If Sekou Nkrumah doesn’t know his limits

, he will soon be shown them

By Dr. Michael J.K. Bokor

Wednesday, February 12, 2014

Folks, I am more than angry at how this Dr. Sekou Nkrumah is abusing the traditional Ghanaian hospitality to behave as if he is a force to reckon with in Ghanaian politics. I have had the occasion to take him on and will continue to do so as long as he fails to realize that by his own miscalculation, he is a complete wash-out in contemporary Ghanaian politics. By failing to know his bearings, he is neither worth being accorded respect as an Nkrumahist or anything else nor given any room to register his notoriety as a political bat.

He has flirted with all the political fronts and established himself in the end as a nonentity. He is confused, unaccomplished, unfulfilled, and a complete nuisance!! It is all the more annoying when one considers the fact that his return to the NDC fold hasn’t even been acknowledged or endorsed by anybody. So, what does he think of himself to warrant this high degree of nuisance that he exhibits all over the place?

No room should be created for such a bugbear in our democracy. It is unacceptable for him to disturb our peace of mind. I have in mind his latest nauseating utterance, begging Ghanaians to forgive him for supporting ex-President Mills and the incumbent John Mahama.

His latest gibberish confirms it all. (See: http://www.ghanaweb.com/GhanaHomePage/NewsArchive/artikel.php?ID=300525).

Who the hell does this manic depressive Sekou Nkrumah think he is? On a lighter note, though, I might tone down on my lambasting of him because he is a classic example of the failings of our democracy!!

But even then, there is every justification for picking him apart on the score of all the disgusting utterances he has been making ever since he found a way to know the workings of contemporary Ghanaian politics without doing anything concrete to make any positive impact.

And in this opinion piece, I am bent on tearing him apart. No holds barred; no apologies.

The reality presented by him is too annoying to accommodate; but we will have to accommodate it so as to make us re-align ourselves with the paradigm that the Kwame Nkrumah stature in Ghanaian politics has established.

Indeed, our late Osagyefo Dr. Nkrumah did his best to prove that “the black man is capable of managing his own affairs” but the truth is there for all to see. In Africa—where the black man reigns supreme—where is the evidence to substantiate the Great Osagyefo’s stentorian political rhetoric?

Clearly, he couldn’t even safeguard his own political kingdom against destabilization and consequent destruction, which made it easy for his opponents to lure him out of Ghana to facilitate his overthrow on February 24, 1966. And that date is fast approaching to remind us of how Nkrumah’s vision for the African Personality just vanished with the wind.

Mind you, I am a strong proponent of what Nkrumah stood for; but the reality of the circumstances under which he functioned in those days won’t blind me to the fact that he wanted Ghana to fly without knowing that Ghana hadn’t yet developed wings (thanks to Gen. Albert Kwesi Ocran, part of the groups of cowards masterminded by Kotoka and Afrifa to wend Nkrumah into exile with their “Operation Cold Chop”).

Friends, Nkrumah had lofty ideas and implemented some to establish the foundation for Ghana’s development; but he lost big time because he failed to factor the machinations of his detractors into his grand scheme. Any political leader who does so ends up being a mockery of the very fortifications that he might have in mind against his detractors. Nkrumah failed to be ahead of the curb and suffered the ignominious impact—and passed it on to Ghana, which is why the country hasn’t rediscovered itself long after his removal from office. A painful reminder of good intentions gone awry.

Against this background, it is more than nauseating for a biological product of Nkrumah to rub salt in our wounds. Sekou Nkrumah has so far confirmed my disdain for him as a misguided and unenlightened offspring of the Great Osagyefo who doesn’t know anything about his father’s role in the fate that has befallen Ghana ever since he pushed the button to put Ghana on the internal political map—the first country to assert independence and to pave the way for others to throw off the yoke of European colonialism.

Sekou Nkrumah is a huge disgrace for not known ing where to pitch. He began as a member of the CPP, which might not be as strong as his father’s brand of that party but which somehow still held high the flag of Nkrumahism.

By a quirk of circumstance, he found fault and moved to the NDC, lending support to ex-President Mills and earning the appointment to be in charge of youth development in Ghana. In office, he proved incapable of performing tasks and came across as a misfit. He realized it himself but hid under the cover of “freedom of speech” to go for the foolhardy (not the audacious) as he turned his guns on the finger feeding him only to lose out big time.

Realizing his folly and knowing very well how he had lost his bearings in the pro-Nkrumahist arena (including the NDC, which is closer to Nkrumah than to Danquah-Busia), he had no option but to pursue his agenda of self-destruction, which sent him into the camp of the NPP. But it didn’t take long for his status as a political liability to be confirmed. His marriage of convenience with Akufo-Addo and his NPP would later turn him into a political bat—neither here nor there.

And he really lost control of himself, taking the most ludicrous action to break away from the NPP and return to pick the pieces in the NDC. Indeed, no one in the NDC will accommodate him anymore, knowing very well that he is a dirty, empty barrel, making the most noise and acting as a dangerous rolling stone gathering no moss. No one needs such a liability. He has washed himself out and is relevant only when it comes to making senseless statements of no important political benefit to any of the political parties in Ghana.

Truly, Sekou Nkrumah is a disgrace to his own father, his siblings, and the entire political edifice of Ghana, which is why I laugh him to scorn any time he opens his mouth to comment on political developments in Ghana.

Probably, the manic depression that has been his lot for many years now, emerging when he was living in Egypt and calcifying when he made the decision to relocate in Ghana, has now reached an incurable point. Such a character deserves pity. I have seen the memoir that he has written about himself, which is nothing but a re-affirmation of my poor opinion of him as a spoilt child who doesn’t know that he owes Ghanaians a huge debt of gratitude for accommodating his inanity all this while.

In other countries, he would have been disposed of. I am being very politically correct here because those who suffered the scourge of his father’s autocracy are still alive and could have dealt with him but for their kind heartedness. Against this background, if Sekou deceives himself that he is anybody to regard in the workings of Ghanaian politics, he shouldn’t be surprised when stopped in his stride. He is abusing the traditional hospitality.

Interesting enough, his more accomplished siblings (and I have in mind Dr. Francis Nkrumah, formerly of the Noguchi Memorial Centre, Gamel Nkrumah, and Samiah Nkrumah, Chairperson of the fast-dying CPP) are in control of themselves and not disparaging their father’s image as this Sekou does.

Now, let me make it clear that if Sekou thinks that Ghanaians value him as a political force to reckon with—which might deceive him into his current slide into stupidity by “begging” them for his lending support to the late Mills and the incumbent President John Mahama—hew will be working really hard to end the chapter on his life as the only living being from the Nkrumah lineage to bring so much opprobrium to a family that has for long been cherish ed by the world.

If Sekou needs help to regain his balance upstairs, he should seek it outside the realm of partisan politics. I don’t know what he has prepared himself for in life, but I am given to know that whatever that preparation may be, it hasn’t helped him realize his worth. Probably, this realization is the catalyst for his manic depression. But he won’t be allowed to over-stretch his personal inadequacies to the national realm.

All said and done, this kind of character stands out as the unfortunate product of our kind of democracy. He needs to know that his real root is in Egypt, which has been in turmoil all these years. With the kind of history behind it, Egypt suddenly attracts more attention than Ghana does and what it is going through now should engage Sekou more than the stable environment that characterizes Ghana’s politics.

If he has any apology to give, he should go to Egypt and render it to the Establishment as a hybrid who is suffering a lot of pain because neither system can help him realize his humanity. But if he persists on making himself the bull’s eye in Ghana, he will be hit soon!! No more, no less!! Ghana doesn’t need his kind.

I shall return…

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