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How Ghana Was Short-changed after Nkrumah
I write in reaction to the above-mentioned
article posted on Ghanaweb earlier today, 3rd Oct 2012. As
usual, it seems that many readers, by the comments made,
obviously did not read the article properly or carefully, and as
is typical of the genre of our times, some of them betrayed the
symptoms of an illness that indicates that they are also
hopelessly afflicted by the lethal virus of the small-mindedness
of the unredeemed slave.
This ailment is a vicious debilitating mental condition which,
like many other alien diseases such as gonorrhoea, syphilis,
Tuberculosis, AIDS etc, has been insidiously inflicted upon our
race by the impure genetic characteristics and despotic wiles of
those who enslaved and colonized us.
These contemptible opinions are not isolated instances. Many
Africans, as a result of or in reaction to the nightmare of the
periods of slavery and colonial experiences in our history, have
allowed themselves to continue to be inadvertently chained –
psychologically and spiritually, to the subjective mentality of
enforced racial inferiority and subjectivity. Such racially
crippled or compromised people are only capable of observing the
world from the warped psychological perspective of lesser beings
and living life from the premise of the fraudulent and
self-serving socio-political rules and abominable social systems
of our oppressors.
What we should all do - as enlightened Africans, is to endlessly
praise and thank Kwame Nkrumah for not only liberating the Black
African race from over 500 years of undemocratic and brutal
slavery cum colonial dictatorship during which many generations
of Africans had no vote nor any human rights whatsoever, to the
post-Nkrumah one in which the African was given the right to
vote, the right to confidently express his opinions and the
right to live in proud dignity as a human being, on his own
God-given land.
Isn't it curious that the colonial masters of the critics of
Okunka Bannerman's splendidly written article, found the use of
the word 'dictator' only after Nkrumah had kicked their ass out
of our country and had established a de facto universally
recognized democratic system based on the principles of
universal human rights and suffrage? Why could the colonial
oppressors not likewise establish even the crudest and simplest
forms of democracy in which we could all have peacefully and
happily lived together whilst they were here for over 500 years?
Why is it that after only 3 to 5 years after Nkrumah had ‘kicked
their asses out’, they were expecting him (Nkrumah) to live by
the highest idealistic standards and rules of democracy which
they, after several centuries of supposedly democratic practice
in their home countries, could not live up to?
Of course, from time to time, Nkrumah had to employ high-handed
measures to exorcise the mischief out of those of our brothers
and sisters who had been infected and more severely afflicted by
the evil strains of the demonic disease of our oppressors. What
else can one do to people who fight on the side of the enemy
against their own people? How does one handle people whose
kinsmen, after having barely survived 500 years of despotic and
oppressive rule of the most inhumane kind, cannot see any merit
in the provision by the state of free education, free
healthcare, cheap housing for all and abundant jobs when
alternatives by a virtually non-existent private sector were
simply not available? Can someone answer these questions for me?
Isn’t it also strange that after ranting against, berating and
condemning Nkrumah all along for attempting to adopt presumed
socialist policies, what do we see today? The same cabal of
dishonest, shameless and confused politicians who laughably, on
the throes of a failed state and an economy that largely
subsists on grants and hand-outs, and who, to make matters
worse, ride on the spurious flagship of capitalism as a
legitimate and plausible means of development for our badly
scarred and impoverished continent and country, are now fiercely
bandying socialist policies around as their bona fide crusade.
What in the name of God is the world coming to?
Let me attempt to answer my own question.
What the world is coming to, is the inevitable and long-awaited
realization that the basic tenets of socialism provide us with
the only solutions to the way out of the endemic poverty that
has been historically imposed on Africa by the twin-evils of
slavery, (neo)colonialism and the ravages of these complications
in its aftermath. If today the shameless pimps of western
exploitation of Africa - the Danquah-Busia clique, have been
pushed against all odds – even if for cosmetic reasons, to
ill-advisedly apply some principles of socialist practice simply
in the bid to deceive the people to attain power to enable them
to more effectively loot the coffers of state on behalf of their
much beloved colonial masters, this in itself, rationalizes the
fact that socialism is indeed being recognized as the panacea to
our age-long difficulties.
Not only am I amused, but happy that the moles amongst us have
finally succumbed to a modicum of good reasoning which forebodes
a clearer and a more independent path and good omen for the
future of Africa. I am however on the other hand, also prone to
virtually inconsolable moods of extreme sadness when I reflect
on the many missed historical opportunities that we as a people
have lost in the past as a result of the political shenanigans
of these moles and pimps - and which have in turn caused many
generations of hundreds of millions of African people, to
unnecessarily suffer undue hardship, pain and mass demise over
many decades and centuries.
I still brood over what we as a people may have significantly
gained today from the abandoned establishment of a gold refinery
in the sixties. I brood over what we as a nation may have
significantly gained from the then abandoned construction of the
Bui dam, the development of the Ghana Atomic Agency for the
anticipated high energy needs and supplies for the then and
still expanding socio-economic infrastructure, the increased
industrialization of the entire Ghanaian economy, the
unquestionable benefits of the inter-African highway which could
have greatly transformed the entire economic landscape of Africa
for the better, the inter-African railway system, the Pan
African News Agency, the establishment of the African Diamond
and Gold Marketing institutions to ensure that we get our fair
share of our own mineral resources, the redevelopment of the
Volta River basin into a major tourist and transport channel,
the expansion of Accra International Airport into one of the
biggest in the world to accommodate anticipated rapid
development strides in various sectors of the economy, the
expansion of the Tema Harbour to take the biggest haulage ships
in the world to complement our anticipated increase in trade
with the rest of Africa and the world, the development of
additional port facilities in the Nzema and Volta areas, the
redevelopment of our entire fishing industry into a modern
agricultural production sector to take advantage of the prolific
fishing capacity in our coastal waters, the redevelopment of
vast expanses of land in the Volta Region, the Accra Plains, the
Ashanti Region, the Eastern Region and the Northern Regions into
massive agricultural production hubs with the ambitious aim of
establishing the bread-basket of Africa in Ghana, the
redevelopment of the Korle Lagoon into a major global Tourist
and leisure destination – all these and many, many, more were to
have been established in the sixties.
I continue to brood of what more we could have further added or
built upon – but which we did not, onto these above-mentioned
great achievements later on in the seventies, the eighties, the
nineties and beyond, if the infidel and aberrant pimps of
imperialism had not helped bring about an abrupt end to the
only, the greatest and the most significant developmental
endeavour ever made by any African, since the Pharaohs of
ancient Egypt, to improve the lot of Africans and mankind.
Dear God forgive us for denying ourselves the grace of the many
gifts of life that You so mercifully and bountifully bestowed
unto us!
“Our Father who art in heaven,
........ forgive us our trespasses,
and lead us not into temptation,
but deliver us from evil.
Amen.”
Nene (King) Osabutey
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