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FREEDOMWAYS       THIRD QUARTER 1972

away the shame of these refusals- a shame which will forever blot the name of Ghana and every Ghanaian! It is a greater shame than that of the 1966 coup. For that coup is known to have been planned and engineered by outside neo-colonialists and imperialists, who had decided that "Nkrumah Must Go!" These enemies of Africa managed to buy the help of a few stooges and ambitious power-seekers, but the people of Ghana had no part in overthrowing President Nkrumah. And the bitter years which have passed without him have opened their eyes to how they were deluded and tricked into accepting something they did not understand. His death shook them out of their lethargy as nothing else would have done. There is no question about the wild and unrestrained grief which swept over the country. Always, deep in their hearts, was the assurance that "Osagyefo" would come back, would lift the oppressive burdens from their shoulders, would "straighten things out" as he had done before. They took comfort from the fact that he was indeed, only three hundred miles away among brothers who loved him. Now, suddenly they learned that this one, on whom they pinned their hopes for the future, had died in a far away land, died among strange faces, among strange men and strange customs. There had been no talking drums to announce his passing, no gong-gong to summon familiar faces to his side; no dirges recounting a litany of his deeds. "Osagyefo," "Kwame Atoapem," "Show Boy" lay cold and still in a lonely hospital far away. For the African the tragedy was complete!
  Neither the military rulers of Ghana nor the watching neo-colonialists expected the massive demonstrations of mourning and the clamoring demand to "bring Osagyefo home" which erupted all over the country. They did not expect that many African countries would declare days of national mourning for him, nor that many heads of state would want to attend his funeral- nor the messages of sorrow which poured in from nearly all important capitals of the world. "All this," wrote the Legon Observer "for a man who had lost office and been forced into exile six years ago."
  But on May 4th the Palaver, an independent weekly in Accra wrote:

"The entire world suddenly awoke from its mental stupor to learn of the untimely death of one of Africa's greatest and more revered sons which sad even occurred last Wednesday in the Socialist Republic of Rumania.

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NKRUMAH: AFRICAN LIBERATOR   S.DU BOIS

"The whole world-East, West, North and South-became aware that one man who at one time or the other dominated the world political scene was no more.  The earth stood still, so to speak, church bells tolled and many peoples, black and white, mourned the loss of a great man of Africa.
"From the time of his birth on September 21, 1909, in the little village of Nkroful, to the time of his death in far-flung Rumania, Kwame Nkrumah goes down in world history as a man with a dream-a dream for the total liberation of Africa from the tutelage of colonialism.
"Few men in the history of the world had stuck so stubbornly to their beliefs, unwavered faith in their creator and conviction in the rightness of their political ideologies as did Nkrumah; few men in the world had been imbued with his sense of freedom- freedom from oppression of man by man - of black man by the white man.  Few political leaders had evolved such gigantic revolutionary changes in tehir lands as did Nkrumah.
"Yet, at a time when he endeavoured to make his country self-reliant on its own economy, his own people, egged on by the imperialists and colonialists, for self-aggrandisement and economic exploitation, did hat a heinous plan to overthrow his legitimate Government.
"In his adversity, they rejoiced and gathered themselves together; yea, the abjects gathered themselves together against him; they did tear him to pieces, and ceased not.  With hypocritical mockers in jubilation, they gnashed upon Nkrumah with their protruding teeth.
"Yet when they had virtually no roads, factories, hydro-electric power, educational institutions, political ideology and sense of national belonging, when they were living in complete darkness and had no idea when their suffering and labour under the white man would come to an end, he behaved as towards brothers and sisters; he bowed down heavily; he humbled his soul with fasting and prayer.  Today, as he lies in a coffin his enemies-black and white-have been brought to shame and confusion; those that rejoiced at his hurt can no longer rejoice; those that plotted against him and threw bombs to kill innocent people because of their avowed hatred of him must now look around Africa and the work for another Kwame Nkrumah.
"They will not succeed in their search, because there was, there still is, and there will always continue to be one and only one

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