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Momodou
Denmark
11833 Posts |
 Posted - 13 Mar 2007 : 13:32:31
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HALIFA ADDRESSES PAN-AFRICAN STUDENTS
By Fabakary B. Ceesay
The Pan-African Students Association of Nusrat Senior Secondary School has on Friday 9th March, 2007 organised a symposium on Pan-Africanism at the school grounds. The symposium was in connection with the commemoration of the 50th Independent anniversary of Ghana, the first in colonized Africa.
Mr. Sallah told the students that a human being must first know oneself to take charge of ones destiny; otherwise one becomes a victim of blind destiny. He noted that the African people must accept that they are either human beings or beasts. Sallah said that if one believes that he or she is a beast one should go and live in the forest with the animals and live in poverty up to death and
will not know liberty, dignity and prosperity, but that if we accept that we are human beings, we must accept the challenge of development, we must develop our capacity to be able to build a
better society. Mr. Sallah lamented that Africa with over 832 million inhabitants is responsible for one percent of world investment, 1 percent of world GDP and two percent of world trade. He added that 40% of Africans live on less than 1 dollar a day, child mortality and maternal mortality rates are high. He said that infant and maternal mortality is rampant and 80% of the population, who live in the rural areas, rely mainly on crude tools or food aid.
"With an Africa where 30% of world mineral reserves are found; 40% of the world's gold and 60% of the world's cobalt, combined with other minerals and natural resources, one must ask the question why are our people living in poverty today" Halifa asked.
He added that 59 to 69% of our population live in abject poverty in The Gambia, where children still walk in the country side without shoes, with tattered clothes and where people still live in huts,
eat one meal a day ,without adequate protein to nourish our minds to build up our intelligence. "We still believe that we are an economic super power when we cannot produce our own food and manufacture our basic necessities. We import everything that we need and cannot guarantee the future of our generation with food security, employment, liberty and prosperity. We must realise that development is about people's liberty and prosperity," he remarked.
Going further, Halifa Sallah noted that Kwame Nkrumah had realised that without the unity of Africa, the continent will be doomed and that was why he started to devote his life to the liberation and prosperity of the African people and continent. He asserted that Nkrumah wanted to create a united Africa so that their resources can be combined to harvest the capital to create an investment bank to promote production from our raw materials and to the level where we manufacture or build our machines. He said that Nkrumah had started with big projects to guarantee electricity, iron ore industry to build machines and nuclear energy to advance to the highest level of industrial production. "Nkrumah wanted Ghana to pioneer Africa's industrialization, but between 1956 and 2001, there were 186 coup d'etats. Africa became unstable, her people never realised who they were," he said. Halifa adviced students not to promote tribalism and narrow nationalism but should embrace the higher ideals of African nationalism, Pan-Africanism and humanity.
Source: Foroyaa Newspaper Burning Issue
Issue No. 029/2007, 12 13 March, 2007
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