Osagyefo Dr Kwame Nkrumah |
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.
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. AliTaha. 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 industrialization 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 differential increases in real wages and
improved working conditions: there was mass demand for better education
transport water supplies health housing etc, and 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."
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 620/0 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.
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 change over 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. They claim 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 Government
holdings in sterling securities.
J.B Danquah, a bloody traitor |
Thus at the time of independence, these foreign reserves
held by Ghana at the Bank were very often used by Britain to pound sterling in
times of financial crisis. Nkrumah did not
touch these foreign reserves until 1960.
The finances of the First Development Plan (1951-1956)
costing £93.3 million, came from cocoa and 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 £G15m from
internal revenue £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 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 benefitted from the luxury of an imperial power leaving ton 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-Busia lasts 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 Beckman, 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."
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 a
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- 6, 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 267.434 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 committee, 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.
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 1960’s was the integration model, as opposed to the conflict model. In
the latter case, social and political conflicts are institutionalized 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 the
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 but 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, an Eyadema or a Kamuzu Banda or a Bokassa?
Abrefa Busia |
It is interesting that the Danquah-Buslaists have had no
problem dealing with one-party state leaders in the Ivory 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 overthrown because he
was infringing on the freedom and liberty of Ghanaians is only an attempt to
throw dust into the eyes of Ghanaians because the historical records also show
that only one year after independence, elements of the Danquah-Busia tradition
were implicated in a coup plot
against the democratically elected government of Ghana.
7. Kwame Nkrumah used the Preventative 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 1951 election 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 Northern Peoples Party in 1954 sharpened the political
conflict between the CPP and other right-wing conservative forces 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 to
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 not
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 on September 11.
Editorial
KICKING AGAINST A ROCK
Those in the New Patriotic Party (NPP) who have embarked a
campaign of lies, slander and vilification against Osagyefo Dr Kwame Nkrumah,
Founder of the Republic of Ghana, will soon find that they are kicking a rock.
Their vicious
campaign can only reveal their anti-national and anti-people agenda.
As for the Osagyefo,
his stature grows from day today because more and more people are coming to the
realisation that his ideas remain relevant for the resolution of the social,
economic and political problems confronting the African masses.
The people of Africa and Ghana will advise themselves when
they hear the strange statements which
continue to be made by the likes of Ayikoi Otoo.
According to Mr
Ayikoi Otoo, the New Patriotic Party (NPP) is seeking power to remove all the
honours which have been conferred on Osayefo Dr Kwame Nkrumah.
He forgets that the
vast majority of the people of Ghana want portable water, the expansion of
access to education, health and housing.
The people of Ghana expect their government to create jobs
and not to dishonour Nkrumah, an untiring fighter for national liberation.
Thanks to Ayikoi Otoo, now the people of Ghana know what his
agenda is and we can bet our bottom pesewa that he will never get close to
power.
Kicking against a rock can only hurt the Kicker and not the
rock.
The name "Osagefo" alone should ell a lot. How did He the saviour end up in Ghanaian politics.? and a one party state/ what does it mean? This should have been elaborated in this lengthy article but no.....
ReplyDeleteNkrumah has no equal and attempt to suggest ortherwise is an insult to all right thinking people of this world only because Nkrumah's immensity could not be c contained by the boundaries of Ghana. Nkrumah's magnetic and dazzling personality was so overwhelming people are literally awed by his mere presence.
ReplyDeleteIt a crime against humanity to even think of tampering with this exceptional and unique legacy. May his great memery live with us forever.
-Ernest