As Ghana is about to celebrate independence, the question arises as to what independence really means to todays Ghanaian. What was the situation before that compelled Dr. Nkrumah to insist on "self governance now"? Could it be that Nkrumah encountered a situation in America and the United Kingdom that caused him to suspect the existence of a global system of imperialism ?
It is relevant for the people of Ghana in this generation to have a recap of the life, the ambitions, and the achievements of Osagyefo Dr. Kwame Nkrumah, the man who led Ghana to freedom. Dr. Nkrumah warned that.....
" the political economic situation in the world is one in which a tiny minority of the people grow "richer and richer, while the rest grow poorer and poorer." Challenge of the Congo, p. x
He further elaborated that the situation required world socialism as it was the only remedy, for "as long as capitalism and imperialism go unchecked there will always be exploitation, and an ever-widening gap between the haves and the have-nots, and all the evils of imperialism and neo-colonialism which breed and sustain wars." Challenge of the Congo, preface, p. x.
Why did Nkrumah keep warning us about capitalism? He also warned against dependence on capitalist global institutions such as the United Nation Organization (UN) and the Bretton Woods institutions such as the IMF and World Bank. Of the UN he reminded us that the UN is the tool of the elite states which control the Security Council and that it was / is "just as reliable an instrument for world order and peace as the Great Powers are prepared to allow it to be." I Speak of Freedom, preface, p xii.
The United Nations Organization? Why must Nkrumah warn us about the UN, IMF, and World Bank? Who removed Nkrumah from office? And why is Ghana now a foster child to these institutions that Dr. Nkrumah warned us about?
One needs a moment to reflect on the chronology of events from 1957 to 2015, in an attempt to discover the hidden patterns that completes the story of how Ghana is still in slavery. Nkrumah also said....
"By far the greatest wrong which the departing colonialists inflicted on us, and which we now continue to inflict on ourselves in our present state of disunity, was to leave us divided into economically unviable States which bear no possibility of real development...."
"...We must unite for economic viability, first of all, and then to recover our mineral wealth in Southern Africa, so that our vast resources and capacity for development will bring prosperity for us and additional benefits for the rest of the world. That is why I have written elsewhere that the emancipation of Africa could be the emancipation of Man." Speech OAU Summit Conference Cairo 7/19/64 can be found on pages 282-4 of Revolutionary Path
What does independence mean to you?
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