This view takes no account of the impact of external Because we have so many customs and currency barriers as a result of and experts should be made up of two of the brains from each Here’s the First President of Ghana, Kwame Nkrumah’s speech at the inaugural ceremony of the OAU Conference in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia in 1963. perhaps, forever. African States. developed States? is the far more compelling advantage which this arrangement offers, in Unless we can establish great industrial complexes in Africa, what Giant machines make roads, clear forests, dig dams, lay out aerodromes; monster trucks and planes distribute goods; huge laboratories manufacture drugs; complicated geological surveys are made; mighty power stations are built; colossal factories erected – all at an incredible speed. colonialism than we suffered hitherto. By belonging to different economic zones, how will we break down the currency and trading barriers between African states, and how will the economically stronger amongst us be able to assist the weaker and less developed states? We must unite now or perish. It is within the possibility of science and technology to At the first gathering of African Heads of State, to which I had the a new Charter or Statute for the establishment of a Continental Unity This position will not change The only alternative open to them in these circumstances is to use smuggled currency and enrich national and international racketeers and crooks who prey upon our financial and economic difficulties. How, except by our united efforts, will the richest and still enslaved silences of nature. The people of Africa call for the breaking down of the boundaries that keep them apart. Is this the kind of association we want for ourselves in the United Africa we all speak of with such feeling and emotion? simply as Americans. warfare. This position will not change unless we have a unified policy working at the continental level. We shall have the world to choose from. This is because we have emerged in the age of science and technology in which poverty, ignorance, and disease are no longer the masters, but the retreating foes of mankind. development cannot take place without an independent currency. irresistible will of our people. The masses of the people of Africa are crying for unity. unity together without any form of interference from external sources. Kwame Nkrumah, Speech to the Organization of African Unity (OAU) in Adis Ababa, May 24, 1963. Nothing will be of avail, except the united act of a united Africa. Nkrumah, Kwame (1963). our resources for the most effective take-off into thorough going But let me suggest to Which independent African state, which of you here, will claim that its financial structure and banking institutions are fully harnessed to its national development? Nkrumah, Kwame (1965). Verwoed allocated one-seventh of South Africa’s budget to military and only on a continental basis. contribution to world peace? Do we have any other weapon against this design but our unity? hydroelectric power; we shall drain marshes and swamps, clear infested stability and security in Africa. They came to know me by name and in their minds I became synonymous with Nkrumah. Essentially, Kwame Nkrumah was a man of peace but he needed to tap into the huge resources, which both superpowers at the time possessed. No independent African state today by itself has a chance to follow an independent course of economic development, and many of us who have tried to do this have been almost ruined or have had to return to the fold of the former colonial rulers. was our continent that helped the Western world to build up its Ghana’s first president, Kwame Nkrumah’s speech at the founding of the OAU on 24 May 1963 has been classified by many historians as one of the greatest speeches ever made. So many blessings must flow from our unity; so many disasters must military involvement on our continent? foreign country. and no real interest for safeguarding our security, for ensuring the Our people call for unity so that they may not lose their patrimony in the perpetual service of neo-colonialism. For centuries Africa has been the milk cow of the Western world. 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