The ana’daughter of Ghs First President, Dr Kwame Nkrumah, has urged leaders on the African continent, especially in Ghana, to prioritise consensus-building to drive the development aspirations of the African people and the continent’s rapid socio-economic progress.

Samia Nkrumah said consensus-building was the most important endeavour politicians, trade unionists, academicians, civil societies and think tanks on the African continent must embrace to allow them to collectively agree on national and continental priorities.

In her view, Kwame Nkrumah’s main vision was to see Ghana and other African countries becoming industrialised nations, with their industries and infrastructure integrated to progress and provide the basic needs of the people.

“I would dare say that what Dr Nkrumah would want us to do today is to have different interest groups — politicians, political parties, trade unionists, academia, think tanks–building consensus on what our priorities should be rather than to be entangled in the extreme practice of multiparty politics,” she said.

Sharing her perspectives on the celebration of her father’s birthday on Thursday with the Daily Graphic, Ms Nkrumah said: “For me, the greatest problem we have as a country and continent is we are not able to marshal the best minds or skills in Ghana and Africa because of multiparty politics.

“We are taking multiparty politics to an extreme form, prioritising parties over the country and our discussions are centred on party A or party B instead of talking about development plan A or plan B,” she said.

Demolishing colonial structures

Sharing views on the development trajectory of Ghana, Ms Nkrumah retorted that she often pictured what her father would be thinking about the current development of the country.

She said her father had a vision to transform the country’s economy by demolishing the “miserable colonial economic structure” whereby only raw materials were exported.

With such a colonial economic structure, what the then Ghana, just like many other African nations, imported was much more expensive than what it exported, a situation that “damaged our ecosystem.”

Birthday celebration relevant

Shedding light on how relevant Kwame Nkrumah’s birthday celebration was today, Ms Nkrumah said she believed that it was necessary to celebrate “our father’s” birthday not because of the “man, but all the important leadership qualities, ideologies and policies he exemplified”.

She said Dr Nkrumah demonstrated important characteristics such as his vision, courage, conviction of purpose, boundless energy and a personification of desire to see the liberation of African people from domination and underdevelopment.

“It is those important characteristics that we are celebrating.

It is important for us to acknowledge and learn from them.

“Kwame Nkrumah exemplified modesty, sacrifice and that is what we need as a country from our business, political, trade union and intellectual leaders,” she said.

She pointed out that her father clearly articulated his visions in his many books and writings that underscored the need for total emancipation of the African people politically and economically, saying that “these are end in themselves”.

“The main purpose of Dr Nkrumah’s vision was to raise the standard of living of Africans so that we could contribute better towards world peace, security and protection of humanity,” she said.

Source: GraphicOnline