You people are discombobulated, we don dufudufu you OGUANTENFU so badly na craze wey you wan craze selef!! Abi you no go fit na ron around you dey ron dey tieftief mankine moniker to try a ... read full comment
MATEMEHOFU STORM WARNING ADVISORY
You people are discombobulated, we don dufudufu you OGUANTENFU so badly na craze wey you wan craze selef!! Abi you no go fit na ron around you dey ron dey tieftief mankine moniker to try and cause wahala!! None of you go fit me yua mental no dey exist!! ME I GO DEY GIVE YOU YUA MEDICINE BACK AS I SEE YUA NO LIKE AM!! I GO DEY CLOSE YUA NOSE AN MAKE YOU DRINK AM TEY TILL YOU TIRE SELEF!! MMOANANKAFU MA GWAAOO ODONKPOIATSEMEI GBI KEH GBI!!
MINOR CASE 8 years ago
Are you sane ?
Are you sane ?
GORGORDUTOR 8 years ago
I know you have problems with English comprehension,so let me address you in language you can understand without overloading your brain circuits. Am I sane? I ain't the one sitting on their ass watching their screen waiting t ... read full comment
I know you have problems with English comprehension,so let me address you in language you can understand without overloading your brain circuits. Am I sane? I ain't the one sitting on their ass watching their screen waiting to reply to posts within seconds!!
Ami wu didimi atem, nfamihu. Ewiasimu yeh wornu NKWASEAFUOR tiseh munu amuninam didi nipa atem nu, yeh di saa atemdidieduronu di wormu aah, na mupese mu kumuhu, na muu yeh abodaam!! Muhumnam nyinaa yeh shiu tisee munya high fever!! Ami minyeh kwasea ehmom minim kwaseagoro dieh, ntiraa much fa Muhu breh mi midi beh kyere muu paa!!
MinorCase awu wu yeh funu ninam wiasemu wu nyeh samaang ooh just efunu ohia adaka!! Eniming di nkwaseagoro wu beh hunu wu adaka wor GhanaWeb!! Efunu onanti tisee nipa!!
C.Y. ANDY-K 8 years ago
How can an imbecile person like you clain to be sane? You are mad, get that!
Stand infront of a mirror and look at youurself, you will then bail me out that you are really mad.
How can an imbecile person like you clain to be sane? You are mad, get that!
Stand infront of a mirror and look at youurself, you will then bail me out that you are really mad.
francis kwarteng 8 years ago
Dear MINOR CASE,
This is what you have been missing and keeps confusing Molefi Kete Asante with Henry Louis Gates, Jr. Well, the following article is from Gates (and not Asante. I HOPE YOU DON'T COME BAK AGAIN CONFUSING YO ... read full comment
Dear MINOR CASE,
This is what you have been missing and keeps confusing Molefi Kete Asante with Henry Louis Gates, Jr. Well, the following article is from Gates (and not Asante. I HOPE YOU DON'T COME BAK AGAIN CONFUSING YOURSELF AND OTHER READERS. I CAN PROVIDE YOU WITH ASANTE'S TAKE ON THE QUESTION IF YOU PLACE A REQUEST WITH ME):
Note: Molefi Kete Asante is not the same person as Henry Louis Gates, Jr.
........................................................................................................................................................
By HENRY LOUIS GATES Jr.APRIL 22, 2010
Cambridge, Mass.
Stories from Our Advertisers
THANKS to an unlikely confluence of history and genetics — the fact that he is African-American and president — Barack Obama has a unique opportunity to reshape the debate over one of the most contentious issues of America’s racial legacy: reparations, the idea that the descendants of American slaves should receive compensation for their ancestors’ unpaid labor and bondage.
There are many thorny issues to resolve before we can arrive at a judicious (if symbolic) gesture to match such a sustained, heinous crime. Perhaps the most vexing is how to parcel out blame to those directly involved in the capture and sale of human beings for immense economic gain.
While we are all familiar with the role played by the United States and the European colonial powers like Britain, France, Holland, Portugal and Spain, there is very little discussion of the role Africans themselves played. And that role, it turns out, was a considerable one, especially for the slave-trading kingdoms of western and central Africa. These included the Akan of the kingdom of Asante in what is now Ghana, the Fon of Dahomey (now Benin), the Mbundu of Ndongo in modern Angola and the Kongo of today’s Congo, among several others.
For centuries, Europeans in Africa kept close to their military and trading posts on the coast. Exploration of the interior, home to the bulk of Africans sold into bondage at the height of the slave trade, came only during the colonial conquests, which is why Henry Morton Stanley’s pursuit of Dr. David Livingstone in 1871 made for such compelling press: he was going where no (white) man had gone before.
How did slaves make it to these coastal forts? The historians John Thornton and Linda Heywood of Boston University estimate that 90 percent of those shipped to the New World were enslaved by Africans and then sold to European traders. The sad truth is that without complex business partnerships between African elites and European traders and commercial agents, the slave trade to the New World would have been impossible, at least on the scale it occurred.
Advocates of reparations for the descendants of those slaves generally ignore this untidy problem of the significant role that Africans played in the trade, choosing to believe the romanticized version that our ancestors were all kidnapped unawares by evil white men, like Kunta Kinte was in “Roots.” The truth, however, is much more complex: slavery was a business, highly organized and lucrative for European buyers and African sellers alike.
The African role in the slave trade was fully understood and openly acknowledged by many African-Americans even before the Civil War. For Frederick Douglass, it was an argument against repatriation schemes for the freed slaves. “The savage chiefs of the western coasts of Africa, who for ages have been accustomed to selling their captives into bondage and pocketing the ready cash for them, will not more readily accept our moral and economical ideas than the slave traders of Maryland and Virginia,” he warned. “We are, therefore, less inclined to go to Africa to work against the slave trade than to stay here to work against it."
To be sure, the African role in the slave trade was greatly reduced after 1807, when abolitionists, first in Britain and then, a year later, in the United States, succeeded in banning the importation of slaves. Meanwhile, slaves continued to be bought and sold within the United States, and slavery as an institution would not be abolished until 1865. But the culpability of American plantation owners neither erases nor supplants that of the African slavers. In recent years, some African leaders have become more comfortable discussing this complicated past than African-Americans tend to be.
In 1999, for instance, President Mathieu Kerekou of Benin astonished an all-black congregation in Baltimore by falling to his knees and begging African-Americans’ forgiveness for the “shameful” and “abominable” role Africans played in the trade. Other African leaders, including Jerry Rawlings of Ghana, followed Mr. Kerekou’s bold example.
Our new understanding of the scope of African involvement in the slave trade is not historical guesswork. Thanks to the Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade Database, directed by the historian David Eltis of Emory University, we now know the ports from which more than 450,000 of our African ancestors were shipped out to what is now the United States (the database has records of 12.5 million people shipped to all parts of the New World from 1514 to 1866). About 16 percent of United States slaves came from eastern Nigeria, while 24 percent came from the Congo and Angola.
Through the work of Professors Thornton and Heywood, we also know that the victims of the slave trade were predominantly members of as few as 50 ethnic groups. This data, along with the tracing of blacks’ ancestry through DNA tests, is giving us a fuller understanding of the identities of both the victims and the facilitators of the African slave trade.
For many African-Americans, these facts can be difficult to accept. Excuses run the gamut, from “Africans didn’t know how harsh slavery in America was” and “Slavery in Africa was, by comparison, humane” or, in a bizarre version of “The devil made me do it,” “Africans were driven to this only by the unprecedented profits offered by greedy European countries.”
But the sad truth is that the conquest and capture of Africans and their sale to Europeans was one of the main sources of foreign exchange for several African kingdoms for a very long time. Slaves were the main export of the kingdom of Kongo; the Asante Empire in Ghana exported slaves and used the profits to import gold. Queen Njinga, the brilliant 17th-century monarch of the Mbundu, waged wars of resistance against the Portuguese but also conquered polities as far as 500 miles inland and sold her captives to the Portuguese. When Njinga converted to Christianity, she sold African traditional religious leaders into slavery, claiming they had violated her new Christian precepts.
Did these Africans know how harsh slavery was in the New World? Actually, many elite Africans visited Europe in that era, and they did so on slave ships following the prevailing winds through the New World. For example, when Antonio Manuel, Kongo’s ambassador to the Vatican, went to Europe in 1604, he first stopped in Bahia, Brazil, where he arranged to free a countryman who had been wrongfully enslaved.
African monarchs also sent their children along these same slave routes to be educated in Europe. And there were thousands of former slaves who returned to settle Liberia and Sierra Leone. The Middle Passage, in other words, was sometimes a two-way street. Under these circumstances, it is difficult to claim that Africans were ignorant or innocent.
Given this remarkably messy history, the problem with reparations may not be so much whether they are a good idea or deciding who would get them; the larger question just might be from whom they would be extracted.
So how could President Obama untangle the knot? In David Remnick’s new book “The Bridge: The Life and Rise of Barack Obama,” one of the president’s former students at the University of Chicago comments on Mr. Obama’s mixed feelings about the reparations movement: “He told us what he thought about reparations. He agreed entirely with the theory of reparations. But in practice he didn’t think it was really workable.”
About the practicalities, Professor Obama may have been more right than he knew. Fortunately, in President Obama, the child of an African and an American, we finally have a leader who is uniquely positioned to bridge the great reparations divide. He is uniquely placed to publicly attribute responsibility and culpability where they truly belong, to white people and black people, on both sides of the Atlantic, complicit alike in one of the greatest evils in the history of civilization. And reaching that understanding is a vital precursor to any just and lasting agreement on the divisive issue of slavery reparations.
Henry Louis Gates Jr., a professor at Harvard, is the author of the forthcoming “Faces of America” and “Tradition and the Black Atlantic.”
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Azumah Nelson 8 years ago
Nkrumah never dies
Nkrumah never dies
Azumah Nelson 8 years ago
Nkrumah never dies
Nkrumah never dies
GORGORDUTOR 8 years ago
bob, why are you reading Master Kwarteng if he is publishing rubbish? We understand you and your fellow black inferiority complex cohorts have accepted the white supremacist worldview!! You are welcome to wallow in your non r ... read full comment
bob, why are you reading Master Kwarteng if he is publishing rubbish? We understand you and your fellow black inferiority complex cohorts have accepted the white supremacist worldview!! You are welcome to wallow in your non reasoning adoption of KWESIBRONI schemes to keep Afrikans impoverished and dependent!! Kindly remain in your stagnant swamps inhaling neocolonialism gas while your brain corrodes and rots at an ever accelerating speed. You are welcome to now and then proclaim that the neoconialist urine you ingest is heavenly nectar!! We will look at you with a mixture of pity and abhorrence and kick you to the kerb like a mangy rabid dog.
MINOR CASE 8 years ago
So you are the emancipated person all blacks should look up to.No wonder you carry this yoke of a stinking and unpronounceable name GARGANTUANSTUPOR. When are you going to wake up from your stupor to the realization that we a ... read full comment
So you are the emancipated person all blacks should look up to.No wonder you carry this yoke of a stinking and unpronounceable name GARGANTUANSTUPOR. When are you going to wake up from your stupor to the realization that we are not in the sixties to be braying "Nkrumah never dies " all day long ? If I may ask, where do you and Francis Kwarteng live ? I bet you live in the colonialist's land happily cashing the meagre social security checks . May be you do not know, Nkrumah died decades ago along with his ignoble PDA , Communists adiology ,Young Pioneers etc.
Lexus 8 years ago
You go ahead, MINOR CASE!
Pump some sense into his empty cranium.
I have your back 200%
You go ahead, MINOR CASE!
Pump some sense into his empty cranium.
I have your back 200%
GORGORDUTOR 8 years ago
Off course you got your own back!! Lexus ooh, Bob ooh, DUTOR ooh, minor case ooh one and the same cretinous traitorous KWESIBRONI bootlickers!!
Off course you got your own back!! Lexus ooh, Bob ooh, DUTOR ooh, minor case ooh one and the same cretinous traitorous KWESIBRONI bootlickers!!
GORGORDUTOR 8 years ago
minor case of GARGANTUAN TRAITOROUS HYPOCRISY!! YOU CANT EVEN DEFEND YOURSELF OR YOUR VIEWS BECAUSE YOU ARE CONFUSED AS TO WHICH OF YOUR SEVERAL MONIKERS TO USE!! ABOAFUNU. JUST BECAUSE YOU ARE ON WELFARE YOU PRESUME EVERYONE ... read full comment
minor case of GARGANTUAN TRAITOROUS HYPOCRISY!! YOU CANT EVEN DEFEND YOURSELF OR YOUR VIEWS BECAUSE YOU ARE CONFUSED AS TO WHICH OF YOUR SEVERAL MONIKERS TO USE!! ABOAFUNU. JUST BECAUSE YOU ARE ON WELFARE YOU PRESUME EVERYONE IS ON WELFARE. I EMPLOY PEOPLE PAY THEM VERY WELL AND PAY ALL THE FICA UNEMPLOYMENT AND DISABILITY LEVIES AS WELL!! HAVE YOU EVER PAID TAXES? I DONT THINK SO. EVER CREATED A SUCCESSFUL BUSINESS? AHAA UTTER SILENCE!! GO BACK TO YOUR SWAMP WHERE YOU COEVOLVED WITH THE MALEVOLENT SOCIETY WRECKING ETHNIC BIGOTRY VIRUS. LOOK DOWN YOUR LEG SHIT IS ROLLING DOWN DUE TO YOUR INCONTINENCE DERIVED FROM EATING KWESIBRONIBINI!! YOUR VACUUM TUBE BRAIN IS CRASHING FROM LOGIC OVERLOAD!! TSI OHEY ODAANFU
Dr. Otto 8 years ago
Kwarteng, after his cut and paste crap tried to concrude (in the last paragraph) in his own words/English but as usual wrote a bogus and rotten primary 4 English that of course makes no grammatical sense.
I remember, Kwart ... read full comment
Kwarteng, after his cut and paste crap tried to concrude (in the last paragraph) in his own words/English but as usual wrote a bogus and rotten primary 4 English that of course makes no grammatical sense.
I remember, Kwarteng telling Dr. SAS in a comment "you know English grammatical is not one of my problems."
Meanwhile apart from cuttting and pasting he(Kwarteng)is just poor in English.
---------------------------------
Feature Article of Wednesday, 14 October 2015
Columnist: Kwarteng, Francis
The Incomparable Osagyefo Dr. Kwame Nkrumah 2
“Our parliamentarians need to debate his books. If they have already done so, then we need to publicly know why they have not implemented his excellent ideas. For, what is the sense in building his mausoleum opposite the Ghana Supreme Court without the foresight to include a library that houses his complete books for public research, and a conference and multimedia facility that lends to discussing his ideas? There must by a Dr. Kwame Nkrumah Library in all Ghana’s/Africa’s regions and capitals.
DUTOR 8 years ago
Dr. Otto, you are right, we are aware that Master Kwarteng is not the strongest in English like Dr. Ahoofe and Dr SAS but diong his best to keep Nkrumah alive by reproducing stories about Nkrumah. What about you Dr, Otto? Let ... read full comment
Dr. Otto, you are right, we are aware that Master Kwarteng is not the strongest in English like Dr. Ahoofe and Dr SAS but diong his best to keep Nkrumah alive by reproducing stories about Nkrumah. What about you Dr, Otto? Let's read your essay on Ghanaweb.
GORGORDUTOR 8 years ago
FIAFITOR EMIDUTOR ALAKPATOR NEH NYEH
FIAFITOR EMIDUTOR ALAKPATOR NEH NYEH
GORGORDUTOR 8 years ago
DR ABUATO NI NIN KWASEASEM
DR ABUATO NI NIN KWASEASEM
A. GERSIS 8 years ago
GORGORDUTOR is now pushed to the wall and now showing the real Ewe in him.
You people will remain forever and ever selfish, inward looking, backward , thieves, unsocial and primitive fools.
GORGORDUTOR is now pushed to the wall and now showing the real Ewe in him.
You people will remain forever and ever selfish, inward looking, backward , thieves, unsocial and primitive fools.
GORGORDUTOR 8 years ago
Another tribalist bigot dead man walking!! Zombies like a gersis can't tnink,the effects of the ethnic bigotry is plain to see. Hahaha!!! They are dead inside, their only emotions are anger and self-hatred!! Puerile ethnic i ... read full comment
Another tribalist bigot dead man walking!! Zombies like a gersis can't tnink,the effects of the ethnic bigotry is plain to see. Hahaha!!! They are dead inside, their only emotions are anger and self-hatred!! Puerile ethnic insults just reveal an inability to think and their black inferiority complex. Ethnic bigots are pitiful self deluded cretins!! It is pleasure to me that I can provoke such incoherent anger in these creatures that they expose their bigotry and intellectual deficiency!!! Go back to you fetid swamp and drink some KWESIBRONI dwinsor!!! FOOLS LIKE YOU ARE DEAD IN SPIRIT!! EFUNU BEH DZI WADAKA!!
Patapaa 8 years ago
Bad leadership in Ghana was started by Nkrumah. In fact all our problems started with him. Nkrumah was a dictator and very ambitious. He introduced one party rule in Ghana and made himself life president. He was neither carin ... read full comment
Bad leadership in Ghana was started by Nkrumah. In fact all our problems started with him. Nkrumah was a dictator and very ambitious. He introduced one party rule in Ghana and made himself life president. He was neither caring, compassionate, visionary, smart nor politically savvy. Most of the things he took credit for had been started by the British, our colonial masters. For instance Tema Motorway was on the drawing board when he took over and Akosombo Dam was not his brainchild. KNUST was established by Asantehene and the British. Surprisingly, most of the things he took credit for were never initiated by him
Independence, for instance, was sought for by many but achieved under the aegis and cunningness of Francis Kofi Nwiah, trickster and schemer extraordinaire. Well, all along I have been asking how and under what circumstances "Francis Kofi Nwiah" was able to change his name to "Kwame Nkrumah". I know that it is permissible for anybody to change his name anytime he or she wishes but it is strange and beyond comprehension for one to change his birthday from Friday to Saturday ie from Kofi to Kwame. This is what makes me suspicious of Kofi Nwiah or Kwame Nkrumah. He claimed that his date of birth was 21st September 1909. This day according to the 20th century Calendar was a Tuesday!!! So was Nkrumah born on a Tuesday, a Friday or a Saturday? We must find out what he was up to with all these very strange findings. He was indeed cunning and only preyed on the emotions of the Ghanaian masses. It was my wish that President Mills would set up a committee to investigate before declaring Nkrumah's "unknown" birthday a holiday.
When he took over we had trade surplus running into millions of Pound Sterling but when he was forced out we had a trade deficit of several million pounds sterling!! This was the result of bad governance. He should have been overthrown earlier than 1966. We all saw good governance under K4. To me K4 is the best president Ghana has ever had. Kuffour is the greatest. We thank Kotoka and Afrifa for stoping the dictator in his tracks. Ayekoo Kotoka and Afrifa. The Kotoka Air Port should never be renamed.
Look at how the Thief-in-Chief, John Mahama is messing up things for Ghanaians. He is now worth over $900 Million and his brothers are the richest in Ghana. Don’t Ghanaians have the right to ask these guys the source of their worth?? Time will tell.
francis kwarteng 8 years ago
Dear Patapaa,
How are you my Familiar Patapaa (remember you and I know who you are)?
Well, I just spoke with two different Ghanaian historians who have asked me to tell you to put your ideas, particularly the ones in yo ... read full comment
Dear Patapaa,
How are you my Familiar Patapaa (remember you and I know who you are)?
Well, I just spoke with two different Ghanaian historians who have asked me to tell you to put your ideas, particularly the ones in your Paragraph One, in an article and have it published on Ghanaweb.
They have also asked me to tell they will be glad to respond to you with all the facts. In fact they think you are spending to much time on Wikipedia.
That said, here are my own facts for you (I KNOW YOU HAVE READ THIS BUT I STILL WANT TO BRING THEM TO YOUR ATTENTION):
........................................................................................................................................................
FROM NOGOLMAH TO NKRUMAH
In his acclaimed autobiography “Ghana: The Autobiography of Kwame Nkrumah,” an important piece of canonized literary work ranked among “Africa’s 100 Best Books of the 20th Century” by the Pan-African Booksellers Association, Book Development Councils, African Writers’ Associations, Library Associations and African Publishers Network, and launched on February 18, 2002, Nkrumah set out to make sense of certain aspects of his personal and family demographics. This included questions of competing dates of birth and name change among others. He did this by providing insights into alternative theories. Among these was one explanation his mother gave him—which made 1912 his birthdate. This is set against the background that his parents were illiterate.
Plus, if we understand this fact and also acknowledge the lack of official recording of birthdates, a general practice in those days, then it becomes difficult to see why those who hate Nkrumah will capitalize on common discrepancies in personal and family demographics peculiar to the era, and for the most part, attempt to explain those discrepancies rigidly from the standpoint of the age of technology and of the modern era of the relative spread of literacy, all this in spite of the relative spread of functional illiteracy. Perhaps it is not widely known that enforcement of registering births with government bureaucracies in the UK, for instance, probably began in the early days of the second half of the nineteen century. Birth registration was introduced into the Gold Coast in 1912 (see the website of the Births and Deaths Registry). Some Gold Coast families with education and non-literate persons who received their baptism in churches were fortunate enough to record or have their birthdates recorded, as was the case in Nkrumah. Not every family was so lucky.
Having said this, let us look at two of these seeming demographic discrepancies, Nkrumah’s birthdate and name change:
Kofi Ngolomah, Nkrumah’s father, named his son Francis Kofi Nwia Ngolomah. According to one of Bankole Timothy’s biographical statements on Nkrumah, a view Dr. Kwame Botwe-Asamoah seconds, Kofi Ngolomah named his son after a prominent relative, Kofi Nwia, hence Kofi, meaning “a Friday-born male” (see Bankole’s “Kwame Nkrumah: His Rise to Power” and Dr. Botwe-Asamoah’s “Kwame Nkrumah’s Politico-Cultural Thought and Politics”). This does not necessarily mean Nkrumah was born on Friday (This is a non-issue anyway). Nor does the name Nkrumah (Nkróma/Ákron), which otherwise means “ninth-born” or enkron/nkron (9) in Twi, necessarily connote he was his Father’s ninth-born.
On the other hand, he could have equally been named Baako since he was the first-born or only child of his mother. In principle, the names Manu (mmienu, 2), Mansah/Mensah (mmeensa, 3), Anum (num/anum, 5), Nsiah (nsia/ensia, 6), Awotie/Awotwe (nwotwe, 8), Badu/Baidoo (edu/du, 10), etc., generally follow the same naming logic, in that they can appear as surnames or otherwise (those interested in a detailed scholarly discussion on the typology and sociocultural aspects of Akan names should see Kofi Agyekum’s paper “The Sociolinguistic of Akan Personal Names,” Nordic Journal of African Studies 15 (2): 206-235 (2006)).
Of course, the Ghanaian cultural environment provides several examples of this nominal phenomenon, after all not every ninth-born is called or named Nkrumah in Ghana. One example that easily comes to mind is the name Kofi Annan. The name “Annan” (or Anané) in Kofi Annan’s name means “four”—and by extension—“fourth-born.” Yet Annan is also his father’s surname (Henry Reginald Annan). Are Kofi Annan and his father both the “fourth-borns” of their respective parents? Or that Kofi Annan assumed his father’s surname as a customary meme? A Time Magazine profile of Kofi Annan that this author read some years back made “Annan” a word of Scottish origination or derivation, Celtic for short (see Joshua Cooper Ramo’s “The Five Virtues of Kofi Annan,” Time Magazine, Vol. 156, No. 10, September 4, 2000). As a matter of fact the word “Annan,” or something sounding like it, say the Annag or Anang People of Southeast Nigeria, appears in various orthographic forms around the world.
But isn’t it a fact that Nkrumah had every right to change his name as and when he had wished, as Molefi Kete Asante (Arthur Lee Smith, Jr.), Kwame Toure (Stokely Carmichael), Bill Clinton (William Jefferson Blythe 111. Clinton was names after his stepfather Roger Clinton, Sr.), Ama Mazama (Marie-Josée Cérol)…have all done? Of course he did, and exercised that right accordingly. The fact is that he did not change his name apart from dropping his first name, Francis—with Nkrumah being an orthographic Akan version of Ngolomah—Lee Kuan Yew later dropped his first name Harry for political reasons (readers may want to read more about Hanyu Pinyin and what it means in terms of Lee Kuan Yew’s surname “Lee” and “Li.”). That is, other than these basic facts, we should point out that the orthography of language can and do change from one language to another through such mechanisms as anglicization (anglification), indoctrination (via foreign religions as happened in Africa) and colonialism. Akwasi Ofori notes in his book “Recovering Storytelling for Ghahaian Preaching”:
“The early European missionaries associated African names with paganism. Therefore new converts were given anglicized names to depict their new identity as Christians. This area has been a source of great contention since. In 1888 the Wesleyan missionaries offered to train some native Ghanaian coverts in English colleges. These included John Mensah Sarbah, George Ferguson, Thomas Hutton Mills, and S.R.B. Solomon. The last dropped his anglicized name S.R.B. Solomon for the indigenous name Attoh Ahuma upon his return to Ghana.”
This was what happened to Nkrumah when he was given the name Francis at baptism. But, if we may add, the sort of anglicization we are talking about does not pertain to the nominal foreignzation of natives per se. Rather we are talking about morphology and spelling, where the Latin (Roman or English) alphabet is employed to transcribe, transliterate and translate native tongues. Few good examples are Ngolomah versus Nkrumah, Mao Zedong versus Mao Tse-tung, Khadaffi versus Qaddafi, Peking versus Beijing. Do “Ze” and “Tse” sound the same in English as they appear in Mandarin? Aside that, it may not be obvious to the layperson what impact or role, if any, guttural constants such as “k” and “g” in the English language may have had on the orthographic overlap between Ngolomah to Nkrumah as we move from one Akan tongue to the other—that is, if we can safely assume the latter’s presumed coinage did not directly come from the number 9, nkron or enkron.
Further, it is not as if Nkrumah’s father was the only one in history to bear that name, Ngolomah, now at the center of ideological controversy. Not too long ago in 1997, for instance, NPP’s Freddie Blay, himself an Nzema and ex-MP for Ellembele, joined the Chief of Esiama with the stool name, Nana Kaku Ngolomah, and the people of Esiama to celebrate the Kundum Festival (“Esiama Celebrates Kundum Festival,” Ghanaweb, Oct., 31, 1997). And then, of course, there is also the name Nana Kaku Ngroroma from the Nzema area, more specifically Ellembelle District of the Western Region, which had been mentioned in connection with a land dispute (“Esiama Royal Chase Ellembelle DCE,” Daily Guide, May 13, 2013; see Modernghana too. For readers’ information, Ghanaweb mistakenly carried the same story under the title “Sex Scandal Pops Up At DCE Vetting”).
Nana Kaku Ngolomah and Nana Kaku Ngroroma 111? At this point we can only infer that “Ngolomah” and “Ngroroma” may be the same. Could “Nkrumah” have been an anglicized version of “Ngolomah” given the shifting orthographic character of the various Akan tongues? This is not a farfetched possibility! What about Anton Wilhelm Amo versus Anthony William Amo, a name given to one of Africa’s greatest thinkers, another Nzema? We are referring to Anton versus Anthony (Emphsis: t-glottalization versus digraph/th-fronting “th”) and Wilhelm versus William? Botwe versus Botchwey? Boakye versus Boachie? Koranteng versus Kwarteng? Okuampa versus Okoampa? Badu versus Baidoo? Bonsu versus Bonsoe? The point is that even within European languages a similar phenomenon takes place. Examples: Germanic languages (English “William” versus German “Wilhelm”); Romance languages (the same William becomes “Guilherme” in Portuguese, Guillaume in French, Guglielmo in Italian, Guillermo in Spanish…)
Therefore a methodology of comparative assessment enriches the discussion in that Ngolomah and Nkrumah can be usefully discussed outside the larger context of Akan orthography and of the borrowed instrument of anglicized orthography. Neither can concepts such as etymological fallacy and semantic bleaching, possibly, provide useful insights into the dilemmatic origination of Nkrumah from Ngolomah. As a result, those who do not see Ngolomah and Nkrumah as orthographic cognates from the viewpoint of Akan orthography, given that they do not have all the available facts from history, sociolinguistics, and anthropology to underwrite an extrapolative nominal juxtaposition with our theories, besides what Nkrumah himself told us in his autobiography, are engaged in a self-serving deception and methodological dislocation. What we do know is that historical consciousness, cultural awareness (location), racism, colonialism, and extensive reading may have all contributed to Nkrumah’s positive transformation. This is not to say he did not seek his mother’s opinions on those seeming discrepancies about his personal demographics. It is rather to say Nkrumah too very close to his mother as to defer seeming problematic questions about his personal and family demographics to uninformed conjectures and groundless guestimates.
The man Nkrumah was smarter than that. Certainly parents are the best historians when it is a question of the personal details of their children. And there is no indication in any of his writings, as far as our reading of his corpus of works is concerned, of his mother ever raising objections to his re-interpretation of his personal and family demographics. Still it is extremely important if we had known, or been privy, to all the facts in respect of Nkrumah’s choice of Kwame over Kofi as his first name, because September 21, 1909 did not fall on Friday. Only September 18, 1909, his other birthdate, did fall on Saturday. In his autobiography he recalled his mother telling him of being born on a “mid-day on a Saturday in mid-September.” Now, given that the month September has a total of 30 days and that in 1909 four days—4, 11, 18 and 25—fell on Saturday, what sense can we make out of Nkrumah’s choice of September 18, 1909 as his birthdate?
It turns out that 6 other dates—13, 14, 15, 16, 17, and 18—divide the September 1909 calendar into two equal halves, 12 dates on each side). Once again, given that his mother said he was born in “mid-September” and further, given that the 4th, 11th and 25th of September, three of the four dates that fell on Saturday, the obvious choice becomes September 18. We are, on the other hand, also given to understand that Nkrumah undertook his chronological extrapolation from the standpoint of a Roman Catholic Priest, who had baptized him and consequently recorded his official birthdate as September 21, 1909, a Tuesday. But the latter date, apart from not coinciding with Saturday, also fell outside the immediate range of Nkrumah’s mother’s “mid-September,” which we assume to be the 13th, 14th, 15th, 16th, 17th, and 18th. This could be why Nkrumah may have suggested in his autobiography that the Priest’s ballpark figure in respect of his birthdate, September 21, 1909, was closer to his “actual date of my birth.”
Also, we take the compound word “mid-September” to be a loose timeframe somewhat open to a framework of “rigid” interpretation, hence our titular allusion to Moses’ tablets of stone. This reference frame is both literal and figurative, and our choice of the word “rigid” derives from a mode of interpretation based on a perceived degree or sense of statistical certainty, the latter itself permissible within a critical suite of working assumptions some of which we have identified in this essay. Yet a number of other fascinating theories exist as to why Nkrumah may have chosen Kwame over Kofi. One writer notes: “His [Nkrumah’s] reason for changing from Kofi to Kwame is difficult to explain, but I can speculate. Friday is a holy among most Akan groups, and one would assume that its sacredness would be attractive to Nkrumah. Is it because God is addressed as Kwame in Akan traditional religions?” (see Ebenezer O. Addo’s book “Kwame Nkrumah: A Case Study of Religion and Politics in Ghana”).
Then, of course, application or adoption of theophoric names is common among certain ethnic groups in Africa including Akans, as Molefi Kete Asante, Ama Mazama et al. show in their edited volume, “Encyclopedia of African Religion.” They write: “Most important, it is held that children share some of the qualities of the specific deity that presides over the universe on that particular day of their birth…In Ghana, another type of theophoric name is known as ‘cosmological names.’ Among the Asante and Fante, children receive their names according to the day of their birth and, this, carry on the character of the spirit that presides over the cosmos on that particular day. Africa has a longstanding tradition of theophoric names, by which parents give to their children that express their relationship with God and their desire to see children grow in virtues…”
They add: “Thus, children born on Friday, like UN Secretary General Annan, are called Kofi (with Efua as the female version) and those born on Saturday like the legendary president Kwame Nkrumah are called Kwame or Kwamena (with Ama as the female version)…” Agyekum calls these theophoric names “kradin” or “souls name” (see “The Sociolinguistic of Akan Personal Names”). Yet, while we agree with these views in principle on the one hand, we are not aware on the other hand where Nkrumah specifically invoked any of these views as justification for choosing Kwame over Kofi. Neither are we implying Asante and his colleagues are making this claim—far from it. Nonetheless, we want readers to consider these facts when assessing the personal and family demographics of Nkrumah, in addition to such concepts as anglicization, Akan orthography and culture and customs and traditions, time and place, and what have you.
Anglicization, a very important concept, continues into the 21st century. For instance, Asians and Europeans took advantage of anglicization to underwrite their assimilation, avoid discrimination, resist the plague of otherism, etc., in colonial and postcolonial America. European names such as Schmitz or Schmidt became anglicized to Smith in America! The following represent a few examples of the anglicization mechanism as it relates to Akan names and orthography in the Americas during the era of slavery and colonialism (see “Slave Names and Naming in Barbados, 1650-1830,” The William and Mary Quarterly, Third Series, Vol. 53, No. 4, (Oct., 1996), p. 685-728). In Barbados and some parts of the Americas during the era of slavery, for instance:
Kobina became Quobina/Cubenah/Cubbenah/Cubbenah/Cobbennah/Cobenah/Cobbino.
Kofi became Caffi/Cuffey/Quoffey.
Kwamina became Quamin/Quamina/Quamingo/Quaminah/Quamino.
In conclusion, the orthographic similarity between Ngolomah and Nkrumah is not that much different from Cudjoe (Kudjoe) and Kojo, “a Monday-born male.” But what can we say about Cudjoe (Kudjoe), Kojo, and Joojo (Jojo)? More specifically, what can exactly be said about the orthographic makeups of Cudjoe and Jojo compare (“Cu” and “Jo,” the first two letters of each name)? Finally, how do Ato and Kwame, both meaning “a Saturday-born male,” and Yaw and Ekow (Kwaw, Quaw, Yao, Kow), both meaning “a Thursday-born male,” compare orthographically and phonetically? Evidently, Ngolomah and Nkrumah rather share a stronger orthographical likeness between them than between Cudjoe and Jojo, between Yaw and Ekow, etc., with particular emphasis on the two words’ [Ngolomah and Nkrumah] similar phonetic spelling.
Look forward to Part 2.
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francis kwarteng 8 years ago
Dear Patapaa,
I look forward to reading a cogent counterargument from you!
Thanks.
....................................................................................................................................... ... read full comment
Dear Patapaa,
I look forward to reading a cogent counterargument from you!
Thanks.
........................................................................................................................................................
Nkrumah’s Name & Birthdate Are Not Set In Moses’ Tablets Of Stone 2
We take up from where we left off in Part 1:
A SUPPORTING MISCELLENEOUS ANECDOTE
A Ghanaian couple we knew back in the late 1990s told this author they gave birth to a baby girl, named Abena, “a Tuesday-born,” in the 1970s in one of the remotest regions of the Ghanaian capital, Accra. The girls’ father later immigrated to Canada and while there decided to file for Canadian papers for his daughter and wife. As part of the routine processing of their [mother and daughter] documents our friend’s traveled to the hospital, that delivered her daughter for an official written statement, which she had then hoped to use to apply for a birth certificate for her daughter, but hospital records indicated that her daughter was born on Wednesday instead. This revelation came as a great surprise to our friend, wife, and daughter because he and his wife still remember that day very well, given also that Abena was and still is their only daughter. The point of contention, though, is that the hospital in question delivered Abena around 12 a.m. (Tuesday).
How many minutes before 12a.m. or how many minutes after 12a.m did our friend’s wife deliver Abena? Whose timepiece is more believable or credible, our friend’s or the hospital’s? Could they both be wrong? Well, our friend remembers her wife delivering their daughter two to three minutes before 12a.m. The hospital records on the other hand indicate 12:01a.m. Who is wrong here? Should they change Abena to Akua, a Wednesday-born? Our friend and his family are still grappling with these questions. Yet, when all is said and done, external norms and cultural impositions on native customs, traditions and cultures add to the nominal complexity of customary conventions, a point Kwame Anthony Appiah (born Kwame Anthony Akroma-Ampim Kusi Appiah) eloquently enunciates in his book, “In My Father’s House: Africa In the Philosophy of Culture.” Once upon a time his father, politician and barrister Joe Appiah, saw him off as he left for Cambridge University with the following parting words of advice: “Do not disgrace the family name.” Appiah offers a personal reflection on these words:
“I confess that I was surprised by this injunction. So much an echo of high Victorian paterfamilias (or perhaps of the Roman originals that my father knew from his colonial education in the classics). But mostly I wondered what he meant. Did he mean my mother’s family (whose tradition of university scholarship he had always urged to emulate), a family whose name I did not bear? Did he mean his own ‘abusua’ (not, by tradition, my family at all), from which he had named me Anthony Akroma-Ampim?
He continues: “Did he mean his legal name, Appiah, the name invented for him when the British colonial authorities decided (after their own customs) that we must have ‘family’ names and that the ‘family’ name should be the name of your father? When your father’s family tradition casts you into your matriclan and your mother’s claims for your father, such doubts are, I suppose, natural enough.”
Indeed, Appiah demonstrates a subtle understanding of the kind of nominal complexity we have just referred to above and in our previous essay on the subject matter and, perhaps, more than any other thing we have said thus far, his candid acknowledgment of his perceived location in a seeming contention specific to a schizophrenic web of cultural clashes—require no further elaboration given the level of his rhetorical clarity. Perhaps we would not be having this discussion in the first place if Nkrumah had assumed his mother’s last name, Nyaniba. But the fault was not his as he had no choice in the matter as a child. His father Opanyin Kofi Ngolomah gave him the name Ngolomah. We bring up Appiah’s story for illustration purposes because somewhere in the middle of his convoluted family story, is another layer of story that somehow demonstrates a striking parallel between his and Nkrumah’s. Appiah has to say about the origin of his middle name, “Anthony,” in “In My Father’s House”:
“Yao Antory, corrupted later to Yao Antony, anglicized on my British baptismal record…”
Yao Antory was his great-uncle (great-great uncle?). Yet he, namely Appiah, was born in 1954 in London, Britain, not in 1912 or 1909 in Nkroful! We also should make it clear that, unlike “Antory” being corrupted to “Antony” and then to “Anthony,” Nkrumah was and still is not a corrupted version of Ngolomah. We explained this at some length in our previous essays. That is, it is how the same name assumes slightly different orthographic and phonetic character across different Akan ethic groups, just the same way Nzemas say Nyameke and other Akan groups say Nyamekye. This observation may not even be unique to the Akan cultural landscape, after all. It may be the case among other ethnic groups as well. Human geography, inter-ethnic marriages, and cultural miscegenation (or cultural borrowing) may undermine the geopolitical character of the phenomenon of social-cultural monolithicity.
It has been said that Ewe orthography/spelling for Yaw is Yao! For the most part, Appiah has not shied away from telling his readers about Yao Antony being an Asante. Is Antory still a name used among Asantes as some want to know in the case of Ngolomah among Nzemas? Also could the name Ngolomah have been Liberian? The nature of these questions shares another layer of striking parallels between the present American president and Nkrumah. Politically motivated claims have been made against Barack Obama that his mother initially named him Barry rather than Barack, with others also claiming he originally Mohammad as his middle name rather than Hussein. Finally, a highly controversial claim has been made against President Obama that Barack Obama, Sr., his late father, was not his biological father. It has been said many times that President Obama was a Muslim just as Nkrumah was, and still is, alleged to be a communist.
President Obama is a Kenyan just as Nkrumah and his father, excluding Nkrumah’s mother Madam Elizabeth Nyaniba, were Liberians. It has even been said that he was not born in America or that he is not an American citizen, a foreigner if you will. This is the case when more facts are known about Obama than the average American. Of course, there are racist undertones in some of these allegations just as there are ethnocentric undertones in some of the charges leveled against Nkrumah. The fact of Senator John McCain being born in the Panama Canal Zone and of Alexander Hamilton being born in Nevis (Caribbean/British West Indies) has not been much of a problem. Not even the architects of Apartheid who ruled South Africa and non-native Liberians, that is African-Americans, who ruled Liberia for more than a century before Samuel Doe’s putschism cut the dynasty short are cited as phenomena deemed out of the ordinary by those—let us call them the Ghanaian version of birthers or fringe theorists—who want to make Nkrumah a foreigner in his land of birth.
How many of us are aware Sylvanus Olimpio, Togo’s first president, had Brazilian roots (see Alcione M. Amos’s paper “Afro-Brazillians in Togo: The Case of the Olympio Family, 1882-1945”)? What have some of those enemies and detractors of Nkrumah got to say about Seychellois who may view Prempeh 1 (1870-1931) and his Seychellois descendants as foreigners? Where did Akans come from before they finally settled among the Guans who were already settled in what became the Gold Coast, then Ghana? And do we know where Azumah Nelson’s name and ethnic ancestry come from (read about the Tabom/Tabon People)? How many of us know Azumah Nelson is a descendant of Nii Azumah Nelson, who led the “70-odd Portuguese-speaking freed slaves who sailed from Brazil to Jamestown on the SS Salisbury in 1836” (see Philip Brigg’s book “Ghana”. The Afro-Brazilians married Ewes, Akans, Gas, and other ethnic groups).
What about present-day Afro-Brazilian descendants of the De Souzas, the Wellingtons, the Da Costas, the Azumas, the Santos, the Nelsons, etc., and their significant contributions to Ghana (and their forbears’ to the Gold Coast)? How many of us know that one of these Afro-Brazilians (Nii Azumah V) became a Ga Mantse? Felix Houphouet-Boigny, a Baoulé, traced his ancestry to Nsuta in the Ashanti Region. The forbears of the Baoulé, a branch of the Ashanti Empire, were believed to have been led into what became the Ivory Coast by Queen Pokou. The point of this is a clear demonstration of the complexity of human geography. Just next door we have this interesting story:
There are ongoing debates about Felix Houphouet-Boigny’s “official” birthdate of October 18, 1905 (Note: Some reports note that he was born earlier, probably seven years earlier. See Kenneth Noble’s article “Felix Houphouet-Boigny Ivory Coast’s Leader Since 1969, Is Dead,” The New York Times, Dec. 8, 1993. Houphouet-Boigny was also born Dia Houphouet to N'Doli Houphouët (his father) and N’Dri Kan or Kimou N'Drive, both his mother’s names. Not much is known about Houphouet-Boigny’s father, specifically about his identity, date of birth, and when he died, a father some believe to have been a Sudanesse-born Muslim called Cissé, as well as about when Mamie/Madam Faitai, his [Felix-Houphouet’s] elder sister, was born (she died in 1998). Some sources also claim he added the family name “Boigny” to his name in 1945. It has been said his father was a wealth cocoa farmer and a Baoulé chief). Where are the keepers of the UP tradition and its ideological descendant, the National Patriotic Party (NPP), who are known to impulsively invoke Houphouet-Boigny, his leadership and his presidency as the most enviable in human history? What about when he said he had Asante (Akan) ancestry?
OTHER IMPORTANT MATTERS
We have already alluded to the fact that keeping official records of birthdates was not a common practice in the Gold Coast, perhaps likely so in other parts of the world including the West, hence the sometimes largely uninformed controversy generated around Nkrumah’s personal and family demographics. In fact there are several families in Ghana today with similar stories to share. In fact keeping records of birthdates is still a problem in parts of Ghana. More specifically, this problem could not even have escaped a literate and industrialized society such as the United States in the period preceding and during the early part of the 20th century. Thus, the example of seeming distortions in Nkrumah personal and family demographics will neither be the first nor the last in human history. Nkrumah’s was merely a continuation of an “anomaly” and of the operational shortcomings of a society that, in fact, had nothing whatsoever to do with his existential birth. Oddly enough, the following statements describe what happened to millions of Americans around the time of Nkrumah’s birth as one American writer enunciated it:
“Up to 1900 only sixteen states had birth-registration laws. And while physicians and midwives in every state now are required to register births occurring under their care, the laws are not strictly enforced. It is estimated that approximately 200,000 births go unrecorded each year, even under the present laws. Many millions of native-born Americans, especially those over thirty, would find the record blank if they applied for a birth certificate” (see Victoria Case’s article “Why You Need a Birth Certificate,” Good Housekeeping, Sept., 1942, Vol. 115, No. 3).
That was the 1900. The problem persists in some mild form in America today, particularly in the case of older generations of African-Americans, a problem some identify with the home-birth/home-schooling movements, among others. Policy interventions such as “delayed birth certificate,” “delayed birth registration,” and Non-Availability of Birth Certificate (NABC) have been provided as some of the solutions. It also turns not even affidavit from relatives, baptismal certificate, and statements from doctors are enough to prove one is a native-born American (American citizenship). Well, these provisions and or requirements may vary from state to state. The controversy which the Texas-based teenager Alecia Faith Pennington generated is a special case in point. Identification abuse (and its accompanying Identification Abuse Bill) has come to define Pennington’s case. There are certain individuals within the American Home School Legal Defense Association (HSLDA) who are alleged to oppose identification documents being given to children.
But all these generalities are far from the specifics which define Nkrumah’s case, his parents’ before him, and those of several others in Ghana today. At least Alecia’s parents are literate and so recorded her birthdate in this age of technology, not so in Nkrumah’s parents’ case, even as it has been alleged that a Texas judge rejected Alecia’s baptismal certificate, doctor’s statement, and affidavit from some family members on the grounds that they did constitute adequate proof of her citizenship. Though we do not want to overstretch the comparison between Nkrumah’s case and Alecia’s, we do want to emphasize that problems relating to official registration of births still exist even in societies with high levels of literacy and technological wherewithal. What is more, though birth registration was introduced in the Gold Coast as far back as 1912, it was neither enforced nor was it widely known. It applied in limited localities with some concentration of educated elite and expatriates. Mass illiteracy and lack of enforcement made the instrument non-effective.
It was, however, under the Nkrumah presidency that the 1912 instrument (and its later amendments) gained institutional traction in the form of the Registration and Births Act of 1965 (Act 301) (see the website of Ghana’s Births and Deaths Registry). That is, those who like to capitalize on the seeming discrepancies in Nkrumah’s personal and family demographics for purely political reasons have official dates of birth today thanks to Nkrumah and his vision. As well, their friends, parents, grandparents and other members of their extended families may have directly benefitted and still continue to benefit from this Act. This dilemma is akin to being caught between love and hate for the man, Nkrumah. It is also like being caught between the pain a woman encounters during childbirth and the joy of successful delivery. Finally the website, above all, says the Registration and Births Act of 1965 (Act 301) “is the legislation currently in force.”
1909 VERSUS 1912
The preceding commentaries notwithstanding, we still have not said anything about why Nkrumah may have probably chosen 1909 over 1912 as his official birthdate. No doubt he came to believe what the Roman Catholic Priest had written down as his birthdate was closer to “the actual date of my birth”—because his own calculations and guesswork lent credence to that speculation. At this stage in his life he, unlike his parents, had acquired education and a sense of criticism to place him in a position where he can usefully question and to challenge certain demographic orthodoxies and presumptions about his life and personal details.
Particularly, this included questioning the basis of his mother’s speculations and the assumptions underlying his birthdate.
What do we mean? If one were to assume that he began his primary education at least at the age of 6, as was the norm or practice in those days—and even in some instances in contemporary times across Ghana—then Nkrumah could not have begun his primary education in 1912, when he was 3, if, once again, one were to assume 1909 as the year of his birth. Thus, in theory he could have begun his primary education perhaps at least around 1915. Subtracting 6 from 1915 gives 1909. This simple fact rules out 1912 as the possible date of his birth. This may have given him an excellent reason to settle on 1909 as a more realistic ballpark approximation in his logical reckoning. It is worth pointing out that his parents sent him to a Roman Catholic Elementary School in Half-Assini in 1915! 1912 to 1915 represents a chronological span of three years. The foundation of our theory derives from this simple fact.
On the other hand, it is important mentioning that a casual look at the September 1912 calendar shows the 7th, 14th, 21st, and 28th falling on Saturday. Taking the 13th, 14th, 15th, 16th, 17th and 18th as representing Nkrumah’s mother’s “mid-September” timeframe—we can—following the logic, theory, and assumptions we employed in our previous essay rule out the 7th, 21th, and 28th, since they fall outside the “mid-September” timeframe, with the only exception being the 14th, a Saturday. Nkrumah did not mention September 14th. So, the conclusions we draw from this simple analysis, coupled with the assumptions underlying our arguments in the preceding paragraph, reinforce our conceptual rejection of 1912 as a possible birthdate for Nkrumah. We do not stake out a claim to logical, assumptive and theoretical infallibility because we have a limited scope or glimpse into all the available data.
Granted, how was a child’s age determined prior to beginning his or her primary education? We contacted three elderly family members who told us, this author, that, it was the general practice in those days for school authorities to instruct children to stretch one arm across the topmost part of the head and, this, all the way to the opposite ear, and if they succeeded in touching it, it was taken as positive indication that that child was ripe or mature to begin primary education. Those who failed this arbitrary age determination exercise were sent home.
NKRUMAH AND HIS FATHER AS LIBERIANS
Was Nkrumah’s father a Liberian? Was his mother a Liberian? How about his extended family in Ghana today? Are Kofi and Nwia also Liberian names? Little known is that Nkrumah, like his father before him, was also rumored to have been a Liberian. If we may ask: Where is the evidence that Nkrumah and his father were Liberians? Why did the rumor exclude his mother as a Liberian? Why Liberia and not Ivory Coast, Togo, Burkina Faso, Benin, or any of the other African countries? Those who claim Nkrumah’s father could not have come from Ghana fail to realize Ghana was not in existence in 1927, the year one anti-Nkrumahist writer claimed Nkrumah’s father passed away, even as the same anti-Nkrumahist writer forgot to mention that Ghana came into existence in 1957. One wonders if this writer was referring to the Ghana Empire which itself went out of existence in the 13th century. Elsewhere, we have read reports in which Nkrumah was alleged to have been a member of the Kru People.
If this is true, the question then becomes: If the British Colonial Government had deported foreigners such as Nnamdi Azikiwe (Nigeria) and T.A. Wallace Johnson (Sierra Leone) for a sedition charge in 1935, what prevented the same government from deporting Nkrumah to Liberia for his anti-colonial struggles? After all, did the British not imprison or exile the great Nzema King Kaku Akaa (Kaku Ackaa 1) for refusing to sign the Bond of 1844? (Note: Was the Ahanta King Otumfuo Baidoo Bonsoe 11 (Badu Bonsu 11) not beheaded by the Dutch and his head sent to the Netherlands as a souvenir when he resisted European exploitation, domination and slavery?). We may recall that the British Colonial Government exiled Yaa Asantewaa, Prempeh 1, and others to the Seychelles. Could the British not have done the same to Nkrumah? Yet, even though there is not a single shred of evidence supporting Nkrumah’s father’s alleged Liberian nationality, why is it still such a big political story among anti-Nkrumahists?
What is not probably widely known is the statement that says that Nkrumah’s father was “‘unknown’ and ‘was probably a Liberian’ was part of the rumors that were said about him during and after the anti-colonial struggles” (Kwame Botwe-Asamoah). Has it ever crossed the mind of these anti-Nkrumahists that Nkrumah and Busia came from the same royal family, even as these anti-Nkrumahists do not see Nzema and Bono as (linguistic) as cognates (“The Brong (Bono-Manso), the first Akan empire, was founded by Asaman in in 1298 (McFarland & Owusu-Ansah). The Nzema and Bono groups are, perhaps, the first cluster of Akans to have left ancient Ghana to settle at their present locales”)? Some of us are even ignorant of the fact that there is a good chance that some of those African-Americans who resettled in Liberia could have originally come from the Gold Coast (and could have as well been Akans, Ewes, Gas, etc). Nor are we aware that some of those freed Afro-Brazilian slaves who also resettled in Accra could have originally come from Angola and other places in the continent!
All the blanket statements we ignorantly make about ethnic monolithicity have no scientific basis. Who and what are Guan, Ewe, Akan, Ewe, and Ga anyway? A look at our history shows the Akwamus constituted the most powerful Akan state between 1500 and 1600s (McFarland & Owusu-Ansah). The Ashanti Empire came later. In fact, the etymology of the word “Asante” itself does not say much about the ethnic composition of “ancient” Asantes. The word “Asante” comes from “Osa nti” (Osa—war; nti—because of). Thus “Asante” means “because of war” (Busia). Yet we know human geography, intermarriage, commerce, wars and slavery (where different ethnic groups were moved from one location to another, with some marrying into their hosts’ families of different ethnicity) undermine claims to ethnic monolithicity. We do not think there is any ethnic or racial group on the planet that is “pure.”
Adu Boahen once wrote that no one knew the origins of the ruling dynasty of Asante! On other fronts not many know Napoleon Bonaparte was born in Corsica and came from an Italian background: A Tuscan family (father’s side) and Genoese family (mother’s side). There is still a raging argument ongoing as to whether Alexander the Great was an ethnic Macedonian or ethnic Greek! Ivory Coast’s Alassane Outtara is said to be a Burkinabe though he was born in Ivory Coast. Janet Jagan, an American Jew, later become the first female president of Guyana.
In that case all the above notwithstanding, does Nkrumah’s family owe an explanation or elucidation on Nkrumah’s parental ancestries to anyone an explanation or elucidation on anyone? After all, Ghanaians know next to nothing about the parents of their presidents anyway. For instance, is Rawlings mandated to explain to Ghanaians his father’s name James Ramsey John? Which month was Azumah Nelson born in 1958: April, May, June, July, August or September? Still, we do not have enough data by way of paternity results to prove or confirm the paternities of all our leaders’ parents (The fact that paternity tests were not in existence in those days does not help matters). All we have are mere anecdotes and what we read in history texts and newspapers. None of what we read in these texts and newspapers about our leaders’ parents are by themselves not sufficient proof.
THE EXAMPLE OF KWAME OKOAMPA-AHOOFE
Kwame Okoampa-Ahoofe writes (“Mahama Is Just A Politician,” Ghanaweb, October 5, 2015): “And, by the way, Dr. J. B. Danquah did not name his son, and my paternal granduncle, Mr. Vladimir Danquah, born in 1921, or thereabouts, after Vladimir Lenin, as one Nkrumacratic scumbag sought to suggest recently…My distinguished retired World Bank administrator, Morocco-resident, British-mothered Uncle Vladimir Danquah was named after a famous philosopher-theorist…”
Unless, of course, Okoampa-Ahoofe is mentioning a different Danquah son in passing from the one he [Danquah] and Mabel Dove Danquah had, named Vladimir Danquah, then, we have no choice but to plead ignorance of the facts. On the other hand if this is not the case, then the available facts to us contradict Okoampa-Ahoofe’s statement. The facts also expose the attitudinal double standards evident in the intellectual profiles of Nkrumah’s professional enemies and detractors, particularly toward the personal and family demographics of Nkrumah.
Here are some of the facts: Upon Kobina Sekyi’s advice to Danquah to pursue law or qualify as a lawyer, the latter consulted with his brother Ofori Atta who, seeing the potential benefit of Sekyi’s advice to his modernizing calculations, warmed up to the idea and eventually lent his support (Note: Sekyi was one of the leaders of the Aborigines Rights Protection Society (ARPS)). In 1921 Ofori Atta sent Danquah to study in Britain. Some Ghanaian historians with deep knowledge of and rich experience of research investigation into Akyem history and colonial politics have made the claim that Ofori Atta imposed a special tax on his subjects to sponsor Danquah’s education.
It is widely acknowledged that Danquah remained in England for six years, returning only to the Gold Coast in 1927 after his education.
Among some of the things he did on his return was to establish a law practice in Accra, rather than return to his brother’s kingdom and contribute to his modernizing goals. Later on he became the founding editor of “The Times of West Africa” (formerly “West African Times”), a daily newspaper, around 1930-1931. Danquah would subsequently employ Mabel Ellen Dove, later Mabel Dove Danquah, to write for his newspaper, from 1931 to 1935, with the paper folding up in 1935 (Note: From 1935 to 1940 Mabel wrote for the “African Morning Post” under the pseudonym Dama Dumas. From 1936 to 1937 she wrote for the “Nigerian Daily Times” under the pseudonym Ebun Alakija. From 1950 to 1960 she wrote for the “Accra Evening News” under the pseudonym Akosua Dzatsui. She also served as an editor with Nkrumah on the “Evening News.” Finally, she wrote for the Daily Graphic).
However a romantic relationship soon developed between the two during this period, culminating in a marriage in 1933. Their wedding took place at the Holy Trinity Church, with Father E.J. Martinson officiating it. Guests at the wedding included C.E. Clark, Ofori Atta, Vincentis Kwawukume, Susan B. Ofori Atta, Bonso Bruce, Oliver Dove, and Danquah’s nephew Aaron Ofori Atta (a Minister of Local Government and a Minister of Justice in the CPP government) (Note: The Sept. 7, 1933 edition of the “West African Times” reported the wedding as “A Quiet Wedding Ceremony, Dr. Danquah and Miss Dove.” See also the “Gold Coast Week by Week Section of “Gold Coast Independent,” Sept. 9, 1933). Bonso Bruce, Mabel’s uncle, gave her hand in marriage.
We should point out it to readers that Mabel was born in 1905 in Accra to a Gold Coast-based Sierra Leonean father, a prominent lawyer called Francis Thomas Dove, and Eva Buckman, an Osu-based Ga businesswoman (Mabel passed away in 1984). Unfortunately, the marriage broke down as it was not a happy one. And by the middle of the 1940s the two divorced. The “celebrity” marriage began suffering a mere one year later when Danquah traveled to England in 1934 and remained there for two more years, only returning to the Gold Coast in 1936 (Note: Nnamdi Azikiwe proposed to her when her marriage with Danquah was already in tatters. She rejected the proposal outright because she was still officially married to Danquah). Vladimir Danquah, we have been to understand, was a product of this unhappy marriage.
The question is: Did Danquah and Mabel, a literary trailblazer and feminist, have this child before, that is 1921, or after 1933? Given that Okoampa-Ahoofe himself is not certain of the birthdate of this Vladimir, a date he could only couch in an Orwellian language of probability as “born in 1921, or thereabouts,” could we then infer that he [Okoampa-Ahoofe] was merely referring to another Vladimir we do not know and if not, that the Vladimir in question was born “out of wedlock,” as some anti-Nkrumahists would like to say of Nkrumah? How could Danquah have traveled to Britain in 1921, impregnated a woman there in 1921, and Vladimir given birth to in 1921?
Okoampa-Ahoofe’s “thereabouts” may have been placed there for strategic reasons. We say this with a sense of rhetorical probability. There is a sense of emotional and intellectual discomfort in Okoampa-Ahoofe’s rhetorical posture whenever Mabel is associated with Nkrumah and the CPP. While Kwame Botwe-Asamoah gives her narrative prominence in his writings, Okoampa-Ahoofe does not appear to do so. We stand to be corrected if wrong on this point. She appears to have become a pariah among Danquahists as some potentially see her as betraying Danquah. This was a gifted and intelligent woman who knew what she wanted—a woman who stood tall among great writers of her generation but slighted by a society steeped in the stench of male-chauvinism and anti-heroism. Even so, we are still compelled to ask: Is “thereabouts” the period immediately preceding 1921 when Mabel Danquah was less than or equal to 15 (1920 minus 1905), 16 in 1921 (1921 minus 1905), and at least 17 (1922 minus 1905)? We do not know!
And Okoampa-Ahoofe did not say much about these questions. In fact he said practically nothing about these questions. The fact remains, on the contrary, that Mabel’s father sent 6-year-old daughter to Sierra Leon to begin her primary education and later her secondary education. She proceeded to Britain for further education then returned to Sierra Leone again, only returning to Accra, the Gold Coast, in 1926, aged 21. There is no evidence she and Danquah physically met in Britain, let alone had a child together. Our records show the two probably met physically in Accra sometime in the early 1930s when Danquah asked her to write for his newly-founded newspaper. In fact she did not accept Danquah’s proposal to write for his paper right away. It was a decision that came with time and tactical deliberation.
Significantly, Danquah may have heard about her when her literary prowess and topical controversies spread like wildfire among newspaper owners and the educated elite! Given all these facts, why does Okoampa-Ahoofe want to make it look as though Vladimir Danquah’s personal and family demographics is shrouded in mystery as he would have us believe as in the case of Nkrumah? Could Mabel have British-mothered Vladimir? Maybe Danquah had more than one Vladimir Danquah for a son! Perhaps Okoampa-Ahoofe needs to tell us who these other Vladimir Danquahs were or are! We want to know!
........................................................................................................................................................
YAW 8 years ago
Kwarteng, how on earth can you always be posting such irrelevant weed?
Kwarteng, how on earth can you always be posting such irrelevant weed?
Dr. SAS, Attorney at Law 8 years ago
Everything Nkrumah did was about Nkrumah and his self-aggrandizement. There is no record that when he went to America, he sent money to build a house or take care of any family member or adopted any of the numerous orphans in ... read full comment
Everything Nkrumah did was about Nkrumah and his self-aggrandizement. There is no record that when he went to America, he sent money to build a house or take care of any family member or adopted any of the numerous orphans in his hometown. Nkrumah was a welfare basket case before others made him president: People took care of him: People bought his passage to Ghana, housed him, fed him clothed him....And in the end, which one of these people remained his friend by the time he was overthrown? If Nkrumah's past actions is any predictor of his future actions, all these people singing Nkrumah's praises today would end up in his prison cell, even if all their crime is staking a challenge to his popularity by writing on Ghanaweb.
He never saw his wife and children for the entire six years of his life in Guinea until his premature death in 1972 when he only was sixty-two. So instead of talking about what his bootlickers say about him, you should rather discuss his karmic/poetic justice. Otherwise you can also educate me on the exact achievements of Kwame Nkrumah.
In general, the Nkrumaist position is doomed ab initio: they must defend the misbehavior of a tyrant and a traitor...his imprisonment without trial, his declaration of one party state, his conferment of the power to overrule court judgments, his declaration of life presidency....
Even for an attorney professionally trained to defend both sides of an argument, I pity the awkward and contradictory position of the Nkrumaists. I really don't know of any leader that incarcerated both his foes and allies alike like Nkrumah, or went all out on a suicide mission to fatally doom his own presidency as Nkrumah did. And if any other leader committed one percent of Nkrumah's evil deeds, his followers would be up in arms against that person. Remember how they profusely cite the injustices under Busia and Kufuor's regimes to cast them as non-democrats and to justify Nkrumah's cruelty to Ghanaians?
But their position regarding Nkrumah is understandable because they were indoctrinated to imbibe the propaganda that Nkrumah does no wrong, and that Nkrumah never dies. Fortunately for all of us, these people who are old and decrepit will soon die off with their shibboleth.
Prof Lungu 8 years ago
So, you prefer to be coy with yourself!
Why did you neglect to talk about the cars no shipped to Ghana? Or, did you graduate?
But, explain to reas
BY , DR. SAS, ATTORNEY AT LAW
READ:
"....Biological sciences affir ... read full comment
So, you prefer to be coy with yourself!
Why did you neglect to talk about the cars no shipped to Ghana? Or, did you graduate?
But, explain to reas
BY , DR. SAS, ATTORNEY AT LAW
READ:
"....Biological sciences affirm the notion that all humankind are equal, and that exposure to knowledge and culture accounts for why some are more inclined than others to achieve greatness, power and wealth...Therefore the defining variable in mental development is “opportunity” which establishes the most legitimate intellectual differentials in the cognitive abilities of groups and individuals.../
\...It is in the context of all this knowledge that Ghana’s first president, soon after independence, deemed it fit and proper to concentrate on the formal school system to boost the African personality and to merge the tribes under one great banner of nationhood . Dr. Kwame Nkrumah’s vision for Ghana was the elevation of the confidence of the African and the unity of the nation and her people. This vision extended beyond Ghana’s borders to include the whole of Africa. What Nkrumah conceived of nationhood made philosophical sense because without knowledge and unity, no country can claim nationhood. If ignorance makes people show greater allegiances to tribes at the expense of the nation, then the survival of the nation is under serious threat. For a country to be a nation, her people will have to subsume ethnicity under the aegis of the national interest. The present conflicts amongst the tribes, though so far verbal, is a testimony that our country comprises nations within the state. In effect, we of this generation have repudiated the concept of nationhood with our ethnic animosity and undermined the very tenets under which the nation was founded..." ( 6 February 2007, Ghanaweb, Samuel Adjei Sarfo, J.D., AKA, Dr. SAS, Attorney at Law).
GORGORDUTOR 8 years ago
Well well well! What do we have here? Methinks we have a turncoat here, changing ones mind is not necessarily a bad thing. As the saying goes only a fool never changes his mind on anything!! The question here is, how come a p ... read full comment
Well well well! What do we have here? Methinks we have a turncoat here, changing ones mind is not necessarily a bad thing. As the saying goes only a fool never changes his mind on anything!! The question here is, how come a person has gone from well reasoned positions couched in temperate language to a a propagandist whose stock in trade is insult and invective grounded in fabrication and vain attempts to re-write or falsify the historical record.
For me personally I have no issues with one whose position is Nkrumah should have bowed down to the west and left other Afrikans to fend for themselves. Or that his program may have been incorrect, I am willing to engage in discussion and debate grounded in fidelity to the historical record, however those who refuse to acknowledge the historical record and engage in fabrication, calumny, false vilification, mindless insult and invective are beyond the pale and beneath my contempt!! When such persons are demonstrably aware of the historical record but base their advocacy or argument on falsehoods and calumny; the only logical inference one can make is, that such persons are driven by personal gain or inherited animosity!!
Prof Lungu 8 years ago
So, you prefer to be coy with yourself!
Why did you neglect to talk about the cars no shipped to Ghana? Or, did you graduate?
But, explain to the reasonable person
BY, DR. SAS, ATTORNEY AT LAW
READ:
"....Biolog ... read full comment
So, you prefer to be coy with yourself!
Why did you neglect to talk about the cars no shipped to Ghana? Or, did you graduate?
But, explain to the reasonable person
BY, DR. SAS, ATTORNEY AT LAW
READ:
"....Biological sciences affirm the notion that all humankind are equal, and that exposure to knowledge and culture accounts for why some are more inclined than others to achieve greatness, power and wealth...Therefore the defining variable in mental development is “opportunity” which establishes the most legitimate intellectual differentials in the cognitive abilities of groups and individuals.../
\...It is in the context of all this knowledge that Ghana’s first president, soon after independence, deemed it fit and proper to concentrate on the formal school system to boost the African personality and to merge the tribes under one great banner of nationhood . Dr. Kwame Nkrumah’s vision for Ghana was the elevation of the confidence of the African and the unity of the nation and her people. This vision extended beyond Ghana’s borders to include the whole of Africa. What Nkrumah conceived of nationhood made philosophical sense because without knowledge and unity, no country can claim nationhood. If ignorance makes people show greater allegiances to tribes at the expense of the nation, then the survival of the nation is under serious threat. For a country to be a nation, her people will have to subsume ethnicity under the aegis of the national interest. The present conflicts amongst the tribes, though so far verbal, is a testimony that our country comprises nations within the state. In effect, we of this generation have repudiated the concept of nationhood with our ethnic animosity and undermined the very tenets under which the nation was founded..." (6 February 2007, Ghanaweb, Samuel Adjei Sarfo, J.D., AKA, Dr. SAS, Attorney at Law)."
WE SAY: We imagine that is a lot achieved even by your own words and substance, temporally unbalanced, unreal, kludzed, and totally out of whack with realty, as your latter day antagonistic conversion now present for all to know!
Educate yourself with your own words, and wallow in your own conundrum!
Enjoy!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Nana Ansah 8 years ago
Dr. Sanqas you are so dumb it is painful. Whether you like it or not DEATH is inevitable for all of us. Fortunately, it has no line of order and know no class nor creed. You Sanqas may bite the grass before some of us go six ... read full comment
Dr. Sanqas you are so dumb it is painful. Whether you like it or not DEATH is inevitable for all of us. Fortunately, it has no line of order and know no class nor creed. You Sanqas may bite the grass before some of us go six feet under. Some even don't reach the age of five and pass away so for you to be waiting feverishly that with passing away of Nkrumah loyalist means the end of Nkrumaist shows how profoundly dumb you are. Boy you dog, you are SICK.
The ideas and ideals of Kwame Nkrumah is an axiom that will never die. Is that clear! Which is why Nkrumah lives and hence Nkrumah never dies. Nkrumah is an African phenomenon. Kwame Nkrumah saw the future. He knew what his peers didn’t know which made him stand out from the crowd. Like it is written; many are called but few are chosen. Nkrumah is the chosen one. You nonentity Sanqas will die like a pig and will never be missed, so like it or lump it, take it or leave it, accept it or forget it, Nkrumah will remain FORWARD EVER forever and ever.
See Dr.Sanqas, Nkrumah's monument in the fore court of the AU in Addis Abeba with the inscription “Ethiopia will rise again” will be there for posterity until thy kingdom come. Nkrumah’s mausoleum on the Polo grounds of Ghana where he declared our independence in 1957 will there till you ROT in HELL. Only a BUSH RAT like you can make such statement devoid of logic.
Goodness me, how deep is your stupidity? How can you think that with the passing of the remaining Nkrumaists he will not be heard of again. How childish and this bloke calls his bloody self a “Doctor” . Do you think such edifices like the Kwame Nkrumah Interchange, KNUST, FPSO Kwame Nkrumah and many others around the world will vanish into thin air? Don’t make me laugh! Love him or loath him, the king of the jungle, the lion of Africa Kwame Nkrumah will roar forever. Nkrumah Lives! Nkrumah never dies! Africa must Unite.
Prof Lungu 8 years ago
READ:
"...Amilcar Cabral...'As an African proverb says: ‘THOSE WHO SPIT AT THE SKY WILL SOIL THEIR FACE.’"
WE SAY: With liberty, we would even modify that, respectfully:
THOSE WHO SPIT AT THE SKY WILL SOIL THEIR FAC ... read full comment
READ:
"...Amilcar Cabral...'As an African proverb says: ‘THOSE WHO SPIT AT THE SKY WILL SOIL THEIR FACE.’"
WE SAY: With liberty, we would even modify that, respectfully:
THOSE WHO SPIT AT THE SKY WILL SOIL THEIR FACES AND NECKS!
Of what good is a sorry face and neck when you do not control your own mind, resources, and future!
Nothing more and nothing less, it is the same cut and paste rubbish from the same hopeless and useless braggart francis kwarteng.
Nkrumah never dies
KWAME OOH KWAME!!! KWAME OOH KWAME!!!
MAANTAATSE OSAGYEFO!! MAANDZIELOR AGYEMANG!!! MAANSAALOR OYEEMAN-OSAADEYEO!!! GBEHGBELELOR ODIKANFO!!!
KWAME OOH KWAME!!! KWAME OOH KWAME!!!
WOR HIEH NTSE BO WAA DIENTSE WONGBO!! ...
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The braying of a roboton till the battery is flat
MATEMEHOFU STORM WARNING ADVISORY
You people are discombobulated, we don dufudufu you OGUANTENFU so badly na craze wey you wan craze selef!! Abi you no go fit na ron around you dey ron dey tieftief mankine moniker to try a ...
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Are you sane ?
I know you have problems with English comprehension,so let me address you in language you can understand without overloading your brain circuits. Am I sane? I ain't the one sitting on their ass watching their screen waiting t ...
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How can an imbecile person like you clain to be sane? You are mad, get that!
Stand infront of a mirror and look at youurself, you will then bail me out that you are really mad.
Dear MINOR CASE,
This is what you have been missing and keeps confusing Molefi Kete Asante with Henry Louis Gates, Jr. Well, the following article is from Gates (and not Asante. I HOPE YOU DON'T COME BAK AGAIN CONFUSING YO ...
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Nkrumah never dies
Nkrumah never dies
bob, why are you reading Master Kwarteng if he is publishing rubbish? We understand you and your fellow black inferiority complex cohorts have accepted the white supremacist worldview!! You are welcome to wallow in your non r ...
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So you are the emancipated person all blacks should look up to.No wonder you carry this yoke of a stinking and unpronounceable name GARGANTUANSTUPOR. When are you going to wake up from your stupor to the realization that we a ...
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You go ahead, MINOR CASE!
Pump some sense into his empty cranium.
I have your back 200%
Off course you got your own back!! Lexus ooh, Bob ooh, DUTOR ooh, minor case ooh one and the same cretinous traitorous KWESIBRONI bootlickers!!
minor case of GARGANTUAN TRAITOROUS HYPOCRISY!! YOU CANT EVEN DEFEND YOURSELF OR YOUR VIEWS BECAUSE YOU ARE CONFUSED AS TO WHICH OF YOUR SEVERAL MONIKERS TO USE!! ABOAFUNU. JUST BECAUSE YOU ARE ON WELFARE YOU PRESUME EVERYONE ...
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Kwarteng, after his cut and paste crap tried to concrude (in the last paragraph) in his own words/English but as usual wrote a bogus and rotten primary 4 English that of course makes no grammatical sense.
I remember, Kwart ...
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Dr. Otto, you are right, we are aware that Master Kwarteng is not the strongest in English like Dr. Ahoofe and Dr SAS but diong his best to keep Nkrumah alive by reproducing stories about Nkrumah. What about you Dr, Otto? Let ...
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FIAFITOR EMIDUTOR ALAKPATOR NEH NYEH
DR ABUATO NI NIN KWASEASEM
GORGORDUTOR is now pushed to the wall and now showing the real Ewe in him.
You people will remain forever and ever selfish, inward looking, backward , thieves, unsocial and primitive fools.
Another tribalist bigot dead man walking!! Zombies like a gersis can't tnink,the effects of the ethnic bigotry is plain to see. Hahaha!!! They are dead inside, their only emotions are anger and self-hatred!! Puerile ethnic i ...
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Bad leadership in Ghana was started by Nkrumah. In fact all our problems started with him. Nkrumah was a dictator and very ambitious. He introduced one party rule in Ghana and made himself life president. He was neither carin ...
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Dear Patapaa,
How are you my Familiar Patapaa (remember you and I know who you are)?
Well, I just spoke with two different Ghanaian historians who have asked me to tell you to put your ideas, particularly the ones in yo ...
read full comment
Dear Patapaa,
I look forward to reading a cogent counterargument from you!
Thanks.
....................................................................................................................................... ...
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Kwarteng, how on earth can you always be posting such irrelevant weed?
Everything Nkrumah did was about Nkrumah and his self-aggrandizement. There is no record that when he went to America, he sent money to build a house or take care of any family member or adopted any of the numerous orphans in ...
read full comment
So, you prefer to be coy with yourself!
Why did you neglect to talk about the cars no shipped to Ghana? Or, did you graduate?
But, explain to reas
BY , DR. SAS, ATTORNEY AT LAW
READ:
"....Biological sciences affir ...
read full comment
Well well well! What do we have here? Methinks we have a turncoat here, changing ones mind is not necessarily a bad thing. As the saying goes only a fool never changes his mind on anything!! The question here is, how come a p ...
read full comment
So, you prefer to be coy with yourself!
Why did you neglect to talk about the cars no shipped to Ghana? Or, did you graduate?
But, explain to the reasonable person
BY, DR. SAS, ATTORNEY AT LAW
READ:
"....Biolog ...
read full comment
Dr. Sanqas you are so dumb it is painful. Whether you like it or not DEATH is inevitable for all of us. Fortunately, it has no line of order and know no class nor creed. You Sanqas may bite the grass before some of us go six ...
read full comment
READ:
"...Amilcar Cabral...'As an African proverb says: ‘THOSE WHO SPIT AT THE SKY WILL SOIL THEIR FACE.’"
WE SAY: With liberty, we would even modify that, respectfully:
THOSE WHO SPIT AT THE SKY WILL SOIL THEIR FAC ...
read full comment