Limann was not an Nkrumah! The typologies and style were different. Yet both virtually shared the similar challenges of the artificial Westphalian state. One can only wonder what pieces of advice Nkrumah could have offered Limann but it stimulates contemplation over lessons an Nkrumah-branded party had learnt following Nkrumah’s overthrow.
Intriguingly, although he was not Nkrumah, Limann stoically headed a self-proclaiming united but rancorous political party which claimed Nkrumah as its umbilicus. Nkrumah’s name or association conferred legitimacy. However, the absurdity was that the party was filled with huge egos including those who had even denounced Kwame Nkrumah.
This displays the poverty of honour, politics, social values, and ideology in Africa. In Hilla Limann, Ivan Addae-Mensah gives a discerning reader some reasons underlying the degeneration of the political party fashioned by Kwame Nkrumah with the ethos of nationalism, decolonization, African Socialism and Pan Africanism. Their inability to unite through greedy-ego dreams also jettisons Nkrumah’s utopian vision of creating a new ideal citizen in a culturally free Africa in social harmony within Africa’s own traditions.
The clipping of the Limann potential needs to be placed and analysed within the context of the manipulation of consciousness by interest groups or persons to exploit power. Given his awareness of the plan to assassinate him even before he assumed office, Dr Limann’s life also reflects the courage and resilience of an Africa seeking freedom in the face of differing forms of violence. Addae-Mensah’s Hilla Limann contributes toward finding leadership and governance in Africa.
To be African is derive pain from this biography. It shocks and traumatizes. Who are we? Was independence worth it? What was the struggle about and for? Without entering the roots of externally well-crafted indoctrination conditioning programmes that seem to bring out the worst in human beings in service positions and institutions on the continent, such faces as Lumumba, Sankara and Limann are emblematic of the violence Africans have wrought on Africa. The battle for the consciousness of Africans – the mental war being waged on Africans – is devastating for Africa. Reading this biography shows the urgent need for an energizing vision to get rid of the demons of despair and redeem the worth of Africa for Africans.
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