Judek2: Shut up.. Nnamdi Azikiwe was the.greatest African ever liveth.

PeeDaVinci: I have had this argument with several people in the past couple of days. I told a colleague that Mandela is undoubtedly great, but he is not the greatest African or as great as the press is playing it out, and when he asked me who is then the greatest african, my exact response was that "i dont know but i will rate the likes of Nkrumah above Mandela".
IMO, mandela has not really done anything extra-ordinarily great. Someone said, he was imprisoned for 27 years, and I asked what about the pple who laid down their lives for the same cause. And another said, he led SA out of Apatheid, and I was like, that is exactly ahmadu bello, awolowo, shagari, enahoro . . . did. Another said also, he forgave the pple who imprisoned him, and i said, that is exactly the reason why they released him - to reconcile the blacks and whites, the whites were tired of the lack of peace during the apartheid, and they chose Mandela to bridge the divide in SA. An another said, he chose to be the President for just one term, and I replied, that is a rare virtue among african leaders, but that doesnt make him extra-ordinary and there are countries whose leaders resigned voluntarily before the end of a single term presidency.

Dont get me wrong, Mandela is great not because of who he is or what he has done, but what he represents - "freedom", and Africans gave him that "representation" during his incarceration because they wanted to see the end of the apartheid regime. He is just like the Queen who is a great woman not because of who she really is as a person, but what she represents.

I ask over and over, what has Mandela actually done for Africa, the western press eulogizes mandela because of influence of south african press in the western world. and these western media are the same ones who vilified him during apartheid, and now, suprisingly, on bbc journalist even likened him to Jesus.

to sum up, Mandela is a very very great man, but not as great as the press made it to be.

Z3tdee: Kwame Nkrumah, the greatest African...

DerideGull:

Nelson Mandela did not win anything. Mandela was imprisoned due to terrorist acts against Apartheid regime in South Africa. He was set free by the same Europeans who imprisoned him in lieu to maintain status quo in RSA except Apartheid. It is an act of goofiness to say that Mandela was spotless. You are definitely drunk on irresponsible sentiment.

chucky234: Allow those Ghanians to keep reasoning with their anu§ instead of their God given brain, Zik of Africa was far above Nkrumah whose only aim was to enslave Ghanians the moment he got hold of power.
Madiba had a heart you can only witness in fictional movies or novels,a man who sacrisfied his youth to firmly stood for what he believed in.
Only Fela Anikulapo Kuti come close,bravest of men.

victorv12:

You must be mad or completely r*tarded to have used the "F" word for Kwame Nkrumah.

Nkrumah was a great leader that fought tirelessly to eradicate colonial and imperial rule in Africa, for Africans to be liberated which includes your father. Use your Bleep*ing dead brain...he's an ideology, slowpoke!!

PetroDolla2: fuckeduppedness how can any sane, rational being question President Nkrumah's status as the greatest African ever? He first mooted the idea of an African Union. The African Union concept that was recently adopted by african leaders was an idea conceived and campaigned for by Dr.Nkrumah. African leaders, who could not think beyond their noses, did not see the wisdom in the African Union concept till a few years ago. Shows how visionary the man was. Most of his fellow african leaders were operating at a lower level and thought he was too ambitious. Today, they agree his vision was far beyond them at the time.

This was the man credited with some of Ghana's best known infrastructural projects- the Akosombo dam, Tema motorway, VALCO aluminum plant and numerous projects across the country.he even started a project to produce an atomic bomb and electricity from nuclear power in the 1960s and started the Ghana Atomic Energy Project.

This was a man who at Ghana's independence made a declaration that Ghana's independence was meaningless unless it led to the total liberation of Africa. This was a man who, on behalf of Ghana, granted a loan of $10 million to support Guinea in 1958. Guinea, at the prompting of Nkrumah, had opted for total independence from France, which cut off all assistance to that country. So Ghana stepped in with a loan of $10 million to help the new country of Guinea stand on its feet. That loan was never repaid. A loan of $10 million in 1958 should be worth about $10 billion today.

mrrock: Good question but the answer is clear to anybody who know African history.
If you were to place Mandela and Nkrumah on that ladder there's no doubts Nkrumah will be sitting ontop. Even Nelson Mandela knows it.
Nkrumah started what Mandela stood for and Mandela learnt from Nkrumah. Nkrumah is the grand father of pan-Africanism and African freedom. Infact, Mandela is a student of Nkrumah.

vccghana: Many Ghanaian believe Kwame Nkrumah is greater than Mandela there reason is Mandela fight for freedom in south Africa while Nkrumah fight for independence in Africa.

Do you think Kwame Nkrumah is greater than Mandela?

MajeMedia: Mandela's victory was the last page in a book of self determination started by Nkrumah.
Nkrumah's mismanagement of Ghana stains his legacy where as Mandela's is spotless.

Z3tdee: Kwame Nkrumah, the greatest African...

mrrock: @Quatermaine.
That rhethoric question is meaningless. If you have reasons why Mandela should be placed above Nkrumah tell us. That's what this thread is all about.

trovert: I AGREE 100% MANDELA IS JUST SOUTHAFRICAN BLACK HEROE....MANDELA IS OVERHYPED ND OVERATED IN RELATION TO AFRICA

ImHotep-X:
Who was the greatest African? This is very debatable. Also, we need to define Africa and what it actually means to be African. Africa itself is so vague and vast that trying to define the term in a myopic way would obfuscate what it actually means to be African, and exempt a lot of people. And like Zuma, the South African president said a few weeks ago: "There's no Africa/African." A few other African academics share the same sentiments. Perhaps, we need to start defining it as "black" - to make it all inconclusive.

So to call either Kwame Nkrumah or Nelson Mandela the greatest black person ever is a tad bit too generous IMO. However, we can debate who was more influential, more popular and more accomplished between the two icons. I'd say Kwame Nkrumah was more influential to the "African" cause since he was the face of anti-colonial struggle and he paved the way for everyone else. All the subsequent pan-Africanists came from his school of thought and they all studied him. But when it comes to popularity and accomplishment, as a black man, then no one is ever going to touch Nelson Mandela. If you want to use the creation of OAU as a yardstick to measure greatness, despite the non-achievements of the OAU - then Muammar Gaddafi also deserve to be in the conversation for creating the AU.

Personally, for the greatest black person ever - I would lean towards Malcolm X and Steven Biko since they both provided blueprints on how to solve the unique problems of the black race. However, they never really accomplished much while they were alive, so we can't really call none of them the greatest. But some might argue that Jesus also never really achieved much while he was on this planet, but most people believe he was the greatest that ever lived. That's an argument for another day.

All in all, I believe there's no greatest African/black person. They all contributed to black history and were icons.

Edited.

Hotep!

van-helsing2099:
GOODLUCK
GREATEST


AFRICAN






Anti corruption
Anti subsidy
Anti obj
Anti ASUU
Anti sure-P
Anti amaechi


Miss shepolopolo (shepopotamus)

Like if u agree jonathan better than d rest

mikeapollo: This debate was settled a few years back when BBC organised a poll to determine who was the greatest African leader, and the 2 leading contenders were Nkrumah and Mandela.

Votes came from all around Africa and beyond. At the end, Osagyefo Kwame Nkrumah emerged the ''Greatest African Leader''

This happened when Nkrumah had died over 30 years ago, and Mandela was still living. Again, the votes were not influenced by the population of their respective countries because Ghana is just 25million and South Africa about 40million, yet Nkrumah won.

People who were alive and knew what Nkrumah did to liberate Africa and the black world would tell you that he is unparallled because the struggle that he championed was niot just for Ghana, but to liberate the whole of Africa. What he did was virtually unthinkable. He virtually challenged the world order. He challenged the super powers of the world and his scuccess in Ghana became the springboard for other African countries to start believing in themselves.
At a time, he was more like the president for the whole of Africa because he set up a department in his govt that was to pursue the liberation of other African countries and he was inviting/recruiting a lot of Africans from other countries who were working in his govt in Accra and and still going back to their countries to support the struggle for their countries independence and to challenge the white colonial masters. He became the backbone of the struggle for independence in Africa
Today, Nkrumah statute stands tall in front of the AU building is Addisa Ababa.....a tribute to what he did for the emancipation of Africa.

Most of the comments in favour of Mandela at this time is because he has just died and sympathy/encomiums would naturally pour towards him. Although I acknowledge that he paid a GREAT price for the freedom of S/A!

Mandela was very very great. He thought the world how to forgive....that is something special about him. He spent 27 painful years in prison, but we should also remember that many other people DIED in the struggle.

Both are very great, and the comparison is not necessary.....but going by the impact of what they did......Nkrumah almost single-handedly defied the super powers at a time when it was a suicide mission to do so and also motivated and even sponsored other Africans that never knew or believed that they could be independent to start their struggle.....and Mandela thought us all how to forgive and live in peace with one another!

Profkomolafe: verily verily i say un2 u, i dy find UNLIKE link 4 ur status bt i no see.

boolet: In my opinion, I think it will be erroneous to place Kwame and Nelson side by side. What Kwame did wasn't in any way greater than what Awo and Zik did. At best, we could regard the trio of Kwame, Awo and Zik as contemporaries. We must not forget that the end of the colonial era in most parts of Africa came to be due to the desire of the elites to 'continue' from where the colonialists stopped. However the anti-apartheid campaign by Nelson as well as other S/Africans was a more genuine undertaking. I cannot remember if Kwame was victimized to the extent of spending the core part of his youth in jail. If you ask me, Nelson was an activist, while Kwame and his Nigerian brothers only wanted the dividends of their exposure to the Western education by being champions over the "illiterate" masses of their people.

Quatermaine:
Thank You Sir.

You just told us indirectly that mandela is greater.
''He taught the world how to forgive''.. Thats enough to place Kwame below Mandela.. If Kwame had his way, he would have wanted africa to conquer the world which is not a good thing..

Quatermaine:
Thank You Sir.

You just told us indirectly that mandela is greater.
''He taught the world how to forgive''.. Thats enough to place Kwame below Mandela.. If Kwame had his way, he would have wanted africa to conquer the world which is not a good thing..