RECENTLY in the Mid-Ocean News I used the example of a larger-than-life statue of Ghanaian leader Kwame Nkrumah as a fitting example of why Bermudian freedom fighter Sarah (Sally) Bassett should be commemomarated with an epic piece of statuary. I went on to say I would like to see such a statue raised in its proper place - that is where she was martyred in the struggle against slavery at the Foot of the Lane rather than in the Cabinet Office grounds.

Last week someone signing himself "Born in Africa" wrote a Letter To The Editor in which he stated that he was born in Ghana and took me to task, arguing that Kwame Nkrumah bankrupted the country of Ghana and was in fact a dictator. He also admonished me to do my home work.

Regular readers of my Commentary column in this newspaper know how I feel about those African leaders in post-colonial Africa who have used public office for personal gain. In my opinion they have betrayed the great cause of African freedom and the right of self-determination. It is also a personal rule on my part never to write about a subject or issue that I cannot defend, at least once, in the face of critics or naysayers.

Now I have one or two questions, for you "Born in Africa". Are you of African descent? Or are you a remnant of the former British colonial settler population who just happens to have been born in Ghana?

Bermuda once had a Governor who was British but who had been born in British ruled Kenya. He called himself African but, to borrow a line from the Duke of Wellington, if you happened to be born in a stable would that make you a horse?

Furthermore, "Born in Africa", If in fact you are of Ghanian descent, then tell me why did your countrymen raised such a statue on such a monumental scale if Kwame Nkrumah's legacy was so neagre, if he was in fact a dictator who presided over the economic ruine of his nation?

Is it a policy in African countries to raise monuments to dictators who misgovern their countries? If that was in fact the case where are the monuments to Idi Amin in Uganda? Where is the monument to Sese Seko Mobutu in the Democratic Republic of the Congo formerly known as Zaire? Is there a monument to the self-styled "Emperor" Bokassa in the Central African Republic?

I suspect that "Born in Africa" knows where I am going with this. No, I was not born in Ghana, but I have walked on Ghanaian soil and I have stood beneath the monument your countrymen raised in honour of the father of your nation, Kwame Nkrumah.Nkrumah, who led Ghana and its predecessor state, the Gold Coast, from 1952 to 1966, took his country to Independence in 1957.

I not only looked up at the imposing statue of Kwame Nkrumah but entered the tower where the grave of the first post-colonial African leader is located and knelt down and touched his tomb.

This site is not just a memorial garden, it hosts a large museum where a curator leads you through the life of Kwame Nkrumah. explaining various aspects of his life and rule. The museum in fact forms part of a learning centre where young students hoping to enter their country's foreign service do their studies.

I ask the question again: If Kwame Nkrumah is supposed to have ruined his country, why are there such great honours bestowed upon him?

This is not to say that he did not make mistakes and perhaps his ambitions were far greater than what could be practically achieved. He dreamed of an industrialised Ghana and a United States of Africa with him as its first president.

With regard to the former, he hoped to reach the full industrial potential of Ghana by building an aluminium processing plant for its bauxite resources, thus eliminating the need to bring in finished aluminium products from Britain and the United States. In the same vein he sort to break Britain's monopoly on the control of Ghana's chief export crop, cocoa, of which Ghana is the world's largest producer.

The creation of the Volta River Project, involving the construction of dams that would result in the creation of the world's greatest man made lake, was undertaken with the hope of opening up the potential of hydroelectric power in Ghana. The idea was to introduce electrification to all of Ghana and have enough surprlus power to sell it to the country's African neighbours.

Nkrumah persued the economic development model that the former Soviet Union had used during the course of its crash industrialisation programmes of the 1920s and '30s.

Of course, his socialist leanings did not go down well in the West because at that time, the 1950s and '60s, theworld was divided into two antagonistic and mutually suspicious camps. This was the height of the Cold War, the longlasting conflict between the United States and its supporters and the then Soviet Union and its satellites and client states.

The West, in particular the former colonial rulers in Afric,a had always considered that continent and its vast reserve of raw materials was theirs and theirs alone and that they had the right to put in place the political leadership whichwould ensure the status quo remained intact. In other words they did not mind if a dictator was in control as long as it was their dictator. Kwame Nkrumah did not fit their bill.

Kwame Nkrumah was the author of no less than 10 books in which he set out his ideas of an Africa made up of Independent nation states, an Africa that would be able to hold its own in the world. One of these books is titled Dark Days in Ghana and was written after he had gone ino exile in Guinea. Along with rebutting attacks made on his rule and his reputation by both domestic and international detractors, it reveals who Nkrumah believed was really behind the military overthrow of his government that occurred in February 1966, while he was on a state visit to Vietnam. Namely the American Central Intelligence Agency.

These were dark days in Ghana indeed as the miliary regime which replaced Nkrumah soon began engaging in excesses that outstripped anything that ousted leader had been accused of.

Nkrumah was seen by the West, particularly by the former colonial powers who had in the main only reluctantly acceded to African Independence, as a radical. After all he was an advocate of a real African Independence complete with African control of its own resources, its own political view of the world.

Such ideas were considered to be dangerous by those who wanted to continue to plunder Africa's natural resources.

Kwame Nkrumah was at odds with much of Francophone Africa which had accepted a French condition for the granting of Independence that the Ghanian leader found intolerable - continued but unspoken French control and influence over the affairs of its former colonies. In return they could expect French aid. All accepted except Sekou Toure's Guinea, which rejected the French terms for Independence. And as a result all French aid was cut off and, as t hey departed, they took even the nails that held up the pictures in their homes and offices in the former colony.

Interestingly when I visited the former French colony of Senegal I saw the extent of that continued French influence. I asked an African woman guest to a dinner party I attended what her view was of her country's Independence.

Her replay was revealing. "They have removed their flag but they are still here". As if to see the pathetic truth in this statement, as our tour van returned from visiting a village a few days later. we passed a French military truck returning to its base full of French soldiers.

I doubt whether "Born in Africa" will give me a real answer why Ghana has chosen to honour Kwame Nkrumah in the way that it does.

But those of us who believe in the Pan-Africanist ideals know that, despite all of his failures and shortcomings, Kwame Nkrumah embodied what is meant when we hear the term "Africa Must Unite."