The failed vision of a united Africa- Part III

        This week we examine the work and role of Kwame Nkrumah in the establishment of Organisation of African Unity (OAU). The OAU was considered by many leaders of independent states in Africa as a springboard into the birth of the one federal United States of Africa.

Nkrumah was very instrumental in the formation of the Organisation of African Unity in 1963 at an African Summit conference in Addis Ababa, in Ethiopia. Thirty-two African states met and established the organisation.

The founding members of the OAU that met in Addis Ababa included are Algeria, Burundi, Cameroon, Central Africa Republic, Chad, Congo, Democratic Republic of Congo (Zaire), Benin (Dahomey), and Egypt.

Other founding countries who attended were Ethiopia, Gabon, Ghana, Guinea, Ivory Coast, Liberia, Libya, Madagascar, Mali, Mauritania, Morocco (later withdrew), Niger, Rwanda, Senegal, Sierra Leone, Somalia, Sudan, Tanganyika (now part of Tanzania), Togo, Tunisia, Uganda, Burkina Faso (Upper Volta) and Zanzibar (now part of Tanzania).

On the day of the formation of Organisation of the African Unity in Addis Ababa, Nkrumah once again exhibited openly his pan-Africanist desire for Africa to be One Nation; when addressing the conference he said: “this is a decade of Africa’s independence; we are independent now and tomorrow we are a United States of Africa”

Socialist and nationalist

Nkrumah’s political administration in Ghana was both socialist and nationalist; and these political ideologies brought him in constant conflict with the Western capitalists governments, including the United Kingdom its former colonial master and United States of America.

To develop Ghana, he funded massive national industrial and energy projects, developing a strong education system, and promoted a pan-African culture in his country.

Decolonisation of Africa

During this time, the decolonisation of Africa also continued and Ghana played a leading role in this process. Kwame Nkrumah, with his strong desire to develop Ghana as well as propagate pan-Africanism in the hope of seeing one united Africa in the near future, for ten years he laboured hard until 1966.

Unfortunately the malignancy of betrayal germinated and grew in Ghana. Nkrumah after surviving four coup d’états his regime tragically ended by being ousted by a self-proclaimed National Liberation Council of Ghana in 1966 and he was exiled to Guinea.

Nkrumah lived the rest of his life in Guinea, where he was named the honorary co-president by his great pan-Africanist friend Sékou Touré, the president of Guinea.

The great pan-Africanist died of cancer in a hospital in Budapest in Hungary, and his dream of one Africa shattered.

After Nkrumah, Ghana witnessed the coming to life of a new world economic order that desired Africa economically dependent and fragmented.

Under the supervision of the National Liberation Council, and funded by international financial institutions, Ghanaian parastatals and corporations were privatised and mainly taken by foreign private investors.

The investment laws and rules that were put in place did not favour the public sector or local private sector which had neither capital nor the technology to be able to invest in the exploitation of natural resources and earn a profit that would benefits the country and its citizenry.

From that day, former colonial masters sought and engineered to economically control Ghana and the African countries and keep them poor.

Ghana as a Free State could no longer control its economy and was under siege, under economic dependence from its colonial master. Under such circumstances the dream of Nkrumah’s one Africa was shattered.