Betrayal, Slander, Disappointment: How JB Danquah reacted to Nkrumah winning 1951 election

The ‘frosty’ relationship between Ghana’s first president, Osagyefo Dr. Kwame Nkrumah, and members of the United Gold Coast Convention (UGCC) came to bear recently as the public debate on whether the country has one founder - Nkrumah, or founders known as the Big Six leaders of UGCC, reignited.

A book written by Kabral Blay-Amihere, titled ‘1947–1957: The Story of Ghana’s Independence,’ presented a better insight into the relationship between Nkrumah and the leaders of the UGCC, including its founder, George Alfred Grant (Paa Grant), as well as one of its leading members, J.B. Danquah.

Details in the book indicate that J.B. Danquah, Paa Grant, and other members of the UGCC were bitter over Nkrumah’s decision to leave the party to form the Convention People’s Party (CPP), a little over a year after accepting an invitation to become the General Secretary of the UGCC.

While most of the UGCC leaders wanted nothing to do with Nkrumah after he left, J.B. Danquah seemed to have buried the hatchet and made attempts to restore their relationship with Nkrumah.

Excerpts from Blay-Amihere’s book show that while Nkrumah was imprisoned for instigating a general strike action by the unions, J.B. Danquah penned a “gracious letter” to Ghana’s first president, hoping to work with him again.

However, Nkrumah seemed not to have accepted J.B. Danquah's invitation to smoke the peace pipe and for them to work together to liberate Ghana.

Nkrumah and his CPP went ahead to contest in the 1951 election.

The CPP won the election with 34 seats in the legislative assembly, while the UGCC got only 3 seats.

These results and Nkrumah’s refusal to accept the proposal in the “gracious letter” appear to have infuriated J.B. Danquah, who in a letter to one Hutchful, expressed his bitterness about the actions of Ghana’s first president.

In the said letter, as captured in Kabral Blay-Amihere’s book, Danquah expressed his unhappiness about how all his efforts and the risks he took had amounted to nothing.

He listed his “outstanding contribution to the independence struggle,” including the formation of the UGCC.

“I worked hard for over twenty years to arouse the consciousness of the people to think themselves fit for self-government. I established the Youth Conference, for the purpose of educating and preparing the minds of the youth for the fray.

“At great risk to myself, I kept up the struggle in the press, especially in the Observer, where I was opposed to others ('Candide' among them) suggesting that we should wait for our economic 'self-government' first. At last, we got the UGCC formed and fired the imagination of the country, the 'front' having been already brought together by my previous work of preparation,” parts of J.B. Danquah’s letter are quoted in the book, 1947–1957: The Story of Ghana’s Independence.

J.B. Danquah indicated that Nkrumah betrayed the leaders of the UGCC after they used their resources to bring him back to the country.

He accused Nkrumah and the CPP of slandering himself and other members of the UGCC just to look good in the eyes of the public.

“We brought our worth and paid money to get out Nkrumah to carry on the work like St. Paul, but a year later he turned against us and his party went about saying the rest of us had been bribed by the Government, and he was the only honest one of the six who really wanted SG! We were abused and vilified and criticized destructively.”

BAI/AE

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