Editor’s Note: “Words that Never Die” is a weekly instalment of compelling quotes from the world’s most influential people. This week, we highlight an excerpt from an address to the Conference of African Heads of State and Government, May 24, 63, which can be found at page 237 of the book Revolutionary Path by Dr Kwame Nkrumah, first President of the Republic of Ghana.

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.

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 the 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?