Surely, Some Free SHS Will Do For K. Pratt Jnr.! (3): Nkrumah Through Gbedemah?
Kwabena Amikaketo sat in his favourite chair on his balcony, viewing the setting sun which was making way for the shadows to grow longer and soon cover his part of the world like some dark blanket.
The evening was as chilled as last night with temperatures hovering around 24ºC. That was tropical winter here, but hot summer in the temperate zone. Talking about hot summer, his sister Adwoa in the UK, told him that temperatures hit 39ºC, a week ago. That could boil cassava.
Kwabena was still trying to remember the title of the story, about a father, a son and slaves, from the collection of Yoruba stories by BakareGbadamosi and UlliBeier, entitled “Not Even God Is Ripe Enough.”
If only Mr. Kwesi Pratt Jnr.,and the socialist Nkrumaists would just shut their mouths up and only opening them when they are going to say the truth, then the terrible things Nkrumah did would be laid to rest.
One fine gentleman who was Nkrumah’s closed ally and very close friend for over thirteen years, and knew him more than even his mother, Nyaniba, did, was K.A. Gbedemah.
What he wrote about Nkrumah, is on the shelves gathering dust, because Kwasi Pratt Jnr., and Nkrumaists would not touch it, for fear of revelations.
KwabenaAmikaketo picked, Gbedemah’s twenty-eight-page open letter to Nkrumah, entitled, “It Will Not Be Work And Happiness For All,”and digested all the finance guru had to say about the manKwame Nkrumah, whom he said wasveryparanoid.
Nkrumah had over 800 people arrested for the Kulungugu bombing when they were nowhere near the scene or even in the town. Meanwhile, Nkrumah accused the imperialists for the attempt on his life.
He even suspected Gbedemah of being behind the November 1961 bomb throwing in Accra, and had his house surrounded by police.
Gbedemah, knew it would be risky to challenge Nkrumah on issues, especially those he passionately felt about, however he was ready to make that supreme sacrifice and tell Nkrumah, as things were. Kwabena carefully read the long letter and lots of things were revealed to him.
Nkrumah went about insulting nations that came out to assist him, calling some of them “Ideologically Bankrupt” and in the state of moral collapse and despair.
While political neutralism and non-alignment was the best way for developing nations, Nkrumah’s unwarranted condemnation of some bigger nations smacked him of buccaneerism. Nkrumah showed no respect to Western countries and this harmed the country Ghana.
At the inauguration of the First Republic, Kwame Nkrumah took an oath to preserve and defend the constitution and to do right to all manner of people according to the law without fear or favour, affection or ill will.
This gave great hopes for people of the new republic, but barely two years into republican rule, everybody became sad and disillusioned as they watched the gradual degeneration of the basic democracy into a totalitarian regime and police state.
So many hundreds of Ghanaians were plucked from their homes, in the dead of night and thrown into jail without any trial or inquisition, under the much-abused Preventive Detention Act (PDA), which in the 4 years since it became law, has been used by Nkrumah to show the very perfect example of how much power can be abused.
Nkrumah was aware that rumour mongers and unscrupulous persons, took advantage of the PDA to intimidate law-abiding citizens, who were made to pay heavy sums for crimes they never committed or faced jail terms or fled the country.
Foreigners in Ghana, some of whom were born and lived in Ghana could be deported if accused of violating the PDA.
The CPP party machinery could produce a catalogue of crimes and charged on those party workers and Nkrumah’s close associates, who could be falsely charged and punished for no crime committed. And many innocent public servants could be disgraced and discredited and have their properties seized at Nkrumah’s command, while the corrupt ones were left of the hook.
In 1959, Nkrumah used over £350,000.00 of poor people’s money to build for himself, a private palace in Peduase, whereas the same poor people had provided three other palatial residences only fit for a monarch, for Nkrumah. £350,000.00 in 1959 will be over £141 million, today, at an average of 10% inflation rate per annum
According to Gbedemah, Nkrumah insisted that almost everything that deserved to be named in Ghana, was to be named after him, as if he was the only one who planned and executed Ghana’s independence.
Hewas loaded with all sorts of appellations, some sacrilegious, like Osagyefo, Fount of Honour of the Nation, Messiah, Teacher, Redeemer, Leader, Ideological Mentor and the Infallible whose approval must be obtained for everything to be done in Ghana. Five years into independence, no one was ever honoured in Ghana, apart from Kwame Nkrumah.
Gbedemah went on to provide evidence that Nkrumah could bleach the constitution, citing one example where he appointed non-MPs to ministerial rank in Cabinet, contrary to Art. 15 (1) of the Constitution.
Even though Nkrumah denounce the civilized world as “ideologically bankrupt,” Nkrumah’s idea of always tempering justice with mercy, was using PDA to throw many innocent people to jail.
Gbedemah, worked and served Nkrumah loyally for thirteen years, yet he was disgraced and thrown out of government, after Nkrumah felt he did not need his help any more.Even though, he was dismissed and out of Ghana, he still gave positive advice to Kaiser, whom Ghana engaged for loan to construct the Volta project.
Gbedemah talked about innocent people who had to flee the country and suffered untold penury and privations abroad, till it was safe again for them to return home, a day Gbedemah knew would one day arrive.
On the issue of one-Party State, Gbedemah had this to say:“Nkrumah’s idea was to turn Ghana permanently into a one-Party State- i.e., only one political party which shall always be elected into office, and the possibility of an alternative group of citizens with different ideas about how the country should be governed, permanently eliminated. Nkrumah dreamt up this idea after he returned from a ten week visit to Russia, China and some Eastern European nations, in July, August and September 1961.”
Ten days after his visit, Nkrumah made known this one-party government idea and Gbedemahwho had no prior knowledge of or any hand in this,was kicked out of government on September 26, 1961.
Kwabena continued to read. Gbedemah was forthright in stating that ideally, any country could be one-party state, only if it is the will of the people, which they could only express in a referendum after free campaigning was permitted for all.
In the case of Ghana, such a referendum, could never be just and fair, as many political leaders, likely to express contrary opinion to Nkrumah were either in jail or have fled the country to avoid unjust imprisonment and molestation.
Without such referendum, Nkrumah and the CPP talked freely as if the decision was the will of the people.
In paragraph 12 of the document, Nkrumah stated that for these reasons, a one-party system provided the best answer for the problem of governance in Africa. Some wild dreams, Kwabena commented.
Less than a decade ago, Nkrumah’s clarion call, on the C.P.P. platform was for the people’s help to throw out the colonial rulers and in their places set up a democratic “government of the people, for the people, by the people”, which they, the people, would have the right to throw out and vote others in their place when the elected no longer ruled according to their promises, either through sheer inefficiency or even through over-ambition and megalomania.
That was the democracy Nkrumah called upon the people to support him to establish.
He never called upon them to put him and his party into power for all time, by eliminating and crushing any form of opposition that could offer an alternative government to the nation when his own became bad and intolerable. If today, politicians are called liars and breakers of campaign promises, then all these originated from Nkrumah.
On campaign trail, he promised cocoa farmers that he would increase the producer price of the commodity when voted into power. When he won the elections, Nkrumah rather decreased the producer price by two-thirds and hedged it for four years, Kwabena lamented on how this man Nkrumah could lie.
The one man one vote theory which Nkrumah had championed, and which he used to springboard to political supremacy and popularity would become all men one vote, because there could never be a second set of politicians to vote for.
With Nkrumah, clearly showing that power tends to corrupt and absolute power tends to corrupt absolutely, to majority of Ghanaians, Ghana was still to be liberated and real democracy established for the people with power in their hands, to direct them to vote for which politicians can have a convincing programme for their welfare at election time. and vote them out,when they failed to carry out their promises or overcarry their promises.
In effect Ghana had been a one‐party state for some years, before Nkrumah made that announcement, Kwabena Amikaketo recalled. The opposition United party was all but defunct, with only a few legislators representing the Opposition in Parliament, where they were officially known as the Minority.
Nkrumah made sure that opposition MPs were either lured to cross carpet to join the CPP, or had false charges placed on them and jailed under the PDA or fled the country. Then bye-elections were held and rigged to favour the CPP candidates. This was democracy under Nkrumah.
Today, people like Kwesi Pratt Jnr., could accuse and insult governments which did less than the worst things Nkrumah, did. When it comes to Ghana’s first president,Kwesi and these people shiver in their underwear and praise and adore him as if he was a god.
Kwabena’s sweet daughter, Echelle, was coming to usher him to his bed. Tomorrow, he would contemplate on the 7-Year Development Plan and end this on Kwesi Pratt Jnr., the day after, with who is a founder.
Hon. Daniel Dugan
