The fate of Africa revisited
A review of the Book  by Martin Meredith “The Fate of Africa”

E. Ablorh-Odjidja
January 11, 2009

This book written by Martin Meredith, titled “The Fate of Africa,” is driven by a concept that predates the so called “Wind of Change” on the continent of Africa.   At its core is the bold belief, the boiler plate assumption, that the African cannot govern himself.

Even if he succeeds in some great respects, the African leader, no matter who he is, must fail.

Writing an endorsement for the book, Sir Bob Gerdoff says “You cannot even begin to understand contemporary African politics if you have not read this fascinating book.”

Unfortunately, what Sir Gerdoff understands, with the help of this book, differs greatly with the experiences of some us who grew up within the time period Meredith writes about.

Meredith is at least wrong about one issue: the significance of Nkrumah and his impact on Africa.

He says his book “focuses in particular on the role of a number of African leaders whose character and careers had a decisive impact on the fate of their countries.”

And he goes on to explain “why after the euphoria of the independence era, so many hopes and ambitions faded and why the future of Africa came to be spoken of only in pessimistic terms.”

Part One of his book is appropriately titled “the Gold Coast Experiment”.  

However, Meredith's jaundiced view about Nkrumah, as the typical African leader whose” character and career” had a negative impact on the fate of his country, permits him to miss a crucial aspect of this experiment.

True, there was a Ghanaian or Gold Coast experiment, but Meredith conspicuously avoids speculating on how that experiment ended.

That experiment died prematurely on February 24, 1966, when a military coup drove Nkrumah out of office.

Nkrumah career in governance started in 1957, when the Gold Coast, now Ghana, became the first sub-Saharan independent nation on the continent. 

Nine years later he was hounded out of office. 

Having reluctantly given the first Black African nation its independence, the colonials couldn't wait for it to fail.  The leaders of Ghana could have been any of Nkrumah’s contemporaries, J. B. Danquah, Obetsebi Lamptey and it would not have mattered.

The assumption that the African cannot govern himself had ruled the colonial mind ever since the first white man set foot on the continent.   Nkrumah was expected to fail.  And after nine years in office, the armed forces of Ghana put an end to his rule.

In Nkrumah’s case, however, writers like Meredith continue to entrench the specter of failure for matters concerning African governance and to suppress the significance of his rule; to include the character assassination of this rare leader. 

To the above end, the attacks have been phenomenal and continues, even after Nkrumah’s death.

For example, though the “Fate of Africa” was published in 2005, long after the verdict on Nkrumah as Africa’s Man of the Century, garnered by a BBC poll at the threshold of the 21st century, the former President of Ghana never gets a hint of respect or mentioning of this accolade by the writer.

A century is a long time and must have contained a lot of white actors and colonial governors, within that era, on the continent.  Not surprising, none made it to the top, in the view of the many Africans polled.

To be fair to Meredith, the opinion expressed in the poll came mostly from Africans.  So, Meredith neglect has to be opened to conjecture.

But Africans must know their illustrious leaders, unless Meredith’s view of their collective opinions is as low as the colonials had assumed.

And at this point in Africa’s history, Meredith should have noticed that the fulfilment of Nkrumah’s achievements and contributions are lodged in his ideas for and about the continent of Africa.  And those ideas have gone on to transcend and transform the continent.  

For Meredith to avoid discussing these ideas in his book must be seen as a failure of character in the writer.  He is intellectually dishonest.

Those who read Meredith’s book must pay attention to his avoidance and lack of fairness in the telling of Nkrumah’s story.

For example, on his narrative on the much-maligned Nkrumah idea that said “Seek ye first the political kingdom and all else shall be added unto you,” Meredith, of course, derides the idea in his book.

He sees the notion as Nkrumah’s invitation for the political process to neglect economic sector activities in the country, whereas the statement is a doctrine of summons for Ghanaians to use the political process to take charge of all their national assets, including economic ones.

This “seeking first" doctrine was made long before the "Asian Tigers" had any inkling that they would be economic giants.  Time to wonder whether China, for instance, could have made it without “seeking first the political kingdom”!

And also, it will help to imagine whether the Congo, with the political will of a China, could not have seized control of its affairs and ended the endemic scramble for resources that continue to devour her nation to this date.

At this stage, an impartial observer must conclude that this notion of “seeking first the political kingdom,” as Nkrumah said it, was right on the mark then and in futuristic term a powerful developmental theory that could help Africa immensely, if pursued.

The theory is there in Nkrumah’s writings and speeches.  The only problem is that folks like Meredith will choose to ignore it.

One other tenet promoted by Nkrumah, that Meredith ignores, is the one on “Neo-colonialism;” a concept that warned Third World nations transiting into independent states about the changing acts of colonialism for continual dominance.

The idea became universally accepted.  And its significance was because it tied in perfectly with the "seek ye first the political kingdom" theory. 

So why must a book that purports to discuss “leaders whose character and careers had a decisive impact on the fate of their countries” miss these key ideas of Nkrumah as a political leader and for what purpose?

Clearly, the omission is an example of a type of a game which writers like Meredith direct at successful African leaders. 

There are ground shaking ideas from Nkrumah, but Meredith chooses to ignore them.  Instead. he brings to the fore topics that will induce cynicism for Nkrumah’s achievements in the minds of many, including even Africans.

Post independent Africa had huge problem.  Departing colonial governments created weak institutions and instituted policies that lack agendas for forward leap in development.  And left in place suitable foundations to benefit Europeans power. 

I will not make much of this now only because enough time has elapsed for Africa to have resolved this on her own terms.  But Nkrumah was first to notice the trick in the transit to independence and called it “neo-colonialism.”

However, it is worth mentioning that in the example of a pre-colonial structure of government left in place by the departing European, characterized by absolute rule of governors and their supporting agents, the certain to guarantee is some of the ills we see in governance in Africa today.

What better office in Africa today could surpass the example of the dictatorial tendencies of a colonial governor?

Or beat the privileged bureaucracy left in place, that provided the sinew for ineffective administrations and the miseducation of the modern corrupt, unpatriotic public official of state? 

There was a built-in decay from start, before the first African administration.  The African only managed to advance fthe corruption apparent in governance today further.

Meredith claims that Nkrumah specifically set up the National Development Corporation to “fascilitate the handling of bribes from foreign businessmen and others seeking government contract,” implying that Nkrumah became wealthy as a result is a fabrication.

The problem for Meredith is that his assertion lacks a lot of evidence.

It is hard to believe that Meredith, at the time of writing, did not know that Nkrumah died in exile in 1972, penniless and only six years after being removed from office by the combined forces of the CIA, the British, the French and the Ghana Armed Forces.

Nkrumah must have had little time to hide his banking and financial records.  Yet, to this day not a single note suggesting a hint of his purported hidden wealth has been found.

What is evident is that Nkrumah left behind a family, a wife and three infants. Their collective lifestyle alone today could have told Meredith that there was no hidden wealth.  

It is absurd to think that Nkrumah was so heartless that in death he succeeded in depriving his young poor family the wealth he had so vastly and illegally accumulated.  Not a dime was left to support the welfare of his infant children!

A contemporary research could have allowed Meredith a chance to unearth the facts about Nkrumah’s wealth.  But he would not allow this search to get in the way of the fat book he was writing and ruin his “pet-thesis” on Nkrumah - as a corrupt leader who derailed the African revolution.

Felix Houphouet-Boigny of Ivory Coast was a corrupt dictator - rich beyond the dreams of Nkrumah, yet Meredith writes fondly of him as the man who built “state capitalism” in the Ivory Coast.

Houphouet had a longer reign, some 30 years to Nkrumah’s nine.  He died a natural death, but after him the Ivory Coast was plunged quickly into chaos.

Nkrumah, by the way, was forcefully removed from office, courtesy of the armed forces of Ghana and their Western allies.

After the overthrow of Nkrumah, an event that Meredith obviously holds as worthy, the chaos in Ghana began.

Why Nkrumah was removed from office while Houphouet-Boigny was left to rule unmolested by foreign interests cannot be explained by the accusation of the former as a corrupt and dictatorial leader.   Houphouet was worst, except he was accepted by the West as an ally.

Nkrumah promoted revolutionary ideas for Africans that were anathema to the colonial objective - from midwifing freedom fighters to the formation of the AU - more so than Houphouet or any other African leader.

The African Command Nkrumah proposed, which Meredith obviously does not think much of, is now in vogue some forty years later.  Anytime there is trouble anywhere on the continent, the concept springs up as solution in the manner Nkrumah had recommended!

Continued 1/2  ...Next page