Kwame Nkrumah's Overthrow: A Huge Letdown

We are all destined to leave a legacy. Some will leave larger-than-life legacies which their compatriots will proudly etch on their tombstones. A few will do so well that posterity will sanction them as the embodiment of excellence.

The overthrow of Kwame Nkrumah, the founding father of Ghana, the champion of total African emancipation, unity, and African personality, was one of the two greatest life-changing events in Ghana. The preeminent event that is solidly cast in history is the attainment of independence from colonial rule. All other social and political events in Ghana pale in comparison to those two notable eras in our short history. Ghana’s independence was indisputably the most positive occurrence on the continent at the time and an imperative which propelled faster the drive in other Africans to fight, sometimes to death, for their liberation. But the exigency for the overthrow of Kwame Nkrumah is still questionable, dubious, unwarranted.

This article gives an opportunity to all Ghanaians to reflect on what we did to our beloved Ghana with Nkrumah’s ouster and conclude sensibly if we have made any significant headway as a result of his forced removal from office.

Nkrumah Good or Nkrumah Bad

It is astonishing and ironic but understandable that these days many of us no longer hail the 1966 coup and no longer support its justifiability. It is also refreshing to recall that at least some of us were disenchanted with the coup right from the start. Nkrumah’s era is long gone but many nostalgic Ghanaians continue to daydream and wish for recurrence of those good old days. I would like to wake those dreamy Ghanaians up: Those exciting days are definitely not going to happen the same way, if ever, again. However, along clearly distinct tribal lines, a few Ghanaians have recently developed an unfavorable memory of the era. There is an overwhelming evidence of steady but futile attempts to rewrite history. Contained in a galore of public writings by some disgruntled Ghanaians and speeches and actions of the Ghanaian leadership are an ample stock of evidence of the diminution of Nkrumah’s achievements and reputation. Later, I will offer a few examples of recent attempts to dilute Nkrumah’s contributions to Ghana and the slow but steady connivance to erase his place in history.

Perhaps, those behind the distortions of Nkrumah’s legacy do have an agenda, such as wanting to paint a negative picture of the man and whittle down his prominence and stature in the eyes of young Africans so that they will switch their admiration from Nkrumah to the instigators’ favorites. These attempts to marginalize, diminish, and eventually erase Nkrumah’s memories and especially his solid lasting and exceptional contributions to Ghana and Africa’s position in the world today will definitely not succeed and may backfire. It is sad that after all these years deep-seated lingering hatred for Nkrumah is seeped in the psyche of the people behind the attempts to denigrate him. Was Nkrumah really a bad man? I guess the answer is in the eyes of the beholder but, for me, I know where I stand.

If the struggles for and the attainment of Ghana’s independence was an unparalleled innovative African revolution, the overthrow of Kwame Nkrumah was only a dramatic and an unnecessary social and political imposition on Ghanaians and other Africans. Whilst Ghana’s independence was a confidence builder which lifted our spirits very high, the 1966 coup happened to deflate the spirits of many Ghanaians who had just started to hold their heads up with the fresh taste of freedom and the promise of African prosperity. The coup did put sudden brakes on an ever-growing feeling of happiness and the sense of self-determination which had infected all Ghanaians and all Black people around the world beginning March 6, 1957. It dampened Ghana’s confidence in her participation in African and world affairs and truly slapped the smile off the faces of its citizens in due time.

Did we think, when it happened, that the 1966 coup was a change for the good of Ghanaians? At least, that is what many of us believed at the time. Did it turn out to provide a lasting benefit to Ghanaians? I believe it is up to individual Ghanaians to determine for themselves if it was really necessary to have forced Nkrumah out of office. Anyway, if you look around you in Ghana and the rest of Africa today and you honestly believe that you see positive evidences of the reasons for Nkrumah’s forced removal then it is only reasonable to accept our current station in the world. If you still see things that I do not see then please remember the blood and sufferings of not only Nkrumah but Lumumba, Mandela, Nasser, and other Africa’s tortured heroes and just may be that might help you focus a little better. However, if we have not accomplished a tangible anything between 1966 and 2007 which could easily be tied to a logical and a persuasive justification for the coup then we have a lot of soul searching to do.

With this coup, as in each other subsequent abrupt change of past civilian and military administrations, we believed a new world was opening up. Things were always going to get better. In just nine years after independence, a misperceived and misdiagnosed pent up pressures we thought we felt under Nkrumah had finally been let out of us.

A few years before the Kotoka-Afrifa treachery, the Western powers, employing some of their Cold War machinations against Nkrumah, had made it extremely difficult for Ghanaians to obtain imported milk and imported sugar for their imported tea, imported cocoa, and imported coffee, not to mention all other imported “essentials.” The milk, sugar, tea, cocoa, coffee, and even the imported bleached flour for our nutrition-less bread were all in short supply. The Western powers, in collaboration with the local opposition, coordinated an economic and political warfare against Nkrumah. While the foreigners were persistently hounding Nkrumah with an economic embargo, clandestine and insidious espionage, and inflamed media reporting of Nkrumah, the internal opposition was also busy at work throwing everything they could find at him.

If trying to shoot the man and throwing grenades at him did not work then an added approach was to affect the citizens. If Ghanaians were told that Nkrumah’s recklessness had caused a depletion of the ample foreign reserves which the British in their unparalleled magnanimity held for us poor uneducated Black African natives, which made it impossible to pay for our “essential” imported goods, those poor citizens would gladly gulp down the rumors and turn against their leader. Guess what? It worked for the opposition. They were also successful in getting Ghanaians to believe that Nkrumah had personally fleeced them out of the foreign reserves and had siphoned millions into his secret Swiss bank accounts.

Support for Nkrumah’s fervent drive for independence for all of Africa and his refreshing continent-wide ideals soon waned. The clandestine activities against him spanned the whole continent where some African leaders were influenced to believe in a hidden agenda behind Nkrumah’s support for freedom fighters in the remaining African colonies. His push for a continental unity was portrayed to us that the man was plotting to be king of Africa. We heartily gulped down all the juicy titillating gossip and untruths about Nkrumah and ultimately the 1966 coup had its justification. He tried his darnedest to hold the country together using his charisma, astute intelligence, socialist strategies, and even arrests and detention of true enemies of the state. Yet, the axe finally fell on that fateful day in February 1966.

We felt we could now breathe easier with his overthrow. So we immediately jumped for joy. We stepped outside our homes en masse, sang and danced. We were seized by blind enthusiasm, and we celebrated. We danced on the streets with the marching victorious soldiers. The jubilation was infectious across the country. Overnight, soldiers had become our trusting politicians and leaders and we did not care because we were happy. [By the way, with the 1966 coup, Ghanaian soldiers tasted active politics and its power and perks for the first time and it was very sweet and palatable, so they would hang around the Osu Christiansborg Castle intolerably for many more years.]

They had saved us from evil Nkrumah, so we thought. The falsely portrayed terrifying flame-spitting monster-dragon had been defeated; the monster who had possessed little Young Pioneers to betray parents who dared whisper negative treacherous conversations in the privacy of their bedrooms about you-know-who who would seize them in the dead of night and whisk them off to the Nsawam Prisons. He was no more. The wicked wizard of the Flagstaff House was gone who later died prematurely.

The unnecessary vilification of Nkrumah began long before Ghana’s independence and intensified immediately after March 6, 1957. Right from the start when he returned to the Gold Coast, both colonialists and his native detractors would not leave him alone even though the general public was enamored with him. The colonialists threw him in jail for asking for an immediate end to colonial rule and they did not relent even after he was popularly elected to lead the country. Not only did foreigners and some hateful Ghanaians as well try unceasingly to dismantle his new government they actually wanted to kill him. They tried everything they could think of. They besmirched his reputation with outrageous fabrications. They blamed and reproached him for everything that went on under the Ghanaian skies. Destructive acts of God were attributed to Nkrumah. Many gullible unenlightened superstitious Ghanaians bought into the propaganda and the hatred. If someone disappeared or a child died unexpectedly, it was blamed not on the chiefs or the fake juju priests or murderous spiritual charlatans but on Nkrumah’s alleged Kankan Nyame juju shrine he supposedly worshipped at the Flagstaff House. When physical attacks did not succeed, clandestine propaganda campaigns were intensified. He had suddenly become an abomination, our reviled detestable overlord.

Wanton Glee

After his ouster and encouraged by our newly discovered objects of adoration, that is the members of the National Liberation Council and their foreign propaganda machine, we instantly set out to destroy all reminders of Nkrumah. Inebriated with wanton exhilaration and under a propaganda induced trance, it never occurred to us that we were destroying valuable national historic treasures by erasing all traces of Nkrumah. We proceeded to knock down his statues and other visible structures which reminded us of him. We set up bonfires and burned his books, his historical records, and any literature we could find about him. We took down his pictures and stumped on them. Our new leaders announced an endless rap sheet of trumped up charges of phantom evil crimes Nkrumah had supposedly committed. They really threw the poorly written book at him in absentia. The man had suddenly become a horribly detested ogre and he had to be eliminated. We would have torn him to pieces with our bare hands after dragging his body through the streets of Accra had he been made available to Ghanaians right after the coup. All the same, happy days were here again! The very young and some easily swayed Ghanaians were intentionally scared into midnight nightmares of the return of the sly monster Nkrumah who was tirelessly plotting to sneak into the country and back into power if we let down our guards and if we did not render our total support for our victorious military men. Oh, anyway, the soldiers had guns and civilians had little choice but to flatter and hug them. They even opened the prison gates and let out convicted national traitors. Hurray, the whimsical Ghanaian had suddenly found an easy target to blame for his own failings and at the same time a reason for joy and celebration because his penchant for self-aggrandizement and for native drumming and dancing had been rekindled.

On a broader scale, we halted many national projects planned and developed by Nkrumah’s administration and many of his uplifting progressive projects, plans, and ideas were shelved or dismissed completely, such as expanded education and economic self-reliance for all Ghanaians. The projects were halted because we had been told and had accepted that everything Nkrumah produced were wasteful.

[STOP! If Nkrumah was so wasteful, how can we reconcile the unwarranted, infantile, and unprofessional accusations of his careless depletion of the country’s foreign reserves with the very recent report that, in spite of the numerous borrowings, debt forgiveness, grants, and other assistance like the MCA, the national deficit as of June 2007 under the current administration is $2.7 billion? Within a short time after independence and under Nkrumah, Ghana had gone from utter colonial neglect to an accountable investment in expanded primary, middle and secondary education, infrastructure improvements, new industrial complexes, a hydro-electric dam, a huge new seaport, a national airline, a national shipping line, a new naval port, two additional universities, improved police and military services, transportation and road construction, and many other improvements. Remember, my people, Nkrumah’s investments in the country have formed the foundation upon which the country has survived up to now. Why are we now reluctant to ask the current government for an accounting of the country’s financial position of a $2.7 billion deficit? Is the current government more or less wasteful than Nkrumah?]

After Euphoria Comes Reflection

Did not many of us, soon after the ephemeral outburst of jubilation, later pull a chair to a quiet corner in a quiet room and ask: what have we done? Did we not begin to have a somber self-examination after the drumming and dancing and our honeymoon tryst with the military leaders had died down? Did we not start to ponder over our prejudices and judgment after the elation over our newfound love for the soldier-politician had ebbed? And did we not realize then that we had removed a wrongly labeled man and had replaced him with a group of our brothers who were not angels themselves? The blind enthusiasm which was built on imperceptible hopes and gargantuan optimism had evaporated soon as it appeared.

The naked truth is that by the time this solemnity hit us, Nkrumah was very sick and dying. He did die before long. What did we do then? We brought his body to Ghana. The only time the cowardly citizens could muster some courage to face our brave majestic leader was when he was dead. He had been exiled and prohibited from setting foot on his own national soil when he lost his office, but we still lined up in an endless procession at the former OAU Conference Center that he built in order for us to take one final awing peek at him dead. We buried him with tepid enthusiasm and no fanfare. Then we forgot about him for a while. This imposing stature of a regal African, Nkrumah, was the same esteemed hero who brought us our freedom, later to be portrayed an ogre, then classified a persona non grata, and who now lies in a towering shrine in Accra and has become the most famous African hero again, at least for many of us.

Oh, my fellow Ghanaians, we are a funny bunch of strange creatures!

If the realities of the times did not sink in during the first few years of military presence in politics, they at least began to come to light for a good many Ghanaians after successive ineffective military administrations and bland visionless civilian leaders were elected through unenthusiastic electoral processes up to where we are today. From 1966 through 2000, with occasional insertions of a few fleeting elected governments, the soldiers overthrew one another or knocked off civilian administrations. Added to the count of the successful ones were many more failed coup plots which were hatched or attempted throughout those post-Nkrumah periods by idealistic holier-than-thou military men who saw their fellow ruling soldiers as a bunch of corrupted incompetent turncoats who had to be erased and replaced. It is easy to conclude that, in politics, a savior and an angel today can quickly become the most abhorred villain tomorrow. The trick is in demonizing the defeated in order to make it easier to eliminate, or literally kill, him. Many military and some civilian heads rolled and the civilians over time became somewhat desensitized yet disenchanted with the bloody human eliminations to the point where the populace was fed up with coups and military participation in the active political administration of the country. After many unfulfilling years had passed, Ghanaians realized that our honorable brave men and women in uniform could serve them exceptionally better by staying out of politics, by not going to war with their own people, and by staying in the confines of their primary careers: concentrating on the security of Ghanaians and protecting the sovereign integrity of the country.

Nkrumah Good or Nkrumah Very Good

To those past participants and supporters of violent government overthrows and those who continue advocate the use of violence to remove entrenched administrations I will only say that we have enough experience in Ghana to conclude that these political revolutions have not lived up to their expectations. At the height of all those violent revolutions, all we got were curfews, uncertainty, fear, terror, arbitrary decrees, hilarity of careless and carefree military extravagance, and nothing else.

The victors in the violent revolutions were usually the ones who arrogated to themselves the sole prerogatives to determine right and wrong. In Ghana, the common methods for setting absolutist rule have been through decrees or setting bloody examples with human lives. The only certainty during those violent times was where you stood when guns were pointed. You were either facing the barrel or you were at the other end pulling the trigger. And, yes, this was surely the time when the victors holding the trigger set the delineation between the labeling of patriotism, honesty, uprightness, and piety versus wrongdoing, treason, state enmity, villainy, and the most popular of all, financial corruption.

Anyway, we are all aware of how short-lived the victors’ idealistic intentions always were. It did not take long and they all became corrupted to the nth degree. This is also the time when the truly guilty searched for specious reasons for their crimes while the newly self-appointed rulers force-fitted themselves poorly tailored cloaks of sanctity. In the meantime, the railroaded innocent caught in the middle suffered unwarranted misery or death at the hands of the new rulers. And, very importantly, this was also the time when the new rulers displayed to the masses in the public arena their cleanly washed hands during the process of developing farfetched justifications for accusations of evil doings against the ousted leadership.

All of these conditions happened after Nkrumah was overthrown in 1966. They tried to pin every nonsensical national shortcoming on him. Guess what? Nothing stuck. Look at him now, he is still riding high and sitting pretty. Even in death, his living inveterate enemies have not relented in their assaults on him. But the mud refuses to stick to the number one faithful African: NKRUMAH! The mud seems to be splashing back in the faces of the mudslingers.

Corrosive Ghanaian Trait

We can all conclude that the principal reasons for the unrelenting assaults by the loser colonial power and her Western superpower allies to clip Nkrumah’s wings before and right after Ghana’s independence were borne out of their racist nature. The disdain and utter dislike for this great man later expanded to his vilification and victimization in the Cold War fights between the superpowers. But how do we explain the internal local loathing of Nkrumah by some Ghanaians who started their attacks long before he assumed the position of Prime Minister?

The answer can easily be found in the age-old consuming human frailty: JEALOUSY. The aberrant human condition which Ghanaians of late have aptly albeit facetiously termed PhD (Pull Him Down syndrome). Jealousy is that corrosive human pollutant, the vile poison that eats at the soul, the envenomed retributive envy that gnaws at you until you can find a way to totally destroy the object of your condition. Why do some Ghanaians still carry more than a residue of this corruptible human destruction decades after Nkrumah’s death? Is it not sad that after vengeance in the form of the 1966 coup had been successful for them, it has failed to accord them lasting satisfaction? Vengeance continues to be theirs more than forty years after Nkrumah’s overthrow and death and they are intent still on visiting their lingering unfulfilled vengeance on Nkrumah’s living admirers too. Jealousy is exactly what afflicted Nkrumah’s enemies who conspired relentlessly and threw grenades at him, shot at him, and who eventually succeeded in his overthrow and the derailment of his ideas and ideals.

Nkrumah’s majestic personality, the powerful booming resonance of his orations so pleasant to the ear, and his regal presence that no one could compare or emulate, made some Ghanaians, along tribal lines, huff and puff simply because the podia and the microphones did not belong to them anymore. Nkrumah’s earlier attraction and popular support were easy and natural. But his charisma, charm, personality, shrewd intelligence, and a fitting message and vision really drove his foes nuts. They were suddenly stupefied, baffled, and beside themselves when they found they were sidelined by his emergence. The anger, egotism, the inability to accept leadership from a handsome younger articulate returnee and his rapid populist ascendancy turned once revered upright educated older Ghanaians into pained cowardly mountebanks and entranced posses who committed harm and murder in the pursuit and the hunting down of Nkrumah.

To those people, the murdered young innocent unsuspecting Ghanaian girl who was presenting a bomb-planted bouquet of flowers to Nkrumah at Kulungugu and other victims who got in the way were simply sacrificial lambs or collateral damage. The enemies of Nkrumah had elevated themselves to judges, jury, and executioners. They were impatient to wait their turn. Believing mistakenly that their time was ripe for their forced intrusion into our lives and forgetting conveniently that they did not have the mandate and backing of the majority of Ghanaians, they then resorted to violence.

Integrity and Honor Triumphs

In spite of all the mudslinging and the violent attacks, real peace has posthumously come to Nkrumah, finally. Unlike many others we know, he had unwavering honorable intentions and acted on them with indomitable courage and it has been proven beyond all the pestering scrutiny that his hands were always clean. I am so very right. Yes, look at him now. His mausoleum is fast becoming a holy shrine for admirers around the world. Nkrumah is that rare African we have unsuccessfully been seeking since his death. OSAGYEFO DR. KWAME NKRUMAH: that unequalled extraordinary irreplaceable gem of an African that we yearn for now but can never find again. A truly well-meaning honorable human being, he was a caring man who only erred by reacting with reasonable restraint to attacks brought to bear on him by evil people who ultimately overwhelmed him.

He always discerned beyond the horizons for what was good for Africa even when many huge bottomless holes dug by his detractors were yawning beneath him. He was aware of the threats but he had a higher calling which made him vulnerable physically but protected his good name up to today. All extraneous assaults and internal conspiracies could not diminish his lifelong passion for the wellbeing of Africa and Ghana. Generations will continue to hold him up high whilst his accusers will be placed in their apt abysmal places for their roles in the retardation of Ghana’s development. If you open your eyes a bit wider and listen carefully, you will notice that posterity has already passed judgments on all players of the era. It is very true that notwithstanding individual passionate ethnic and political affiliations and despite attempts to influence their judgments, Ghanaians today are smart people who are aware of who truly did what for or against them.

Generational Ownership and Fanaticism

We should also bear in mind that everyone’s generational ownership of the country will diminish and expire as we mature, grow, and die. The fanatic ownership phobia that consumed enemies of Nkrumah did little or nothing to benefit ordinary Ghanaians. It was rather destructive and obstructive. The 1966 coup has proven to be an absolute letdown. Today, people like Danquah, Busia, Afrifa, Kotoka, plus all those notable personalities and even the impatient conspirators who thought they knew better than everyone else are gone for ever. Even honorable Nkrumah himself is no more. The lesson here is that fanaticism and intense animosity which emanate from extreme jealousy does not benefit anyone, not even the carriers of that fiery consuming emotionalism. Just because you think you could be a leader does not make you one. Just because you think you are smarter than the next guy does not make it true. Opportunity, qualification, personality, unsullied character, acceptance, spirited devotion and performance and especially timing are the basic attributes and conditions that could make you a country’s true leader of vision. When the opportunity was ripe for Nkrumah as the torchbearer of the country’s independence and leadership he took on the responsibility with the required attributes and astute leadership skills and it was also the people who aptly accepted and embraced him.

The unexpected fallout from his popular acceptance was that some slighted Ghanaians and their clans who wanted the position, who tried and failed, became disgruntled sore also-rans. The entitlement the poor losers felt for the position, the emotional attachment to the idea that they were better qualified than the one who carried the mandate of the people to lead, and the very ownership fixation of Nkrumah’s competitors over the country Ghana ended irretrievably when he became the chosen one. It was unbearable for them and they quickly became angry and desperate. Ownership of the country, Ghana, is not the province of a select few. It is generational and tiered. Every Ghanaian, from a baby to the octogenarian and even the dead, claims it. Right now, active ownership of the country belongs to the young, the strong, the intelligent, also the up-and-coming prepared Ghanaian. No amount of sulking, foot stumping tantrums, and biding your turn will help you get into any leadership position. So many intelligent and qualified Ghanaians never became presidents of the country during their prime. The smart ones lived their lives, made valuable contributions some other ways outside politics, and moved on. But when the sore losers realized their chances had passed for good, they then employed unconventional and bloody means to wrestle power from the popularly accepted winner, Nkrumah.

What They Are Doing Now

As I promised, allow me to offer examples of what I see as current attempts to water down Nkrumah’s achievements and the current efforts to paint different fabled pictures of what the majority really knows and sees as factual and true. But, first, I understand clearly that many of the denials, criticisms, and negative responses to my examples that will come my way will be tinged with accusations of my supposed political and ethnic incorrectness. I promise to stay in the kitchen however hot it gets. I also promise that I will not run naked after anyone who grabs and takes off with my loincloth, not even my expensive kente toga. You know what I mean.

THE PROFESSOR. Numerous feature articles full of consistent slants that are very insulting and critical of anything Nkrumah appear steadily in this forum. These articles are by a particular Ghanaian professor who teaches in the U.S. Not a week passes without an article or two from the professor, many of which contain something sardonic and demeaning about Nkrumah. In just two years, this professor has churned out over a hundred assembly line feature articles at the www.Ghanaweb.com which often throw jabs at Nkrumah even when the topic is not Nkrumah.

In addition to this professor’s educational and professional credentials and lineage that have no importance or relevance to the rest of us, he proudly, loudly, and brightly wears his ethnic and anti-Nkrumah biases on his sleeve, not counting political parties, numerous individuals, and blocs of tribal groups he has categorically and purposefully dismissed as inferior sideliners who do not possess his defined superior capabilities to play any active political roles in the country.

Ineffectually adept at the employment of English language acrobatics, he needlessly inserts into almost every feature article assailments of Kwame Nkrumah often couched in twisted flamboyant vocabulary and grandiloquent phrases so deficient in real grandeur in their lack of simplicity. His boiler room articles have impressed an extremely very few entrants into the forum. He has rather attracted a barrage of verbal hooting and sometimes degrading personal insults. Arrogantly trusting in the universality and infallibility of his misjudgments, he seems to be emboldened more by the overwhelming criticisms and insults as he keeps churning more outrageous claims in his convoluted articles. Animated also with unbridled boldness, he has made it his orgasmic passion and pastime to spew unrestrained flood of calumny against Nkrumah’s reputation. For example, the professor recently made an outlandish suggestion that Nkrumah’s marriage to Fathia would be considered criminally incestuous and rape if Nkrumah lived in the U.S. He has even gone as far as equating Nkrumah’s Convention People’s Party to Hitler’s Nazi party. Thank goodness for the internet; we are all lucky to be published. Noting the dwindling number of responses to his recent articles, it seems many visitors to the forum have either decided to ignore him completely and not read his articles or they do not get the perspicacity of his arguments and his highfalutin language.

Of course, it is the professor’s prerogative to make a choice in his admiration for his own selected pioneer leaders of Ghana, especially his praise of everything Danquah; he also has the privilege of criticizing anyone he deems to have erred in his or her role in the affairs of country.

My only concern is about his intentions. Is he a participant of a craftily calculated agenda at the reeducation of the Ghanaian? Is the professor a haughty scullion of a larger covert propaganda machine whose aim is to constantly feed the Ghanaian public a lopsided account of the country’s history until we accept as fact what the professor’s “truth” is? I am somewhat discombobulated because his contributions seem like a bombardment of an ominously didactic and psychological reprogramming of our empirical memories and perceptions of past events. Is it working for the professor? You decide.

THE CEDI DESIGN. In 2002, when the cedi banknotes were redesigned with pictures of the six prominent Ghanaian pioneers who contributed in varied degrees to the independence struggles, I honestly thought that was an excellent idea to enhance the recognition of the principals behind our freedom. The personalities, popularly known to Ghanaians as “The Big Six,” were Kwame Nkrumah, Emmanuel Obetsebi Lamptey, William Ofori Atta, Edward Akufo-Addo, Ebenezer Ako Adjei, and Joseph Danquah. The fact that the faces of the Big Six are together on banknotes allows for planting an image firmly in the minds of every young Ghanaian as to who were responsible for creating the kind of world they live in today. No place is as appropriate as the face of paper currency to plant an idea like that because of the automatic mass circulation of money. Money will always find its way. Furthermore, if Ghanaians can identify each person by correctly matching names to the pictures then that would be a bonus achievement. Whoever came up with that idea was brilliant. Or was he?

Of late, however, due to recent public comments, attitudes, clannish preferences, national policies, and distinctive actions, I have struggled with questions about the choice of the Big Six as opposed to some other way of depicting and presenting our esteemed icons of the birth of Ghana. I have so many questions about the depiction and timing of the Big Six on the cedi that I am at a loss as to which I should present here.

First of all, why depict on the cedi the Big Six who were tied to the United Gold Coast Convention (UGCC) rather than the prominent personality or personalities who were tied to the Convention People’s Party (CPP)? Why ask? It is because the UGCC had fallen off into oblivion and had transformed into the popular CPP when we were inching closer to March 6, 1957. The timing of the redesigning of the cedi, the year 2002, gives me a reasonable pause too. Would previous administrations have chosen the Big Six on the cedi or would they have chosen other depiction(s)?

Presenting the six personalities together levels out each person’s contribution to the fight for independence. It diminishes and even trivializes the super achievements of the high performers and elevates the mediocrity of the lackluster personalities. The picture was taken long before there was an increased intensity in the struggle. The clear implication here is that Kwame Nkrumah’s efforts were no more than Joseph Danquah’s from 1947 up to 1957. The acrimony that beset the NGCC principals when Nkrumah broke away in 1949 and formed the CPP shows that there was a huge unbridgeable divide in the approach, seriousness, and dedication in the two camps in the pursuit of independence for the Gold Coast. While Nkrumah loudly preached “Self Government Now” many others, inflicted with personality and ideological disagreements, chose a separate, slowed, and gradual approach to freedom. The two camps’ efforts in the ten year period leading to independence were not level and cannot be measured as equal. The message of the Big Six on the cedi banknotes is that they all were equal contributors to my freedom. Sorry, I disagree. Danquah’s unctuous minimalist efforts did not match Nkrumah’s pivotal in-your-face top-of-the-mountain approach which we all know propelled faster the wheels of freedom.

The Big Six on the cedi is one more reason why I am very concerned that we are gradually becoming deer-in-the-headlights subjects of a calculated reeducation process. Are we so lost we don’t see what’s going on or we just don’t care? Just as it is done in the U.S. and other countries, would it have been farfetched to have dedicated each banknote to a single past president, starting with Nkrumah’s face on the largest denomination, and may be follow with Busia, Limman, and other presidents who are dead and gone? We can even dedicate a cedi denomination to Jerry Rawlings later. How about that? What are they afraid of? Don’t be afraid, please. The current CPP cannot resurrect Nkrumah! Or are they still angry with the man? Even his place in the group picture on the banknotes more than sends a screaming message to all Ghanaians. Please, grab a cedi banknote and take a closer look.

THE PRESIDENT. Recently, President John A. Kufuor made a statement the import of which has gnawed at me for some time. Addressing loyalists of the National Patriotic Party (NPP) in January 2007 at Koforidua, President Kufuor was quoted as saying:

“Let me assure you that whatever actions this government has taken have been done with the best interest of the Party in mind. There is too much history of sacrifice, perseverance, commitment, and toil within our tradition over the past five decades for this government to forget.”

I am not too concerned about the first statement in the quote because the President is the supreme political leader of the country as well as the leading cheerleader of his party unless he implied a narrower view of the “best interest” of select beneficiaries of Ghana’s wealth. What I have rather struggled with for some time is his statement about the history, tradition, and the length of time he claims his party has toiled and persevered. With all due respect to the President, what does he mean by stretching NPP’s history back five decades? The last time I checked, the NPP was formed in 1992 when Adu Boahen was its presidential candidate. The eerie message in that quote is that, by going back fifty years of “sacrifice, perseverance, commitment, and toil” implies the invocation of the specter of Kwame Nkrumah and others who might have gotten in the way of a wronged group or clan of Ghanaians’ and not NPP’s ideological and leadership dreams for five decades. This statement of that quote is very ominous as it seems to invoke tribe when Mr. Kufuor mentions tradition; bitterness and pain when he cautions his party loyalists not to forget the past. Considering Mr. Kufuor’s target audience and even the broader Ghanaian audience, what are the sacrifices lasting five decades of the NPP when the party is only fifteen years old or was he talking about a group larger than the party? I bet a lot of Ghanaians would like to know. Or is the haunting image of all-inclusive non-tribalist Nkrumah hovering around uncomfortably? As the leader of his party, is President Kufuor implying also that the NPP was begotten from the United Gold Coast Convention, the Ghana Congress Party, the National Liberation Movement, the United Party, the Progress Party, the Popular Front Party, and the United National Convention?

Absolution and Atonement

An aspect of Nkrumah’s leadership often cited as his major failing has been his socialist leanings. I do not believe that Ghanaians then and now deserve apologies from anyone, not even dead Nkrumah, for the introduction of Soviet-styled socialism in Ghana. That ideology was expedient at the time and we had to experience Nkrumah at the appropriate time, that is, at the very birth of Ghana. What would we have done without him? Where would we be without him? He was the one and only leader struggling Gold Coast and newly freed Ghana needed.

We have to be honest with ourselves and accept the reasoning that Nkrumah, when caught in the middle of the Cold War, had to make a choice for the stability and security of the country. The quiet turbulence of the Cold War era compelled many vulnerable countries around the world to make prudent decisions for self-preservation. There were many leanings to the left and many to the right too. Most of the ideological leanings were not permanent but so tenuous that externally sponsored coups seesawed allegiances of the weak to either of the two superpower camps. For those who have selective memories of the era and for those too young to have experienced it, the Cold War had as its bitter bread and butter superpower-sponsored coups, espionage, counter-espionage, defections, assassinations, guerrilla warfare, contract killing mercenaries, and above all, competing foreign cultural and ideological indoctrinations. Many countries could not help but become victims of the Cold War protection game.

Of course, Nkrumah tried to mix oil and water when he sought development and economic cooperation and assistance from the West while at the same time exposing their clandestine imperialist and neo-colonialist activities to undermine Africa’s push for true self-determination. It turned out to be too much for the West to tolerate Nkrumah’s efforts at transparency and exposure and they punished him for his openness. There was no escaping the harsh realities of the times. Conscious of the expediency for survival, governments in weaker countries, not excepting Ghana, were forced to belong in one superpower camp and became automatic enemies of the other. For example, when the West undermined independence struggles and supported steadfast colonial settlers the likes of Ian Smith of Rhodesia and Botha and others of apartheid South Africa, it was communist Russia and Cuba which openly assisted struggling African freedom fighters.

Again, dead Nkrumah has no apologies to make to anybody for his prudent leadership decisions. We rather owe him our sincere apologies. Not having been guilty of any wrongdoing, he does not have any forgiveness for Ghanaians. He made needed decisions at the time just the same way current and recent administrations have made the conscious decision today to open us up so helplessly to the West for aid, for loans, and for virtually everything under the sun disregarding the price we may pay in the future for our alliances. The right choices today may end up the wrong ones in the future; just the same way we now blame Nkrumah for his socialist choices. PLEASE, LEAVE NKRUMAH ALONE! Anytime you ungrateful critics, or as the kids say these days, you player-haters, visit his mausoleum, whisper a heartfelt apology to the man but, please, do not ask for one! Say to him, “As atonement for my wrongful criticisms of you and from the very bottom of my heart, I am truly sorry, especially for the 1966 coup.”

Promote Nkrumah

What can we do now with Nkrumah and for Ghana? I have the answer. Promote Nkrumah and place him on a higher pedestal. Let him benefit Ghana. He is now an excellent educational, commercial, and tourist value to the country. In death, he wants to be used, so let’s use him for the good of Ghana and Africa. Instead of marginalizing his legacy, instead of fishing around to rain rehashed and remanufactured baseless faults on him, we should elevate his stature in the world higher than where it is now. Using his good name and record we should praise him even more for his irrefutable contributions to the Black race and he will help Ghana grow. We should not let fall by the wayside the unique esteemed selection of Nkrumah by all descendants of Africans as “Africa’s Man of the Millennium.” For many of us, Osagyefo Dr. Kwame Nkrumah will always be synonymous with Africa and no amount of contrary efforts will change that.

Nkrumah was never a villain. He was not an ogre. And he was never Ghana’s monster. Our fascination for the man will never end because of his good deeds and our melancholy as a result of his untimely ouster and death will forever remain. So let us cease all the fruitless silly efforts to soil his name. NKRUMAH’S CONTRIBUTIONS TO THE WORLD ARE SOLIDLY ETCHED IN HISTORY FOREVER. HE STILL IS THE PARAGON AND EMBODIMENT OF TRUE AFRICAN PERSONALITY.

Love and peace.