Nkrumah Inspires a Future Worth Living and Dying For!

When little E.K.Bensah III and Samantha/Sammy are born, there is a story that must needs be told.

It's a story about how their father--then 32 years young--imbued by the pride of being an Nkrumahist wept on the morning of Monday 21st September 2009 as then-President Professor John Evans Attah-Mills delivered a dawn broadcast to honour the great Osagyefo Dr.Kwame Nkrumah--academic; theologian; pioneering Pan-African; and Founder of Ghana.

In a style akin to the announcement of Obama as 43rd President of the USA in November 2008, Samantha's father wept to the news like a lost child.

Within minutes, he was up. He dusted himself off, and proceeded to steal the thunder of the African Union (who should have had a presence on Facebook) by using the inspiration of Nkrumah to whip up support for a people-centred African Union government that we so need!

In his hand was a copy of the now-defunct "Evening News" of January 1964, which their father found online, recounting how their great grandfather Hon E.K.Bensah, Minister of Works and Communications, had laid a wreath on the grave of a security officer killed by the bomb attempt on the life of the Osagyefo.

Long live Nkrumah! Long live Ghana.

Africa Must--CAN--Unite!

Obama's Visit: A [trenchant] View from Ghana

It was always going to be difficult writing an entry about Obama, when all around me had written theirs, and I was found wanting.

For me, never in the short history of this twenty-first century has so much airtime probably been dedicated to one single person. From the blogs to the regular news—both opinionated and otherwise—everyone has been talking Obama—and whether you like him or not, he is the twenty-first century superstar President of no less than the United States and, who happens to double as a black man.

In the centenary of Osagyefo Dr.Kwame Nkrumah, Ghana’s first president, who advocated and promulgated the concept of the African personality, Obama’s meteoric rise could not have been more poignant. In my view, he has come to represent by becoming not just the 44th president of the US, but the first African-American president: the epitome of the post-modern African personality.

Forget the fact that the Black Man no longer has any excuses for getting where he wants to, and maybe consider this: with Obama, no longer will myopic white anglo saxon protestants and people of that ilk obsessed with the rigid preservation of division -- where blacks go this way and whites the other—be confronted by the distorted reality that Blacks are inferior, and that they cannot also have nuclear families with 2.4 children.

With Obama, no longer will it be cool to skip school, to feign helplessness in the assistance of those less fortunate than you; to pretend that your communities do not matter. With this man, no longer will it be cool to display machismo, disrespect the concerns of the opposite sex, and be polygamous in a marriage. With the "yes, we can"-grandmaster, no longer will it be a uncool for the Black man to be happily married, with a supportive wife by his side, who might also be educated. Nor will it be an issue for his progeny to be "only" girls.

For those of us who have been brought up to feel that having a son makes you great, let it be clear that your greatness does not depend on the sex of your progeny, but what you accomplish in your life.

Do they not say that it is not the degree that makes a man great, but the man that makes the degree?

When I set all this against the backdrop of President Barack Hussein Obama’s visit to Ghana, I cannot help but wonder whether his visit was more spiritual than political.

I couldn’t help but wonder whether it was not now cool to be a Black man; be happily married with kids that are girls; be highly-educated; be a listener and an engager?

For so long, the West has managed to perpetuate a picture of Africans being polygamous; having loose sexual morals and being uneducated. Despite the fact that many Africans have gone and come back home to improve the lot of their people’s, it has still taken an awfully long time for the rest of the world to cotton on to the fact that an African is also capable of managing his own affairs. To wit: be well-educated and have a good marriage, where the woman is supportive despite being herself a professional.

The insistence on this side of Obama may belie my sub-conscious—for I too aspire to have a good woman by my side who may be in a good job. I have never espoused the idea that a woman has to be kept at home before doing a good job with the children, and I am slowly and surely accepting that not having a son will not kill me.

As someone who greatly aspires to be a father some day, I believe that the significance of Obama as a family man must not go unnoticed. That he can visibly share intimate moments with his wife and children is a reflection of how far the African personality has come. And by extension, the post-modern African personality.


We know the politics already, and it has been discussed to the death. I am proposing that we use his visit as a filter through which we examine the African family, which for too long has been plagued by the absence of an omnipresent father.

His visit is also about giving hope to the youth, and empowering them to push the envelope in as many ways as possible. It is a serious irony that only this year, the AU declared 2009 to be the beginning of a decade that celebrates the youth of Africa.

I do not know about you, but I am hopeful.

We have always had change, but what ultimately we have with Obama is the quietly-confident capacity of the unsung hero towards existential change that is profound and transformative in a way that he can whisper in the shadows...

yes, we can!

The Unbearable Lightness of Being...An African Union Citizen

It was too contrived to be a coincidence. After I posted an entry requesting why the issue of African Union had not been covered on CITI97.3FM (pls see above) on both Shamima Muslim and Citi Breakfast Show host Sammy Bartel's facebook wall, the following day on the show, I heard Victor Gbeho and Dr.Nii Alabi come on the show to discuss not just Ghanaian politics, but no less than implications of Al-Qaddafi as AU Chair.

There was--unlike former host Bernard Avle--no acknowledgment of my suggestion. I hardly expected it, but it would have been nice anyway!

Still, that was not going to dampen my interest and optimism. Upon learning that the AU is going to transform into an AU Authority, I sent some information round to Facebook friends, which elicited some responses. Curiously, out of the thirty people I sent the information to, only a handful replied. Below are some of the responses:

I honestly believe that once Africa stops looking 4 aid & begins to look and assist its own her in Africa we'll never be blessed. Its a Biblical principle that the founding fathers of the west knew and instilled into their children and children's children generations ago.

Continental unity would transform us into thee Super Power.

It can only work if we make it work. We must instill that feeling of pride that the Americans have about being American about being an African in our offspring. Racism, tribalism and all those other evils are taught I'm yet to meet any1 born with any of those cancers in them. We have work to do, but if we are single minded in achieving this 'dream' the future is brighter that a thousand Suns beaming down on us.

Cool so i can proudly pay i live in the USA now.

This is what I myself wrote:

it is ironic that in the centenary of the birth of Osagyefo Dr.Kwame Nkrumah, the dream towards continental govt could become a reality! Breaking news---al Qaddafi of LIbya just became CHAIR of the AU for one year. Certainly a BOON--if ever I saw one--to continental unity!!

All that said, I would not for a second believe that those who failed to comment are any less patriotic than I am.

We can draw any number of conclusions about the non-response, but what I can say is that there is a general lack of interest and apathy in the whole enterprise--which only compounds my unbearable lightness of being an AU citizen...

But let's get positive for a second. Here's the plan for the African Union Authority:

AU Authority would be made operational by July 2009

it will have a vice-president and President

current commissioners of the AU would be transformed into secretaries

new secretaries would have portfolios structured along nine areas of shared competence. These include...

...poverty-reduction; free movement of persons, goods and services; infrastructural development; climate change; epidemics and pandemics; international trade negotiations; peace and security matters; foreign affairs

Right across from where I work is Eastgate hotel; it has an EU; Ghanaian; Nigerian; Canadian flag. There is NO AU flag. It's a good job the AU is changing its flag. Maybe I can lobby for it to be hoisted?;-)Seriously, last time I looked, flags were a symbolic representation of a country's identity. There is no hotel here in Accra I have seen that has ever dared to hoisted an AU or even ECOWAS flag. In my view, it just reinforces the perception that Ghanaians don't care much for representing the AU to the world!

To conclude, we do not live in a perfect world, so we are always going to get the likes of Al-Qaddafi. Whatever you might think about his human rights, he has made immense contributions--albeit not altruistically--to the cause of Pan-African integration.

I believe it sincerely to be a blessing in disguise to have a putative erratic character like him at the helm of the AU in this year, and at this time when we are in the centenary of one of the most visionary Africans that ever lived--Dr.Kwame Nkrumah. A man who also happens to have proclaimed "Africa Must Unite! when he took Ghana, along with Nasser and a posse of visionary leaders instrumental in the establishment of the erstwhile Organisation of African Unity.

Like Sunday World columnist-cum-blogger Kobby Graham wrote:

Say what you will about the man but his visions of a single African military force, a single currency, and a single passport for Africans to move freely around the continent have an appealing whiff of Nkrumah about them that I cannot help but inhale.

In my view, the nay-sayers of AU integration are missing the point! It is not about Al-Qaddafi--it's about fighting for AU integration now!

As the Week Opens in Accra: Thoughts on...Championing Who'sExcellence?

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Originally uploaded by ekbensah.

'We are going to see that we create our own African personality and identity. We again rededicate ourselves in the struggle to emancipate other countries in Africa; for our independence is meaningless unless it is linked up with the total liberation of the African continent.'




I’ve been walking a lot lately--mainly from work at East Legon to the Tetteh-Quarshie interchange, where I catch a tro-tro to the Spintex Road. When I walk, it humbles me, and in walking, I get the opportunity to observe many things in Accra: the stench of the open gutters; the unsafe 207 BENZ buses that ply the Ghanaian routes; the largely-uneducated masses of men who, once in the city, opt to become taxi drivers, vulcanisers—or worse.

Ghana is 50, yet we have an energy crisis when we shouldn’t. Let’s face it, though: energy problems are not unique to this country, for in 2006, Europe suffered blackouts, prompting the EU to factor energy as a key challenge and policy area for its burgeoning 27-member EU.

In Ghana, we have just resumed the load-shedding management programme, which started Thursday—some days after Ghana@50 dignitaries left.

If there are any lessons to be learnt from our former colonizers—the Brits—where Kufuor is sojourning for the next couple of days on the invitation of the Queen of England for a state visit, it is maintaining and retaining any culture of excellence that Ghana might have, as well as possessing a visceral disgust for mediocrity.


Had this energy crisis afflicted the UK, heads would have rolled, and incumbent Minister of Energy—Joseph Adda—would have been forced to resign. It would not just have been the opposition that would have called for it, but the buoyant and vibrant press, including the inimitable tabloids, such as the Sun.

Today, in Ghana, our opposition – seriously ineffectual and uninterested in moving the nation forward talks the talk, and occasionally walks…out of Parliament – for posturing sake.

I wonder how far this is excellence in the making.

Streetlights stand on the Spintex road – have done for a month now – and nobody has publicly questioned why commuters and drivers alike ply dark roads in the evening, and at night.


We are known for our peaceful and pacific disposition. I sometimes wonder whether our attitude is not just passive and pathetic.

Nkrumah talked about an "African personality" -- about the African, when given a chance, doing things for himself – when he blazed the trail for Ghana and Africa fifty years ago.

Ghanaians must not, and cannot afford to, disappoint the dreams of that great visionary.

,

Happy Birthday, Ghana!: You are Jubilee!;-)

As I won't be in tomorrow, given it being a statutory holiday, as well as the subsequent day, I am posting this for 6 March.

Happy Jubilee!!! This is a cover of the latest edition of New African. The cover is, well, not surprising. It dedicates a good 45 pages, including the odd advert, but almost fifty anyway(!!) to Ghana!

Enjoy!!