|
|
|
|
 |
|
|
| Moderated by: Saida.M, safetyblitz, Raven, Miss Brighter Days, LadyDay, Kunjufu, Kibibi, Happiness, Dillinger, Breadfruit, Backatya |
|
|
| Author | |
|---|
abdurratln
Villager
| Joined: | Thursday June 7th, 2007 |
| Location: | |
| Posts: | 7 |
| Photo: | |
| Status: |
Offline
|
| Mana: |  |
Click here for your Black Profile
Search for Black Sites
|
Posted: Saturday June 16th, 2007 21:46 |
|
Nkrumah’s Children To Settle In Ghana
Posted by VIBE GHANA at 15 Jun 2007 and is filed under General News [url=javascript:this.location.href='[url=http://vibeghana.com//2007/06/15/nkrumahs-children-to-settle-in-ghana/print.aspx']]http://vibeghana.com//2007/06/15/nkrumahs-children-to-settle-in-ghana/print.aspx'][/url][/url]
Two of the children of Ghana’s first President, Dr Kwame Nkrumah, who are currently domiciled outside have decided to relocate to Ghana. They have also given hints of their future involvement in the affairs of the country.
Following Tuesday’s state burial of their mother in Accra, Dr Gamel Nkrumah, a senior journalist with the mass circulating Al-Ahram of Egypt, and Samia Nkrumah, a freelance journalist and co-ordinator in Italy for the University of Arkansas in the USA, affirmed their resolve to return permanently to the land of their birth.
“Now that both our parents are gone and buried in Ghana, we have the incentive to relocate to Ghana,� Gamel said. The two children were speaking to the Daily Graphic yesterday in separate interviews at the Kwame Nkrumah Mausoleum in Accra where their mother, Madam Fathia Nkrumah, was buried beside their father last Tuesday.
They were at the burial site of their parents to acquaint themselves with progress of work on their mother’s tomb. Two of their brothers, Professor Francis Nkrumah and Sekou Nkrumah, are already based in Ghana.
Discounting any immediate involvement in local politics, Gamel said his preoccupation would be Pan Africanism and made it clear that “if local Ghanaian politics will bog me down from Pan African unity, I will not play along with it because it will be disruptive to the real purpose, which is Pan Africa unity.
My father’s legacy to me was clear, and that was Pan Africanism�. For her part, Samia noted that “the burial of my mother beside my father in Ghana is a great incentive to return to Ghana. Ghanaians are our people and the country our country� and indicated that talking of participating in local Ghanaian politics was too early for her.
“I will come back soon. It is too early to talk about politics but we, as Nkrumah’s children, cannot escape the great past of our great father and our mother,� she said. She noted that as the children of one of the greatest politicians Africa had produced, they could not be far away from politics.
“But I intend to further and promote my father’s legacy of Ghana’s development, which was closely associated with African unity. You cannot talk about Pan Africanism without talking about a strong Ghana,� she explained.
Samia, who is a member of the Movement of African Immigrants, a non-governmental organisation (NGO) for African immigrants in Italy, and mother of 10-year-old Kweku, also described her mother’s burial as the beginning of the healing process which would finally transform the nation.
Gamel, who has two children, Karim Kweku Nkrumah, 12, and Yusif Yaw Nkrumah, six, said he had commitment to his family who were currently based in Egypt, saying he should take that into consideration because relocating was not an easy thing.
He, however, said with the burial of his parents as the motivation, he would make it. He said he was committed to Pan Africanism which, apart from being his father’s legacy, was the same reason his father, a black African from Ghana, married an Egyptian, an Arab African, to reinforce the unity of Africa.
He stated that if the continent was not united, then Africans would remain in poverty and under-developed. He was grateful that although the government of President J.A. Kufuor was ideologically different from his father’s, “President Kufuor acted as a decent gentleman and paid full respect to my mother’s will in every way possible�.
Gamel was of the view that President Kufuor’s attitude “in itself was the beginning of the healing process�, adding that by the state funeral, President Kufuor had recognised Dr Nkrumah and Fathia above political party divide.
Gamel was very proud that his mother married the first democratically elected President in Africa and that after 50 years she had been buried in one of the most vibrant democracies in Africa.
According to him, they, as the children of Dr Nkrumah, had forgiven all those who had offended their family in one or the other.
He stated, however, that “one has to forgive but not forget what happened — the pain, the damage —but there is the need to forgive in order to heal the wounds of the nation and move it forward�.
He suggested that once the healing process was on course, what was important was to concentrate on the goal of making the nation develop “because our objective should be the advancement of Ghana in particular and Africa in general�.
He said as a nation, Ghanaians should focus less on party politics because that would only pull the nation backward, adding. “As my father’s motto was, ‘Forward Ever, Backward Never’.�
He was of the view that all the happenings within the Golden Jubilee year of the nation — President Kufuor as the Chairman of African Union (AU) and the host of the AU conference, the death of her mother and subsequent burial in Ghana — were “as if Providence was rewarding President Kufuor so that he can now stand proudly and say, ‘I have done my duty’�.
Gamel also expressed the intention of concentrating on the youth of the country so that their aspirations could be fulfilled because the youth represented the constituency which needed to have a better future.]
[size=Source][size=: Graphic]
Last edited on Saturday June 16th, 2007 21:47 by abdurratln
____________________
Click here for your Black Profile
|
|
|
Current time is 03:57 | |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Join the
Blacknet
mailing list
|
|
