If, half a century following his death, the Osagyefo continues to be so venerated in Africa and beyond, it is because his Pan-Africanist sincerity and his moral integrity have never been questioned…
Ghanaians commemorated this week the fiftieth anniversary of the death of Dr Kwame Nkrumah, champion of Pan-Africanism, Ghana’s first president. Overthrown in 1966, he died in exile on April 27, 1972. He has certainly been rehabilitated since. But it is hard to understand how such a adored leader on a continental scale might have known such an end. And, even less, why do some in his country continue to describe him as an authoritarian and ruthless ruler?
Visionary Pan-Africanist, major leader, hero… He was, but was not only that. To draw lucid and useful lessons from the lives of its great men, Africa should stop trivializing their weaknesses. The brilliant and charismatic Nkrumah resented contradiction and had, little by little, locked himself in the certainty of his omnipotence, permeable to the cult of personality, hermetic to criticism, and so feared that, in order to overthrow him, the putschists preferred to wait until whether he is traveling abroad. Against an empty palace, it’s always less risky…
Obviously, the ambiguous feelings he might inspire in Ghana itself contrasted with his very good image outside. Let us forget those who were attached to him by a forced affection, and even the neighboring countries, who suspected hegemonic tendencies in his pressing Pan-Africanism, convinced that Nkrumah only wanted the United States of Africa on the condition that it was under his thumb. .
Despite all these reservations, he remains one of the greatest leaders of independent Africa…
Exact ! Because the African peoples, from disillusion to disillusion, learn to accept that a hero may not be perfect, since the best of what is retained constitutes a source of inspiration for a youth in need of role models. . The only challenge is to help the peoples and the continent to change their destiny.
After all, was it not in this spirit that Pan-Africanism germinated in the hearts of a black elite in the diaspora, in the United States and in the Caribbean? They initiated it in the last third of the 19th century and took it to the point of establishing it, from 1945, on African soil. Edward Wilmot Blyden, Henry-Sylvester Williams, William Edward Burghardt Du Bois, Alan Locke, Jean-Price Mars, Marcus Aurelius Garvey, George Padmore, Nnamdi Azikiwe, Jomo Kenyatta, Kwame Nkrumah… So many names, which Léopold Sédar Senghor undoubtedly had in mind, when he wrote that there are names that sound like a manifesto.
At that time, Pan-Africanism was wandering in a hostile environment. Africa still under colonial domination, black Americans, still with barely any rights… The first pan-Negro congress was held in London, in the year 1900. A second followed, in 1912, in Tuskegee, city of Alabama , known for being home to one of the historically black universities in the United States.
Where are we with Pan-Africanism, according to Nkrumah, today?
His dream certainly came to an end, but his pan-Africanist sincerity and his moral integrity earned Osagyefo forever the continental hero that Africa continues to venerate. But, with the turning point, missed, of an OAU which disappointed, in May 1963, before having served, he himself admitted having, somewhere, failed.
As in a famous line from Brutus to Cassius, [dans Jules César], one would be tempted to say that there really is a rising tide in human affairs. Let it be seized in passing, it leads you to fortune. But, miss it, and the whole journey of life weakens into cesspools and terrible miseries.
And if all the current setbacks of the continent resulted from the missed appointment with the rising tide of May 1963? We dreamed of an embryo of a United States of Africa and we find ourselves with a multiplicity of States, often not very viable, sometimes less enviable than a Bantustan.
But this failure seems perfectly integrated by part of the youth, quick to proclaim themselves pan-Africanist, rehashing a few definitive sentences or barely digested quotes. To the point of making people forget that, more than a posture, true Pan-Africanism is not proclaimed. He lives!
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