What I said about President Nkrumah’s monument many years ago

On July 4, 2023, a refurbished and renovated Kwame Nkru­mah Memo­rial Park was opened to the public. This event immediately re-ignited the debate on Nkrumah; what and who he was and his role in Ghana, Africa and world politics

As the debate rages on, you will realise that Nkrumah is all things to all people. He was vilified as he was worshipped and adored. He was controversial and contradicto­ry as he was genuine and unique. He was hated as he was loved. He was an enigma and charismatic. He inspired many people around the world. It is difficult to pigeon-hole such a rare personality. But one thing made him unique and unri­valled. He loved his Africa and the African personality so he wanted all Africa to be free and liberated from colonialism, imperialism and neo-colonialism.

He was a true son of Africa who absolutely believed in African unity and personality as the panacea for African underdevelopment and op­pression. His love for Africa knew no bounds to the extent that he was prepared to sacrifice Ghana’s independence for a united Africa with common army, government and market. His foes and friends alike agree about his greatness. Truly, “Nkrumah never dies.” Nk­rumah, without a doubt, deserved a national monument. But what kind of monument? I attempted to answer this question in the Daily Graphic of October 31, 1988. In order to revisit the past and for the benefit of today’s generation of Ghanaians I want to repeat the answers here.

“Dr Julius Nyerere, the Mwalimu, the man who knew Osagyefo Dr. Kwame Nkrumah well, recently at the DuBois Centre for Pan Africa Culture, called upon Ghanaians to erect a befitting monument for Osagyefo, the first President of Ghana. Mwalimu has said what most people in Ghana feel should be done but has not been done because of lack of courage and resolve or may be because of procrastination. I do remember that Dr Kaunda of Zambia said the same thing when he visited Ghana some months back. He actually did not hide his surprise at the fact that Ghanaians have not thought it necessary to honour the greatest son of Ghana and Africa. In essence, both Dr. Kaunda and the Mwalimu seem to be reminding Ghanaians that this nation, Ghana, is not worth dying or fighting for if its dead heroes like Dr. Nkrumah cannot be honoured.

One thing is clear though. A befitting monument for Osagyefo would do more honour to Gha­naians than to Osagyefo himself. This is because Dr. Nkrumah built for himself an eternal monument through his own deeds, i.e. the achievement of independence for Ghana, his unrivalled role in trying to emancipate the black man mentally and politically and the restoration of black man’s dignity and pride in the world.

The OAU itself, even though it comes short of Nkrumah’s expec­tation and vision, is an eloquent testimony of his quest for African unity and freedom. Many indepen­dent African nations, from Algeria to Zimbabwe, can claim that without Nkrumah’s help and inspi­ration, their independence would have been unnecessarily delayed. Many Africans in the diaspora can now walk with their heads up as descendants of Africa because of the dignity Nkrumah gave to the black race.

Americans have honoured them­selves by erecting a monument for Abraham Lincoln. The Soviets have an impressive monument for Lenin. And yet these are powerful old nations which have no doubts about their national identities. This only goes to show that monuments for national heroes and great men inspire and unite a people and give them a sense of pride in themselves, in their past and inspire them to look to the future with hope. Monuments for national heroes are a source of immortalising a nation’s collective achievements. They are a concrete reminder to the living and posterity that a nation has had its struggles, glories, triumphs and failures. Even though it is true that monument or no monument Nkrumah lives on, we should for our own sake and for the sake of posterity, erect a massive national monument for Nkrumah Now!

WHAT MONUMENT?

Dr Nkrumah’s monument should not be a mere statue or a mere concrete. His monument should be a ‘shrine’ for his ideas, vision and what he stood for. Dr. Nkrumah was a bibliophile, a great author. He was a strong and un­compromising believer in knowl­edge as a source of dispelling ignorance. He identified ignorance as an impenetrable darkness which has blocked the African’s path to greatness and self-realisation. He believed strongly that knowledge is the only power with can conquer ignorance and liberate the African from poverty wretchedness. He said “The progress and prosper­ity of our society will be largely determined by the quality of our knowledge.”

Not surprisingly, therefore, when his best and faithful friend, George Padmore, died he did not erect a mere concrete statue for him. Instead, he built a shrine of knowl­edge, a library, in his memory. Dr Nkrumah envisaged that in that library, the ideas and achievements of Padmore would forever be safeguarded and made available to all. That way, Padmore’s unfinished struggle, that is, the emancipa­tion of the black race, would be continued.

It is clear, therefore, that if Nkrumah were asked to make a choice of what monument would be built for him after death, he would have chosen, without doubt and hesitation, a shrine of knowledge, a library. I, therefore, want on behalf of Osagyefo, to suggest that as a befitting mon­ument, Ghanaians should build an impressive Kwame Nkrumah National Library of Ghana at the Old Polo grounds. In front of this National Library will be erected a statue of Osagyefo proclaiming the independence of Ghana, that unforgettable midnight hour of March 6, 1957. At the base of the statue should be the inscription of his immortal words in gold, “The Independence of Ghana is mean­ingless unless it is linked up with the total liberation of Africa.” Yes, I cannot imagine a more befitting monument for President Nkrumah than this.

The National Library should have a special section where all the works by Nkrumah and on him will be housed. In addition, the library should collect, store and make available to all, pub­lications on Ghana, Africa and the African diaspora. In essence, the national library will be what Nkrumah himself had envisaged it to be some years ago, that is, a centre of research into the life of the people of African continent to which the student and scholar can turn for current information and historical narratives in this period of tremendous change and political upheaval. Again he said, “the National Library of Ghana should be at once the repository of the nation’s culture and wisdom and an intellectual stimulant.” In the National Library, there shall be no national frontiers: “for here shall be stored the cumulative experience, the collective wisdom and knowledge about the entire continent of Africa.”

From the above quotations, you can see and feel Nkrumah’s com­pelling quest for knowledge and I believe there can be no befitting monument for Nkrumah than this ‘shrine of knowledge’ this National Library. The monument should be erected without delay.”

BY KOSI KEDEM