Statement from the Chairman of the EAP Editorial Board.

by Dr. Saburi O. Biobaku
Chairman of the Board of Directors
Encyclopaedia Africana Project
Accra, Ghana, West Africa
August 28, 1997

Dr. W.E.B. Du Bois, championed by Dr. Kwame Nkrumah, the first President of Ghana, established the Secretariat for the: Encyclopaedia Africana Project in Accra, in 1962, under the auspices of the Ghana Academy of Sciences as the first Director and after his death, in 1963, it became a Pan-African Project in accordance with his wish.

It was present at the transformation in Accra in 1963 and from a foundation member of the International Editorial Board and Standing Committee, I later became the third Chairman of the Board in succession, on to a Ghanaian and a Tunisian scholar respectively.

We owe it to the foresight and tenacity of the purpose of successive  Ghanaian Governments.  Since then the Secretariat has been wholly supported financially by the Government of Ghana.

The Encyclopaedia Africana Project was accorded observer status by the Organization of African Unity (OAU), replaced by the African Union (AU) (as of July 9, 2002) which gave us a small annual subvention for a time, as well as circularised all the member states to grant us financial assistance.

Only the Governments of Nigeria and Sierra Leone responded once but we all know that most African States are battling nowadays with acute budgetary problems.

Nevertheless, we have succeeded in producing three magnificent volumes of African Biographies and three more are in progress.

A new problem has, however, arisen: writers now demand to be paid for their contributions and the Secretariat cannot cope with this, in addition to its chronic underfunding.  We are, notwithstanding, determined to keep alive Dr. W.E.B. Du Bois’ dream, as we press on with the task of ensuring that all African countries have their own volumes of African Biographies before long.

It is in this regard that we welcome the fruitful cooperation, which we are receiving from the Fisk University Race Relations Institute, the National Council for Black Studies, our other friends in the United States as well as Dr. David Graham Du Bois and Dr. Gamal Gorkeh Nkrumah, sons of the grand founders of the Encyclopaedia Africana Project. 

We appeal to all African Americans, who cherish the African Heritage, which they share with us, to come to our aid with funds to enable us purchase modern equipment and to pay for articles from all parts of Africa.

Now is the time to ensure that Dr. Du Bois dream is truly alive, not to substitute it with another!

Sincerely,