(Additional info: Kwame Nkrumah, The Autobiography of Kwame Nkrumah 1957; Bankole Timothy.)
"It is said, of course that we have no capital, no industrial skill, no communications, no internal markets, and that we cannot even agree among ourselves how best to utilize our resources for our own social needs.
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| Kwame Nkrumah |
Yet all the stock exchanges in the world are pre-occupied with
Africa's gold, diamonds, uranium, platinum, copper and iron ores.
Our CAPITAL flows out in streams to irrigate the whole system
of Western economy. Fifty-two per cent of the gold in Fort Knox
at this moment, where the USA stores its bullion, is believed to
have originated from OUR shores. Africa provides more than
60 per cent of the world's gold. A great deal of the uranium for
nuclear power, of copper for electronics, of titanium for supersonic
projectiles, of iron and steel for heavy industries, of other minerals
and raw materials for lighter industries - the basic economic might
of the foreign Powers - comes from OUR continent.
"Experts have estimated that the Congo Basin alone can produce
enough food crops to satisfy the requirements of nearly HALF
the population of the whole world and here we sit talking about
regionalism, talking about gradualism, talking about step by step.
Are you afraid to tackle the bull by the horn?"Address to the Conference of African Heads of State and Government, May 24, 1963 (from the book Revolutionary Path).
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