Category: Arts & Life

At the root of the recent spate of resurgent coups in some West African countries particularly Mali, Bourkina Faso and Niger – all French speaking – were allegations by the putschists of the continuing suffocation of their respective countries by the persistence and deepening of French neocolonialism. The former French colonial power apparently granted what the late Professor Bade Onimode described as ‘flag’ or ‘nominal’ independence to its former colonies while retaining a strangle hold on their economies, resources and monetary systems which were tied to the apron strings of the erstwhile ‘mother country’. But neocolonialism, many would argue, is a prevalent phenomenon across Africa not only limited to the French speaking territories.

Incidentally over six decades ago, one of Africa’s foremost pan-Africanists and cerebral leaders, the immortal Kwame Nkrumah of Ghana had published an exhaustive and penetrating treatise on neocolonialism and its linkage with the persistence of exploitation and underdevelopment on the continent. In the introduction to the 263-page book, Nkrumah writes that “The essence of neocolonialism is that the State which is subject to it is, in theory, independent and has all the outward trappings of international sovereignty. In reality its economic system and thus its political policy is directed from outside…The result of neocolonialism is that foreign capital is used for the exploitation rather than for the development of the less developed part of the world. Investment Under neocolonialism increases rather than decreases the gap between the rich and the poor countries of the world”.

The renowned playwright, Femi Osofisan’s, dramatic depiction of Nkrumah’s years in exile in Conakry, capital of Guinea, after his overthrow in a military coup in 1965, was first published by Opon Ifa Readers in 1999 but has featured in several stage performances in different parts of the world. It runs into 178 pages subdivided into 46 mostly short scenes. Osofisan, a noted radical pan-Africanist scholar and creative writer himself, is an obvious admirer of Nkrumah.

In the foreword to the published play, the dramatist writes, “Kwame Nkrumah, known immemorially as the “Osagyefo” (the Victor), was the first leader of a black, independent African country. The British colonialists had called the territory the Gold Coast; under the Osagyefo, it changed its name to Ghana, in echo of the great African empire of that name. Nkrumah was a fervid nationalist, a socialist. and dogged apostle of Pan Africanism, and he welcomed to Ghana many of the liberation movements, to the great annoyance of the western powers, in those days of the Cold War. In 1965 therefore, while he was in China, on a peace mission to Hanoi, a coup d’etat was carried out in Ghana, replacing his regime with that of a self-declared “National Liberation Council” led by the Kotoka-Africa-Harley triumvirate”.

‘Nkrumah ni…Africa ni’ is thus an imaginative, dramatic recreation of Nkrumah’s years in exile in Conakry in Guinea, where the no less radical Sekou Toure with revolutionary socialist inclinations was President. This was also at a time when Amilcar Cabral, head of the PAIGC, the militant Guinea-Bissau liberation movement was resident in Conakry where the headquarters of the PAIGC was located. As Osofisan notes, “Thus, by a strange coincidence of history, three of the most radical African leaders lived in this small town of Conakry for six full years! They met, according to reports, almost every day, to talk and work out the strategies for the full emancipation of Africa. But sadly, no record of their discussions exists…I am fascinated. What did these three remarkable figures discuss in those years? What, in their death, has Africa lost – or gained? This is the first of a trilogy about these leaders, and the emphasis is on Nkrumah, the first of them to die”.

The cast in the play include Nkrumah, Sekou Toure, Amilcar Cabral, Andree Toure, wife of President Toure, Jane, assistant to Nkrumah, Nyamikey, Nkrumah’s nephew, Ambrose Yankey, Chief of the Ghanaian security guards and a group of jesters who come on stage intermittently to mock Nkrumah to his utter irritation and disdain. Through fascinating dialogue, the playwright captures the psychology of political leadership in Africa and the political Messianism that ultimately spelt the doom of an otherwise visionary and deeply patriotic leader like Nkrumah.

Read Also: Femi Osofisan blossoms in Writers’ Village

An excerpt of an insightful conversation between Jane, Nkrumah’s assistant and admirer, and Cabral, for instance, goes like this:

Jane: You say that, yet you never stop arguing with him, contradicting him all the time!

Cabral: I have to, eh! So I love him, but he made mistakes, didn’t he? Enormous mistakes. And we need to recognize those mistakes, and analyze them properly, in order not to repeat them.

Jane: You don’t seem to take into account the fact that Kwame was a pioneer, without any examples behind him. And without friends he could trust.

Cabral: …Jane, Nkrumah had many enemies no doubt. But suppose his downfall came from elsewhere- from the flaws in his own vision?

Jane: I don’t understand.

Cabral: It’s not too clear to me yet, I admit. I know he had a dream, so large that it embraced the whole continent. For him, it was always, indeed is still, Africa first before anything else. I think the problem was probably there, that in the pursuit of that dream, he lost contact with his home base. And Ghanaians began to feel that he had abandoned them.

In the play we go through anguished scenes of Nkrumah and his aides’ dashed hopes when attempts to return him to power through counter coups by his supporters within Ghana failed. He comes across as a flawed visionary with great hopes for African unity and Ghana’s rapid transformation who, however, appeared to have lost touch with the realities of his people.

And even in Guinea, an increasingly paranoid Sekou Toure is cracking down heavily on and executing those perceived as opposed to his government and thus engaged in treachery against the nation. His hold on power is increasingly threatened and fragile. The most humane and compassionate among the three in his attitude to and philosophy of power was Cabral. But was that because his country was still struggling from Portuguese colonialism at the time and his movement was not yet in control of state power?

This play vividly captures the strengths and weaknesses, follies and foibles of three of the most charismatic of the immediate post-independence African leaders and their largely failed struggles against neocolonialism. Is there anything that contemporary African leaders can learn from their experiences?