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| JB Danguah (L) Abrefa Busia (R) |
By
Morpheus
I preface my initial comments with the fascinating observation that, for the
entirety of her life as an independent country, Ghana has contended with the
cream of its thought leaders in a permanent division as to Nkrumah’s merits. Too
many of his admirers, he could do no wrong, he was a saint, saviour and messiah
rolled into one; too many of his detractors, Nkrumah was the worst thing to
have happened to Ghana and all her ills, past and present are attributable to
him.
It
is not difficult to conclude that with so much energy dissipated by both sides
on the late leader, there has been little room for constructive engagement with
the real facts of our recent history and the causes of our hitherto
disappointing performance as a budding nation. The hope and promise
encapsulated in the nascent Ghana, as a beacon of light that helped bring the
rest of sub-Saharan Africa out of the long darkness of slavery and colonial
exploitation has been squandered, at the altar of internecine bickering and
petty self-seeking.
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| Dr Kwame Nkrumah |
I
hasten to add here that apart from sharing the same nationality, race and
common humanity with him, I have no special credentials for wanting to
pronounce on this remarkable man. It is probably sufficient to say that
entirely on the back of some of the appalling efforts that have been made by
previous writers on the man, I have concluded that I am as entitled to write
about Kwame Nkrumah as anybody else out there; who knows, it may even be that
something of what I say here might help one objective person make some sense of
the plethora of information available on the man. If I achieve just that, I
would be happy to walk away in the knowledge that I had succeeded in shedding a
little light where all too often, there has been an excess of heat. So here
goes.
Quite
apart from reading some of Nkrumah’s own writings to help gain some insight
into the man and his mind, it has been a revelation to explore some of the
literature out there on Nkrumah. Much of it was skewed too far one way or the
other, reflecting the enduring polarisation that characterises any discussion
on the man. Far more useful to me were those tomes that exhibited real
objectivity and some academic rigour.
Of
these, I would recommend the following: (1) Ghana 1957-1966, Ben Amonoo, Allen
& Unwin pub, 1981 (this book was a revision and enhancement of the author’s
doctoral thesis presented to the University of Exeter in 1973), (2) Kwame
Nkrumah, The Political Kingdom in the Third World, David Rooney, IB Tauris pub.
1988, (for his book, the author, a specialist on Ghana from Cambridge
University, unearthed unpublished material in Ghana, Britain & the U.S.,
where he had accessed the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) papers; and (3) By
Nkrumah’s Side, The Labour and the Wounds, Tawiah Adamafio, Rex Collings,
London pub, 1982.
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| Dr Nkrumah in his mid-ages |
By
design, I have chosen to write on an aspect of Nkrumah that seems to me,
pivotal to any real understanding of his failures and achievements as the Gold
Coast’s and Ghana’s first indigenous leader. This was his relationship with J B
Danquah, who led the opposition to Nkrumah’s leadership up to and after
independence, until his incarceration and death in prison.
The
competing narratives on Kwame Nkrumah have run something approximating to the
following; from the Danquah/Busia camp, an assertion that the former was a
usurper who snatched power from those more suited and entitled to it, hogged
the same and thereafter became a tyrant who had to be removed by any means,
fair or foul. The version from the Nkrumahist camp runs that, having been
bested in fair political contest, the Danquah/Busiah camp refused to accept the
democratic decision of the people, fought tooth and nail from the
pre-independence era, until they finally succeeded with external assistance in
substituting their will for that of the people.
The
history books abound with enough information for a credible academic treatise
to be written on the subject; I do not intend to undertake that exercise myself
and I doubt that any competent scholar will be looking to me to provide them
with the sources for such an enterprise here. What I propose to do is set out
my own interpretation of the salient points concerning the issue, based on my
analysis of the data that I deemed credible. Hopefully, this will trigger a
reasoned conversation, devoid of histrionics or hyperbole to our mutual
edification.
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| J.B Danquah |
Any
attempt to disparage the contribution made by J B Danquah to Ghana’s
independence movement would be counter-productive, the simple reason being, an
abundance of objective evidence that his exertions to that effort were
substantial both in scope and depth. The problem only arises when his acolytes
insist that his efforts were exceptional, because they were not. Now, it may be
that, if Danquah had had the opportunity to lead the country as he clearly
wanted to, he might have led us into prosperity, peace and harmony. We will
never know this, however, because he failed to jump the first hurdle for any
true democrat, in pursuit of legitimate political power – that of persuading
his people that he had a vision of a future that reflected their aspirations.
Both
in the general elections of 1954 and 1956, his vision of the future for Ghana
and its people were thoroughly rejected at the ballot box, the people
exercising their preference for the vision proffered by Nkrumah instead. In any
credible analysis of the Nkrumah/Danquah question this should be the starting
point for any reckoning of right or wrong on either side. This failure by the
Danquah/Busia camp, to obtain the mandate to govern was even more remarkable
because, both elections were held under the auspices of the British colonial
government, who had a clear preference for the United Party (UP), as its leadership
comprised many with “royal” pretensions, merchants, “intellectuals” and petit
bourgeoisie, most of whom had bought into the British system of government by
patronage, legalised coercion and subterfuge.
Short
of physically putting Danquah into power, the British did everything they could
to assist Danquah and his cohorts in their quest to succeed them. This included
arresting and locking up members of the Convention Peoples Party (CPP)
leadership, including Nkrumah himself, in the process.
Notwithstanding
the covert assistance given to the Danquah/Busia camp at both elections, they
singularly failed to persuade the people of Ghana to vote them into power.
Indeed, in the final election before independence, the verdict was so
overwhelming, that out of 37 seats in competition, the CPP won all but 2 of
them!
To
add insult to injury, Danquah himself failed to win the seat he contested! What
is instructive about Danquah and his conduct at the time is that, on each
rejection by the people he claimed he wished to serve, his reaction was neither
noble nor democratic. Refusing to accept the will of the people, he went to the
‘mattresses’ with his allies, just like common mafia hoodlums, orchestrating
the destruction of property, the killing and maiming of innocent citizens and
generally disrupting the conduct of government business.
It
has always seemed a bit rich when Danquah’s supporters seek to make out that
their man was a law-abiding advocate of democratic principles, even as all the
objective evidence suggests that his reputedly formidable intellect
notwithstanding, he was merely a power-hungry megalomaniac, with an overblown
sense of entitlement and a distinct inability to deploy what cerebral skills he
possessed, to achieving a better understanding of the people’s aspirations. A
misconceived sense of infallibility meant that, in spite of the clear rejection
of his message by the very people he sought to lead, he was prepared to use any
and all non-democratic means to frustrate the will of the people; these included
terror, separatism, tribalism and any other bit of subterfuge that came to his
undoubtedly fecund mind.
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| JB Danquah |
It
was most revealing to discover in my reading, that when he realised he could
not lead the country as it was constituted, Danquah and his lot, had been
prepared to fight not only for federalism in that tiny country but, when even
that eluded them, he was prepared to have the country dismembered so that he
could lead a new off-shoot nation from the debris, comprising the “Akyim
Abuakwa kingdom”! Indeed, when it appeared to him at a point that independence
would be achieved with Nkrumah at the helm and not him, he saw nothing wrong
with arranging delegations to the very colonizers who had appropriated our
country and its people for their own ends, to plead that we were not yet ready
for independence.
There
is much in our history that is shameful, but I can think of few more shameful,
than an educated Black man, appearing in the hallways of power in the citadels
of the white man, arguing that they should continue to retain the forced
ownership of our country, its people and resources because unlike all other
men, we were not yet ready to look after our own destiny!
So
this was the man at the head of the opposition to the government that Nkrumah
led from 1954, when he became Head of Government Business until the dawn of
independence. On the one hand, Nkrumah, hedged about by the constraints of
laws, many of which had been legislated by an exploitative foreign invader, on
the other, Danquah, a thoroughly ruthless operator, unencumbered by any concept
of respect for the rule of law, any law.
The
question then is how, with such damning evidence against him, a myth has taken
hold that Danquah was the democrat, law abiding nationalist, who was hounded to
his death by the tyrannical, anti-democratic, power-hungry Nkrumah? This is
where one has to acknowledge the creative genius of the Danquah/Busia
“conspiracy”, as I refer to it. Taking a leaf from the play book of the
Washington/London axis, they constructed a new, sanitised narrative, entirely
false of course, but kept hammering it home so often, that inevitably, it took
hold in the consciousness of at least, some of the people. Once this had been
achieved, it was time to enlist the help of their external benefactors in
Washington and London, who brought to bear their formidable array of weapons of
intrigue. These included to start with, engineering a subtle external credit
drought, manipulation of cocoa prices and other obstructive devises geared
towards wearing down Nkrumah’s regime in its desire to achieve the objectives
for which it had obtained the people’s mandate.
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| Abrefa Busia |
That
Nkrumah was able to achieve anything at all in his relatively short tenure in
office, is a tribute to the man’s tenacity and refusal to bow to malevolent
pressure from within and without. The deck was quite simply, stacked against
his project from the start, with any hope of success of his policies sandwiched
between the crushing counterforces of a disloyal, seditious and violent
political opposition, allied to a hostile parallel government comprising the
senior civil service at home, underpinned by a virulent external campaign waged
mainly from London and Washington. In the case of the civil service, the
systematic sabotage to the implementation of government policy is more lucidly
detailed in Benjamin Amonoo’s erudite book cited above and I urge the reader to
invest in a copy for their own enlightenment.
Further
testament to Nkrumah’s democratic credentials is set out in a book also cited
above, by the socialist lawyer, Tawiah Adamafio, famously imprisoned by Nkrumah
during the frenzied period of assassination and treason attempts. Adamafio
paints a picture of an incredibly fastidious democrat, who was at all times,
concerned about working within the law and where the law needed changing, doing
so in accordance with the existing rules. His frustration with Nkrumah for not
going far enough in changing the system is palpable. The irony of Adamafio’s
incarceration by his own side and subsequent release by the
Danquah/Busia-sponsored junta only makes it more remarkable that, writing
nearly two decades after the event, he was prepared to concede Nkrumah’s basic
decency and adherence to lawful democratic precepts.
Even
as I observe with horror, the travesty that passes for “multi” party politics
as manifest in the U.S. over the last few years, the straightjacket of a
one-party state is one I would not wish even on my worst enemy. The ferment and
competition in ideas is the stuff of human progress and any system that
restricts that process, in effect, curtails human progress. No prize is worth
that diminution in freedom of thought and if I make any criticism of Nkrumah,
it is that he ever resorted to that desperate measure.
However,
I entirely appreciate the desperation under which he operated at the time; at
home, he had no partners in democracy, as the opposition from the onset was
disloyal to the country itself (CIA papers now available include a note written
by Danquah to his CIA handler, enquiring about delay in a payment to his wife,
during his incarceration and we now know how much Lieutenant General Emmanuel
Kwasi Kotoka (1926–1967) and Brigadier Akwasi Amankwaa Afrifa (1936 –1979)
received from the Americans to stage the coup that ultimately put Kofi Abrefa
Busia (1913 –1978) in power; the civil service, exposed the myth of
impartiality by running a parallel government dedicated to frustrating the
elected government’s policies which, they were professionally and legally
obliged to implement; to enhance this toxic brew further, abroad, Nkrumah faced
the implacable, active enmity of the Brits and the Americans. It might have
been possible to endure British hostility and survive, for after all, its power
and influence had long been on the wane, but even now, what country on earth
has what it takes to survive active hostility from the U.S. and still prosper?
It
is instructive to note that, Nkrumah was really only in full control of the
levers of political power for merely 6 years of his time in office, before he
was undemocratically removed from office. Prior to that, he had operated under
the constraints imposed by the British government from 1954 -1957 and from
1957- 1960, the pre-republican constitution. The advances in development that
the country achieved during those 6 years were breath-taking in their own
right, considering the British had been in charge for over 100 years and, save
for a few roads and an anaemic railway, built specifically to help them extract
the gold and other resources that were of interest to them, left the territory
essentially in stone-age condition, with a measly “endowment” of some £300m, to
build a whole new country; when it is considered that it was all achieved in
the teeth of the internal treachery briefly described above and constant
threats from powerful external forces, it is almost a miracle in human terms.
Since
Nkrumah’s departure, the Danquah/Busia camp has had power for 14 years, in 3 of
which they had absolute power under the junta – it would be interesting to put
side by side, Nkrumah’s achievements in his 6 years, and their achievements
over the 14 but that would be for another discussion. On this occasion, my
contention is that as between Danquah and Nkrumah, the facts unequivocally
indicate the latter was the democrat and the former was anything but.
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| Undefeated, Osagyefo Dr Kwame Nkrumah |
I’d
also recommend that if you never read any other of Nkrumah’s books, do yourself
a favour and read “Neo-Colonialism, The Last Stage of Imperialism”. Even today,
stripped of some of the Marxist jargon that was popular with liberation
practitioners of the day, the book is an amazing analysis of exploitative
capitalism, how it works, its’ various tentacles, from financial institutions
to the extractive conglomerates and how it protects itself from legitimate
censure. What is even more impressive is that, Nkrumah wrote this book while in
the thick of literally fighting for his very life, at the same time as
struggling, against formidable odds to realise the vision he had sold to his
people to rid them of the scourge of centuries of humiliation, tens of decades
of servitude and colonial exploitation. In his last years in office end, no man
was more hounded than Nkrumah, yet he maintained his dignity right to the very
end.
It
is a source of considerable personal pride that, in spite of a herculean effort
over the years, mounted by the U.S. and Britain in their propaganda, and by the
Danquah/Busia establishment, including costly probe after probe, not one penny
of asset has been found stashed anywhere that would support any claim that
Nkrumah was personally corrupt. Contrast that with the documented accounts of
corruption from Danquah/Busia to the present incarnation of that tradition and
Nkrumah’s reputation begin to look even healthier even as the years move on.
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My
final comment at this stage of what I hope will be a lively discussion is that,
Nkrumah was an exceptional individual, uniquely qualified to serve the purpose,
which he chose for himself, of facilitating the emancipation of his people. He
possessed the intellectual heft to understand the true situation of the Black
man, leading him to conclude that the independence of Ghana would be
meaningless, unless it was aligned with that of the rest of Africa. All that
has occurred since he uttered those sentiments indicate the enduring veracity
within those words. They are as true today as they were when he said them. That
is why the world over, his reputation continues to grow amongst Africans,
people of African descent and the fair minded. History will vindicate him with
recognition of his true worth. In respect of his key historical antagonists,
there is no indication of any growing interest in the life and achievements of
either Danquah or Busia; given the dearth of any meaningful achievements other
than the personal in that regard, perhaps that is understandable.
The
Author:Morpheus is a Scribe at Grandmother Africa. He has been practicing and
teaching law in England and Canada since 1995 and dabbling in the study of
history and the political economy that guarantees the perpetuation of the
current iniquitous order. Whatever Morpheus may be, he is certain he is neither
a practitioner of the dismal 'science' of economics nor of political science,
which he considers to be an oxymoron. There is no science to politics!
Editorial
Ethnic Politics
Every Ghanaian who wants to see Ghana’s democratic
experiment, thrive must be seriously worried about the incitement of Konkombas
by Mr Daniel Bugri Naaba, Northern Regional Chairman of the New Patriotic Party
(NPP) against President John Mahama and his government.
Mr Bugri Naabu has urged Konkombas to vote against President
Mahama and the NDC because he has failed to appoint a Konkomba as a Minister.
It is unfortunate that Mr Bugri Naabu believes that the
appointment of one Konkomba as a Minister regardless of his class or social
interest will resolve problems facing the country.
He does not see that the problem of underdevelopment in
Ghana as a challenge for all Ghanaian people irrespective of their ethnic
origin.
People like Mr Bugri Naabu only poison the political
atmosphere and should be discouraged by their political parties from sowing
seeds of ethnic strife.
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