'NEPAD Represents Nkrumah's Vision for Africa'
From Charles Onyekamuo in Awka
Ghanaian Minister of Regional Integration and NEPAD, Dr. Kofi Kanadu Apraku has said the post-independent President of the Republic of Ghana, Dr. Kwame Nkrumah was one Pan Africanist whose vision for Africa has been realised.
Apraku, who delivered a lecture titled: "Nkrumah's Vision for the Emancipation Africa and its Relevance to the Development of ECOWAS", as part of the activities marking the celebration of the first anniversary of the Liberatation in Anambra state said Nkrumah's pan-African vision embodied freedom from slavery and western domination for the African continent and not as single units of states created by colonialism.
To actualise this dream, Nkrumah, he said, found alliance in Nigeria's first President, Dr. Nnamdi Azikiwe, whom he described as the greatest of African nationalists and others who gave vent to the liberation struggle which raged in Africa in the '50s and early '60s.
He said Nkrumah's vision today had materialised as Africa is now free, but noted that the post-colonial freedom has posed new challenges of globalization, social, economic and political freedom as well as regional integration. He reasoned that the actualisation of this integration gave rise to the Organisation of African Unity (OAU) and later the African Union (AU) and even NEPAD lately. In Nkrumah's estimation, Dr. Apraku who was represented by Sam Kyei, Minister, Plenipotentiary of the Ghanaian High commission, Abuja, said African leaders must derive authority from the people, while the public sector must maintain sound economic and corporate governance, adding that there must be regional patnership for development with African states forging new paternship with foreign economic powers for development. This, he stressed must be based on mutually agreed terms. He also reasoned that there must be the political will to serve the well-being of African people. regretting however that the aforewritten ingredients were sadly lacking.
In the spirit of the new patnership for Economic Development, (NEPAD), Dr. Apraku said regional economic Organisations are playing a role to boost regional wealth. ECOWAS for instance, he said was working to give the subregion a common currency and boost the economy of West Africans, even as he also noted that the West African gas pipeline project which has commenced, regional master plan for the sub-regional welfare and the ECOWAS bank are projects aimed at fostering growth and regional integration.
NEPAD, he said had been initiated to make Africa take its destiny in its hands, reduce poverty and ensure peace to be able to grow; adding that African leaders must resolve and show political will, and commitment.
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