Rehema Bah is African-American from Oakland who is currently undertaking her independent studies at the University of Ghana here in Accra. In Ghana she has decided to adopt an Akan name which she relays to people who want to know her name. That name is 'Yenmre' [pronounced: yen-me-ray; our time]. For her, the name signifies that it's time for Africa to take on the world to reclaim its past glorious history.
As a dancer herself Rehema teaches various African dances, and is currently rehearsing a theater production with the School of Performing Arts headed by Nii Yartey at the University Of Ghana.
I invited Rehema to the Freedom Centre where i volunteer three times a week to facilitate a number of events ranging from film shows (documentaries), poetry and public forums. The Freedom Centre is socialist and pan africanist in outlook. Will write more about the activities of the Freedom Centre in subsequent posts.
I got introduced to Rehema through a socio-politically passionate friend, Kai Brown, who is also an African-American married to a Ghanaian in Oakland. She had visited the Centre together with her boyfriend to donate a couple of Kwame Nkrumah books to the library and DVDs for the weekly friday filmshows. Kai also wanted Rehema, while undertaking her masters program to also have a feel of the the Freedom Centre.
We arranged and had her to be the main feature for the Monday Groove poetry, readings and music sessions. Being someone so concerned about name and identity, she decided to share with the group her favourite passage from 'Someone Knows my Name' written by Lawrence Hill. It was her attempt to emphasize the importance of why Africans must maintain their indigenous names other than taking on european and arabic names. A phenomenon she decried and described as 'too prevalent in an African country like Ghana'.
After the February 24, 1966 coup that saw the overthrow of Ghana’s first Prime Minister,Osagyefo Dr. Kwame Nkrumah, books and photos of him were deliberately burnt and banned through the use of State power at the time. It was an offence to be seen carrying any memento of the man who won independence for Ghana on 6thMarch 1957 from British rule.
For the past four decades plus, books written by Kwame Nkrumah have been very hard to come by in Ghana. Local bookshops after bookshops and libraries are never in the position to satisfy Nkrumahists, except for people who have the wherewithal to order direct from abroad, for instance from PANAF who seem to have the publishing rights. Occasionally, one may come across very old copies that have been kept under very bad conditions, owned by older folks who were members of the ‘young pioneers’.
Many other authors and historians have written about the life and works of Kwame Nkrumah who the vision of a United African Continent, notable among them is ‘Black Star’ by Basil Davidson.
Nkrumah himself mainly wrote about pan-africanism/African unity, philosophy and neo-colonialism.(*see bottom of post for list of KN’s books)
“…thousands and thousands of copies have been airlifted into the country and they will soon be distributed to bookshops across the country will be sold at affordable and subsidized prices....there is also the attempt to get the publishing rights back to Ghana."
The announcement by the professor followed comments from a youth representative who spoke at closing ceremony at the Accra International Conference Centre appealing that Kwame Nkrumah’s books be made available owing to their scarcity in the country.
According to Professor Akilagpa, it was his fervent hope and wishes that the books will bring out the in-depth intellect of the man who was voted in 2000 by BBC listeners as Africa’s Man of the Millennium. That the books will spark off the same ideas of Kwame Nkrumah that set Ghana on a Socialist path and sought to make it an industrial nation.
“We are also working very hard to bring down from the United States (Lincoln University) documents and research papers that Nkrumah wrote to be housed here in Ghana…the current custodians have promised to do so if we are able to convince them of proper storage.”
For people who criticized the colloquium as a talk shop, which was also, attended by Senegalese president Abdoulaye Wade, who sponsored to Accra a large youth contingent, AkilagpaSawyerr had rebuttal…,
“this colloquium is not only about debate, it is an investment of ideas that will lead to action in the pursuance of Kwame Nkrumah’s dreams.”
Earlier before the formal ending of the Kwame Nkrumah Centenary Colloquium, a flag-raising and wreath-laying ceremony was held at the Accra highstreet based Kwame Nkrumah Mausoleum attended by the Vice president of Ghana and former president of Zambia Kenneth Kaunda.Also present at the dying embers of the colloquium was the 93yr-old comrade of Kwame Nkrumah, Ambassador Dudley Thompson, born in the West Indies and appointed counsel to the reparations committee by the OAU(Organisation of African Unity, now African Union) in 1991.
While in office and exiled abroad, Kwame Nkrumah authored over 20 books and research papers between 1951 and 1972 when he died in Romania.From Guinea, where he was exiled after the 1966 coup, he published ‘Dark days in Ghana’ and ‘voice from Conakry’ among others. At the time of his death some of books had been translated into thirteen different languages (according to PANAF).
Kwame Nkrumah was overthrown in a Military Coup d'état while on trip to Hanoi, North Vietnam. He left for Conakry Guinea on being told of the overthrow. He lived in Conakry as Co –President of Guinea.
*List of Books by Osagyefo Dr Kwame Nkrumah
Africa Must Unite
Axioms of Kwame Nkrumah-freedom Fighter’s edition
Challenges of the Congo
Class struggle in Africa
CONSCIENCISM: Philosophy and Ideology for Decolonization
As part of efforts to revive the now lacklustre CONVENTION PEOPLES PARTY(CPP),the left-winged party of the first President of Ghana, DR. KWAME NKRUMAH which led Ghana to independence in 1957 on the 6th of March. Some stalwarts of the party has come together to issue out a document they call the NKRUMAIST DECLARATION. Below is the full text.
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Ghana is once more at the crossroads and the options are clear. We can take the path to the entrenchment of our neo-colonial status where illiteracy, poverty and underdevelopment flourish or opt for the Nkrumaist path which leads to the building of an egalitarian society in which misery, inequality and poverty will be banished.
Today, more than 53 years after the victory of the forces of nationalism and socialism over harsh British colonial rule, the masses of Ghana continue to suffer unemployment, lack of access to health, education and housing. They are unable to feed and clothe themselves adequately. The old colonial predators now masquerading as the international community and respectable businesses have turned our people into nothing more than drawers of water and hewers of wood.
The dream of the Osagyefo at independence that the people of Ghana would be the ultimate beneficiaries of the exploitation of their natural resources has not been realized yet. The forest resources, gold, diamond, manganese, rivers and human power of Ghana continue to be exploited largely for the benefit of the ruling elite and their surrogates in the Metropolitan countries.
Over the last 30 years the national currency has been devalued by more than 30,000 percent, industries established by the Convention Peoples Party (CPP) have been auctioned off to friends and relatives of the powerful, the peoples’ access to health and education has been substantially reduced, subsidies have been withdrawn from social services and the liberalization of internal and external trade has had dire consequences on local production.
As avowed Nkrumaists we cannot give up hope because we know that our prescription for national economic rejuvenation, raising of political conscieness and full social integration is efficacious. It is possible to build a new Ghana based on the solid foundations of social justice and democracy with the correct application of Nkrumaist principles. We can and must make Ghana a prosperous modern nation leading in the struggle for the full integration of African states into a continental union government.
We note however that the current state of the Convention peoples Party (CPP) does not engender hope amongst the working people and the progressive forces. The CPP has become rusty. It has lost its internal cohesion and can no longer be seen as the vanguard of underprivileged people struggling for an equitable share of the national cake and against the blatant violations of their rights.
The rebirth of the CPP must necessarily involve a deep commitment to the principles of Nkrumaism, the re-affirmation of the politics of inclusion (unity) and the construction and strengthening of party structures at all levels of organization.
We call on all Nkrumaists wherever they may be to rally around the call for the rebirth of the party. This task can only be achieved with a leadership that is truly imbued with a clear understanding of Nkrumaism and is willing and able to make the needed sacrifices. The Trojan horses must not be given space in our midst, lest they spring surprises and destroy our organization from within. If indeed we are all Nkrumaists, then there should be no difficulty in working together to liberate our people from the clutches of poverty and underdevelopment.
The time to build the new CPP is now. We cannot afford to delay any longer. The masses are hungry and the state is decaying. We can and must struggle to end the neo-colonial destruction.
SIGNED BY PARTICIPANTS 1.Comrade K. Sintim Aboagye 2.Professor Francis Nkrumah 3.Comrade Kofi Amponsah 4.Professor K. Ayisi 5.Comrade Kwame Wiafe 6.Madam Lucy Enin 7.Dr. Gamal Nasser Adam 8.Comrade A. Owusu Gyimah 9.Comrade Kwesi Pratt, Jnr. 10.Comrade A. A. Adongo 11.Comrade Michael Nunoo 12.Dr. S. O. Asante
Nii is a freelance and citizen journalist. Currently working with the http://www.ghanadecides.com team to cover issues ahead of the December7,2012 elections. Publicist. Activist. Geopolitics. Also writes at http://rejoinderfromaccra.wordpress.com
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