Dr. Gamel Nasser has stated that Africa cannot be developed through the goodwill and generosity of the advanced industrialized countries, neither will the unequal relationship of imperialist domination and exploitation be terminated by peaceful negotiations. He made this statement recently when he gave a lecture at the Kwame Nkrumah Centenary campus Lectures held at the Great Hall of KNUST.
Speaking on the theme: Education, Technology and National Development: Going to Nkrumah’s Vision for the Future, Dr. Gamel Nasser said that Africa must urgently realize that no technological development is possible without first dislodging the stranglehold of the imperialists from its economies. As such a vigorous anti-imperialist struggle in Ghana and Africa is the only effective basis for creating an authentic, indigenous technical capability, and realistic control over technological processes in its programme of industrialization.
He also noted that colonialism has not only blocked Africa’s transition to an industrial revolution but technologically uprooted them in a grand process of “detechnologizing” the country. To this, Dr.Kwame Nkrumah consistently argued that under colonialism, the British rigorously obstructed even a most rudimentary form of industrial transformation. The motive of the colonial masters according to him was to maintain monopoly over raw materials, technology and markets for British manufactured products.
Citing part of the evidence in Nkrumah’s “Africa Must Unite”, he stated that after more than a century of colonial rule Ghana had only gold and diamond extracting industries and produced only hand-woven Kente and smock. Dr. Nasser therefore called for industrialization through the use of indigenous technology. He lamented that it is a national disgrace that a large agrarian country such as Ghana with large stretches of fertile uncultivated lands, cannot feed itself from its own resources let alone produce food in large quantities and at prices affordable to the masses.
Barrister Akoto Ampaw, speaking on the topic: “Kwame Nkrumah the Anti-Colonialist strategist and revolutionary intellectual–lessons for today”, said today most of the questions that occupied the life of Dr. Kwame Nkrumah, still are relevant. Dr. Nkrumah was also a man of many sides, a pan-African agitator, a supreme orator, African personality, a revolutionary leader, a man of action among others.
Mr. Akoto Ampaw said a name which stands above all in African history is Nkrumah. He was also a product of society by responding to the historical needs of society, he added.
On protonationalism, he mobilsed the masses to agitate for self government. As a leader, he reflected deeply and his thoughts were backed by ground theory. Mr. Akoto Ampaw was not happy with how most politicians do not seriously reflect to write literature for future generations.
Good politics, he said, is enlightenment and that was Nkrumah. Nkrumah and his government promoted mass education and conceived science and technology as a resource to propel growth. Again, he noted that Nkrumah’s Seven Year Development Plan remains the most comprehensive development plan drawn by Ghanaian experts without the assistance of foreign experts or consultants.
The Chairman of the Kwame Nkrumah Centenary Planning Committee, KNCPC, Prof. Akilakpa Sawyer, said the essence of the lectures is to help build the true history of the birth of Ghana under the theme: “Dr. Kwame Nkrumah, His ideas, His Vision, His Times, The Record”, He said it is also meant to offer an opportunity for citizens to compare and contrast the truth about Nkrumah to what imperialism and its local collaborators have said and are saying about him.
Prof. Sawyer hoped that the comparison would help move closer to the truth about the Ghanaian and the African struggle which would mark the beginning of a new type of political consciousness which would help generate the causes of the crises of Africa’s underdevelopment.
The Vice chancellor, Prof. K. K. Adarkwa who chaired the function noted that KNUST is privileged to host the special lecture dedicated to the University’s god- father, Dr. Kwame Nkrumah.
Prof. Adarkwa commended the KNCPC, for incorporating the lectures as part of activities marking the occasion. He said as an academic institution such lectures bring immense benefits to academic work and shed light on the life and achievements of Dr. Nkrumah for the youth to imbibe. He hoped that the African Personality of the Millennium, Dr. Kwame Nkrumah’s ideology would ginger the youth to aspire to achieve greater heights in their chosen fields of endeavour.
The Ashanti Regional Minister, Mr. Opoku Manu said Nkrumah is a marvelous personality. He said Nkrumah put on the complexities of the needs of Ghana and noted that great men and women carrying Ghana today are all beneficiaries of Nkrumah’s vision. Nkrumah was a visionary leader who is no more but his words and visions are alive, he concluded.
