Introduction
The struggle for freedom by The Gold Coast and many African countries has blessed the
continent with many great visionary leaders like Nelson Mandela, J.B Danquah, Jomo Kenyatta,
and the like. Dr. Kwame Nkrumah is also one of such leaders. As the first Prime Minister and
President of the country Ghana, his blood and toil serve as the backbone for which this country
stands, and his achievements can still be felt and seen in modern-day Ghana. In this paper, we will
be summarizing the life and achievements of this great man as well as the many philosophical
thoughts that drove his actions.
Early Life and Education
The early life of one of Africa’s most impactful leaders shaped his philosophy and drive
for the freedom of Ghana and Africa from the colonial grasp of the Western world—born on 21
September 1909 in the British Colony of Nkroful, Gold Coast. Nkrumah was taken to a humble
goldsmith and retail worker. Nkrumah lived a life that coincided with many of the world’s
historical events. Baptized a Roman Catholic, Nkrumah spent his elementary school days in a
Catholic school near Half Assini (Ahlman, 2021). Afterward, he joined the first matriculating class
of Ghana’s premier mixed-gender school, Achimota Secondary School, just outside the Gold Coast
capital, Accra, where he studied under one of the Gold Coast's greatest Pan Africanist, Kwegir
Aggrey, who exposed him to the works of Marcus Garvey, and W.E.B Du Bois. After obtaining
his teaching certificate from Achimota School in 1930, he began his early teaching career at a
Roman Catholic Junior High School in Elmina (The Editors of Encyclopedia Britannica, 2023).
Through the help and advice of Dr. Nnamdi Azikiwe, an Accra-based newspaper editor, he applied
and gained admission in 1935 to Lincoln University in Pennsylvania (Ahlman, 2021).
After spending about a decade in the ,USA, living through the Great Depression, the
Second World War, and the life and politics of being black in America’s Jim Crow era. Kwame
Nkrumah shifted historical contexts in 1945 by leaving the United States for London to organize
the Manchester Pan-African Congress. The Congress, famed for its call for an immediate end to
European colonial rule in Africa and the Caribbean, resurrected a pan-African movement and
created a political environment for African anticolonial nationalists to explore their shared
experiences, struggles, and ambitions (Ahlman, 2021). His influence led him to return to the Gold
Coast in 1947 upon the invitation of the United Gold Coast Convention, beginning his political
career on the Gold Coast.
Political life, values and Idea
It was when Nkrumah decided to resume his studies in the United States that he truly
consolidated his ideology. He studied texts by thinkers such as Karl Marx, Lenin and Marcus
Garvey, who showed him the way to socialism and nationalism. He also became involved in the
African Students' Association, becoming its president. All these influences and experiences helped
him to orientate himself politically and to become the politician he was later to become. His
political life began when Joseph B. Danquah appointed him Secretary General of the United Gold
Coast Convention (U.G.C.C) in 1947, a political party aiming at full sovereignty through
constitutional means. It was Nkrumah who turned this party into a mass one. However, he no
longer recognized himself in the UGCC's ideas, and disagreed with its president Joseph B.
Danquah about the party's objectives and the means of achieving them. For this reason, in June
1949, Nkrumah set up his own party, the Convention People's Party, a people-oriented party calling
for immediate autonomy. This party mobilised broad popular support for the struggle for
independence, organising non-violent campaigns and demonstrations through strikes and refusal
to cooperate with the colonial authorities. However, further unrest broke out and Nkrumah was
sent back to prison for 1 year. He came out of prison because he was elected to Parliament as head
of government affairs, and was finally appointed Prime Minister of the Gold Coast in 1952. He
took part in the diplomatic negotiations leading to Ghana's independence. When the country
became independent within the Commonwealth in 1957, he became Prime Minister of Africa's
first independent country. It was finally in 1960 that Ghana became a republic, and Nkrumah
became its president, demonstrating the importance of his role in Ghana's accession to full
sovereignty. His policies were centred on the interweaving of pan-Africanism, socialism and
nationalist ideas. Indeed, he was one of the great thinkers of Pan-Africanism, promoting the total
independence of the African continent while encouraging African solidarity, particularly in the
fight against colonialism. To this end, he was instrumental in the creation of today's African Union,
the emblem of Pan-Africanism. As for his socialism, he believed in state action in the economy to
enable the Ghanaian people to benefit directly from the wealth produced, which was also in line
with pan-African and nationalist thinking aimed at preventing foreign powers from exploiting the
continent's resources. He pursued economic policies aimed at investing more in the industrial and
agricultural sectors, in order to promote domestic production while limiting imports, which he saw
as embodying economic dependence. Nkrumah also pursued social policies aimed at reducing
social inequalities by, for example, democratising education and healthcare. However, Nkrumah's
policies tended to become increasingly authoritarian. For example, he suppressed press freedom
and political opposition. As a result of this authoritarian turn and the economic difficulties
engendered by his governance, he was deposed in 1966 and forced into exile in Guinea, where he
continued to spread his political ideas until his death in 1972.
His philosophies and their relations to his political life
These socialist, pan-Africanist, nationalist and Marxist influences enabled K.
Nkrumah to theorize the concept of conscientism. Nkrumah theorized the concept of
conscientism, belonging to the materialist current, which he spelled out in his book
Consciencism: Philosophy and Ideology for Decolonization, published in 1964.
The aim of consciencism is to distinguish the African self from the Western nonself, so that Africa can enjoy its own history, with its own identity and its own
particularities. Consciencism is an ideology whose aim is the decolonization of Africa,
above all through cultural decolonization and the decolonization of identities. Kwame
Nkrumah wanted to develop an African philosophy, reconciling traditional culture, Islam
and Christianity, as well as the colonial heritage, in order to create a post-colonial
African identity. Kwame Nkrumah asserted that the liberation of Africa would begin with
consciousness. The population must become aware of the colonial and imperial
situation to enable the transformation, liberation and decolonization of African societies.
As a result, Nkrumah asserts that before physical colonization of Africa can be
undertaken, a process of mental decolonization must first take place, with
consciousness as the driving force behind social transformation. It is only once this
awareness has been achieved that individuals will be inclined to make efforts to
transform society.
Awareness is therefore the stage that precedes social transformation. This
awareness must enable the mobilization of the masses in the struggle against colonial
domination.
Moreover, Nkrumah remained convinced that Man was an end in himself, not a
means to an end. That's why his doctrine is opposed to capitalism and claims to be a
scientific socialist. Class struggle is also an important point, because for Nkrumah, if
there are classes, there are men who dominate others. Nkrumah advocates an African
conception of human beings as equals, and thus for a communitarian society where
overall social well-being is paramount.
Finally, influenced by pan-Africanism, Nkrumah believed that Africa should unite
under a common socialist system. The decolonization of Africa was to take place not
just in Ghana, but throughout Africa, to see the emergence of a self-sufficient Africa,
never again to be exploited by colonial countries.
Conclusion
Finally, consciencism continues to have an impact on current political thinking.
Indeed, this political and social philosophy has had a strong resonance in Africa. Some
African liberation movements and leaders have used consciencism as a tool to liberate
their countries. Algeria, for example, adapted the idea of consciencism to its own reality
and used it as a tool for liberation. What's more, this ideology still resonates today, and
remains a source of reflection in the fight against neo-colonialism, for example.
References
Ahlman, J. S. (2021). Kwame Nkrumah: Visions of Liberation. Ohio University Press.
Dr Kwame Nkrumah | South African History Online. (n.d.). https://www.sahistory.org.za/people/drkwame-nkrumah
The Editors of Encyclopaedia Britannica. (2023, August 28). Kwame Nkrumah | Biography, Education,.
Encyclopedia Britannica. https://www.britannica.com/biography/Kwame-Nkrumah