Nkrumah’s African Unity message rings true — John Mahama

Former President John Dramani Mahama has said the call for African unity by Ghana’s first President, Dr Kwame Nkrumah, still rings true today five decades after his passing.

He said Africa is still facing the challenges of common currency, intra African trade and free movement of people and goods across the continent many decades after the pronouncement of African unity.

“Truly, Kwame Nkrumah never dies because his words will ring true for Africa over timeless millennia,” Mr Mahama said.

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

Dr Nkrumah’s speech at the founding of the Organisation of African Unity has since become a classic, even iconic.

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.