MyNewsGH, publication on September 4, 2022, which was responses of socialists especially Nkrumaists, came under the heading, “Better Name K’si Airport After Daddy Lumba Than A Terrorist – Peeps React To Baffour Akoto Proposal.”
The publication is as follows: “Several social media users have rejected outright suggestions to rename the Kumasi International Airport after Baffour Osei Akoto, respected Ashanti Linguist and politician, suggesting he was a “terrorist”.
Other persons on social media suggested it is far better to rename the Airport after Highlife Legend Daddy Lumba than Baffour Osei Akoto who is father of the current Agric Minister and founder of National Liberation Movement (NLM)
Others also suggested renaming the Airport Asante Airport or Osei Tutu Airport instead of Baffour Akoto.
The NLM was launched in September 1954 under the leadership of Baffour Osei Akoto. Between 1954 and 1957, violence, murders and bombings, orchestrated largely by the National Liberation Movement (N.L.M.), attended much of the political life in the Gold Coast. Baffour Osei Akoto, leader and founding member of the N.L.M., warned of a possible civil war.
The Governor, Sir Charles Arden-Clarke, was pelted with stones when he went to Kumasi to mediate and seek an end to the violence.
Under him, violence was stepped up and Kumasi became so dangerous that members of Nkrumah’s party were in fear of their lives. Prominent amongst the N.L.M.’s victims were C.E. Osei, Krobo Edusei’s wife (Mary Akuamoah) and sister; Archie Caseley-Hayford and Kwame Nkrumah whose homes were targets for bombings at various times.
Shops of local C.P.P. leaders like B.E. Dwira of New Tafo were barricaded and the C.P.P. regional office and the local party newspaper, the Sentinel in Kumasi were forced to close down. Kofi Banda was shot by a gunman from the palace of the Chief of Ejisu – a crime for which no one was convicted while Krobo Edusei’s sister was blown up while preparing food for her children at home
By December 1955, over 850 cases of assault had been reported in Kumasi alone of which less than a third had been brought to the courts.
Old proposal new energy
The first time the proposal was made was by a youth group with sympathies for the New Patriotic Party (NPP) dubbed Operation Build Ghana (OBG).
The group in 2019 advocated for the renaming of the Kumasi Airport after the late Baffour Osei Akoto.
The chairman of OBG, one Prince Appiah Kubi, said Baffour Akoto remained one of the key figures in the party that no national monument had been named after him.
He said Baffour Akoto, an agriculturist and the longest serving linguist in the Ashanti kingdom had been overlooked for a long while.
Baffour Akoto, who is the father of Ghana’s Minister of Food and Agriculture, Dr. Owusu Afriyie Akoto, is credited for organising the disillusioned Ashanti members of the Convention People’s Party (CPP) in 1954 to form the National Liberation Movement (NLM).
The party later became known as the United Party after a series of mergers with other political parties and now NPP.Recently, the ruling party named some key national edifices after some of its towering figures including the late Appenteng Appiah-Menka.But the reactions have been varied.” – September 4, 2022 by MyNewsGH.
The above is another proof that the least opportunity socialists in Ghana will get, they will come out spewing lies about the UP Tradition and labelling this noble family, a blood-thirsty one.
Facts from history will come out to prove otherwise and in this two-part article, I will demonstrate why such Ghanaian socialists must be ashamed of themselves and shut up.
To begin my take on this, I ask who are the founding members of the National Liberation Movement (NLM)?
The NLM was formed because of Nkrumah’s treacherous acts and failures to live up to his campaign promises.K. A. Gbedemah, who knew Nkrumah more than all others, boldly came out, to call him, a man who never kept his word.
The colonial government did all it could to break up the authority of our traditional leaders and Nkrumah promised them, he would restore them that authority and power.
Yet when he won the elections in 1951 to become prime minister, Nkrumah did even worse than the colonialists by introducing a new local government system, which deprived the traditional leaders of most of their power and authority as well as denying them their source of wealth.
Nkrumah went on a campaign trail, promising cocoa farmers that he would increase the producer price of cocoa to £5.00 when elected. But when he won the elections, he rather reduced the price, drastically and hedged it for four years.
Nkrumah openly showed his dislike for Ashanti region, which at that time, comprised the current Ashanti, Bono, Bono East and Ahafo regions.
In 1953, when seats in the regions of Ghana were reviewed, the Colony, made up of Western, Central and Eastern regions, had an increment of seven seats, from thirty-seven to forty-four; the Northern Territories, also went up seven seats, from nineteen to twenty-six; the Trans Volta Togoland went up five seats, from eight to thirteen,but the Ashanti region which was the most populous region had an increment of only two seats from nineteen to twenty-one seats.
This angered the people of the region made them to petition for an increment to thirty seats, but their request was flatly turned down.
Nkrumah had promised Ghanaians that unlike the colonialists, he would hand over power to the people and allow them to make their own decisions about, among others, who they would prefer to lead them.
But, after winning, he went the opposite way and started to exhibit dictatorial tendencies and centralisation of power, going on to impose candidates on constituencies.
The above were the main reasons why the Ashantis turned their backs on Nkrumah and the growing tendencies of the region being overlooked by him made even the CPP activists in Ashanti to turn against him.
It must be noted that the foundation of the CPP was made up of four principal groups, namely the Youth Study Group of Accra; the Asante Youth Association of Kumasi; the Wassa Youth Association of Tarkwa and the Ghana Youth Association of Sekondi.
Due to Nkrumah’s lies and dishonesties, specifically to the Ashanti region and its peoples, the Asante Youth Association, defected from the CPP and top members like AntwiKusiAnane, E. Y. Baffo, Osei Asibe Mensah, Yaw Kankam, Kusi Ampofo and B.K. Owusu first approached Baffour Osei Akoto and suggested to him to form a party, which came to be known as the National Liberation Movement.
The Asante Youth Association which abandoned the CPP, became the main moving spirit behind the National Liberation Movement (NLM).
Some major CPP figures defected to join the NLM in February 1955, and they included Victor Owusu, R.R. Amponsah, Joe Appiah, J.C. de Graft Johnson and E. Kuranchie Taylor. By the end of 1955, a large number of CPP Councillors across the country defected to join the NLM.
If the socialists in Ghana will go about condemning the NLM, they must know where that party’s main spirit and members originated from.
It was made up mainly of “rebels” from the CPP and if we are told that, this noble party is a blood-thirsty one, then we must agree that they brought that vice from the CPP.
For the writer(s) of the MyNewsGH publication, “Better Name K’si Airport After Daddy Lumba Than A Terrorist – Peeps React To Baffour Akoto Proposal.” to call the members of the Asante Youth Association, disillusioned Ashanti members of the CPP, clearly indicates that they are unpatriotic and sycophants who would never stand up for their rights, but out of fear of their lives would pay homage to a traitor and dictator for personal gains.
Initially the 1954 elections were to be the one which was to lead Ghana to independence, until some people of the Trans-Volta Togoland made demands that they would prefer re-joining their siblings in French Togoland after the independence.
Then came the Ashantis with strong demands that if resolved could have changed the course of Ghana’s political directions, for the better. The Ashantis and NLM demanded nothing but full responsibility from all political office holders, who must be servants and not lords, of the people.
When the NLM demanded a federal system for Ghana, the colonialists and the pro-CPP knew what that would bring. It meant the regions would have more control over their resources and Nkrumah did not want that.
People were told that Ghana was too small to become a federal state, meanwhile countries like Saint Kitts and Nevis in the West Indies with land size of 261 km², Micronesia with land size of 238,535 km² and Belgium with land size of 30,689 km² are all federal countries much smaller than Ghana which has a land size of 238,535 km². Greater Accra region which is the smallest region, at 3,245 km² in size is larger than Saint Kitts and Nevis.
If we had at least three people in each of the four regions as bold as Baffour Osei Akoto, Ghana would have had a stable form of governance and surely our economy would have been very strong.
The writers of the article, “Better Name K’si Airport After Daddy Lumba Than A Terrorist – Peeps React To Baffour Akoto Proposal,” are calling Baffour Osei Akoto, a terrorist and blamed the NLM solely for the disturbances in Kumasi after the formation of that party.
In Part Two, it will be demonstrated, what started the disturbances and who is actually a terrorist when comparing Baffour Osei Akoto and Kwame Nkrumah.
Hon Daniel Dugan
