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The Tales of June 4 and The 1948 Riots
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The Tales of June 4 and The 1948 Riots
Review- What accounted for the 28 February 1948 civil riots and the June 4 1979 military Uprising?
ABSTRACT
Naval Captain Baffour Assasie-Gyimah(Rtd)- ‘Mythoughts– Reflections On 4th June’ [Revolution]: “June 4th which was an uprising at that time was then considered salvation because it had a semblance of restoring, order and sanity into the Ghana Armed Forces and the political system. In the end lives were lost, some very unfortunately and some perceived to be deserving. Whatever lives that were lost could not be brought back and so very regrettable. These were the heroes of the revolution; But for their blood the country would not have been the same. Others were punished for their culpability. You would be surprised to hear that people were shot dead ostensibly for taking bank loans of not more than Fifty Cedis at the time! Look at Our Beloved Country now or cast your mind back to at least the last fifteen years and determine for yourselves whether Ghanaians have learnt any lessons. For me, the perpetual flame of 4th June which we celebrate today reminds me that fellow citizens paid the supreme prize for less. That is why I am using this occasion of the 35th Anniversary of 4th June to invite all of us on the four obvious matters that have the potential to drag this our beloved country back to a situation far worse than what some people considered to be far worse than unwelcome on 4th June 1979. See how the country is polarised. See the extent of indiscipline in the country see how filth has engulfed us and also see how all our institutions are corrupted to the core, from politicians almost to the last man…”
COMMENTARY & ANALYSIS
As at 1948 the Ghanaian soldier, in comparison to his/her counter-part in the civil service was arguably, poor and less educated. Those few Gold Coasters who had managed to make it to the officers level as Colonel Baidoo once told, had started as raw recruits and had rose to their heights through verifiable hard work, demonstrated regimental obedience and sometimes, through sheer luck as power, began to slip slowly from the hands of their superior White British officers. We observe in passing that many indigenous Gold Coast soldiers, had been perhaps, drafted into the West African Frontier Force not on their own volition but as a matter of necessity for the colonial government who was engaged in series of battles both at home and at abroad. Some of these fighters were Sergeant Adjetey and Corporal Attipoe, whose standoff to British system in Accra, evoked the 28 February 1948 nation-wide riots and self-rule.
At the end of the Second World War, the Gold Coast was entering a period of economic, social and political malaise. The prices of imported goods were exceptionally high and the Colonial Government was according to Francis Adigkwe (1975), attempting to have all disease-infected cocoa trees destroyed. Then was the acute unemployment, arising from the following: firstly, many of the ex-service men had left the army and returned home. Secondly, the elementary schools were producing standard six schools leavers. Both these groups were unskilled, possessing only low clerical skills. Although compared with the pre-war period, Adigkwe notes that the Gold Coast economy was in a state of boom, it was not expanding fast enough to accommodate these unskilled people- the issue was their indeterminate status and role in society. Western education had alienated them from what would have been their traditional status in society. However, the low level of education also barred them from membership of the intelligentsia and educated elite. All these problems compounded were enough to be political dynamite.
“The atmosphere remained ominously calm until 28 February 1948 when the Police at the Christiansberg, opened fire on the ex-service men who were on peaceful parade at the Crossroads near the Governor’s residence. The incident spread like wild fire to towns and cities other than Accra, where 29 persons lost their lives, 235 persons received serious injuries, and property worth £2 million, damaged. The loss of life and property greatly exceeded the immediate causes of the riots which were the local grievances of the ex-service men. For other groups with other grievances, the shooting was exploited as an opportunity to express their dissatisfaction. Among these groups were cocoa farmers who could not understand why the Cocoa Marketing Board was not giving the full world market price for cocoa.” Other grievances were championed by Nii Kwabena Booney- chief of Osu Alata- namely concerns over the very high prices of goods imported from England which added to the profits of the essentially British-controlled commercial class at a time of unemployment. The suspicions of southern-based politicians and the feeling of political insecurity ushered in the political awakening of the Ashanti.
In the Colonial Government’s bid to crush the disturbances the six United Gold Coast Convention (UGCC) leaders- namely: JB. Dankwa, Edward Akufo-Addo, Obetsebi Lamptey, Arko-Adjei, William Ofori-Atta and Kwame Nkrumah, known otherwise as the “Big Six”, were arrested. This first briefings from Lieutenant-Colonel David Rees-Williams- the then Labour Member of Parliament for Croydon South Constituency and Under-Secretary of State, said this at House of Commons’ Debate of 01 March 1948: “Rioting occurred in Accra on the afternoon of 28th February. A parade organised by the ex-Service men's Union, which is not recognised by the Gold Coast Legion, got out of hand while it was proceeding to present a petition to senior officers of the Secretariat and Labour Department. The procession was to follow a route agreed with the Commissioner of Police and was then to disperse. But in contravention of the agreed arrangement the procession, reinforced by other elements, attempted to march on Christiansberg Castle, the residence of the Governor. No request had been made by the Union to see the Governor and the procession was in very ugly temper, many taking part being drunk.”
Thus, by inference, the rioters were deemed as drunkards and perhaps, without any serious grievance. Accordingly, the Military forces were ordered in to enforce law and order and by midnight, Accra was under control but only to resurface. Therefore, curfew was imposed in certain parts of Accra and with regulations to control traffic and close roads. In a follow-up inquiry to the state of Accra and the riots, Mr. James Hudson- Ealing North MP (Labour Co-operative) puzzled: “As the Minister has just admitted that a considerable number of the participants in these troubles were drunk, will he now propose to take away the considerable increase of drinking facilities that have recently been made by the Government in these parts of the world?” The Under-Secretary said: “I am not aware that any increase in the facilities has taken place on the Gold Coast in recent years.” How could have such a huge agitators be all drunk?
The troubles of 1948 were in part, swiftly pushed on elements of communists agitators in the country. Yet like the timed-bombed of the June 4 1979 military revolt, the background to the 1948 though could have some embedded political undercurrents, its immediate outburst, was purely economic grievance- on the part of the returning war veterans, not forgetting the general public whose general condition and welfare as history tells us, could be described no more than the following adjectives: poor and needy? The Watson Commission later identified the following as the causes of the 1948 riots as those rooted in socio-political and economic. There was the feeling of political frustrations among the educated Gold Coasters who saw no prospect of ever experiencing political power and who regarded the 1946 Burns Constitution as a mere window-dressing designed to cover their aspirations. Like the current jobless university graduates, perceptions of post 1948 and 1979 republics, the commission yes, also found in 1948 that governance of our country through the chiefs was also a major cause of the political agitation.
Thus, similar to our current trials in respect to the overbearing executive and parliament, the Watson Commission concluded among other things which appear also to be relevant in our current Republic that a substantial measure of constitutional reform was necessary to meet the legitimate aspirations of the indigenous population and made detailed recommendations: establishment of a full representative government. Local authorities were to have elected majorities, while retaining some traditional elements. It proposed an elected Regional Council and a central Legislative Assembly which nearly all members would be elected either directly or indirectly by popular vote. The Committee also proposed the reconstitution of the Executive Council to become responsible for the formulation of policy. But such reforms could not stop the onward march to independence/self-rule which came on 06 March 1957. Dr Nkrumah drove on the back 1948 riots and by 04 September 1961; the Ghana Railway Workers Union had dug CPP’s grave with a massive strike against economic hardships and ideological meddling.
Our history has it that the national strikes were among others, in protest against rises in the cost of living following the introduction of an austerity budget in July, and notably against a compulsory savings scheme. We mention in passing that as usual leading opposition members such as Dr. J. B. Danquah and Mr. Joe Appiah were some of the suspects and subjected to arrest, including Mr. Patrick Quaidoo- a CPP Cabinet member until May 1961. President Nkrumah cut short his holiday in the U.S.S.R. to return to Ghana on 16.September and on 28 September also asked six members of his Government, including two Cabinet Ministers (Mr K. A. Gbedemah and Mr Kojo Botsio), to resign in view of what he termed as their “varied business connexions”; that six other Ministers and members of the Government had accepted his request that they should surrender parts of their assets to the State; and that he had drawn the attention of the Speaker of the National Assembly to “the extensive nature of his business interests.” [xx]
By 24 February 1966, the military which were once deployed in 1948 to forestall law and order had putsch the CPP government out of office and some of the main accusation leveled against it were corruption and economic mismanagement. Post-1948 riots accounted for two republics of 1960 and 1969 - championed by Dr Nkrumah and Professor Kofi Abrefa-Busia of CPP and Progress Party (PP), respectively. Both the National Liberation Council (NLC) of 24 February 1966 and the National Redemption Council (NRC) of 13 January 1972 military coups accused their immediate civilian governments of bribery and corruption. In justifying the overthrow of Progress Party (PP), the NRC’s leader: Colonel I. K. Acheampong, is quoted to have raised the following issues about the country [xx]:
First: deteriorating state of the economy, and particularly, the negative repercussions of the devaluation of the cedi; the alleged corruption of the Busia-led regime and third, their (ousted government’s) inability to show any understanding for the conditions of the common man. At his first press conference, Col Acheampong did not only deplore the previous government’s lack of "... will to act decisively on this (economic) crisis..." but further attacked "... the system that exploited the ordinary people, the workers and the farmers on whose sweat and toil the wheel of the economy turns..." The June 4 uprising triumphed against the backdrop of an abortive mutiny of May 15, 1979 which led to the arrest, detention and the rescue of Flt-Lt J.J. Rawlings. We paraphrase what Rawlings said on 30 June 1979 following the overthrow of the byproduct of the Acheampong-orchestrated Supreme Military Council (SMCI & II):
“…the AFRC is not to stop the return to civilian rule but to clear up the mess created by the previous regimes. The action represented a revolt of the ordinary Ghanaian against social injustice, against economic hardship and against the cancer of corruption that had eaten deep into the fabric of our society,” Chairman J.J Rawlings emphasized this on Radio and TV broadcast. Some of General F.W.K Akuffo’s political woes were said to be employment of orthodox devices in the implementation of his economic policies. Thus, to curtail inflation, he for example, “reduced the monetary supply by holding back increases in government expenditures to 11 per cent in 1978-1979 (in contrast to 59 per cent the previous fiscal year), which in turn necessitated a clampdown on government borrowing from the Central Bank.” Those who were grown enough under Akufos regime still recall to memory how in August, 1978, the SMCII regime devalued the cedi by 58.2% against the US$, (i.e from 1.15 to 2.75).
Then was one of the said evils of the SMCI & II- manipulations of import license that in the opinion of AFRC, allegedly, favoured its few military and civilian cronies. No wonder, numerous business entrepreneurs- most notably, the B.B. Brothers and the J. K. Siaws of fame, not forgetting expatriate firms, were targeted and by the AFRC revolutionary benchmarks, their assets seized or confiscated. The AFRC, according to the NRC Final Report, ruled for 112 days before handing over power on 24 September 1979, to the Dr Hilla Limann-led elected Peoples National Party (PNP) government. Some of the AFRC’s political trump cards which the PNP struggled to measure up were the said 'House cleaning' debut against bribery and corruption and confiscation of what was then termed as ill-gotten private assets. The military putsch also claimed the lives of the country’s three former military heads of state- namely: Lieutenant-General Akwasi Amankwaa Afrifa; General Kutu Acheampong and Lieutenant-General Frederick William Akuffo, by open execution at the Teshie Military Range on 26 June 1979.
In addition to this were five Supreme Military Council’s top-hierarchy- Rear-Admiral Joy Kobla Amedume (Navy Commander); Air-Vice-Marshal George Yaw Boakye (Air Force); Major-General Robert Ebenezer Abossey Kotei(Chief of Defence Staff); Major-General E.K. Utuka(Border Guards) and Colonel Roger Joseph Felli(Foreign Affairs), were summarily found corrupt by the AFRC’s Special Court and accordingly, also executed by firing squad. Today, Naval Captain Baffour Assasie-Gyimah (Rtd)- an AFRC/[P]NDC enthusiast, who seems worried about corrupted judgment debts, states there is too much corruption in Ghana. “Ghanaians have become too bold and fearless of the repercussions corruption. Gone are the days when politicians were scared of displaying even whatever wealth they had legitimately acquired. Now they do not care to show how many mansions they have built within the short period of entering politics when they can never explain how their earnings could account for the sudden wealth. Why can’t we Ghanaians enter politics to serve? Why can’t we be like the President of Uruguay who still lives in his own little house and still drives his 1986 VW Beetle vintage,” he puzzles.
This commentary is authored by Asante Fordjour and in contemplation of the 1948 riots and all the [un]resolved grievances that flew through it in Ghana- including a focal analysis on the June 4 revolt that atoned human blood. Today is 02 June and at the time of going to press the cedi-dollar rates, are Gh4.12:$1. The catchwords remain bribery, corruption, ostentatious lifestyle of politicians and threats of workers’ revolts. It’s unclear whether Ghana could unite itself on these in our life time or generation. What the Ghana needs, respectfully, might be the focus to bring together the broken pieces of its internal blocks which continue to settle after some half-a-century internal/external demolitions and wreckage! The Ghanaian leader must begin to see the prudence in creating wealth for all its peoples- especially, through education and training of its impoverished and dejected youth rather than putting themselves, families and friends ahead- at the apex of Africa's human development indexes and economic successes.
Thus, whatever we are doing or whichever position we find yourself in Ghana, we ought to pause for a moment and to reflect, whether our [in]actions measure up to the ideals and principles of June 4 1979. If the answers are no, then one could predict without hesitations that the jobless and hopeless youth of our generation unlike those intelligentsias and the socio-economically distressed and frustrated army veteran or active service personnel of ancient; who also fought for political inclusion and independence, [as the current Mediterranean Sea catastrophe for which the African leadership or the African Union (AU) appeared helpless to its citizens], might soon crave for recolonization of his country- rather than the cause of the African Unity rhetoric. It might be just a matter of time and the African leader indeed need to Act Now! As Baffour Assasie-Gyimah cautions our country, it could be too late- Ghana is headed closer to the precipice and to our own destruction if we do not yes, stop the greed now; and don’t even look back.
JusticeGhana
No commentsWhere Is The Senchi Consensus – Bawumia
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Where Is The Senchi Consensus – Bawumia
The New Patriotic Party’s (NPP) vice presidential candidate, Dr. Mahamadu Bawumia is questioning the relevance of the Senchi Forum held in May 2014 since the decisions arrived at are yet to be implemented.
Speaking on US based Sahara TV, Dr. Bawumia said the Mahama government’s Senchi forum was a façade. In May 2014, the government organized a national economic forum in which experts from the various sectors of the economy, political parties’ representatives and the leadership of labour unions met to deliberate on the effective ways of dealing with the nation’s socio-economic challenges.
The NPP however boycotted the forum, citing the late delivery of the invitation as the primary cause for their decision. The forum ended with the adoption of a 22 point communiqué, called the “Senchi Consensus.”
The Minority Members of Parliament (MPs) questioned the effectiveness of the consensus saying, it failed to address the core issue of corruption which is hurting the country’s economy.
According to Dr. Bawumia, although the NPP received heavy public backlash for critiquing the consensus, “the events after Senchi have proven us right.”
He said: “Senchi came out with a 22 point recommendation. Now you ask yourself how many of the 22 recommendation have been implemented.”
The former Deputy Bank of Ghana (BoG) Governor pointed out that one of the key recommendations out of the Senchi report was that taxes will no longer be increased in order to reduce the tax burden on the Ghanaians and also recommended that that new mechanisms should be devised to widen the tax net.
“This was the key recommendation out if Senchi. Immediately after that, they went for the budget and what happened was that they increased all sorts of taxes and in 2015, they have increased again, all sorts of taxes so this Senchi was supposed to be the considered opinion of our experts and now you’ve totally ignored that so what was it for?” he queried.
Dr. Bawumia stressed that the NPP really doesn’t “think it was a sincere effort to bring consensus in the management of the economy.”
Source: Citifmonline.com
The Exodus: Truth or Myth?
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The Exodus: Truth or Myth?
… “And Moses said unto the people- Do not fear! Stand and see the deliverance of Hashem which he shall do for you this day. For as you have seen Egypt this, day, never will you see it again.” (Exodus 14:13)
Ghana Must Implement Strict Measures For Bailout - IMF
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Ghana Must Implement Strict Measures For Bailout - IMF
The Managing Director of the International Monetary Fund (IMF), Ms Christine Lagarde, has stated that what Ghana needs now to restore its economic health is strict implementation of measures agreed on under the new IMF programme.
She said the country must also implement those measures intended to diversify the economy to reduce vulnerabilities.
Ms Lagarde said this when she responded to questions posted to her by the Daily Graphic through the email yesterday in which she bluntly stated why the country was facing the current economic challenges and what should be done to address them.
What went wrong
According to her, “Ghana made tremendous strides over the past 15 years and ranked among the fast-growing countries in Africa that have made significant progress in poverty reduction, but the discovery of oil might have given the illusion that the public finance imbalances would get resolved easily.
“This may have weakened the sense of fiscal discipline. But, in reality, oil revenues flowing to the budget have been relatively limited, compared with other oil producers (less than three per cent of Gross Domestic Product (GDP) or about $35 per capita in 2014). As a consequence, public debt has more than doubled since Ghana received debt relief in 2005,” she added.
The outspoken IMF chief said unfortunately, Ghana’s large borrowing was not generally used for investments but rather to finance large recurrent spending, pointing out that the debt service, which was now very high, further constrained spending in priority sectors such as social protection and key infrastructure.
“The key to success lies in Ghana’s commitment to put in place measures that address the underlying causes of the huge budget deficits we have seen in the recent past.
“On that score, I am encouraged by the commitment to the current measures on the part of senior officials in the government, including the President. As in the past, the IMF will support the implementation of the government’s programme, both financially and through technical and policy advice,” Ms Lagarde said.
Decision to seek bailout
In August 2014, the government turned to the IMF for financial support and technical advice as it battled to overcome serious macroeconomic instability caused by a hefty budget deficit of 11.6 per cent of GDP recorded in 2012, followed by another double-digit deficit of 10.4 per cent of GDP in 2013.
Before the call on the IMF, the government had been implementing its own home-grown stabilisation measures which involved a mixture of tax hikes and expenditure retrenchment that brought pain to Ghanaians even as President John Mahama insisted they were necessary to ride the economic storm.
The implementation of the home-grown measures faced several hiccups, including a sustained fall in the value of the cedi, a power crisis which dented growth and a general lack of confidence among public and private investors in the government’s commitment to its own reform agenda.
The IMF support was, therefore, required to gain policy credibility and the confidence of investors.
After many rounds of negotiations, the IMF Executive Board approved an extended credit facility (ECF) programme for Ghana on April 3, 2015.
Three pillars
Discussing the details of the package, Ms Lagarde said: “Ghana will receive $920 million during the three years covered by the programme. The programme rests on three main pillars.”
The first tranche was expected to hit the Bank of Ghana’s foreign accounts by the close of day yesterday.
“First, a strong fiscal adjustment to restore debt sustainability, as public debt is now 67.5 per cent of GDP and without corrective measures it is projected to increase and could become unsustainable. This will be done by taking measures to collect more revenue and restrain the wage bill, which more than doubled in real terms in the last five years.
“Second, structural reforms to strengthen public finances and fiscal discipline by improving budget transparency, cleaning up and controlling the payroll and restructuring the civil service.
“Third, strengthening the monetary policy framework to help reduce the high inflation which, as always, hurts the poor more, and preserving financial sector stability,” she added.
She explained further that to alleviate the potential adverse impact of the fiscal adjustment on the most vulnerable in society, the government was committed to safeguarding priority spending under the programme, including expanding the targeted social safety net.
“For example, the Ghana Shared Growth and Development Agenda outlines several social protection and safety net interventions, including increased funding of the Livelihood Empowerment Against Poverty (LEAP) programme, which is expected to expand to cover 150,000 households in 2015,” Ms Lagarde said.
Projections
The projections in the IMF programme envisage a sharp contraction of economic growth from 4.1 per cent in 2014 to 3.5 per cent in 2015, before growth recovers to 6.4 per cent in 2016 and 9.2 per cent in 2017.
Over this period, the budget deficit is expected to be brought down from 9.4 per cent in 2014 to 3.7 per cent in 2017, while the debt-to-GDP ratio will stabilise at just above 60 per cent of GDP.
Ms Lagarde expressed support for the government’s transformation agenda, noting that it rightly focused on leveraging the country’s natural and human resource endowments and agricultural potential to diversify the economy through export-led growth and industrial development.
“In this regard, it is crucial for the government to create fiscal space for infrastructure investment and prioritise investment in energy generation and distribution, which has become one of the most significant constraints to growth.
“We think that the package of reforms supported under the Millennium Challenge Account is important to improve governance and accelerate private investment in the energy sector. What is needed now is strong implementation of these steps that can help diversify the economy over time,” she added.
Source: Graphic.com.gh
The Foment of Ghana’s Liberations
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The Foment of Ghana’s Liberations
A Review of Kwame Nkrumah’s problems with the UP traditionalists, “old comrades”, Preventive Detention Act (PDA) and the Political Death of JB Danquah and the CPP
BRIEFS & MEMOS
Prof Justice A. K. P. Kludze [1]- (Human Rights, Individual Freedoms and Democracy in Ghana- the Preventive Detention Act and After): “After the ignominious fall of Kwame Nkrumah from power, the notorious Preventive Detention Act, one of the legacies of that repressive era, was repealed. The thousands of prisoners still being held in prisons under that pernicious law were promptly released. There was jubilation throughout the country as those falsely imprisoned were able to return home to join their families. The atmosphere in the whole country was buoyant. It did not matter that some of the returning detainees were sick and infirm as a result of the long years of unlawful incarceration under horrendous conditions. There was hope that Ghana would chart a new course of freedom and justice after the end of Nkrumah’s dictatorship…Those who today, do not revel in the repeal of the Preventive Detention Act, continue to say that it was the American Central Intelligence (C.I.A.) which rescued Ghanaians from dictatorship. If the C.I.A. was powerful enough to do this in far away Africa, one wonders why it could not overthrow the communist regime only 90 miles off the American shores in Cuba…” The counter argument had been that unlike Fidel Castro of Cuba, in the Republic of Ghana, ‘Nkrumah strove to follow the advice of his mentor- George Padmore, who lies buried in Christianborg Castle to pursue a social[construction]revolution without waiting to consolidate the national revolution?’
COMMENTARY
The leaders of the 1966 military coup, including army officer colonel E.K. Kotoka, Major A.A. Afrifa, Lieutenant-General J.A. Ankrah (Rtd), and Police Inspector-General J.W.K Harley, justified their takeover by alleging that the CPP was abusive and corrupt. They were equally astonished by Nkrumah’s aggressive meddling in Africa politics and by his fatwa that Ghanaian troops could be sent anywhere in Africa to fight so-called liberation wars, even though they never did so. That aside, they lamented over the absence of democratic practices in our country- reasoning that this had affected the morale of the armed forces. According to General Kotoka, the military putsch of 1966 was a nationalist call because it liberated the nation from Nkrumah’s dictatorship- this declaration was supported by Nkrumah’s own former minister of foreign affairs: Alext Quaison Sackey. But today too, overconcentration of power on the presidency, hero-worshipping, ideological proliferation at all-level of society- including economic mismanagement, remains a hallmark of Ghanaian politics, heralding a call for new liberations or change.
In his book- Gold Coast in Transition, anthropologist David E. Apter [2]- who spent a considerable time in the Gold Coast examining the effect of political modernization–both through British rule and the development of self-government–on the traditional ways of life, tribal government, the structures of economic and political power, among others, ploughed extensive fields in relation to the background to this political epoch. The result, as Henry L. Roberts, put it in his book review of 1956, highlights not only the roles and influences of the traditional authorities and the emerging nationalist or the intelligentsias in the post-independence democratic Ghana but also, a comprehensive analysis of a process and the outcome of which was at the time not clearly discernible. Not forgetting the teeming youthful CPP disciples who saw their political bid being ditched by the life-leadership of the Osagyefo?
By virtue of Article 8(1) of the 1960 Constitution, President Kwame Nkrumah was named as the first president of the republic. He had no vice-president- neither from within his own Convention People’s Party (CPP) nor outside of it. History had it that his political or ideological counter-weight was one JB Danquah of the United Gold Coast Convention (UGCC) or the amalgamation of opposing political force to be named United Party (UP) and perhaps, once, one of the Nkrumah’s political employers. No wonder JB Danquah became what historians could describe as the shadow of political and ideological threat or should we say, the prime suspect of all the political upheavals and periodic assassination attempts directed at Nkrumah’s person. Most notable- being the Kululungu bomb attack which led to the arrest and detention of some of the CPP inner-cells such as Ebenezer Ako-Adjei and Tawia Adamafio.
The President was returning from the then Upper Volta, now known as Burkina Faso, after peace talks and to negotiate among others, for the construction of the Volta Dam, with the then Upper Volta President- Maurice Yameogo. He decided to make a stop-over at Kulungugu, to acknowledge the chiefs, school children and people of this village, who had line-up in waiting for hours under scorching sun to meet him. During this reception, a bomb that had been shrouded in a bouquet of flower was given to a young school pupil, to be presented to the Osagyefo on behalf of the people, exploded, injurig the schoolgirl. This ignited emergency security measures that were to be unpopular with many Ghanaians.
In his article “The Price of Progress”, George W. Shepherd, Jr. [3], offers some insight about the 11 August1962 attack, stating it is not a simple matter to untangle the complex web of conflicts in Ghana and to point to the precise sources of the violence as not all the evidence has been presented. Yet, he describes Nkrumah’s goals and indicates the major sources of opposition to them: “A few days after the Osagyefo (President Nkrumah) had been hailed as a “liberator” by the 11th Congress of the Convention People’s Party (CP) with women strewing garments in the street and singing “Lead Kindly Light,” a bomb explosion at Kulungungu nearly took his life. Following a such second bomb attack in Accra, martial law was declared and the army began a house-to-house search for the terrorist. Several people were arrested, including a member of high officials: Coffie Crabbe- executive Secretary of the CPP; Ako Adjei- Foreign Minister; and Tawia Adamafio- Minister of Information. These disturbing events have led to considerable speculation that the power structure of Nkrumah was crumbling. Is this the case?”
Indeed since history is said be written from ideological or class perspective, the Trinidadian C.L.R James’ [4] book on Nkrumah’s Revolution, might be a recommended read, at least for those who seek better historical insight from a man who had been so close to Dr Nkrumah right from his heydays as independence nationalist agitator and later, as a Pan-African crusader and messiah. So for example, from journalistic and legal interests, we dare register however, that since governments and even regimes around the world take credits for all good omen that are bestowed on their countries/nations even where they had neither played little nor a role in such heights/achievements, it could be inferred from the perspective of the said unverified JB Danquah’s Nsawam Prisons Cell’s Letters that Nkrumah could vicariously, hardly escape personal and indeed the presidential responsibility for JB Danquah’s death.
James has this comment about the Osagyefo and his Ghana’s Revolution: “In 1963 I had occasion to write to him of my concern at a second attempt to assassinate him: I implied that something was seriously wrong with a regime in which there were two attempts at assassinating the political head of state: I knew that in 1957 over large part of Ghana Nkrumah could have walked for days without single attendant. His reply to this letter I found most lacking in his customary political sense…. I was deeply disturbed about the way things were going….The continuous crisis in Ghana had reached a climax when Nkrumah dismissed his Chief Justice for giving a judicial decision which he disapproved… this act showed the degeneration not only of the [CPP] regime but of his own conception of government…”[ibid]
With its sustained electoral fortunes and roll-overs, spanning from the beginning of the 1950s to the first-quarter in the 1960s, the CPP and Nkrumah had the mandate and the power to revoke a Supreme Court decision, dismissed its panel of judges [Justices W.B. Van Lare, Edward Akuffo Addo and Chief Justice K. Arku-Korsah] and called for a retrial and conviction of some of the said suspected Kulungugu mastermind bombers- when the court set the three- Tawia Adamafio, Ako Adjei and Coffie Crabbe, free and convicted an opposition Member of Parliament- R.B Otchere, and Yaw Manu, an opposition activist, who had pleaded guilty for their various roles in the Kulungugu bomb attack. Thus, when on 9 December 1963 the justices handed its verdict which appeared unfavourable to the President, he swiftly invoked his special power granted under the 1960 Constitution and by 10th December 1963, Nkrumah had revoked the ruling “null and void”, and on 25 December 1963, dispatching Chief Justice Arku Korsah and the other two judges who together with the Chief Justice presided over the Special Court.[5]
The newly constituted “Special Court” was branded with a new Chief Justice of Ghana- one Mr. Justice J. Sarkodee-Adoo as the sole member, sitting with, as Dr Ako-Adjei remembers- a jury of twelve young-men, recruited from the Kwame Nkrumah ideological College. The second trial was conducted partly in public in the Supreme Court Buildings in Accra and partly in camera at the Castle Osu, Accra. The public and the Press were excluded from the trial in camera. “During his summing up the Chief Justice, Mr. Justice Sakordee-Adoo wept bitterly and openly,” Dr Ako Adjei recorded in his autobiography. “The African Dream that he was amazed to see the Chief Justice weeping bitterly “with tears streaming down his cheeks.” It must be noted that on Monday 9th December, 1963, the Court, that sat from Friday 9th August 1963 through to Monday, 28th October 1963, acquitted the old comrades on all charges. [5]
Notwithstanding, they were not released from prison, but rather, together with two other convicts- and here, Robert Benjamin Otchere and Joseph Yaw Manu, taken back to the condemned cells at Nsawam Medium Security Prison on the orders of President Kwame Nkrumah. The convicts had earlier on been served with indictment or charges of the following:1) Conspiracy to commit Treason and 2) Treason. [5] Article 4(1) of the 1960 Constitution proclaims Ghana as a socialist unitary state- from monarchy to a republic and Article 8(2) confers Executive powers on the President and the position of Governor-General abolished and replaced with the President who combined the post of Governor-General and the Prime Minister post. The special powers under Art 8(3) of the Constitution, bestowed the commander-in-chief of the Ghana Armed Forces and a “Fount of Hournour” on the President. Art 8(4) states in exercise of his functions she or he was to act in his discretion and not bound to take anybody’s advice.
So for example, it appeared at the time that there existed little room to bring to a halt some of the said misguided and misinterpretations of some of the constitutional powers and the excesses of the PDA. Indeed there could be sure, other arguments to the contrary raised above. But in our contemporary Ghana, just ponder over these in passing: what if for example, ailing Tsatsu Tsikata of Presidential Petition fame or Honourbale Adamu Dramani- former Member of Parliament for Bawku Central had without presidential interventions of J.A. Kufuor and JD Mahama, perished in their various prison cells? Without motivation in the discussion of the relevant provisions in the PDA and the Re Akoto and The Supreme Court Revisited[6], we mention in passing the legal interpretation of Article 13(1) of the 1960 Constitution and here, in relation to its consistency with the PDA (1958 (No. 17 of 1958) under which the Seniour Linguist of the Asantehene- Baffour Osei Akoto, and Seven Others; and later, JB Danquah himself, who had on the 28th day of August 1961, been the lead counsel for said detained defendants.
The grounds for the detention of Baffour Osei Akoto, and Seven Others- namely: Peter Alex Danso (alias Kwaku Danso), Osei Assibey Mensah, Nana Antwi Bosiako (alias John Mensah), Joseph Kojo Antwi-Kusi (alias Anane Antwi-Kusi), Benjamin Kweku Owusu, Andrew Kojo Edusei, and Halidu Kramo, were summarily detained without trial on an offence “prejudicial to the security of the State”. That they encouraged the commission of acts of violence in the Ashanti and Brong-Ahafo and associated themselves with persons who have adopted a policy of violence as a means of achieving political aims in those regions. From the tone of JB’s letter, no formal charge was brought against him.
Professor Justice Klutze quotes His Grace Peter Akwasi Sarpong- Archbishop Emeritus of the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Kumasi, to have said this in one of his public lectures- “Truth, Integrity and Democratic Development: How Ghana is Faring.” “Kwame Nkrumah and his Convention People’s Party (CPP) came and demanded ‘self-government now.’ When he got it, he introduced very many worthy projects and in fact, he was ideologically so resourceful that most of the projects Ghana is now pursuing were all on his drawing board…..“But in the course of his great work for Ghana, he just disregarded the main reason why he was Head of State in the first place. He was Head of State to bring a measure of peace, love, abundance and security to Ghana. While he sought abundance, he forgot about human rights, the dignity of the human person; he forgot about the security of the Ghanaian; he became a tyrant…. The security that he was supposed to give to his people became a charade. He had no idea of integrity. People were oppressed; people were imprisoned because they did not follow him blindly…” [1]
But Nkrumah said in his October speech, following the Kululungu bomb attack ‘that his difficulties with old comrades arose because of “a certain individuals who, having satisfied themselves with the personal gains they derived from the first revolution [thus, independence or redemption from colonialism], found it difficult and were unwilling to move forward with the second revolution of economic and social construction.” Thus in his view, his problems with the tribal groups and the United Party (UP) are primarily attributable to their resentment over the transfer of power to the CPP, while his more recent troubles stem from the non-revolutionary interests in the both the country and the CPP. These dissidents have aligned themselves with foreign interests that find themselves damaged by the socialist and African liberation drives of Ghana. While this argument sounds plausible, does it account for the violence? [3]
It is found that the President’s troubles with the Ashanti were certainly related to the allocation of power following the national revolution. Some of those with the UP arose from the more conservative outlook of its intelligentsia leaders like Dr K.A. Busia who is said to have had little empathy with the masses and their revolution. “Pressing the pace of change of change in this relentless way inevitably arouses great opposition. While virtually all interests favoured independence, important groups have resisted increased taxation, tight trade controls, nationalization programs, local government reorganization, government control over education and the press, the liquidation of certain farm and trade union groups, and the consolidation of youth movements under the Young Pioneers…” In early 1964, in order to prevent future challenges from the judiciary, Nkrumah obtained a constitutional amendment allowing him to dismiss any judge. Eventually, Ghana became a one-party state with an act of parliament that ensured that there would be only one candidate for president-, who shall officially, come from the CPP. Thus the dreams and aspirations of other political parties were shredded into dustbin and no non-CPP candidates came forward to challenge the vacant slots in the general elections announced for June 1965.
CONCLUSION
Dr Kwame Nkrumah had been re-elected president of the country for less than a year when the military-cum-police (NLC) booted the CPP out of government on February 24, 1966 while Nkrumah was in China. He later sought asylum in Guinea, where he dwelt until he died in 1972. It might be worthy to note that all successive leaders that came after Nkrumah, had been directly or indirectly, accused of the very political crimes that CPP and its stalwarts of the 1960s were said to have committed. For most ordinary Gold Coasters in the 1940s, the 1946 Burns Constitution made wide ranging reforms. Yet at Saltpond the UGCC- JB Danquah and Paa George Grant among others, attacked the constitution and accordingly, labeled it as “outmoded at birth” because colonial government failed to tackle black pod diseases, the economic hardships during post-1945 war and the discontent of war veterans, not forgetting the 1948 shooting incident that erupted public hues and cries, and the advent of the first-ever liberation?
References
[1] Prof Justice A. K. P. Kludze, “Human Rights, Individual Freedoms and Democracy in Ghana- the Preventive Detention Act and After”, http://baffuorakoto.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=51:lecture-by-prof-justice-a-k-p-kludze&catid=36:lectures&Itemid=54, date accessed, 09 February 2015
[2] David E. Apter, "The Gold Coast in Transition" (Edward R. O'Connor-The Review of Politics, Cambridge University, Cambridge University Press, (Vol. 19, No. 3 (Jul., 1957), pp. 388-390), http://www.jstor.org/stable/1404784, date accessed, 09 February 2015
[3] George W. Shepherd, Jr., “The Price of Progress”, (Africa Today Vol. 9, No. 10 (Dec., 1962), pp. 4-6+14, Published by: Indiana University Press, Article Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/4184367, date accessed, 09 February 2015
[4] James, C.L.R. (1978), Nkrumah and the Ghana Revolution , Lawrence Hill & Co., ISBN-10: 0882080776; ISBN-13: 978-0882080772
[5] Okechukwu Ikejianni, “A letter from Dr. Okechukwu Ikejianni to Ako-Adjei”, http://www.niica.on.ca/Ghana/LetterToAkoAdjei.aspx, date accessed, 09 February 2015
[6] The Samaritan Research Group, "The Re: Akoto and The Supreme Court Revisited", http://www.justiceghana.com/index.php/en/2012-01-24-13-49-19/6305-the-re-akoto-and-the-supreme-court-revisited
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JusticeGhana Editors Note: At COMMENTARY- and at paragraph four(4)we earlier reported that a bomb that had been shrouded in a bouquet of flower was given to a young school pupil, to be presented to the Osagyefo on behalf of the people, exploded, killing the schoolgirl. The "killing should have read: "injuring". The schoolgirl has been identified as Elizabeth Asantewaa who is still alive. Sorry for any inconvenience caused. Thank you.