According to former president John Dramani Mahama, Dr. Kwame Nkrumah’s call for African unification is still relevant today, fifty years after his departure.
Many years after the declaration of African unification, he claimed that the obstacles of a shared currency, intra-African trade, and free movement of people and products remain.
According to Mr. Mahama, “Kwame Nkrumah truly never dies because his words will ring true for Africa across eternal millennia.”
In a tribute to the memory of Dr Nkrumah to mark Nkrumah Memorial Day which falls on his birthday on September 21 each year, President Mahama said “the visionary words by the Founder of our nation, Osagyefo Dr Kwame Nkrumah, span the timeless future of Africa.”
Nkrumah’s words
In front of 31 other African heads of state who met in the Ethiopian capital, Addis Ababa, on May 24 1963, Nkrumah appealed, cajoled, and did everything in, perhaps his greatest speech ever, to convince his colleagues to go the whole hog and create a strong continental union. Sadly, they decided otherwise.
“It is clear that we must find an African solution to our problems, and that this can only be found in African unity. Divided we are weak; united, Africa could become one of the greatest forces for good in the world,” Dr Nkrumah said