By Kwame Okoampa-Ahoofe, Jr., Ph.D.
As the stark existential reality of truth hits fanatical Nkrumah supporters and ideologues in the face, they continue to scream and madly agitate for more laurels to grace the prematurely bald head of their hero. For such is the insatiable nature of undeserved accolades: the more it is fatuously heaped with nauseous exaggeration, the more the ill-fitting subject of misguided encomiums craves.
And so it comes as all-too-predictable for Prof. Agyeman-Badu Akosa to be calling for the name of Gen. E. K. Kotoka to be removed from Ghana’s sole international airport and putative Gateway to West Africa (See “Kotoka’s Name Must Be Scrapped Off Airport” Ghanaweb.com 9/21/10). Interestingly, the Nigerians have sarcastically retorted that: “Ah, indeed, Ghana may pretty much be globally recognized as the Gateway to West Africa; but the Destination through the Gateway is, of course, Abuja,” the official headquarters of the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS).
Actually, Nigeria is world-renowned for headquartering the infamous “419” scam-artistry. Still, it goes without saying that it is better to be known for something than nothing at all.
Anyway, this write-up, as it is apt to be characterized by many a Ghanaian reader, was provoked by Mr. Gabby Asare Otchere-Darko’s counterpoint presentation of excerpts from the prophetic writings of the indisputable Doyen of Gold Coast and Ghanaian politics. And it is hereby solemnly advised that well-meaning Ghanaians and students of Ghana’s political history avail themselves of the same as soon as conveniently possible, before the cognitively irredeemable likes of Prof. Akosa rest assured in their ignorance-bred arrogance.
And here, also, let hot-headed fanatics like the former director of our beloved country’s medical services – and Hausa-Koko advocate – be vehemently forewarned that any reckless attempt to falsify the true and epic history of Ghana would be fiercely met with appropriate proportional response in kind. Simply put: any ill-advised and outright idiotic attempt to erase the glorious memory of the man who liberated Ghanaians from Nkrumaist dictatorship and neo-fascism would well witness, once again, the epic and salubrious downing of that ugly statue of our country’s most knavish politician that was recently planted in front of the taxpayer-supported science and technology academy that bears the name of the late deposed tyrant! And for good measure, we would further launch a blistering campaign to permanently ensure that no dictator’s name ever, again, disgraces any public establishment in our country. In sum, let the likes of Prof. Agyeman-Badu Akosa be pointedly warned that Gen. E. K. Kotoka was no less of a Ghanaian citizen than President Kwame Nkrumah!
Anyway, several years ago, I pitch-battled a cognitively arrested Ghanaian professor and my junior in Temple University’s doctoral program in African-American Studies. Actually, my inveterate adversary is some 15 years older than I am, and rather casually presumes to cavalierly dismiss the seminal and pioneering achievements of Dr. J. B. Danquah and his yeomanly associates and compatriots.
Then we have also had a Halifax, Canadian-based Nkrumacrat who claimed to be this writer’s cousin scandalously attempt to undermine the integrity of both Dr. Danquah and the latter’s ideological scions. The fact of the matter is that back then, as now, I have never known or been even half-interested in either the existence or affairs of this self-proclaimed relative of mine.
Anyway, what is significant in Mr. Otchere-Darko’s presentation, captioned “Danquah on Nkrumah’s Propaganda Climb to Greatness” (See Ghanaweb.com 9/22/10) is the fact that it boldly and objectively puts paid to the long-running criminal attempt by some of his most ardent supporters and sympathizers to institutionalize Mr. Kwame Nkrumah, somehow, in the guise of a proverbial Alpha and Omega of modern Ghana’s auspicious liberation from British colonial rule and its development. We learn with great pride, for instance, that the very establishment of the Sports Council of Ghana, as it is generally known today, was meticulously engendered by the acute instrumentality of the Doyen of Gold Coast and Ghanaian politics who, by the way, is also the de facto founder of what is today the Bank of Ghana and the Cocoa-Marketing Board (Cocobod).
Of course, we have time and again highlighted Dr. Danquah’s preeminence in the founding of Ghana’s flagship academy, the University of Ghana which, to-date, ungrateful Ghanaian leaders, including some who claim to be ideologically guided by his precepts, have adamantly and ignobly refused to duly name after the man who vehemently protested the initial British colonial policy of having Ghanaian students access higher education in the West African sub-region via Ibadan (See Historic Speeches and Writings on Ghana by Dr. J. B. Danquah [Compiled by H. K. Akyeampong]).
It is also rather amusing to hear the likes of Prof. Agyeman-Badu Akosa describe the naming of Ghana’s main airport after Gen. E. K. Kotoka as “a slap in the face of democracy and [an act] tantamount to glorifying coup makers” (Ghanaweb.com 9/21/10). One can be assuredly certain that Prof. Agyeman-Badu Akosa has absolutely no remarkable understanding of what it means to live under a democratic political culture. Else, he would not have so facilely equated the latter with the odious and extortionate Convention People’s Party (CPP) regime.
To be certain, the first “coup-maker” in modern Ghana was Mr. Kwame Nkrumah who also shamelessly plagiarized the Danquah-led United Gold Coast Convention (UGCC) and hoodwinked the Ghanaian electorate with whole-cloth mendacity into the seat of governance. And as Dr, Danquah painfully observed, Nkrumah would libelously claim that the very personality who made the latter’s political career a practical reality had received a bribe of G 25,000 (Twenty-Five Thousand Guineas), or approximately £ 30,000, to abandon Ghana’s glorious liberation struggle. And as is nauseatingly characteristic of his detractors, to-date, none of the propagators of such abject and flagrant falsehood has provided any forensic evidence to back up their slime.
What is, perhaps, most remarkable about the Doyen of Gold Coast and Ghanaian politics is his uncannily cozy relationship with truth and honesty, as opposed to the African Show Boy’s embarrassing notoriety and abject penchant for political chicanery. Thus regarding Mr. Nkrumah’s shameless proclamation of his uniqueness among Ghana’s Founding Fathers, Dr. Danquah fiercely and forthrightly retorts: “How much ‘blood and sweat’ or ‘personal sacrifices’ did Dr. Nkrumah expend in liberating Ghana ‘From the oppressors’ when, indeed[,] for the 13 years that the intensive intellectual battle for the liberation of Ghana was joined between us [i.e. Danquah and the Gold Coast Youth Conference, among others?] and Ghana’s ‘Oppressors,’ from the 1934 Colonial Office Delegation of the Colony and Ashanti, to the legislative union of the Colony and Ashanti in 1946 and the subsequent formation of the United Gold Coast Convention, in 1947, Dr. Nkrumah was a student [at] Lincoln University, USA, or at Gray’s Inn Road, London, and was not even known in Ghana’s politics” (See “Danquah on Nkrumah’s Propaganda Climb to Greatness” Ghanaweb.com 9/22/10).
Consequently, when he poignantly observes in Latin that “Great Men Existed Before Agamemnon” [“Vixere Fortes Ante Agamemnon”], the legendary Greek hero of the Trojan War, the Doyen of Gold Coast and Ghanaian politics could not be more dead-on accurate in his observation.
*Kwame Okoampa-Ahoofe, Jr., Ph.D., is Associate Professor of English, Journalism and Creative Writing at Nassau Community College of the State University of New York, Garden City. He is a Governing Board Member of the Accra-based Danquah Institute (DI) and the author of 21 books, including “Dr. J. B. Danquah: Architect of Modern Ghana” (iUniverse.com, 2005). E-mail: okoampaahoofe@optimum.net.
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