The Greatest Illusionist
By Dr. Samuel Adjei Sarfo
The consistent braying, bleating and barking of the Nkrumahist donkeys, sheep and dogs comprise one further indication of the brain atrophy of these cultic mongers and ideological monsters. Thus apart from their usual apoplectic tantrums, none can point out any lie in my articles nor coherently debate any salient issue I have so far raised.
And so in abject frustration and searing rage, these Nkrumahist ideologues, action troopers, young pioneers, republican guards, praise singers, and death squads, with gnashing teeth and contorted visage, snarling and howling with air so foul, tearing their clothing in a fit of sacred rage, invoking dark curses from Kankan Nyame, ruing the glorious days of PDA, days of incarceration without trial, when the Fountain of Honor's word was law, when the redeemer dictated lore and gave them their folklore, ask with screeching voices and husky tones , when will you join our retinue of perpetual praise singers? When will you poke your eye-balls in order to bray our chorus of blind loyalty, or expectorate your brain matter in order to bleat our allegiances preserved for these donkey years? When will you be like us, unthinking, unquestioning, unfeeling, un-testing, and un-examining?
My answer...the day you will tell me of my lies in this series of articles; of the things I have alleged here that are not true: tell me that Nkrumah was not the recipient of others’ benevolence, tell me that he did not repay them with imprisonment, tell me that there was no PDA, tell me that there was no imprisonment without trial, tell me that there was no removal of the franchise, nor declaration of one party state nor life president!
Nkrumah did a nice job by screwing up his followers’ brains, but the extent of their brain atrophy is far more than initially thought or ever imagined when seen within the lenses of his followers’ incoherent expletives in substitute to genuine debate. No doubt, for another three hundred years, these somnambulist acolytes and their children's children's heads will remain deep-frozen with the shibboleth of Nkrumahism; they can never think, never debate, never reason….. . They come from an ideological proclivity to whom the Osagyefo is a saint and god, a proclivity that makes them bury their heads in the sand and see nothing wrong, hear nothing wrong and say nothing wrong about the Great Redeemer.
When the issue of Nkrumah’s dictatorship is raised, all that the eternal minions do is to claim that the 1966 coup was CIA inspired. This begs the question of Nkrumah’s tyranny and consigns the wisdom of the popular masses that thronged the streets in jubilation into a deep-freezer. We could then argue that the CIA inspiration was a welcome intervention in the destiny of a people taken into hostage by a brutal dictator and thank the CIA for its work of liberation. Once the issue of Nkrumah’s dictatorship is confirmed, the manner of his overthrow is moot.
Also, they invoke American democratic credentials vis-a-vis its history of oppression to justify Nkrumah’s dictatorship. How the American democratic credentials impinge on Nkrumah's tyranny beats my imagination. We are accusing the head of our household of child abuse, and you are pointing to another household and saying that the head is also guilty of child abuse. How relevant is that?
Besides, we must draw a distinctive dichotomy between the natural trajectory of democracy and its use as a mantra to oppress and subjugate others. If we understand democracy as an evolution towards perfection in government, we will understand how its existence is a means, but not the end of human freedom itself. Thereafter, we will not justify authoritarianism because of the existence of injustices within a democratic dispensation somewhere. Instead, we will inquire into our system of government to determine if it is headed towards the right or wrong direction…from dictatorship into democracy or vice versa. If it is the latter, it must be terminated by all means possible, and never be sanctioned by any freedom-loving people.
The difference between the 1966 coup that toppled Nkrumah and all the other coups that happened in Ghana is that whereas by 1966, Ghana was heading towards imminent dictatorship with its appurtenant life president, one party state and PDA, in 1972, 1979 and 1981, the nation was heading in the direction of a democratic dispensation, and there was no need to overthrow these governments. This is the reason why the 1966 coup is the only justified and justifiable coup in the history of Ghana.
I would agree that Nkrumah lived ahead of his time. His record in the provision of infrastructure, healthcare, education and employment has not been matched by any government...and I don't agree with those who diminish his achievements in this respect by pointing to the availability of money. This is because subsequent governments have not done what Nkrumah did even in proportion with the resources they had. Indeed, I would go to the extent of agreeing that Nkrumah was the greatest African of the past millennium, but Nkrumah's achievements in these respects do not transmogrify into a democratic credential. Neither do they negate the fact that he was a brutal dictator. Indeed, Nkrumah’s history is never complete without commensurate references to his authoritarian leadership. I am not afraid to praise Nkrumah; at the same time, I am not afraid to condemn him. But for a man whose mantra for Ghana's independence was freedom and justice, he should be judged by the promise of his own words, and nothing lower.
Instead of pointing to Western imperfections as an excuse to justify Nkrumah’s dictatorship, nothing stops us Africans from building a model democracy for the world to emulate. That is what Nkrumah failed to do, and that is what this conversation should be about. True or not: Was Nkrumah a dictator? Did he abridge freedoms as enumerated in my articles? If so, what was the legitimacy of his moral compass in calling for the freedom of the African continent when he denied freedom for his own people? And why must we, as a sovereign nation, entertain a tyrant whose evolutionary trajectory was towards total and absolute dictatorship?
And why must the threat on Nkrumah’s life become a conduit for the channeling of his dictatorial propensities? If the assassination of American presidents and the terroristic activities of religious fanatics did not permanently alter the sovereign rights of the American people, why should these same factors lead to the permanent abrogation of the people’s rights and the resulting dictatorship under Nkrumah’s regime? If all that a dictator needs is security threat to abrogate the rights of his people, that dictator will always find the security threat one way or the other in order to abrogate the rights of the people.
But the chronology of Nkrumah’s draconian laws exposes his natural propensity for insidious tyranny: the PDA was enacted in 1958 and gave the President the right to incarcerate a citizen without trial for five years. In 1962, the law was re-enacted to incarcerate a citizen of Ghana for a period of ten years without trial. Nkrumah also amended the Criminal Procedure Act to empower him to quash court's decision retroactively and prospectively.
And so when we say Nkrumah achieved independence for Ghana, the natural question is what type of independence? Was it about flags, coat of arms, a national anthem and other insignia of state? Was it about the mere transposition of white oppression to black oppression, and the rearrangement of the political play-actors to empower a cabal of black oppressors instead of a white one?
We cannot separate true independence from its core element which is the sovereignty of the people: their rights within the democratic dispensation and their freedoms enshrined in proper law and lore. Nkrumah’s destruction of this element of independence makes him an enemy, and not the father of Ghana’s independence. He saw independence through a jaundiced view of his personality cult, and bequeathed to the nation a generation of indoctrinated Ghanaian acolytes whose thoughts are forever warped and reasoning circumscribed to feed the great Nkrumahist mythology. All these people can do is to shout shibboleths in praise of Nkrumah, or to insult those who dare to criticize him.
The worst of these empty slogans and insults emanated from a Ghanaian professor of Political Science who wrote these words to me:
It is a shame that you pride yourself as a lawyer who is knowledgeable enough to condemn Dr. Kwame Nkrumah, the first president of Ghana, whom the AU was more than proud to honor because of his good services to Ghana and Africa by erecting his statue at the AU headquarters in Addis Ababa. What have you as an individual done for Ghana or Africa worth a historical notation? Yet you take pride in condemning Africa's most illustrious leader. As someone who has researched and understand the "politics" at the time of Ghana's struggle for self-rule and economic freedom, I take issue with your rather shallow political analyses vis-à-vis the contribution of Dr. Nkrumah to Ghana and Africa in the midst of CIA collaborators who wanted to derail our hard won freedom in the 1950's and 1960's. Best wishes.
George A. Agbango, Ph.D.
Professor of Politics and Public Administration
US Institute of Peace Scholar
Department of Political Science
Bloomsburg University of Pennsylvania
216-B Bakeless Center for the Humanities
400 East Second Street
Bloomsburg, PA 17815
USA
Friends, this is vintage Nkrumahist rant for you! In spite of all his education, he is just incapable of thinking beyond praise-singing. Is he truly interested in what I do for my country “ worth (sic) a historical notation”? If I were to narrate my contribution to my country, will he be convinced?
Ayikwei Armah, Africa’s foremost prose stylist, in his book called “The Healers” describes a festival within a certain African community in which all the people engage in a race only to crown a single person as the winner deserving of all honor. A better trope and mythical construct cannot be found to describe the hero-worshipping of the political illusionist of all time, Osagyefo Dr. Kwame Nkrumah, the Fountain of All Honor! But it is the work of real scholars to scratch the foil from the core and analyze the myth in order to expose the truth.
Samuel Adjei Sarfo, Doctor of Law, is a general legal practitioner resident in the city of Austin, Texas. You can email him at sarfoadjei@yahoo.com.
