For those who like to boast, meet J. Kwesi Lamptey, the Danquah Busia tradition’s best number 2

In the first republic, there was no number 2 to the president. Sometimes this is seen as a criticism of the Nkrumah administration; The Osagyefo should have had a vice who could act as president in his absence.

Be that as it may, when the Progress Party came to power in 1969, the Prime Minister in his wisdom and learning from past mistakes created the post of Deputy Prime Minster and he appointed Jonathan Kwesi Lamptey to that post.

J. Kwesi Lamptey as he was popularly called was a modest Fanti man who trained as a lawyer and started his political career as a young CPP member in 1951. By 1954 he was starting to show disaffection with the CPP and by independence he was a fully-fledged member of the Danquah-Busia tradition, fighting in the trenches with the established members like Osei Assibey, Obetsebi Lamptey Attoh Quarshie and Asaba Quarcoo.

Lamptey served two shifts in prison in the era of the dreaded Preventive Detention Act. This was a dark hour of the Danquah-Busia tradition as its numbers were decimated with defections, detention or premature retirements from politics. The future was as grim as the Nsawam Prison cells where Lamptey and others were held. Yet he and his colleagues held firm to their beliefs in a strong Danquah-Busia tradition and the role it could play in Ghana’s politics.

With the second republic, he was elected MP and Prime Minister Busia honoured him with a seminal development in his administration, the post of Deputy Prime Minister. By all accounts he served with distinction, combining this post with the post of Defence Minister. A mild mannered lawyer he deputized for Busia when he was not in the country and, perhaps more importantly, helping to develop and
strengthen the Danquah-Busia system.

With the coup of 1972 he again was forced to sacrifice his freedom for his beloved tradition as he went back into prison as a political detainee. In Busia’s absence he was the leader of the Party in that gloomy dungeon, comforting those who were tasting detention for the first time, and telling the experienced old guard to plan for a return to power in the future.

He was released after almost 2 years in detention and with the attempt to foist UNIGOV on Ghana by IK Acheampong, the indefatigable J. Kwesi Lamptey was back in the fray, demanding a return to competitive politics and insisting Acheampong should also leave the scene.

This also cost him his freedom once more and he was detained again – making it 4 visits all in his political life. That the Danquah-Busia tradition has survived is down to the likes of him and his associates. J. Kwesi Lamptey’s ideas, his strengthening of the party machine, his mentoring of new members, and his hard
work in his ministry and as Busia’s deputy were the product of the 4 stints he did in prison for the glory of the tradition.

It is easy to boast in these times about how wonderful some new arrivals to the tradition are, and that we have never seen their likes before because J Kwesi Lamptey has faded into the background. He seems to have sadly faded from the memories of the men and women of his tradition, Maybe it is because virtually
all of Lamptey’s contemporaries are dead, and no one is left to remind the tradition about him.

Others never went into prison. Rather their entire family cheered with glee when the UP members went into prison at the drop of a hat in the 1960s and 1970s. There is absolutely no record of any family member in the formation of the NPP, or its antecedents, the Popular Front Party, the United National Convention or the Progress Party. After the titanic and heroic struggles to make the Danquah-Busia tradition electable, after the soup has gone cold, they have emerged to crown themselves as the best ever in whatever role they have been given.

However, in this era of boasting I think it is right that the Danquah-Busia tradition remembers J. Kwesi Lamptey, party founder, tradition builder, four times political detainee, MP, Minister, and a silent yet successful number 2 to the Prime Minister in the second republic.