Cheapening Nkrumah's name and image

Dr Nkrumah has been used in a number of commercials

It seems that quite a number of people now agree that Ghana's first president, Dr. Kwame Nkrumah, deserves the recognition he was given and continues to be given in Ghana especially over the past one year, for what he did for Ghana and Africa.

The achievements of his nine years in government were so gigantic that all those who came after him pale in comparison.

Indeed, it is on record that some governments after Nkrumah had to sell state assets put up during the regime of Nkrumah in order to balance their budgets! Also, he was the only Ghanaian leader who has written books articulating his political philosophy and the direction he wanted Ghana in particular, and Africa as a whole, to go.

As a result of all these and many others, when the current Ghanaian government decided to properly recognize his contributions to Ghana, Africa and the black race and the committee set up to plan activities in his honour decided to spread the celebration over a period of one year, many of us thought it was in order.

I thought that in addition to all the lectures, performances and the other activities lined up, we will also be seeing reprints of his books or some of his books but those did not happen.

As a matter of fact it is now not possible to get copies of Nkrumah's books to buy even in Ghana.

Instead, the photographs of Nkrumah and parts of his Independence Declaration speech were used for commercial gain in the run up to the celebration of Ghana's 53'd Independence Day celebrations.

A particular bank using the speech as a voice-over claimed that it has branches in other African countries which was in line with Nkrumah's belief in Pan Africanism and the unification of the African continent.

Another company that produces cocoa beverages doctored a picture of the statue of Nkrumah at the Nkrumah Mausoleum to show him holding a cup of their beverage!

It also has to be stated that many of the companies and business people who were loud about Nkrumah in the run up to the celebrations were only interested in using Nkrumah's name and image for private or personal gain, and I found that distasteful.

There is even a store in Accra that advertised that it was giving a six per cent discount on purchases over the Independence Day weekend, complete with a portion of Nkrumah's Independence Declaration speech as voiceover.

If the question is be asked: what has opening an account with a bank got to do with awareness creation about Nkrumah?

Or what has a cocoa beverage for breakfast to do with letting the youth of Ghana and Africa know Nkrumah's politics and the direction he wanted Ghana and the rest of Africa to go?

Could not the bank in question do better by granting a loan to a Ghanaian or African printer to reprint Nkrumah's books and speeches to make them readily available, and in so doing publicise itself by doing something that is useful?

Again, could not the cocoa beverage producing company do a better job by making souvenir cups with Nkrumah's image on them instead of doctoring a photograph of his statue showing him holding a cup with the brand name of the cocoa beverage on it? Personally I believe that people have the right to engage in business practices but not the kind of practices that smell of opportunism.

Therefore, it is in this light that I consider what took place in the run up to the independence celebrations as shameless opportunism designed to bastardize Nkrumah's name and image and it is time that those who engaged in them be told so in no uncertain terms.

People everywhere revere their heroes and as a result they do not cheapen their names or images because they serve as sources of inspiration for their people.

For this reason, at least, it will be a good thing if merchants of goods and services stop using Nkrumah as a vehicle for selling their products.

The youth of Ghana and Africa deserve to know the man Nkrumah and make their minds on him in useful ways other than the selling of goods and services, and the sooner this is done the better it will be for everybody.

I believe that one way of doing this is through the reprinting of his books.

I must add, though that I am aware of the launch of books on Nkrumah written by others, at the premises of the Ghana Writers Association around the time of the 53rd Independence Day celebrations.

Useful as those books are, they represent other people's opinions of him and cannot be the same as the ones he wrote himself.

What any business person or company can do to benefit a large majority of Ghanaians and Africans, since those who overthrew his government in February 1966 made bonfires of his books and other publications, is to get in touch with the publishers of the Nkrumah books to obtain permission to reprint and distribute them in Ghana and the rest of Africa.

The one-year period given by the planning committee last year is over but there will be many more Independence Days to celebrate in the future and, if you are a dye wool Nkrumahist, 24th February every year has to be condemned.

Nkrumah, therefore, will continue to be relevant and feature always in the political discourse of this country and Africa.

The right way to go, I believe, is to let the man's works speak for themselves and the only way, this can be done is to make the works available in Ghana and the rest of Africa; that way the youth can read for themselves and make up their minds about Nkrumah.

The wrong way is to commercialize his speech and image solely for profit, and in the process bastardize his name and image through a bank's commercial or a cocoa beverage company's commercial.

Many people knew Nkrumah through reading his works and what others wrote and said about him, both friends and foes.

The bastardisation of his name through the selling of goods and services for profit must stop henceforth. Let this not happen again.

Source: The Spectator