Only those who are diabolical with the truth, with short memory or no knowledge to speak of about the subject can claim Busia had a good vision for all Ghanaians. Far from those revanchist claims now pandered about as the gospel truth - with equally dubious authority and intent - Busia and his tradition represent the nightmare that has engulfed Ghana from 24 February 1966 to today! Yes, we occasionally woken up from the feverish slumber just to fall under another spell cast by the evil dwarves that continue to dog our very strides to civilisation.
ADVENT OF ETHNIC POLITICS
Indeed, Busia represents the epitome of ethnocentric politics in Ghana, from his days as leader of the NLM - a fact many NPPians try to hide even though enshrined in our annals and one can read all about it in Allman's The Quills of the Porcupine - to when he became Prime Minister of Ghana in 1969. The 1969 campaign afforded him the opportunity to unleash his pent up ethnocentrism on Ewes. And, gaining power the opportunity to turn on other Africans with his obnoxious Aliens Compliance Order. Then, turned round to develop friendship with Apartheid South Africa just like his buddy Houphouet Boigny and thereby discrediting Ghana before the eyes of all Africans.
The National Liberation Movement and the Progress Party under Busia's leadership sowed the seed of ethnic chauvinism and divisionism in Ghana, a fact captured in Dennis Austin' books 'Politics in Ghana: 1946-1960' and 'Ghana Observed.' With what he Austin knew already about Ghana, he still marvelled at the highly inflammatory anti-Ewe rhetoric of the PP's campaign - the origin of the Ewes-are-dominating-us-mantra we still hear today on Ghanaweb in particular and elsewhere. It started even before Rawlings joined the Airforce. So Austin observed in 1969:
'A surprising and disagreeable novelty of the election was the extraordinary anti-Ewe sentiment that was expressed in conversation with many of those who were against Gbedemah and his party. One can explain this strong animus not simply by a dislike of Gbedema's reappearance in political life but in relations to events after the 1966 coup. Suddenly there were the soldiers and the police, and everyone burst out singing, but when the music died down away it was noticed that the NLC (it seemed) was commanded by minorities: Ewe and Ga. When Ankrah (a Ga), was moved out, and charges were brought over-hastily by Harlley against the Chief of Defence Staff, Michael Otu, the evidence to many was overwhelming. It was all an Ewe plot. Soon Ghana would be run for the benefit of an energetic minority, operating first within the armed forces, and now behind Gbedemah. 'Appoint an Ewe to a public corporation or to a government department and within a year the entire hierarchy down to the messenger will be an Ewe.' So the argument ran. And there was always some evidence for it, since the Ewe, deprived of any natural wealth in their own barren region, have been energetic in seizing the opportunities of public employment, including positions in the army and the police, which wealthier communities (like the Akan) did not wish to occupy. In practice, looking through the list of senior officers in government departments and the public corporations, the evidence is certainly not clear of any Ewe domination: it could hardly be in view of their number. But a belief does not, of course, have to be true before people hold it fervently.
Now there is an Akan-dominated government of an Akan dominated society. Were I to become, by some improbable chance of fate, leader of the governing party I would be much less apprehensive of my Ewe opponents in front than of the large and expectant following behind. I would be fearful too of the ambitions of those now excluded from power, remembering the Songs of Innocence that:
The strongest poison ever known
Came from Caeser's laurel crown' (D. Austin 1976:125)
Austin was writing with hindsight about what befell Busia's regime, overthrown in a coup led by an Asante. Of course, there are scholarly works, with statistical analysis, that show that Ewes in no way had established any hegemony over public jobs. The only ethnic group found to be statistically significantly over-represented were Gas by 1975, but that is to be expected. By the first decade of 1900s, long before the pioneer Ewe job seekers appeared in Accra in what the Anlo women derogatorily tagged, 'dordzim me le', literally, 'it is job I am looking for', i.e., the white canvass shoe, there was a noted over supply in Accra for clerical and artisan posts!
Of course, this apprehension of Ewe dominance, induced by already held pre-colonial and colonial prejudices against them which I have examined elsewhere, led to the sacking of mostly Ewes in the infamous Apollo 585 and the celebrated Sallah case, which exposed Busia as not a true believer in the rule of law principles much vaunted by his supporters with his infamous shouts of 'No court! No court!...' A pity Justice Atuguba was not the judge in that case then!
JUST ANOTHER AUTOCRAT IN THE MAKING
Of course, he was just another African autocrat (not a dictator, as the weak states in Africa don't have the capacity to control and dictate to the mass of the people) in the mold of the right-wing leaders of Africa such as Kenyattah and Houphouet Boigny and would have imprisoned the opposition for even far less than throwing bombs at him, and entrenched himself in power too had he led Ghana to independence. So after all their noises about democracy and multiparty system, they banned the CPP and took every step to ban any party, e.g., the PPP, with a likely chance of beating them at the 1969 elections! I say baa! to their credentials as democrats and believers in that fanciful rule of law claims of Dicey, which Lord Jennings shredded into pieces. Which schools did these people attend at all? Are they not aware that Dicey claims that the rule of law does not exist in continental European countries, where administrative tribunals play very important roles in the administration of justice? So are they not democratic and respect civil rights, eh?
And have they not ever come across Professor Macpherson's address on Radio Canada enshrined in that small book, Some Aspects of Democracy, in which he argued that the Communistic variant of one party state democracy was closer to the vaunted Greek democracy and the Third World one party democracy was even much closer than the Western plural or liberal democracy based on adversarial party systems??? Within the paradigm and time in which Nkrumah was operating, his choice of one party system for Ghana was perfectly legitimate and democratic!
RIGHT-WING ELITISM
His right-wing socio-economic views and elitism would have left the mass of people illiterate and in a feudal, primitive state as one finds in the Horn of Africa, rural Ivory Coast and Kenya, just to mention some examples; not forgetting parts of Ghana itself with all those trokosi and witch camps.
When Nkrumah acquired second hand clothing to be distributed in northern Ghana, where some were going about hardly clothed then, e.g., the beautiful Lobi people, Busia and his conservative associates proclaimed it as an insult to their "culture". Busia the scholar and sociologist did not know why people subjected to slave raids for centuries and unable to live peaceful, settled lives and weave cloths any longer developed the practice of dressing scantily or not at all, as in certain parts of Africa, e.g., the Nuba Mountains or among the Lobis. Oh! He knew, being a giant sociologist albeit not a historian and social anthropologist, but as a conservative and traditionalist, he accepted that they should go about stark-naked if that is what they wanted! Times have changed though. Nowadays when our women folk show us some tantalising cleavages and flesh, the conservatives go berserk about sinful ways which shall land them in hell! Phew! Reminds me of when a 'dipo' procession in Accra in the mid-1980s emptied the offices and the lascivious grins on the faces of the men at the sight of the firm and full 'bobby stand' and plumb 'booty' of the young maiden was a sight to behold!
When Nkrumah wanted to stop the practice of bodily scarification, Busia the sociologist went berserk! He certainly approved of the disturbing reasons behind such tribal marks: some reserved for people of slave origins or vanquished tribes from which slaves could be raided! Or, for the elite tribes or overlords so that no one should make any mistake about who they are: lords of the fiefdom.
ANTI-EDUCATION INTELLECTUAL
He oversaw the disbandment of the free and universal education policy of the CPP which action has led to the general illiteracy in Ghana today, with the Congo under Mobutu even surpassing Ghana in literacy rate! The complete reversal of this position of Busia by Nana Akufo Addo and the NPP to a universal free education to SSS level is a vindication of Nkrumah and the damnation of Busia and the NPP's past.
INDUSTRIALISATION??? Nope! It wasn't in his books, not to mention vision! The abandoned factories on which tens of millions of £s had been spent are there as testimony. As advisers to the reactionary junta, they started arresting and deporting the Eastern European technical personnel supervising the building and operation of those factories. By the time the shocked Western diplomats had advised them to stop those heinous actions, it was too late! If you are educated about Ghana, you should know which books to read those records from. But it is a pity the Nkrumaist tradition parties have failed to make these facts known to the generality of Ghanaians.
MODERN AGRICULTURAL DEVT? In his books, that's an attack on the freedom and rights of the peasantry whose children should not go to school because educating them made them refuse to work on the land. Giving small loans to the peasants to continue farming their quarter of an acre plots was the best policy to prosecute the agricultural agenda. Silos and granaries to deal with the vagaries of bumper harvests and post harvest losses and lean seasons? Grrrh! Those are communistic ideas in their books!
I should not waste more of my time on Busia's blurred 'vision'. He was as blind as a mole! Or, at best, the owl or bat in day time! He is a nightmare that Ghanaians must be woken from!
Andy Kwawukume
London
