Pretend to overlook Nkrumah to forget why Africa must unite
 
E. Ablorh-Odjidja, Ghanadot.com
December 17, 2013

I am amused by debates in the Ghanaian media about Nkrumah and Mandela, as to whose contributions, and therefore reputation, should be considered the greatest.

But I also understand the need for the debate. For the deniers of Nkrumah's legacy, it is to cause a shade or two to darken the great Nkrumah's achievement.

Ever since Nkrumah was deposed in the coup of February 24, 1966, these folks have been seeking to kneecap his legendary policies.
 
Thankfully as always, there are those who do not begrudge Nkrumah's achievements and are ready at any time to defend him.

To the disappointment of the deniers, Nkrumah’s legacy continues to loom larger everyday.
 
His core belief that African unity was necessary became a common and permanent thread in the developmental aspirations of ordinary folks on the continent.

The defeat of apartheid in South Africa, with Mandela at the helm, has proven to be a spectacular achievement on the continent and this, for some, has provided the opportunity to raise issues about Nkrumah's contribution in this regard.

President Nkrumah, the deniers claim, had less to do with the defeat of apartheid in South Africa. He had refused to meet with Mandela when the latter came to Ghana 1962 for help.

 
For this reason, the deniers in Ghana were willing to defend the protocol at the ceremony in South Africa during Mandela's burial.

At this ceremony, many viewers could not help but notice the dead silence about Nkrumah, as other names of past presidents in Africa, among others of the world, were mentioned and lauded as having been helpful in the liberation drive against the apartheid system.

The deniers had 1962 as justification.  They were willing, for the sake of spite, to deny their own country's contribution; for Ghana got the same silent treatment as Nkrumah at this ceremony.  And were not offended that Ghana's heroic contributions in the fight against colonial dominations in Southern Africa were also suppressed.
 
In the 60s, the Southern Africa liberation movement was not about freeing Mandela. it was about liberating a whole continent.  Nkrumah was one of the leaders of that fight, if not the foremost one.

The historical time line within which Nkrumah and Mandela operated makes the ongoing comparison between them unnecessary.

Simply stated, Nkrumah was before Mandela.

Julius Nyerere, the late revered president of Tanzania, on a visit to Ghana on March 6, 1997 said, "liberation movements (of the era) came to Ghana to discuss the common strategy for the liberation of the continent from colonialism.”

And further that “Kwame Nkrumah was the great crusader of African unity. He wanted the Accra Summit of 1965 to establish a union government for the whole of independent Africa. But we failed."
 
Nyerere continued, "Kwame, like all great believers, underestimated the degree of suspicion and animosity which his crusading passion had created among a substantial number of his fellow heads of state."

Nyerere was a fact witness to the liberation movements of that era and the resulting animosity generated by Nkrumah's support for the activities of these movements.

Of interest also should be the animosity that faced Nkrumah in Ghana at that time.  It had the support of foreign influences, including the CIA, that worked to bring the end to Nkrumah's regime in February of 1966.

Left in place after 1966 are today's deniers and sympathizers of that inglorious 1966 coup; even years after it had been revealed that the so-called “glorious revolution” was after all never that spontaneous or glorious.

These are the same folks who want to pitch Mandela's reputation against Nkrumah's; the intention being to strip and replace Nkrumah's dominant impact on the politics of the continent with Mandela's. 

Or to depict Nkrumah's achievements for Africa as ordinary compared with that of Mandela.

For this, the deniers would gladly overlook the snub, as Ghana and Nkrumah's memory were obscured that day.

As if in studied presentations, not one of the speeches departed from the obscurantism. It was to prove helpful for the deniers in future debates on Nkrumah.

It must be stated emphatically that South Africa became free partly because of Nkrumah’s support for liberation movements across the continent.

His cry “the independence of Ghana is meaningless unless it is linked with the total liberation of Africa” was a cornerstone statement of this support.

By the time Mandela was put in prison in 1967, Nkrumah was already out of power. But the objectives the two had were intertwined.
 
To be blunt, the universal acceptance of Mandela today is about the bloodshed he spared South Africa, with his "reconciliation" policy, when he became the president in 1994.
 
"Reconciliation" was huge and pivotal.  But it wasn't the thought of "reconciliation" that subdued the Boar immediately prior to 1994. It was the fear of the fervor of a liberated continent that Nkrumah’s message had ignited across Africa, resonating to reach white, black and colored in South Africa.

To understand the full weight of Nkrumah's message, try to envisage former colonial masters gathering at his funeral to rejoice at the prospect of a united Africa. That, certainly, would be an impossibility.
 
Yet, universally, this same group accepted Mandela's “reconciliation” concept as a political triumph. No need to ask why because "Reconciliation" was an opened benefit for them.

The joy in the debate must, therefore, not be about elevating the spirit of “reconciliation” over the necessity for a united Africa, for which Nkrumah was a foremost advocate.

Ghana became independent when the apartheid brand in South Africa was still one of the most virulent colonial dominations in Africa.  Nkrumah took apartheid on.  Prime Minister Hendrik Frensch Verwoerd became his instant political target after 1957.
 
In 1960, the Sharpeville massacre happened and it provoked protests marches in Ghana, with Nkrumah the obvious instigator.  Support for liberation movements in Africa went up. Many from Southern Africa came to Ghana for help and got it.

Oliver Tambo of the ANC met with Nkrumah in Accra in 1960. Robert Subokwe of the Pan African Congress of South Africa (PAC), considered more dangerous than the ANC by the apartheid regime, was favored more by Nkrumah. (There is a road named after Subokwe in Ghana.)

Mandela didn’t meet Nkrumah in 1962 probably because of the latter's support of Subokwe’s PAC.  After all, PAC was more in line with Nkrumah's pan-Africanism in intent.

Regardless, the armed wings of PAC and ANC later came together to form Umkhonto we Sizwe (MK), soon after the Sharpeville massacre.

Ghana’s aggressive attitude against the apartheid regime all this time was unabated and widely known.
 
It was expressed in political speeches and pronouncements. In commerce, airlines flying in transit from South Africa were not allowed a stop in Accra.

Recall that there was a Bureau of African Affairs in Ghana, set up by Nkrumah for the very purpose of liberating settler colonies in Africa. South Africa, Zimbabwe, Mozambique and Angola were predominant settler countries of this era.
 
Ghana's resources were spent on these African liberation movements. 

 
Barely days after the so-called “spontaneous” coup of February 24,”  1966, the coup plotters claimed there were militant training camps in Ghana under the aegis of the Bureau of African Affairs. The CIA confirmed the same in a report in March 4, 1966.

True, the Bureau was very active under Nkrumah. It organized in 1958, 1960, and 1961 the All Africa People (AAPC) conferences in Accra.

The primary objectives of the AAPC conferences were to defeat the colonialist, the settlers in Southern Africa and to solidify as well as resist the formation of neocolonialism in the newly independent states of Africa.

Luminaries such as Patrice Lumumba, Kenneth Kaunda of Zambia, Holden Roberto of Angola Hastings Banda, President of Malawi and Julius Nyerere of Tanzania attended some of these conferences.

So who exactly got the help for which Nkrumah "squandered" Ghana's resources, since none of it went to Mandela or South Africa, one must ask the deniers?

On the day of the burial of President Mandela, all about Nkrumah was promptly forgotten. Only the victory over apartheid and "reconciliation" was celebrated. And on center stage were the very colonial masters, whose vested interest in keeping Africa balkanized Nkrumah fought hard against.
 
The theme of African unity forgotten for the day or perhaps forever in South Africa.

Nkrumah died in 1972. Mandela just left us. We praise Mandela for his saintly presence on earth, understand and appreciate his concept of reconciliation.  But there should be no need to trade Africa Unity for this concept.  The reasoning behind ‘"Africa must unite" theme that Nkrumah provided must be kept alive in order for Africa and Africans to survive.


E. Ablorh-Odjidja, publisher, www.ghanadot.com, Washington, DC, December 17, 2013

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