Abstract

The paper argues that the current economic and political crises facing Africa are traceable in the main to the unequal relations foisted on the peoples of Africa by their erstwhile European colonial masters; that Nkrumah fully understood the colonial legacy to be the bane of Africa’s development; and that Nkrumah attempted to develop a theoretical framework to fashion policies to combat the factors inhibiting Africa’s progress.

The Current International Situation

Dr. Kwame Nkrumah appeared on the political scene when the cold war between the Western capitalist countries headed by the United States and the Eastern Bloc countries headed by the then Soviet Union was at its peak. The formal institutions with which these two titans battled for global supremacy were the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) for the West, and the Warsaw Pact for East. We are all witnesses to the dramatic collapse of the Eastern Bloc, which happened at the close of the 1980’s.  The Warsaw Pact is no more and the Soviet Union has since been dismembered into its primordial nationality states. 

In brief, during Dr. Nkrumah’s involvement in active politics, the East-West conflict dominated world politics and the emerging states had to take this conflict into account in fashioning their strategies for realising their political objectives.  In the 1960’s and 70’s, the emerging states of Africa could exercise a choice in aligning themselves with either of the two super power blocs, or even play one power bloc against the other. Thus the socialist inclined states such as Ghana and the Republic of Guinea were perceived to be aligned to the Eastern Bloc, while the conservative regimes of Kenya and Malawi saw their political relationship with Britain as key to their foreign policy. Even so, the economies of the so-called socialist countries were deeply embedded in the western capitalist economic orbit. For instance, the bulk of Ghana’s international trade during Nkrumah’s period was with Western Europe, notwithstanding the perception that Nkrumah had adopted the socialist path of development. Yet, in spite of this limitation, the emerging states could exercise some choices in both economic and political policies by appealing for support from the super power bloc whose ideological orientation was consistent, or at least not in conflict, with the policies concerned.

But in our current situation only the capitalist West makes the rules regarding how each state should conduct its affairs both internationally and internally.  So fashioning people-oriented programmes for national development comes up against daunting obstacles. Since capitalism, the economic ideology of the industrial West, is in the business of using up the natural and human resources of the world to create profit and capital asset for the benefit of the minority capitalist class, the well-being of the bulk of the population of the world takes a backseat in order of priority.  It goes without saying that any government, especially governments of weak economies such as ours in Africa, that adopts a socialist or people centred strategy for national development comes face to face with insurmountable odds. For instance, the news media, both in Africa and beyond, are awash with propaganda proclaiming the virtues of liberal economics and denigrating any alternative system. Again, with the collapse of the Soviet Union, The confidence (one might not be far from saying, the arrogance) of the Western capitalist governments has grown as seen in the increasing strident demands from them to the rest of the world to adopt both their economic and political culture, or else the recalcitrant countries would perish through the imposition of economic and political sanctions. Should such measures fail, direct military intervention might be applied.

In the current political climate, we are urged that the only road to economic development and prosperity in Africa is through liberal economy and the transfer of public assets and means of production into the hands of private entrepreneurs.  The structural adjustment programmes that the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank have prescribed to African countries since the 1980’s have privatisation of state corporations as one of the core demands. The state should no longer be the focus of wealth creation.  The state should merely establish an enabling environment by laws and regulations to strengthen the private sector to expand production and create wealth.  The state should receive only taxes, taxes that are reluctantly paid by the private sector.  In short, the state, through laws and regulations, should hand over public wealth in the form of capital assets and credits for the growth of the private sector.  The private enterprises would then pay taxes that government would use to enforce laws and take care of social services.  In essence, the main business of the state is to protect private capital.  The state has no business in making money through direct investments of state capital in economic and business ventures. 

This liberal economic system significantly reduces the role of government in the state. That is to say, government divests itself of its social responsibilities such as providing mass and quality education, comprehensive health services and employment to its people.  Since government no longer creates wealth for the state, the people are called upon to take care of themselves - even as there is a significant increase in the level of poverty and unemployment on the African continent.  Free education, free medical care and full employment have now become dreams of the past.  The social fall-out for adoption of liberal economic system recommended by the West includes growing prevalence of poverty and ignorance. This twin canker manifests itself on the African continent in the form of mass hunger, shorter life span and civil wars.  In the first place, we barely have enough energy to fight, thanks to malnutrition and starvation.  In the second place, instead of galvanising the scarce strength we have to fight the real causes of our problems (such as neo-colonialism and underdevelopment), we dissipate our energies in fruitless wars of self-destruction, owing to ignorance and false consciousness. (The Darfur conflict in western Sudan and the decade long civil war in Somalia are notable examples.)

Africa in World Politics

Statistics from the World Bank, the United Nations, and other multilateral agencies leave us in no doubt that Africa’s position in world trade is dwindling relatively to the position it held during the colonial period, - the time that Africa’s market was integrated into the world capitalist economic system. This diminishing status of Africa in world trade is mainly traceable to the subsidiary role carved up for Africa in the world economy by the 19th century imperialist powers of Europe. This subsidiary position Africa occupies in the global economy is manifested in the commodities that Africa put on the world market. In the main, African labour is deployed in the production of primary commodities such as coffee, tea, cocoa, cotton, gold, copper, etc. for export in exchange for manufactured goods and industrial machines and tools. The prices of these commodities that African countries export are often predetermined by Euro-centred international commodities market.  At the same time, African countries have no leverage whatsoever in fixing the prices of goods they import from Europe. Besides, since there is vertical integration of individual African country’s market to the European market, there is marked absence of horizontal integration of national markets across Africa. The volume of trade between African countries pales into insignificance compared to that between African countries and Europe. Furthermore, the colonial engineered fragmentation of the African market into Senegalese, Ghanaian and Kenyan markets, has deprived these markets the vital resources for growth, resources brought about by the economics of scale. For instance, national markets bounded by the colonial territories are often small and fragile, and therefore they are liable to manipulation by bigger markets such as the European common market. In their individual enclaves, these markets tend to produce only one or two primary commodities for the international market such as copper in the case of Zambia, and cocoa and gold, in the case of Ghana. In situations where the price of copper fell, this translated into direct economic crisis in Zambia. That means that the Zambian economy has no resources to manoeuvre out of depressed price for copper, its main source of foreign exchange. This fragility is characteristic of the economies of the countries of Africa. Once there is a hike in oil prices, the economies of the oil producing countries become buoyant; once oil prices depress, these countries experience economic crisis, which tends to create political tension.

The point we are making here is that the neo-colonial economic system African countries inherited from the colonial masters have not undergone significant transformation since independence. Africa is still in the main a primary commodities market. In addition to cocoa, coffee, tea and lumber and fish, oil has become one of the main sources of foreign exchange for a number of African countries. Africa’s net industrial output is insignificant. The imperialist countries of Europe did not want to see their colonial territories in Africa develop industries for fear that these industries might compete with their own. Rather, African territories were to produce the raw materials for the industries of Europe, and to receive, in return, manufactured/industrial products from Europe. Using their political leverage as owners of the colonial territories, the imperialist countries imposed the rules of economic engagement between Europe and Africa that ensured the dependence of the latter’s economy on that of the former. This is the nature of the economic system that still dominates the African market. Thus, in spite of our political independence some forty years ago African countries are still trapped in the colonial economic structure that was devised by the European countries to control Africa economically and politically.

The net effect of operating a backward neo-colonial economic system is the weakening of the political authority/autonomy of African governments. Trapped in their little kingdoms, these African governments run budgets that are not able to command sufficient resources internally to meet basic social needs and oil the wheels of government. As a result, African governments are forced to perpetually negotiate with their former colonial masters, the European countries and their financial institutions such as the World Bank and IMF, to obtain budgetary supplements in the form of loans and grants. The problem however is that these loans and grants do not help to deal with the underlying structural weakness of Africa’s economy. This is shown by the accumulation of debts in Africa, a large chunk of which came as loans to supplement annual budgets. As the African economies persistently lag behind the economies of Europe and America, and as receipts from the export of primary commodities continue to decline, the greater the tendency for African governments to be beholden to the charity of their economically more powerful partners in the north. It is common knowledge that the loans and grants that Africa receives from the advanced countries have costly strings attached. These strings come in many forms, but the most damaging for Africa are two. The first is economic. To wit, the donor countries often insist that the neo-colonial macro economic framework that drove the African governments to seek financial relief ought to be maintained. In addition governments are admonished not to spend beyond the revenue realised from their exports and other receipts from say tourism and internally generated funds, etc. But as the governments do not fix the prices of their export products, they have no means of predetermining how much they are likely to earn from their export for the coming year and the next. Consequently, the dependence of African economies on the charity of the West is not reduced, but reinforced, by the loans and grants African countries receive from the donor countries and international agencies. The second string is political. In order to receive the financial aid, African governments are often forced to adopt internal and foreign policies that have the tendency to subserve the political interests of Europe and America. In short, the political independence of Africa won through the hard struggle of the masses has not been translated to economic independence. But since genuine political independence is predicated on a robust self-reliant economy, African governments have by and large been susceptible to the manipulation by the more powerful economic states of the West.

The moral of the above discussion is that the economic programmes that African governments have been pursuing since independence have not worked. The neo-economic structure is not eliminating poverty, but aggravating it, not reducing ignorance but increasing it, not strengthening our political independence, but weakening it. So the neo-colonial structures of economic and political order has to be overhauled if Africa is to assume full control of its internal affairs and be able to exert some influence in international affairs.

It is against this background that we humbly invite the intellectual community of Africa to join us in revisiting the political agenda of the illustrious son of Pan-Africanism, Dr. Kwame Nkrumah of blessed memory.

The Political Philosophy of  Nkrumah

The Gold Coast, now Ghana, was the first British colony in Africa to witness the transfer of political power from Britain to the African natives. That was on 6th March 1957. The Independence leader who led the struggle to end British rule in the Gold Coast was Dr. Kwame Nkrumah. Dr. Nkrumah made his mark not only in Ghana but also in the modern history of Africa. This is attested by the result of BBC poll of December 2000 that established Dr. Nkrumah as the Millennium African Personality of the 20th century. It is the political programme of this great son of Africa that we intend to revisit and draw lessons for the development of Africa.

We begin our examination with a look at Nkrumah’s political philosophy. Philosophy, in Nkrumah’s view, is a tool for understanding human society, including the environment.  Philosophy therefore “calls for an analysis of facts and events, and an attempt to see how they fit into human experience”.  Philosophy then, “like history, can enrich, indeed define, the experience of man”.   In chapter 1 of Consciencism titled ‘Philosophy in Retrospect’ Nkrumah surveyed the main philosophical schools ranging from idealism – the belief that the ultimate reality is consciousness - to materialism, the belief that matter is prior to consciousness.  In that discussion Nkrumah left us in no doubt that he sided firmly with materialism.  Apart from the critical remarks he made about idealism and religion, Nkrumah asserted his belief in philosophical materialism, which treated mind or consciousness as derived of matter.  In other words, for Nkrumah, consciousness emerged from matter.  This stance has for reaching implications for one’s world-view. 

For among others, it meant that Nkrumah held that the material world was not created by any divine consciousness or mind.  Rather in his view, consciousness is a product of matter.  Furthermore, he remarked that social consciousness was the product of the material condition of the people in a given society.   He illustrates the link between social consciousness and the material condition with religion.  Following Karl Marx’s view that religion is a social phenomenon rooted in the people’s material condition and level of consciousness, Nkrumah observes that contemporary religious forms of expression have their main root in the social depression of workers.  Citing Africa, Asia and Latin America, Dr. Nkrumah has this to say:

Terrifying pauperism, arising from the pre-technical nature of most contemporary societies, combined with the encroachment of world capitalism, a combination which can mete out prostitution, destruction, ruin and death from starvation and exploitation to its victims, quickly reinforces the religious feeling. Fear created the gods, and fear preserves them: fear in bygone ages of wars, pestilences, earthquakes and nature gone berserk, fear of “acts of God”; fear today of the equally blind forces of backwardness and rapacious capital.

No wonder that the deeper capitalism penetrates the global economy the louder are the cries of the poor and the deprived for divine intervention.  These cries carry the message that “I am too weak and powerless to do anything about my wretched condition.  Physical intervention in the form of human activity to rid Africa of poverty and ignorance is of no avail, only God can work the miracle”.  This is an example of the connection between the material condition of the people and religion, the latter being an expression of the social consciousness of those who practice it.

Recall our earlier observation that Nkrumah believed in philosophical materialism, the proposition that matter was prior to consciousness.  But this world-view Nkrumah did not conjure it from heaven.  Rather he held that philosophical materialism was rooted in the history of the developments of the African continent.  In chapter 3 of Consciencism titled ‘Society and Ideology’, Nkrumah traces the triple legacy of Africa, namely: traditional Africa, Islamic Africa and Euro-Christian Africa.  Whilst the differing traditions have each a role in the development of Africa, Nkrumah felt the need for a political philosophy that would articulate in a coherent whole the genuine needs and aspirations of the peoples of Africa, by appropriating the triple legacy to forge dynamic unity and social identity and thereby give a sense of direction to the peoples’ struggle in Africa.

  The new ideology, in his view, must be animated first and foremost by the core value system of the African pre-colonial society.  According to Nkrumah, “the traditional face of Africa includes an attitude towards man which can only be described, in its social manifestation, as being socialist.  He explains: “In the traditional African society, no sectional interest could be regarded as Supreme; nor did the legislative and executive power used to aid the interests of any particular section of society.  The welfare of the people was Supreme”.   Nkrumah, to be sure, was being a little sentimental here in terms of African history.  This idealisation of African society he corrected in his later book Class Struggle in Africa, chapter 1.  For our purposes, however, the statement should be read as an expression of Nkrumah’s own cherished belief in putting the human being at the centre of development.

Nkrumah, to be sure, appreciated the contribution of Western civilisation to the cultural advancement of Africa. For some of the by-products of colonial penetration of Africa were the development of education and science, and the expansion of material production.  The devious aspect of Western culture that Nkrumah felt ought to be expunged from our new mode of practice was the exploitation of African labour and resources for the benefit of a few, usually of foreign source.  In his words, the cardinal factor in exploitation is that “the section of society whose labours transform nature is not the same as the section which is better fulfilled as a result of this transformation”.  It is this virus in the Western mode of relations of production that was to be expunged.  In this way the scientific approach to material production can be adopted to increase wealth. This wealth would then be invested in material production and human capacity building, and social services, and thereby increase social wealth and advance the fulfilment of the well being of all the peoples.  This, in a nutshell, is what Nkrumah referred to as philosophical consciencism. This philosophy attempts to integrate the positive values emanating from our triple legacy of African communalism, Islamic Africa and Euro-Christian Africa for the development of the African peoples.  Philosophical consciencism firmly places the human being at the centre of its value system.  Among others, it upholds that the portion of society whose labours transform nature and produce goods should be the portion of society that enjoys the fruits of this transformation and productivity.  This is the essence of Nkrumah’s political philosophy.

Nkrumah’s Programme 

Against the background of Dr. Nkrumah’s humanist materialist philosophy, I will highlight the core elements in his programme with which he hoped to concretise his philosophy.

In chapter 14 of Africa Must Unite titled ‘Building Socialism in Ghana’, he saw the urgent priorities of the new government as consisting in abolishing “poverty, ignorance, illiteracy and improving the health services”. Given the colonial legacy the new government inherited, Nkrumah recognised that these ‘were formidable long-term objectives’.  Nevertheless he was resolute in his belief that working towards such objectives was the only justification for being in government.  So he spelt out his broad programme in the following terms.

I have already made it clear that colonial rule precluded that accumulation of capital among our citizens, which would have assisted thorough-going private investment in industrial construction. It has, therefore, been left to government, as the holder of the means, to play the role of main entrepreneur in laying the basis of the national economic and social advancement. If turned over to private interests these going concerns capitalised out of national funds and national effort … we should be betraying the trust of the great masses of our people for the greedy interests of a small coterie of individuals, probably in alliance with foreign capitalists. Production for private profit deprives a large section of the people of the goods and services produced. If, therefore, we are to fulfil our pledge to the people and achieve the program set out above, socialism is our only alternative. For socialism assumes the public ownership of the means of production, the land and its resources, and the use of those means in fulfilment of the people’s needs.

Dr. Nkrumah opted for socialist organisation of the mode of production and distribution of the wealth of the State.  For he believed it is by such a strategy that the ideals of philosophical consciencism would be attained.  It was this programme of the State maintaining the commanding heights of the national economy that guided the establishment of the University of Science Education of Cape Coast (now University of Cape Coast) and the University of Science and Technology in Kumasi (now Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology), numerous training colleges and secondary schools across the length and breath of Ghana.  These were social investments to develop human productive capacities and thereby enhance scientific approach to the production of wealth to improve the quality of life for all.

In order to accelerate industrialisation, Nkrumah tactfully negotiated with Kaiser Aluminium Inc. of USA to collaborate with Ghana Government for the establishment of the Volta Hydro-electric Dam. The dam was to generate a cheap source of energy to drive the plants of industry. And to date the Akosombo dam is the main source of electric power generated in Ghana. (Indeed, without the Hydro power Ghana’s economy would have collapsed completely during the fuel crisis of the 1970’s.) Nkrumah also invested state capital in the development of infrastructure. Prominent amongst these were the Tema Harbour, Silos to store grains, and construction of major roads that linked the corners of the country to the main cities. Many factories were established to link agriculture to industry. These modest achievements were chalked through the application of the socialist path of development, i.e., Nkrumah’s choice of scientific socialism.

Another dimension of Nkrumah’s programme was to renounce the imperialist balkanisation of Africa.  In the introduction to Africa Must Unite he writes: “our essential bulwark against such sinister threats and the other multifarious designs of the neo-colonialists is in our political union.  If we are to remain free, if we are to enjoy the full benefits of Africa’s rich resources, we must unite to plan for our total defence and the full exploitation of our material and human means, in the full interests of all our peoples. ‘To go it alone’ will limit our horizons, curtail our expectations, and threaten our liberty.” Thus he writes elsewhere:

At the core of the concept of African unity lie socialism and the socialist definition of the new African society. Socialism and African unity are organically complementary.
Socialism implies:

1. Common ownership of the means of production, distribution and exchange. Production for use, and not for profit.
2. Planned methods of production by the state, based on modern industry and agriculture.
3. Political power in the hands of the people, with the entire body of workers possessing the necessary governmental machinery through which to express their needs and aspirations. It is a concept in keeping with the humanist and egalitarian spirit which characterised traditional African society, though it must be applied in a modern context. All are workers; and no person exploits another.
4. Application of scientific methods in all spheres of thought and production.

Socialism must provide a new social synthesis in which the advanced technical society is achieved without the appalling evils and deep cleavages of capitalist industrial society.

In summary: Nkrumaism articulates a set of principles and strategies for the de-colonisation of Africa and establishment of good governance based upon the free consent of the mass of the people.  The goals of philosophical consciencism include the elimination of poverty and ignorance and the development of comprehensive education and health delivery system for all. To achieve these social goals would require the integration of African markets across nation states, the rapid industrialisation of production, and integration of agriculture with industry. In so doing Africa would liberate itself from incessant interference by Europe and America in its internal affairs and thereby enhance African independence.

Why Nkrumah’s Programme Was Unsuccessful 

Nkrumah’s socialist experiment in Ghana failed for the following reasons.

1. Ghana’s market was too small to enable government generate the amount of capital required to finance the socialist programme.
2. Even though Nkrumah tried to implement a planned economy, the world economic system in which Ghana’s economy was embedded put a significant constraint on his programme.
3. The imperialist states, if they wished, could manipulate the price of cocoa and gold (Ghana’s main export products) in order to undermine the socialist experiment. It is believed that the UK and America did precisely that in order to prepare the ground for Nkrumah’s overthrow in 1966.
4. Nkrumah’s call for the economic and political integration of Africa fell on deaf years. Many of the Independence leaders were educated and steeped in the cultural values of the capitalist West. The socialist alternative Nkrumah was selling was an unfamiliar terrain to the African political elites, many of whom thought Western neo-liberal political culture was the ideal for Africa.
5. Some Independence leaders also feared that the Continental Union Government that Nkrumah was canvassing would deprive them of the trappings of political power, including the material comforts that go with the office of the Chief Executive.

Lessons

Nkrumah mooted the idea of African Economic and Political Union some 50 years ago. Since then, there has emerged similar regional economic power blocs world wide; the most significant of which is the European Common Market and emerging Political Union. The very states that accused Nkrumah of suffering the symptoms of megalomania, the ambition to become the President of the United States of Africa, have since realised that their petty kingdoms were no longer viable entities. They have put behind them the petty tribalist squabbles , and are working vigorously towards a solid economic union of all European states. For the message has dawned on them that it is only through economic and political union that they can recapture their status as dominant player in world affairs and thereby consolidate their independence.

Since the neo-colonialist economic system bequeathed to us by Britain, France and other European states have not delivered on the material and social well-being of the African peoples, African leaders should be urged to abandon this system and rather pursue vigorously the integration of the African markets. Therein lies salvation for the continent.

I should like to end here with this powerful statement Nkrumah made in his foreword to the autobiography of the eminent Kenyan independence politician, Jaramogi Oginga Odinga’s Not Yet Uhuru. I quote:

It is clearer than ever that the political union of Africa, which has been one of my main preoccupations since the attainment of independence by Ghana, is the key to Africa’s economic and political stability, peace and progress.

A Union Government of Africa backed by organised military power with sound continental economic planning is bound to compel nations outside Africa to respect our collective interests. States with imperialist tendencies, however powerful, will tremble before taking unilateral decisions to interfere in our affairs.

NOTES AND REFERENCES

The figures on values of exports vis-à-vis values of imports from sub-Saharan Africa from 1980 to 2000 show consistent diminishing returns for Africa. See, for example, World Bank, 2002, African Development Indicators 2002, pp. 72-3. Similar observations are made with respect to underdeveloped countries in general,  in Felix Greene, 1971, The Enemy. What Every American Should Know About Imperialism, Vintage Books, pp. 113-194.
For detailed study of imperialism, see Dan W. Nabudere,1977, The Political Economy of Imperialism. Zed Press; and Walter Rodney, 1972/82,  How Europe Underdeveloped Africa, Washington: Howard Univ. Pr.
Kwame Nkrumah, 1964/78, Consciencism. Philosophy And Ideology For Decolonisation, Panaf Books, p. 2
ibid. pp. 23-4
ibid. p. 14.
Ibid p. 68.
Kwame Nkrumah, 1963/98, Africa Must Unite, London: Panaf Books, p. 119.
Ibid. p. xvii.
Kwame Nkrumah, 1968/80, Handbook of Revolutionary Warfare, London: Panaf Books, p. 28.
These squabbles led to the two World Wars, the second of which engulfed the whole world.