It has always been a great joy and an unimaginable ecstasy when one has the opportunity to meet a great and widely celebrated individual. It becomes even more thrilling if the highly celebrated individual is your superstar too. What a great feeling that characterises such moments in a person’s life! Yeah, that was my feeling too when I had that encounter with my superstar. Am sure you will wish for same if you know who I am talking about. Come along!
Speeches by such individuals are unforgettable. Some of these speeches have changed the lives of many millions and in some cases billions worldwide. The greatest revolutions in human existence took place through the power of such speeches from those noble men and women. Your best melodies have been composed by a form of word usage uttered by the lips. Above all, your very existence is a sufficient proof that speech becomes reality for He spoke and you and I came into being.
Standing on the Old Polo Grounds exactly fifty five years ago, the man, Osagyefo Dr. Kwame Nkrumah declared Ghana as an independent country. Dressed in fugu (also called batakari, a dress that is today known as Ghana’s political attire in political cycles after a slight change in its combination with another dress and popularisation by Jerry John Rawlings), the first president of Ghana asserted, “... today, from now on, there is a new Africa in the world, that new Africa is ready to fight his own battle and show that after all the Black man is capable of managing his own affairs”. Certainly, the zealous youth, farmers and fishermen, security service men and women, civil servants, traditional rulers, men and women from all walks of life who throng the grounds greeted this heavily packed statement from the country’s ever finest leader of all times with thunderous applauds and shouts that lasted several minutes.
Having gone back to the United States after witnessing the declaration of the first Black African country as an independent state (except Ethiopia that was not colonised), Martin Luther King Jr., got fired up. He averred that the site of the declaration of the birth of a new nation gave him more hope of a better world and that he then sees that certainly there will come a day when the Black race that has been discriminated against severely, will gain freedom. Certainly, the Freedom March of 1963 which witnessed yet another great speech of all times (“I have a Dream”) gained so much momentum after the 1957 event in Ghana. This undoubtedly translated into reality not just in 1963 but also in 2009 (induction into office) when the first African American became the president of the once highly racist country in the world, the United States of America. That is the power of a speech.
The deeds of this great leader of Ghana has been told over and over again. Unfortunately, we as a people have failed to tap much of that which he has left behind for us after some section of the Ghanaian people have helped in his demise from this earth (yes, they did!). Being full of flesh and blood, he had much negatives but certainly his positives far outweigh the negatives. Let’s leave that for another day. Thanks, for your cooperation.
Comrade, have you been able to meet that superstar of yours the other time you were so anxious and joyous and even tagged it “The last chance”? For me, I did. I met The Man, The Man of the People, The Man who was later recognised as thinking far above and beyond the potentials of his comrades (yes, he did!), The Man who called for a continental unity that was only later to be dabbed by Europe 30 years after his proposal to his people, The Man who the most widely listened to, viewed and read news network in the world – BBC – voted as the greatest African of the Millennium. Yes, Kwame Nkrumah. Yes, I met him not once, not twice but many times. How great it was! Comrade, I wish you did same. Today, there are two of such instances which are so vivid on my mind.
In that memorable speech above, Dr. Nkrumah made us believe that we, the Black people, are capable of managing our own affairs. Unfortunately, we have paid death ears to it since some people have wrongfully but willingly misinterpreted it as he considering us as an island. No, he didn’t. He advocated that we take charge of our own activities before negotiating with others at a comparative and competitive level.
One of the greatest reason for which my homeland, Ghana, is known worldwide is football. For most places on earth today, immediately a Ghanaian tells someone of a different country of his or her identity, the next highly probable thing that that individual will talk about is the exploit of Ghana in football. We have achieved tremendous feats in this arena of human engagement. Congrats, my country men and women. But wait a minute! Our senior national team, the Black Stars, which derives its name, power and strength, from the fact that we are the beacon of the Black people, had won the covetous African trophy on four different occasions; 1963, 1965, 1978 and 1982. Worldwide, the Satellites of Ghana won the FIFA U-20 trophy in 2009. These are two of the most heroic events in the annals of Ghana football. As destiny will want us believe, on these two fronts, the leaders of Ghana’s football entourage are Ghanaians. Yes, all the coaches in the above mentioned games are Ghanaians. Even during times when we all including our opponents thought we will annex the trophy after those earlier feats as mentioned, we disappointed ourselves and in some cases failed abysmally. There are uncountable number of times but again the most current one is the 2012 AFCON tourney which ended less than a month ago.
In all these instances, we have proved that the man whose soul feverishly craves for Ghana had it right in that powerful and explicit statement on the day of declaring our national birth. We tend to look down on the ability of our people as we ascribe unimaginable and astronomical powers to the potentials of others. We treat our people as if they don’t deserve doing the job they do but consider their colleagues non- Ghanaian (and non-African) as the one to deliver the goods.
I have just watched the annual Independence Day celebration online. We are here today again as we have done every 6th of March remembering our birth as the first son of Africa. We have the opportunity again to correct the mistakes of the years gone by. We have to believe in ourselves and take up the power inherent in that creed that sums up the spirit of a people and aver to our spirits, souls and flesh that yes, we can. Humans need one another but this should be done on the basis of mutual respect and acknowledgment and living the ideals and ideas of all parties involve; not stampeding one party as the other is always the winner due to the presence or absence of melanin, the Black coloured skin pigment.
Fellow Ghanaians (Africans), let the power inherent in that Independence Declaration be shown to the world that we are not an inferior race of people but that all humans need the efforts of one another to make the world a better place.
Comrade, don’t forget, your thought today can make the world better tomorrow. Think about it.
Lawer Egbenya
(laweregbenya@gmail.com, laweregbenya.wordpress.com,
modernghana.com/author/l laweregbenya, danielegbenya.blogspot.com).
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