ANTI-NKRUMAH LIES, FALSEHOODS AND PROPAGANDA

Osagyefo Dr Kwame Nkrumah

By Michael Nunoo

Introduction

My intention in this piece is to confront the lies, unfounded falsehoods and vile propaganda against Osagyefo Dr Kwame Nkrumah by ‘Mate Me Ho' ideologues. I intend to use secondary sources and official statistics to confront the oft-repeated lies about the Nkrumah regime. By all accounts these sources have a semblance of detached independence from the bigotry and ideological bias that have become symptomatic of political journalism in Ghana. 

1.      Ghana was a prosperous country at the time of independence.

Prosperity, Is a descriptive term that denotes affluence or success. Ukandi G. Damachi (Developments Paths in China and Africa. eds. Ukandi G. Damachi. Guy Routh & Abdel-Rahman E. AU Taha. 1976) describes the socio- economic conditions on the eve of political independence thus: “many Ghanaians were living at extreme poverty level. Education health service housing and social security were all at very rudimentary stages: and illiteracy was prevalent. The government therefore had the responsibility of raising the living standards of Ghanaians by promoting social and economic development."

Damachi points out that "the economic development which had taken place during the colonial era was one sidedly directed toward the production of primary commodities for export to non-African countries." He goes on to state that "there had been little Industrialisation and little had been done to develop domestic markets for Ghana's own products. The structure of the economy at independence still reflected the colonial pattern which existed in the early 1900s."

John Sender and Sheila Smith (1986) also point out that the post-colonial African leaders faced urgent and forcefully articulated demands for economic advancement because of the deplorable socio-economic conditions at the time of independence: "organized wage and salaried workers struggled for the removal of discriminatory differentials increases in real wages and improved working conditions: there were mass demands for better education. Transport, water supplies, health, housing, etc most importantly the emerging bourgeoisie was in a strong position to insist upon the provision of a wide array of preferential, discriminatory and protective measures from the state."

J. B Danquah, an agent of the CIA and opponent of Nkrumah

Does the description given by these Africanist scholars paint a picture of Ghana as an affluent society in 1957? The answer is a clear no. In fact life was no more prosperous for the privileged classes who faced all manner of discriminatory practices during the colonial regime than it was for ordinary people. The mining, import-export and trading sectors were all controlled by white people. Ghanaian entrepreneurs and businessmen had little or no access to credits. It was mainly as a result of the objective experiences that the vast majority of our people supported the anti-colonial struggle.

Damachi further points out that the task of reconstructing the colonial economy was inherently fraught' with problems because 62% of the working population was engaged in agriculture. There was high importation of food because of insufficient food production and the Gold Coast imported all her manufactured needs. Foreign exchange for imports was in short supply and there was rising expenditure against falling cocoa prices.

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If Ghana was not an affluent society in 1957. then why is it that ideologues of the Danquah-Busia tradition have tried to paint a different picture of the period? Is it mischief propaganda or an attempt to re-write or distort history?

Indeed, if Ghana was prosperous in 1957;what did the UGCC think it was doing when the movement was launched? Was it because the Danquah-Busiaists wanted a changeover of the guards for the British to hand over power to an elitist group of people to continue with the same system of exploitation under the guise of flying a flag of independence? Did they want our people to live under the same backward conditions which would allow the intelligentsia to dictate what they thought was good for the masses? Was Nkrumah invited to a tea party? These are questions the 'Mate Me Ho' propagandists have to provide answers to.

2.     The British left Ghana a lot of money before leaving

All kinds of figures have been bandied about the amount of money the British left Ghana in 1957. In fact what the 'Mate Me Ho' people describe as huge monies left by the British were first the accumulation of cocoa surplus known as Cocoa Marketing Board sterling reserves and second, export duties on cocoa also known as Ghana Government holdings in sterling securities.

Thus at the time of independence, these were the two foreign reserves held by Ghana at the Bank of England, which were very often used by Britain to support the pound sterling in times of financial crisis. Nkrumah did not touch these foreign reserves until 1960.

NPP Presidential Candidate, Akufo Addo

The finances of the First Development Plan (1951-1956) costing £93.3 million came from cocoa and internally generated resources, such as indirect taxes and duties. The Second Development Plan (1959-1964) was financed from the free reserves of £G50m from Government holdings in sterling securities, £G25m from Cocoa Marketing Board sterling reserves and £G 15mtfrom internal revenue, totaling £G90m. The balance of £G260m came from foreign resources and deficit-financing.

In a treatise on the agrarian basis of the post-colonial state for the period 1951-78, Bjorn Beckman (Judith Heyer, Pepe Roberts & Edwin Williams (eds.), Rural Development In Tropical Africa, 1981) points out that Nkrumah relied initially on reserves and later on foreign and local borrowing, including monetary expansion.

So, where is the huge sum of money that the British left Ghana in 1957? As a colonizing power, Britain was never benevolent to have left Ghana money to take care of itself after independence. Indeed, no colony the world over has benefited from the luxury of an imperial power leaving tons of money for reconstruction and development after colonial pillage. The French, as is well known, stripped Guinea naked, taking away everything including bulbs, tables and chairs, carpets. etc.

3. Kwame Nkrumah recklessly mismanaged the economy after independence.

The Danquah-Busiaists claim to derive their philosophical orientation from the laissez- faire policies of free trade, private enterprise, unregulated economy, private profit, and tight fiscal and monetary policies. They believe in state intervention if it is limited to the state creating conditions to enable private capital to make profit. They deride state funding for social investments and believe that the state has no business creating employment.

However, there are fundamental problems with the assumption that 'Western' economic models of capitalist development can be applied to under-developed countries like Ghana.

Myrdal (1957) argues that the industrialization of advanced capitalist economies took place against the background of specific historical conditions that are totally different from under-developed countries. Moreover, while advanced capitalist societies are concerned with allocating resources within a given setting, the preoccupation of under-developed countries is to promote economic growth and development. 

Furthermore in least developed countries, Western' economic policies obstruct rapid economic growth, which can be promoted through government central planning, import controls deficit financing and other forms of state intervention.

One of the defining characteristics of politics is that political parties make policy choices depending on their political vision, ideology and values. Thus the world outlook of a political party informs the way it allocates resources to achieve the objectives it has set itself and its management of the economy. There is therefore no universally acceptable model for managing an economy.

Nkrumaists believe that private capital formation and the rate of private accumulation of capital in a developing country like Ghana is low and slow because the productive forces are largely under-developed. The objective is therefore to use the post-colonial state, because of its powers and· capacity to generate wealth, as the main catalyst for creating social wealth and meeting the needs and aspirations of the people.

According to Bjorn Beckrnan, Nkrumah had to change economic direction from 1960 because "the liberal- oriented policies of the 1950's had failed to stimulate any major growth of private investment in those sectors which were considered to be particularly important for the transformation of the economy."

K. A Busia another terrible agent of the West

The contradictions in the philosophy of the 'Mate Me Ho' tradition are many. While claiming to be opposed to central planning, the Busia regime introduced a one year development plan, but did not have time to implement a five-year plan before it was overthrown from power. The Progress Party government could not resist the temptation of creating a mass organ like the National Service Corp, while claiming to believe in individualism. Last, but not the least, the Progress Party's claim to believe in an unregulated economy gave way to the introduction of a prices and incomes policy, and the setting up of the Campbell Commission. In short, the 'Mate Me Ho' philosophy, based on classical European conditions long abandoned, has never rooted itself in objective realities of an African setting.

4. Kwame Nkrumah squandered our money on irresponsible prestigious projects

The pre-1960 CPP programme drafted by a British economist, Arthur Lewis, has to 'be 'situated within the context of post-war world afflicted by poverty and unemployment. The policy orientation of the post-war government in Britain was to use Keynesian economic principles of spending and social investment to stimulate economic growth. It is therefore not surprising that the orientation of the CPP government followed the same pattern.

Measured against its 1951 Manifesto, the achievements of the CPP far exceeded expectation. According to Ministry of Education statistical data, enrolment in primary schools was 102,138 in 1950, that is, before the CPP came to power. This figure increased to 456,290 in 1961 and to a phenomenal 1,137,495 in 1966. During the period 1951- 61, enrolment in 12 assisted secondary schools including Achimota and non-assisted schools increased from 2,776 and 3,319 to 9,882. By 1966, enrolment in public secondary schools had increased to 42,111. Enrolment in middle schools also increased by more than three-fold in 1951 to 139,984 in 1961, doubling to a remarkable 207,434 in 1966. Two university colleges were set up in Accra and Kumasi.

Medical services were extended throughout the country via the establishment of regional hospitals. The entire system of communication was improved through the building of telephone and telegraphic lines, new roads, extension of railway lines, construction of bridges, a new port at Tema and extension of the Takoradi harbour.

Furthermore the CPP introduced fee-free compulsory education, free health and medical care, etc. In fact the list of CPP achievements is endless. It is only propagandists engaged in peddling lies and falsehoods who would deny the historic contributions made by Kwame Nkrumah.

5. Kwame Nkrumah was a tyrant and dictator. He introduced a one-party state and made himself life President

Between 1951 and 1960, Ghana was a multi-party democracy. It had a thriving democracy, an electoral body, a parliament, an opposition political party, parliamentary committees, independent judiciary, etc. 

Indeed, the parliamentary records of the period show that there were lively debates in parliament, with the parliamentary opposition employing all kinds of tactics to register Its disapproval of government policies and programmes, such as walk-outs, boycotts, heckling representations to the Queen in England, etc.

Kwame Nkrumah, Founder of modern Ghana

In fact, some political observers of the Ghanaian political scene have aptly described the Danquah-Busia opposition of the time as the most irresponsible opposition grouping in Ghana's political history. They did not only send a deputation to England to veto Ghana's political independence, they went globe-trotting campaigning against projects like the Accra-Tema Motorway, Volta hydro-electric scheme and many others that now constitute the bedrock of our infrastructure.

The dominant trend of thought in Africanist politics in the early 1960s was the integration model, as opposed to the conflict model. In the latter case, social and political conflicts are institutionalised and consciously reinforced in political pluralism and multi-party system. In the integration model, society is, viewed as an association of individuals and groups that complement each other in the achievement of collective goals.

Indeed, the belief in progressive circles in those days was that newly-emergent African states were too weak politically to allow the bitter contest for political power to divert their attention from the principal tasks of transformation and reconstruction of the colonial economy.

It was envisaged that the one-party state would enhance national unity and stability, bring about the effective mobilization and utilization of resources for national development, ensure consistency in the implementation of programmes and policies, encourage mass participation in governance and eliminate corruption associated with the financing of political parties. The belief was that a one- party state would provide a platform for a national collective Ideology, devoid of the conflicting clash of Ideologies in a multi-party system.

The one-party state that emerged in Africa was not adopted only by the usual radical states such as Ghana, Mali. Tanzania, Zambia, Guinea. etc. Countries like the Ivory Coast. Kenya, Malawi, Cameroon and others whose leaders had a right-wing conservative orientation also adopted it.

It is certainly the case that some newly-independent African leaders, and the men in Khaki used the one-party) state to transform themselves into corrupt tyrants and dictators, but can anyone say with any degree of historical accuracy or intellectual honesty that Nkrumah or Nyerere was a Mobutu Sese Seko, Eyadema, or Kamuzu or Banda  Bokassa?          .

It is interesting that the Danquah-Busiaists have had no problem dealing with one-party state leaders in the lvory Coast and Togo over several decades.

Ghana was a thriving multi-party democracy between 1951 and 1960. The CPP won all three elections in 1951, 1954 and 1956 with thumping majorities, including a plebiscite on the future of British Togoland. 

Indeed, it was a democratically elected parliament of Ghana that took the decision to make the country a one party state and Nkrumah President for life.

6. The 'liberators' who staged the 1966 coup did so because of their love for freedom and democracy.

Declassified documents of the Central Intelligence Agency, released by the USA government show that Afrifa, Harley and Kotoka were paid $13,000,000 in 1966 to stage the coup against Nkrumah. In fact they were promised more money if they could assassinate Nkrumah. Are we to conclude that those who staged the 1966 coup are mercenaries, bearing in mind that a mercenary is a soldier of fortune?

For a political tradition that claims to believe in freedom and democracy, the coup plotters introduced the Protective Custody Decree which retained all the essential features of the Preventive Detention Act. Not only that: the National Liberation Council banned Nkrumaists parties from contesting the 1969 elections.

Indeed, the 'liberators' abducted and paraded Boye Moses, an aide of Nkrumah, in a cage, like a monkey through the principal streets of Accra. In fact, the coupists committed many atrocious acts against innocent people whose only crime then was to have been allied to the CPP in one way or the other.

Certainly, the claim that Nkrumah was overthrow because he was infringing on the freedom and liberty of Ghanaians is only an attempt to throw dust into the eye of Ghanaians because the historical records also show that only one year after independence, elements of Danquah-Busia tradition were implicated in a coup against the democratically elected government of Ghana.

7. Kwame Nkrumah used the Preventive Detention Act (PDA) to harass and detain his political opponents.

It is significant to place the Preventive Detention Act in its proper perspective. Following the humiliating defeat of the United Gold Coast Convention by the CPP in the 1951election the former disintegrated into tribal and regional separatist and nationalist movements.

The emergence of the National Liberation Movement in Ashanti, the Ga Shifimo Kpee and Tokyo Joe boys in Accra, Togoland Congress in British Togoland and the North Peoples Party in 1954 sharpened the political conflict between the CPP and other-right-wing conservative force in the country.

These right-wing forces resorted to political violence including bomb-throwing, house burning, political murders and mob lynching, with the worst violence occurring in the NLM heartland of Kumasi. In order stem the tide of violence in the country, parliament passed the Preventive Detention Act in 1958. The same year, parliament also passed a bill outlawing political parties based on, tribal and religious grounds.

It is certainly true that middle and lower level CPP functionaries misused the PDA to settle personal and political scores, particularly in areas of the country where the authority of the state was writ large, but does this invalidate the PDA? May be the 'Mate Me Ho' ideologues should tell us how they would have dealt with the terrorism they visited on the country if they had been in power then.

It is interesting that the same 'Mate Me Ho' Ideologues are today planning to introduce an anti-terrorism bill in Ghana at the prompting of their paymasters in the US at a time when Ghana is somehow free from the political terrorism they practiced in the 1950s and 1960s.

Indeed, many advanced democracies in the Western world have passed anti-terrorism laws' with worse features than the PDA in the aftermath of the bombing of the World Trade Centre in New York or September 11.

8. Kwame Nkrumah undermined the position of chiefs and traditional rulers.

The challenge of financing the post-independence drive for accelerated economic growth and development brought the CPP into' sharp conflict with feudal social forces. This problem stemmed partly from measures the CPP government introduced to secure control over land and cocoa revenues as a means of mobilizing internal resource.

It passed the Local Government Ordinance and Municipal Council Ordinance, aimed at vesting control and management of stool lands and revenue in the newly created local government structures controlled by CPP cadres. The State Council Ordinance drastically reduced the powers and control of chiefs over stool revenue.

Kwame Nkrumah, his soul keeps marching on in Africa

However, it was the Cocoa Duty and Development Fund Ordinance which fixed the producer price of cocoa at 72 shillings for four years that led to a fierce resistance by rural agricultural classes, including chiefs and farmers. 

In the urban areas, the acquisition of land by the state for national development was opposed by chiefs sympathetic to anti-CPP forces.

9. CPP's state enterprises were unproductive ventures to provide 'jobs for the boys'

The change in the direction of economic policy from 1960 stemmed from the failure of the liberal economic policies of the 1950s to meet the demands of accelerated economic development objective of the newly-independent state. 

The orientation of economic policy from 1960 onwards was state capital formation through state intervention. 

The aim was an integrated industrialization cum agriculture strategy that would establish import- substitution industries produce raw materials to feed domestic industries produce for export to generate revenue to finance the industrialization drive and reduce dependence on imports.

Various enterprises were set up, including a match factory, clinker cement factor, aluminum roofing sheets and utensils factory, a distillery, brewery, a nails factory, two cocoa mills, two sugar mills, a meat processing and several vegetable oil mills. Others are a motor assembly plant, soap factory, flour and textile mills, the Kumasi Jute Bag factory, sugar factory at Komenda, rubber shoe factory at Bonsasu, steel plant and ferro-manganese plant and a prefabricated housing factory both at Tema.

State farms were set up, using modern techniques, mechanization and fertilization. Agricultural Production Drive Committees were also set up throughout the country to co-ordinate the efforts of the Agricultural Co- Operatives of the United Ghana Farmers' Co-Operatives, the State Farms, and the Agricultural Wing of the Workers' Brigade.

By setting up various state institutions to mobilize domestic capital to support the state accumulation drive, the growing administrative classes became engaged in productive activity. The CPP set up a National Investment Bank in 1963 to finance state enterprises to produce industrial surplus. Also the Agricultural Credit and Cooperative Bank, the Industrial Development Corporation and the Agricultural Development Corporation were reorganized as profit-seeking institutions, dependent on state funds. The hitherto semi-autonomous IDC and ADC were made state enterprises in order to control surplus mobilized by these agencies.

All these ventures created by the state opened up employment avenues for the thousands of unemployed people, some with little or no skills.

The author, Michael Nunoo, Is a member of the Central Committee of the CPP and the Party's Campaign Manager In the 2004 elections.

Editorial

Worrying!

The fate of inhabitants of Jamasi in the Sekyere South District is worrying. Last Thursday three farmers were murdered on their farms by a suspected mentally ill man.

In reaction the inhabitants have resolved to lynch any mentally ill person they come across. In an attempt to carry out their threats, the inhabitants clashed with the few police personnel in the town in an effort to take hold of a suspect. This has forced the police to close down the only police post in town.

According to the Agona District Police Commander, ASP Francis Asante, the police intends to pick up all such endangered persons within the community in order to confine them to one place.

The report paints a picture of extreme insecurity in the district and unfortunately as at the time of going to press, the situation has not been resolved. But even as the police try to come to grips with the situation in Jamasi, it is past time for the country as a whole to come to grips with our management of the mental health problem in the country.

The truth is that we have no policy as far as actual practice is concerned.

The few institutions created to take care of mental patients do not have the resources for taking care of the problem.

Mentally ill people roaming the streets are viewed as an unusual part of everyday life, except as in the case of Jamasi something tragic happens.

We may be saying the obvious but it is clear that unless serious comprehensive measures are taken to give us control of the situation, we may have Jamasi occurring all over again