Kwame Nkrumah: The years abroad, Marika Sherwood, Freedom Publications, 2005

This well researched book traces the early years of Dr Kwame Nkrumah, the great African leader and Freedom fighter. The author traces Kwame’s years in the USA and UK studying for his many degrees at Lincoln, Pennsylvania, LSE and other reputable institutions from 1935 to 1947, when he returned to Ghana to kick start the final push for independence.

To know Nkrumah as pan- Africanist, Ghanaian nationalist, founding president and freedom fighter, Nkrumah, the intellectual who produced more than a dozen books and other publications of international merit, one has to read this book. The book starts in 1935 when he left Ghana to look for degrees in the USA and stops at 1947 when he departed London to go back to Ghana after twelve years.

The writer argues that these twelve years were the most decisive of the life of Nkrumah. He was moulded into all the great attributes he was assigned in life thanks to his experience during these 12 years.

His political maturity blossomed during those years, especially during the years in London from 1945 to 1947, when Nkrumah was active in students’ politics in London. His academic credentials also began to take shape during his years at Lincoln University from 1935 to 1939.

He developed a wide circle of friends and colleagues, African and European, whom he met during those heady days as student and political activist. Some of them, like George Padmore, DuBois, Aziwke ,were to have a firm influence on Nkrumah. Thus, the years aborad were not lost years for Nkrumah.

The author divides the years abroad into two periods: The American years (page 27) and the London years (page 111). All indications from the book are that Nkrumah was a polymath: a man of many vocations and he succeeded in anything he tried his hands in.

He was a crusading journalist who authored many avant garde articles extolling black dignity amidst colonial oppression in the USA and in London. When he returned to Ghana in 1947, he founded the Accra Evening News, a stridently anti colonial, nationalist paper. Sadly, as leader, Nkrumah did not tolerate some sections of the press in Ghana.

The story of Nkrumah’s life abroad can as well apply to the experiences of many other of his contemporary nationalist politicians like Azikwe, who studied abroad. Nkrumah’s early years in the US were hard: he had to do odd jobs to survive and pay bills. Yet, with perseverance, he finally became a success. Aside perseverance, he also had enjoyed the goodwill of many people, Whites and Africans, who were much better off than him financially, and who assisted him to sail through.

One very interesting aspect of the Nkrumah years aborad is that his colleagues in Lincoln University all became famous men and women back home in Africa as political leaders, journalists, diplomats and business: John Karefa Smart from Sierra Leone; Nwafor Orizu from Nigeria and Garba Jahumpa from The Gambia. Of all the early generation Gambian political leaders, Jahumpa commanded most respect from Nkrumah, and through this acquaintance, dozens of Gambian youth were airlifted to Accra in 1962/1963 to study.

This is an astringently written biography of a great African, perhaps the greatest African of his time, who excelled as a freedom fighter, intellectual, stateman and patriot. Nkrumah typified the resurgent African. Indeed, millions of people the world over, particularly Africa, will never be able to forget the effect that Nkrumah’s life and actions had on Africans and the course of their own lives’.

The art of writing personal history is no doubt well mastered in this book. It is dispassionate, fast moving, illustrative and well referenced. It is scholarly. Much of the numerous works on Nkrumah were based on his years as statesman or exile in Conakry. Now here is a refreshing departure from that norm, a book on his early years, when he got lost in the crowd, so to say. This book is highly recommended to students of African politics and history.

Available at Timbooktoo Bookshop along Garba Jahumpa Road Fajara Booster Station The Gambia or call 4494345

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