An Associate Professor at the Department of French, Prof. Atta Britwum has stated that Kwame Nkrumah’s Consciencism can be described as a philosophy and ideology for attaining socialism. He argued that the basis of Kwame Nkrumah’s Consciencism was nationalist but not economic in nature. Prof. Britwum made this statement when he presented a paper titled “Kwame Nkrumah’s Consciencism, an Argument in Favour of Socialism” at the opening of the Faculty of Arts Weekly Lecture Series for the second semester of the 2015/2016 academic year. He noted that Nkrumah’s Consciencism formed the broad framework statement for decolonization in Africa. He also explained that the nationalist approach of Nkrumah’s Consciencism associated communalism with Africa and at the same time linked it to socialism. Communalism in this sense refers to Africans taking ownership and controlling the use of their resources to develop the continent while Socialism on the other hand is about social ownership and democratic control of the means of production. Prof. Britwum explained that Nkrumah believed that communalism and socialism share egalitarianism which “maintains that all humans are equal in fundamental worth or social status”. He also pointed out that Nkrumah’s Consciencism, however, proposed that Africa can only attain Socialism by taking a back step to what he termed “Africa’s Antecedent Communism”. The lecture was chaired by Prof. Raymond N. Osei, a former Dean of the Faculty of Arts. The Dean of the Faculty of Arts, Prof. Dora Edu-Buandoh, who officially opened the weekly lecture series noted that it has been the culture and practice of the Faculty to create a platform for staff and students to share knowledge with the University Community. She indicated that the Faculty of Arts has therefore set an enviable standard by instituting the weekly lecture series and other academic activities which other schools and faculties are struggling to institute.
