Gabby Otchere-Darko
In a provocative lecture delivered to Pennsylvania University students and professors last Monday (on the eve of Founder's Day in Ghana), Gabby Asare Otchere-Darko described Ghana's first President as the "personification of the African tragedy of the 20th century."
He said, it was ironic, but pregnant with subconscious meaning that BBC listeners voted Kwame Nkrumah as Africa's man of the Millennium in December 1999
"Precisely because, in my view, Nkrumah's leadership epitomised the African dream that decayed, the political freedom that was won and lost, the promise that was missed, the economic experiments that led to our detriment, triggering a long, avoidable period of instability and mass poverty."
He said, Nkrumah used his charisma, energy and urgency to inspire his nation to the promise of greatness, beginning with a GDP growth of between 9.12%, rapid industrialisation and significant expansion of social programmes. However, within a decade there was decline on nearly every major front -- civil rights, democracy, and the economy suffered -- and he ended up offering to a hopeful continent a model of leadership and a paradigm of governance that left a 50-year legacy of 'Afropessimism
UNITED STATES
The head of the Accra-based governance think tank, who was in the United States for a month-long series of public engagements, stressed, "in fact, the Nkrumah failure was Africa's failure or vice versa," yet, "we are happy to hail him as Africa's Man of the Millennium."
With undisguised irony, he said the Nkrumah story captures all that was wrong with Africa in the 20th century and that was why the founder of the CPP best represents Africa's millennium -- one of avoidable failure which the leadership of this new century must fix.
"It was apt he got the vote - over Mandela and others -- even if not consciously intended for the reasons I suggest because Nkrumah's failure served not only as a microcosm of Africa's failure but as the pace-setter for that continental failure which today has the majority of our people still steep in poverty."
The Executive Director of the Danquah Institute said, Ghana, being the first Sub-Saharan nation to break away from colonial rule readily offered not only a model for independence but more importantly on how Africa's new-found self-governance and development status were to be moulded.
In his lecture, 'Challenges and Opportunities for Africa's Democracy and Development -- Ghana's Historical Pace-setter Burden', Mr. Otchere-Darko called on the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank to reduce their activities in Africa and, instead, redirect much more of such financial resources through the African Development Bank, which he described as "probably the greatest legacy of the defunct OAU."
Mr. Otchere-Darko praised the urgency with which the AfDB is attempting to lead the charge for Africa's development but for which it has not been receiving the commensurate funding.
"The AfDB," he said, 'continues to show unsurpassed courage and native care and wisdom that given a greater fiscal space it can better support Africa's development, especially, through the funding of essential self-paying infrastructural projects for a sustained Pan-African development."
He said, "a recent Afrobarometer survey done in East Africa showed that a vast majority of African people simply want the freedom to move and trade freely with each other across states without borders. They are not interested in either a political or defence union but in economic integration."
The Executive Director of the Danquah Institute said, Ghana, being the first Sub-Saharan nation to break away from colonial rule readily offered not only a model for independence but more importantly on how Africa's new-found self-governance and development status were to be moulded.
In his lecture, 'Challenges and Opportunities for Africa's Democracy and Development -- Ghana's Historical Pace-setter Burden', Mr. Otchere-Darko called on the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank to reduce their activities in Africa and, instead, redirect much more of such financial resources through the African Development Bank, which he described as "probably the greatest legacy of the defunct OAU."
Mr. Otchere-Darko praised the urgency with which the AfDB is attempting to lead the charge for Africa's development but for which it has not been receiving the commensurate funding.
"The AfDB," he said, 'continues to show unsurpassed courage and native care and wisdom that given a greater fiscal space it can better support Africa's development, especially, through the funding of essential self-paying infrastructural projects for a sustained Pan-African development."
He said, "a recent Afrobarometer survey done in East Africa showed that a vast majority of African people simply want the freedom to move and trade freely with each other across states without borders. They are not interested in either a political or defence union but in economic integration."
He also cited Nkrumah's decision to take Ghana out of the West African Airways Corporation, forcing countries like Nigeria, the Gambia and Sierra Leone to form their own airlines, none of which is around today.
Still exposing the contradictions of Nkrumah, Mr Otchere-Darko referred to Sekou Toure, the Guinean leader and close ally of Nkrumah blaming the Ghanaian leader then for allegedly causing the overthrow of Togo's first leader, Sylvanus Olympio in January 1963.
"Four months later on 25 May, 1963, the OAU was established with Nkrumah making a strong case against imperialism and calling for solidarity among Africans and on other African leaders to support his zealous push for unity."
He continued, "Unlike Ali Mazrui, I do not think that Nkrumah was just a bad leader for Ghana, but also a bad example for the very Pan-Africanism that he preached all so well, to which we are all committed today."
Mr Otchere-Darko looked at the culture of vote-rigging in Africa today and traced its roots to the first Sub-Saharan nation to gain independence.
He cited the 1964 referendum on one party state -- where over 99.91% of Ghanaians were said to have voted 'yes' for a one party state, with a shocking series of zero 'no' votes being registered even in opposition strongholds.
Again, he cited the state negligence of private enterprise for state enterprise, while the money to sponsor the parastatals was provided by private cocoa farmers.
He mentioned the 'obnoxious' 1960 constitution which effectively created a republic dictatorship -- the provisions of which have been avoided by all subsequent constitution in Ghana and other African democracies
No comments:
Post a Comment