Departing from Nkrumah’s principles cause of Ghana’s woes – Julius Malema

Julius Malema, a South African politician and Pan-Africanist, believes that Ghana and the African continent’s developmental challenges are due to the neglect of Dr Kwame Nkrumah’s principles and values.

Addressing participants at a programme in Accra, the founder and leader of the Economic Freedom Fighters (EFF) stated that the ideals of Ghana’s first President, Dr Kwame Nkrumah, hold the key to development in Africa.

He said Ghana was a champion of African liberation, and Dr Nkrumah had the blueprint to make Africa a powerhouse, but the country departed from the road to glory.

He emphasised that current African governments were fixated on privatising key state assets, benefitting a few rather than the masses.

The Pan-Africanist further criticised high levels of corruption by African leaders robbing the continent of the needed development.

“Well, if you drift away from Nkrumah’s principles of state-led development and you prioritise privatisation of strategic sectors of the economy, you’ll never address the issue of unemployment because the interest of business is to maximise profit, and every time you privatise something strategic, the first victims of privatisation is the workers.

“They remove the workers in order to maximise profit. So if we have a state-led corrupt-free development, then you’re guaranteed to absorb as many people as possible because that role of the state is not to make a profit, it’s to generate sufficient resources to finance its social responsibility programmes,” Mr Malema added.

He continued: “The democracy in Ghana is very old compared to other democracies on the continent, but the means of production are still old by those who previously colonised us. And how do we go beyond that because political freedom without economic emancipation is meaningless and this type of engagement seeks to ensure that the people of the continent are aware that if we stand divided, only the imperialist and colonial forces stand to benefit. The unity of Africa is a threat to the enemies of Africa”.

The dialogue on Pan-Africanism organised by the Arise Ghana Youth Movement on January 23, 2024, brought together over one hundred participants.

The objective of the programme was to provide the youth of Ghana with the opportunity to study the activism and commitment character of Julius Malema towards Pan-Africanism.