Maybe, some Free SHS will do for K. Pratt Jnr.! (2): What about JB?
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 very chilled with temperatures hovering around 24ºC. That was tropical winter here, but hot summer in the temperate zone.
Kwabena was still trying to remember the title of the story he read in that collection of Yoruba stories by Bakare Gbadamosi and Ulli Beier, entitled “Not Even God Is Ripe Enough.” It was about a father, a son and slaves.
Mr. Kwesi Pratt Jnr., had the pedigree of condemning everything UP,for to him, that tradition had never done anything good for this country.
He was recently on air making a statement which to Kwabena implied that people should not push him to bring things from history. But what history did Kwesi Pratt Jnr., know?
To Kwabena, Kwesi Pratt Jnr., had rather exposed his gross ignorance about history. In fact, Kwabena could best describe him as “a very decorated ignoramus who celebrates his ignorance with such pomp and pageantry.”Kwesi speaks as if he was well vested in what he talked about, and had such authority on the subject matter as if he was there when the event took place.
But, Kwesi was only twelve years old when Nkrumah was overthrown. Not when Nkrumah formed government in 1951 or declared independence in 1957, but when he was overthrown in 1966.
Instead of reading true accounts of historical facts before appearing in public, just as Kwabena always does, Kwesi would just celebrate his ignorance by telling the whole world what had formed in his mischievous mind, the ideal way to support his course as an Nkrumaist socialist.
Kwesi Pratt Jnr., said Dr. J.B. Danquah was only a regional chairman of the UGCC; Dr. J.B. Danquah never won any elections; Dr. J.B. Danquah only suggested that this country was to be called Akan-Land, among others.
History has it that among the leading members of the UGCC, George (Pa) Grant was elected the chairman; J.B. Danquah, the founder of the Youth Conference, was elected 1st Vice-Chairman and R.S. Blay, as 2nd Vice-Chairman, and R.A. Awoonor was elected Treasurer.
Other members included, E.A. Akufo-Addo; J.W. de Graft Johnson; Obetsebi Lamptey; Ako Adjei, Kobina Kessie; E. A. W. Ofori-Atta and John Tsiboe. Kwabena recollected this information from history books including Ghana: Evolution and Change in the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries – Adu Boahen.
Dr. J.B. Danquah won the election in Akim Abuakwa Central in 1951, but Kwesi Pratt Jnr. Is contesting this. He should go to the Supreme Court to challenge that result.
At any rate what was Kwesi Pratt Jnr.’s personal record in elections? In 1996, Kwesi stood on the ticket of the CPP at the Ayawaso Central constituency in the Greater Accra region.
He came third with only 5,621 votes or 7% of valid votes cast. The winner was Sheikh I.C. Quaye of NPP with 27,794 (34.60%), followed by Said Sinare of the NDC with 27,119 (33.80%). Kwesi Pratt Jnr., could not even get 10,000 votes out of the 62,453.
Kwabena remembered what Kwesi said at the Achimota Interchange area one evening when he addressed a rally organised by the Great Alliance which was an alliance between the NPP and People’s Convention Party.
Kwesi did not understand why he was not given nod by the NPP faction of the Alliance to stand as parliamentary candidate in his constituency and spewed out insults and threats. It was obvious that it was the right decision, because Kwesi was not popular even among his own and that very abysmal performance at the polls, showed.
And yet here he was condemning J.B. Danquah, who had, at least won, one election.
Kwabena considered the fact that, Kwesi Pratt Jnr., must go to school and learn history, if he still wanted to be in politics.
Then, there was this thing about Ghana and how it became the name of this country.The first person to make this suggestion was Rev. J. B. Anaman in his book, “The Gold Coast Guide” published in 1895.
Another was Lady Luggard, wife of the infamous Lord Luggard who spearheaded what came to be known as “Indirect Rule”, especially in West Africa.
Then, Rev. W. T. Balmer, a tutor at the Mfantsipim School, wrote about the connection to Ghana Empire, in 1926.
These publications and research piqued the interest of the Doyen of Gold Coast politics, Dr. J. B. Danquah who published his Book, “Akim-Abuakwa Handbook” in 1928, two years after Balmer’s book and thirty-three (33) years after J. B. Anaman first made the suggestion.
In this book, he proposed that the territory be referred to as “Akanland” instead of The Gold Coast, a suggestion that drew sharp criticism. He later suggested “Akan-Ga” as a replacement which failed to acknowledge the other ethnic groups.The Newspaper “West Africa”, called him out once again in an editorial, it wrote:
“It appears Dr Danquah’s view of nationhood does not extend to the non-Akan population of the Northern Territories”. Upon further deliberations and discussions, Danquah came out with “New Ghana”.
Kwabena recalled reading this from “How the Republic of Ghana got its name at Independence” by Braperucci.
Kwabena became pensive. It seemed the onus to find the Gold Coast a name fell on J.B. Danquah, after all. Because, anytime he came out with a name, he was asked to go back to the drawing board and come out with something acceptable.
It was when he came out with “Ghana,” that everyone that mattered accepted that name.
Kwabena kept asking whether, indeed, the ethnic groups in modern Ghana actually descended from the Ghana Empire? The Gas and the Dangbes claimed they came from Israel, through Abyssinia (Ethiopia).
Evidence that the Akans, were also from Israel, showed in some similarities in the following.
In Hebrew, most of the words are the same as the Akan; in religion the Akans are close to the Hebrew religion, for the God of Saturday which is Kwame Tweeduapon has to do with the Hebrew Sabbath and the Creator and moreover, research has shown that traces of the Kente cloth can be found only in the traditions of ancient Israel.
The Asantes must have descended from Heaven, and were probably in such a hurry, because that is how we can explain why they forgot to come along with the Golden Stool, which was later sent down to them through Okomfo Anokye.
So, which ethnic group came from ancient Ghana, Kwabena, resolved to find out. Moreover, what was wrong with J.B. Danquah suggesting that the Gold Coast should be called Akan-Land, which made Kwesi Pratt Jnr., jump out of his seat?
Akan was and is still the largest ethnic group in modern Ghana. J.B. Danquah could have been justified by calling this country Akan-Land, to identify with the largest ethnic group in the country.
It seems modern Ghana, with forty-years under socialist regimes, always seems to cherish non-Ghanaian names. The largest river, Volta River, is from a Portuguese word, “volta”which means twist or turn. We still call Ogua, Cape Coast; Edina, Elmina and Akyenfo or Akyemfo, Saltpond.
Kwabena Amikaketo, wanted to fashion out the reason why Kwesi Pratt Jnr., so much hated Dr. J.B. Danquah. But try as much as he could, he never found anything that Kwesi could hold against the doyen of politics.
In 1944, in celebration of the centenary of the Bond of 1844, J.B. Danquah and his Youth Conference organised lectures nationwide and J.B. called for “Terms of a New Bond of 1944” to push for a federation of the Colony, Asante, Northern Territories and British Togoland.
If J.B. pushed for this, how could Kwesi have the courage to blatantly lie that J.B. and the parties in opposition to the CPP, did not support the union of Trans Volta Togoland with Ghana? They supported, but unlike Nkrumah, they did not rig the Plebiscite as Kwesi suggested Nkrumah did.
In 1945, J.B. Danquah and his Youth Conference protested the recommendation of the Walter Elliot Commission that only one university college was to be built for the whole of British West Africa and demanded a separate University College of the Gold Coast.
This protest championed by J.B. Danquah was supported by the Achimota Council, the Central Advisory Committee on Education and the Joint Provincial Council of Chiefs.
In the end the British Government agreed and the University College of the Gold Coast was established in 1948. At that time Nkrumah was not known. Kwabena accepted the proposal that the University of Ghana should be renamed J.B. Danquah University.
In his resolve to fight against bad treatment meted out to farmers by the colonial masters in the late 1930’s, J.B. Danquah boldly made this comment. “…the secret is the farmers’ will and determination to fight against a principle of exploitation, the turning of a free peasant community of individual producers into a “commodity” of the labour market, these instruments in the hands of international capitalists, who have come to take the famers’ little for nothing.”
Dr. J.B. Danquah loved the Gold Coast and Ghana and meant well for this country. Even though he was out of Parliament in 1954, he still made contributions on how best to govern this nation and make her prosperous. He continued this after independence, calling out mistakes Nkrumah was making and coming out with sound recommendations.
He was imprisoned under the PDA and had to die in his cell. Joe Appiah in his “The Man Danquah” described J.B’s last moment on earth as follow; “… J.B. returned from his morning bath on 4th February 1965 to find that his little cell had been ransacked and all his belonging including his Holy Bible, thrown about on the floor; the usual search had been conducted – but this time it appears to have been conducted with venom and spleen! Before this incident, he had been chained, off and on, by the legs, for some considerable length of time. Shocked and incensed by the latest act of ‘man’s inhumanity to man,’ J.B. flew into a rage, and for the first time, poured a pile of abuses on the offending warder; the intensity of his fury was such that a heart attack was brought on, resulting in his collapse and instant death.”
For speaking out against inhumane rules, this man of peace had to die.The way Kwesi attacks the UP Tradition and its current government, he would have been jailed had it been in the Nkrumah CPP era, when all human rights were curtailed.
Kwabena Amikaketo, heard Echelle coming and he got up and went to the door, to be ushered to bed, by his beautiful daughter. “Tomorrow, I will meditate on Nkrumah and who he actually was, through the eyes of his close friend and companion, K.A. Gbedemah,” he said to himself, went Echelle left for her room.
Hon Daniel Dugan
The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect The Chronicle’s stance.
