LEARN MORE ABOUT NKRUMAH — CAESAR KALE (PAGE 16, MARCH 19, 2010)

THE Deputy Upper West Regional Minister, Mr Caesar Kale, has called on the youth, particularly students, to learn more about Osagyefo Dr Kwame Nkrumah and his ideals.
This, he said, would rekindle and imbibe in them the spirit of nationalism, patriotism, selflessness, sacrifice and hard work, which Dr Nkrumah stood for.
Addressing students of the Wa campus of the University for Development Studies (UDS) as part of a series of lectures marking the centenary anniversary celebration of Dr Kwame Nkrumah, Mr Kale regretted that the spirit of volunteerism which Dr Nkrumah championed and ensured it became an embodiment of the Ghanaian youth had died down, and said that the spirit must be revived.
“We have to revive the spirit of volunteerism. We the youth must volunteer to serve Mother Ghana,” he stated.
The lecture was organised by the Kwame Nkrumah Centenary Planning Committee (KNCPC) as part of a series of public lectures earmarked for some tertiary institutions across the country. It was on the theme: “His ideas, his vision, his times, the record”.
Mr Caesar Kale commended the organisers for extending such programmes to the campuses of tertiary institutions, and said if students were regularly involved in such programmes, they would come to appreciate and better understand the political history of the country.
“The youth must be educated to the level where we can stand up to corruption and demand accountability, fairness and justice. We, therefore, need the type of rededication to duty and an avowed intention of seeking what is in the best interests of the country,” Mr Kale stressed.
Speaking on the topic “Education and development; the importance of primary and secondary education- Revisiting Nkrumah’s vision”, the daughter of Osagyefo Dr Kwame Nkrumah and Member of Parliament (MP) for Jomoro, Miss Samia Yaaba Nkrumah, lamented the education policies of past colonial masters, which she said discriminated against people from the northern part of the country for decades.
This state of affairs, she explained, was not acceptable to Dr Nkrumah who initiated moves to put up more middle schools and secondary schools through his accelerated development programme, which ensured that the northern sector of the country got its share of the Ghana Education Trust for schools.
“Dr Nkrumah insisted that education for the people of the north was made free as a form of compensation to the people for being at the receiving end of the policies of past colonial masters”.
“Today, even though Dr Nkrumah is being criticised and lambasted by a section of the political divide for daring to give free education to the people of the north, we now have lots of intellectuals and professionals from the northern part of the country contributing to various sectors of the country’s economy”. Miss Samia Nkrumah added and said 53 years down the line the vision of Dr Nkrumah is still relevant.
For his part, the Secretary to the KNCPC and General Secretary of the People’s National Convention (PNC), Mr Bernard Mornah, traced the atrocities meted out to Africans by the western countries during the Transatlantic Slave Trade and attributed the woes of the continent to the trade.
Mr Mornah also praised Dr Nkrumah for his vision and ideas and regretted that Dr Nkrumah did not live to complete his work.