyche. The war in Libya was basically an IMAGE/MEDIA WAR using television to twist the real facts. Human beings basically react to images. Since the days of the Bible, they have used this strategy to inflict those lurid “victories” on our psyche.
Those interested can contact AHIA for further information on this low-tech strategy.
Nkrumah as expected of him saw afar off the imperialist mechanism and gave us the clue on how to counter the Imperialists paper/media warfare.
As one commentary stated; the goal of imperial media assault on the African mind is mainly for : “Controlling individuals to the point that they would do our bidding against their will, even against such FUNDAMENTAL LAWS of nature as self-preservation”.
Nkrumah used it effectively and we can do likewise. In the Libyan war, NATO first started bombing with leaflets, weakening the psychological defense of the people before dropping the REAL BOMBS.
* THE PAPER WAR as described by Nkrumah:*
"The paper war penetrates into every town and village, and into the remotest parts of the “bush”. It spreads in the form of free distributions of propaganda films praising the qualities of western civilization and culture. These are some of the ways in which the psychological terrain is prepared. When the target, a certain country or continent, is sufficiently “softened”, then the invasion of evangelist brigades begins, thus perpetuating the centuries old tactic whereby missionaries prepare the way for guns. Peace Corps divisions stream in, and Moral Rearmament units, Jehovah witnesses, information agencies and international financial “aid” organizations. In this way, a territory or even an entire continent is besieged without a single marine in sight. A sprinkling of political and little-publicised murders, like that of Pio Pinto in Kenya, and Moumie in Geneva, are used to assist the process."
Nkrumah also warned us of the usage of Hollywood style imperialist propaganda machinery which we are seeing taking the centre stage in recent times.
“The imperialists have made widespread and wily use of ideological and cultural weapons in the form of intrigues, manoeuvres and slander campaigns… while Hollywood takes care of fiction, the enormous monopoly press, together with the outflow of slick, clever, expensive magazines, attends to what it chooses to call ‘news’… thus far, all the methods of neo-colonialists have pointed in one direction, the ancient, accepted one of all minority ruling classes throughout history: divide and rule. Quite obviously, therefore, unity is the first requisite for destroying neo-colonialism
* Nkrumah and the JORDAN Effect and the Multi-Billion African Industry*
During the Nkrumah centenary celebrations, quite unusual, the World Bank joined and tried to hijack another African agenda and initiative to serve its imperialistic interests.
"There are many aspects of Nkrumah's vision which we, at the World Bank identify with". The Bank had seen from afar off that Nkrumah was/is a multi-billion industry and trying to cash in as they often do and have done with our vast human and natural resources. This time, we have to move ahead of them and beat them to their game.
There is something in economics called the JORDAN EFFECT. It is about the economic impact that MICHAEL JORDAN had on the city of Chicago. Between 1984 and 1998, MICHAEL JORDAN alone contributed over 10 BILLION dollars to the Chicago economy. Jordan was not only an extraordinary basketball player, but also a major contributor to the American economy by way of increased game attendance, television, NBA merchandise, NIKE, endorsements, books, etc
If Jordan, through basketball alone, could impact and transform the economic fortunes of Chicago, what do you think would happen to the global African united African economy with Africans rallying around the vision and mission of the multi-talented, the multi purposed, the all-rounder Nkrumah? Nkrumah embodies the best in African Science, Technology, Education, Finance, the Arts, Industrialization, Sports etc. Nkrumah as President invested wisely as his vision covered every field of human endeavour. Nkrumah researched, spoke and wrote extensively about the nature of the African wealth and how to unlock it to benefit the African world.
I believe if Nkrumah is properly merchandised, his impact would exceed what Jordan contributed to the Chicago economy.
In talking about Nkrumah, we are talking about a man who linked Ghana’s independence to the TOTAL WELL BEING OF THE ENTIRE AFRICAN RACE.
"It is not difficult to imagine the greatly improved condition of the African today if Nkrumah had continued in power to lead the PAN-AFRICAN MOVEMENT"
This was from his June Milne, the Former Reserach and Editorial Assistant to Kwame Nkrumah and later his Literary Executrix.
That is why we like the AU believe that building African consciousness around Nkrumah will bring out the BEST in us and the best in our exemplary pan African fathers such as
Henry Sylvester Williams,Edward Wilmot Blyden,Cheikh Anita Diop,W.E.B. Du Bois, Steve Biko,Fela Anikulapo Kuti
Martin Luther King, Julius Nyerere, Malcolm X, Marcus Garvey, Bob Marley, Franz Fanon, Sekou Tourré, Robert Sobukwe
Patrice Lumumba, Thomas Sankara, Amilca Gabral, George Padmore,Haile Salassie and many others.
Finally, placing Nkrumah at the centre of the pan African struggle is not meant to downplay the glorious roles played by our illustrious forefathers, but rather to enhance their contributions and build a UNITED FRONT around a common symbol accepted as the “automatic choice”, to represent a free, proud, courageous capable African world.
Nkrumah also serves as a perfect link between the hopes and aspirations of Africans at home and the Diaspora. He became the embodiment of the Pan African dream and spirit hence the statue at the AU headquarters to symbolize the African dream.
*The DREAM LIVES ON*
'We are committed to reclaiming the rich heritage of Africa, every inch of it, and redrawing the contours of African history which in the hands of others had been drawn with great malice and lurid falsehood' Chinua Achebe
“There is enough talent, wealth, and enterprise, to form a respectable continent of Africa." Edward Wilmot Blyden.
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*Support A Worthy Cause.*
*AFRICAN HOME ADVANTAGE INCORPORATED (AHAI)*
To Make Africans Regain The Much Needed Home Advantage
Which Have Been Denied Us For Centuries
Writer: O. B Ahai