In the first volume of his book titled The Makers of Modern Ghana (Anowuo Educational Publications, 1969), Magnus Sampson quotes Dr. Danquah in a quite interesting epigraph which reads as follows: ?It is only in the study of the lives of our great men [and women] that we can approach a general or universal history of Ghana.? Needless to say, the preceding observation diametrically contradicts the concept of ?universal history? in the post-modernist era. For it virtually presupposes the relative superordinate significance of the individual vis-?-vis the society at large, a prescription which may be aptly seen to also contradict the communalistic ethos of traditional African historiography. And yet, such observation, as paradoxical as it may seem, embodies an incontrovertible truth ? and the latter is the fact that the most significant and distinguished players in every nation and culture?s history encapsulate something akin to the essence or highest ideals of these societies. For it is, indeed, the ?great men [and women]? of any particular society who are the relative prime movers and shapers (or shakers) of the societal and collective national destiny. As so far, we have been witnessing the fullest unfolding of modern Ghanaian history even as we examine the unfolding of the existential contours of Dr. J. B. Danquah, an indisputable phenomenon among his peers.
One such fascinating examination of the proverbial well-lived life is Joe Appiah?s quite comprehensive memorial tribute of the Doyen of Gold Coast and Ghanaian politics titled The Man J. B. Danquah (Ghana Academy of Arts and Sciences, 1974), a study loosely drawn upon in the last installment of this series. In a eulogistic introduction to the preceding title, Appiah notes that the noble task of homage-paying to the great and distinguished can be exceptionally daunting, invariably because those often appointed to the task tend to be relatively unequal to its epic implications, because the homage-payer?s own life, however illustrious, unlike that of the subject of homage?s, is still undergoing the unpredictable process of unfolding. Thus even where both the subject of homage and the payer of homage have been contemporaries or colleagues, the fact still remains that one life has fulfilled itself whereas the other may be aptly termed as a veritable work in progress. Consequently, Appiah tersely writes: ?And so, like Milton in similar circumstances, it can only be with: bitter constraint and sad occasion dear and with forced fingers rude that I come to my task before the mellowing year.? For even as an astute and an accomplished politician in his own right, Appiah still finds the task quite disabling. For the lives of the illustrious and pioneering are almost inexhaustibly multi-dimensional in ways that many an ordinary life is not. And particularly regarding the polymathic Doyen of modern Ghanaian politics ? a philosopher, poet, playwright, lawyer, journalist, publisher, seminar-leader (or lecturer) and historian ? the task is even more inexhaustibly daunting. Of course, Appiah is also playing the proverbially modest but remarkably accomplished intellectual, thus the subtle reminder to his readers that he is stealthily and steadily entering the twilight zone, as it were: ?I come to the task before the mellowing year.?
Danquah?s life is depicted as that of a classical tragic hero who unreservedly fights for the liberation of his people and the nation, only to be ironically rendered a victim of his very own successful struggle. ?To fill this lacuna, no doubt unintended, I have accordingly, decided to deliver this year?s lectures on the general theme The Man J. B. Danquah. But there is yet another reason for my choice of topic. It is humbly submitted that those who come after us should know that throughout the dark period[,] there was resistance to tyranny by men like ?J. B.? and that the tyrants never had it all their way completely. It is hoped that so instructed, Ghanaians of the future will be encouraged to stand guard, eternally around the ramparts of freedom and liberty, erected in blood and tears and sweat by their forebears. It is my conviction that the struggles and death of ?J. B.? in prison epitomize the poetic account of that dark period in our history.?
Regarding the preceding two abstracts from Appiah, two things readily come to mind, namely, the fact that in 1974 when the writer presented his tribute, under the vehicular theme of ?The J. B. Danquah Memorial Lectures,? the kind of constitutional democracy which the Doyen had envisioned for the country did not exist. Needless to say, this was the post-Busia era of the so-called National Redemption Council junta, led by then-Colonel I. K. Acheampong. The latter and some of his staunch political associates would be summarily executed five years later by the so-called Armed Forces Revolutionary Council (AFRC), captained by career coup-plotter Flt.-Lt. Jeremiah (Jerry) John Rawlings. But what is herein remarkable is the fact that the author of The Man J. B. Danquah describes the political climate as one that was dismally filled with ?bitter constraint.? And the preceding observation is quite curious because Joe Appiah also lauds the man who had recently stymied the country?s dogged quest to firmly establishing a constitutionally democratic culture. Having called for the prompt and salutary return to constitutional democracy and the definitive elimination of ?the cult of personality? and the cancer of ?corruption and bribery from our public life,? Appiah, nevertheless, commends the reigning military dictator: ?Regarding the former, namely[,] the cult of personality, I think that the present Head of State, Colonel Acheampong, has set an example which we might do well to carry forward into civilian rule. You and I and all of us have noted, no doubt with admiration, that the Colonel has ridden in ordinary Peugeot cars to and from work and at all unofficial occasions since he took over power; that he has continued to live in his old residence which was given to him when he was appointed a Brigade Commander; that he has moved among the people freely on occasions like the Homowo festival of the Gas and, generally, gone about his job in [with?] humility and simplicity?(The Man J. B. Danquah 45).
Needless to say, the preceding was a glaringly premature verdict, as events soon indicated that the Acheampong regime was even more corrupt and morally and socially far less responsible than the Progress Party (PP) constitutionally elected government which the National Redemption Council (NRC) junta had overthrown. To be certain, the very name of the Acheampong government came to signify almost everything except ?Redemption.? And while it had commenced on a relatively sound footing by counseling economic self-reliance, particularly in the crucial sector of the agricultural industry, by 1979, when the Acheampong-Akuffo regime was brought to a sanguinary end, Ghana had distinguished itself as one of the most corruption-prone nations of the Third World. In fact, so lecherous was the NRC?s Chief Constable and his henchmen that during its final years, the Acheampong-Akuffo government had been contemptuously nicknamed Fa Woto Begye Golf. The latter is an Akan-Twi expression loosely translated as: ?Flaunt your big butts and earn yourself a Volkswagen Golf automobile.? For the Head-of-State and most of his cabinet were known to be inordinately ticked or aroused by young women, largely high-school teenagers, with generously endowed behinds.
What is rather disturbing about Appiah?s premature characterization of Colonel I. K. Acheampong as Ghana?s ideal presidential role model, is the logical fact of the critic?s profuse approbation of a military dictator, albeit even a ?benign dictator.? For Colonel Acheampong had been in power barely two years after summarily proscribing and decommissioning a constitutionally elected government. And what is even more ironic, the Busia-led Progress Party claimed dogged pursuit of Danquah?s ideology of a free-market economy predicated upon individual liberty. Thus, it was rather paradoxical for the Ghana Academy of Arts and Sciences to have invited someone who, at least in the material context of the moment, subscribed to the exact opposite of the political values championed by Dr. Danquah, and for which the Doyen practically died a martyr. Perhaps the sole criterion for inviting Joe Appiah to deliver the 1974 J. B. Danquah Memorial Lectures stemmed from the quite enviable fact that the former Nkrumah associate had also served a prison term with the constitutional founder of Ghana during the one-party tyranny of President Nkrumah. Likewise, by imprudently lauding then-Colonel Acheampong for purportedly cultivating a code of conduct perceived to be antithetical to Nkrumah?s putative ?cult of personality,? Appiah seemed to be implying that Dr. Kofi Abrefa Busia, whom Colonel Acheampong had overthrown, pursued an unsavory ideology bordering on the practice of a ?personality cult.? The truth, or detail, as it were, lay squarely somewhere between the fact that Mr. Appiah had vigorously fought a woefully pathetic presidential election battle against Dr. Busia and lost heavily and miserably in 1969, as well as the obvious fact that at the time of the delivery of the 1974 Danquah Memorial Lectures, Joe Appiah had been appointed into membership of the august Ghana National Council of State, a Privy Council of sorts. Consequently, perhaps, the otherwise quite erudite lecturer felt obliged to put in a favorable word or two for his proverbial master. This might also be, perhaps, why Appiah, unlike previous and subsequent lecturers, did not promptly call on the National Redemption Council to immediately call for democratic elections and the return of power to a civilian administration.
Instead, what we are presented in the third and final delivery of his J. B. Danquah Memorial Lectures is a brazen apology on behalf of the NRC junta. Thus, having glibly justified the military putsches of 1966 and 1972, Appiah expansively observes: ?Faced with these findings of fact, resulting from the post-mortem conducted on our two former civilian regimes, it seems to me that the time has come for us to evolve a new system of government that will give true expression to our national identity and character, guarantee our liberties and ensure the fulfillment of the promises of destiny. This quest, in my view, must precede a return to civilian rule. We who are alive today have a moral and legal duty to ensure that the fate that befell ?J. B.? and others like him, shall never again be repeated under civilian rule in this land! I plead for a re-examination of the quality of our past efforts if we are to make this epoch a new one in the history of Ghana?(The Man J. B. Danquah 40).
In a sense, Joe Appiah could be credited with having prepared the ground for what became known as the Union Government agenda of the one-party state promulgated by Colonel Acheampong, shortly before the latter?s overthrow via a palace coup, in 1978. If so, then perhaps Mr. Appiah deserves his sardonic moniker of ?Political Chameleon.? For there is nothing really new about the Union Government agenda; it merely rehashes Nkrumah?s proclamation of Ghana as a one-party republic shortly after the 1960 presidential election, during which period Danquah ran, ill-advisedly, for president on the ticket of the newly-minted United Party against Nkrumah and his Convention People?s Party. And we also know from his autobiography, titled Joe Appiah: The Autobiography of an African Patriot (Praeger, 1990), that the latter author was instrumental in the solicitation and return of Nkrumah?s mortal remains from Ahmed Sekou Toure?s Guinea for burial in Ghana. In the above-mentioned autobiography, Appiah claims that what motivated him to join the delegation to Guinea that returned the mortal remains of President Nkrumah for interment in Ghana was the latter?s unquestionably selfless and patriotic zeal for the liberation and development of the country. Earlier, as observed elsewhere in this series, Appiah describes Nkrumah as a pathological megalomaniac who would stop at nothing to grab and maintain raw power, if it even means having his right-arm amputated. And so on the fundamental question of principle, Joe Appiah is quite apt to observe in the introduction to his Danquah Memorial Lecture that the lecturer is not quite up to the task: ?And so, like Milton in similar circumstances, it can only be with: bitter constraint and sad occasion dear and with forced fingers rude that I come to my task before the mellowing year.?
And having brazenly justified the necessity of a one-party military interlude, the apologetic collaborator-architect of Union Government, expatiates: ?The idea behind this is to develop an ideology of what the NRC has called the ?ideology of Patriotic Nationalism? which, devoid of party and partisan sentiments, will allow the people to elect the best man for the job of ?Father of the Nation? peacefully?(Appiah 42). It is also quite interesting to point out that Danquah had, indeed, envisaged such a united front in the transitional prelude to the country?s re-assertion of its sovereignty. Unfortunately, as is now common knowledge, Nkrumah expediently breached such a ?common front? in 1949, when the first Ghanaian prime minister and executive president broke away from the Danquah-led United Gold Coast Convention (UGCC) in order to found his rather linguistically tautological Convention People?s Party (CPP). The distinction here, however, is that while Danquah envisaged such a united front as primarily the domain of citizens professionally trained for the job, for Joe Appiah, any such professionally informed prescription was irrelevant. But the fact that he presents the preceding ideological agenda, or program, as totally his own is rather disingenuous. Even more significantly, however, was the apparent failure of the Union Government architect to recognize the fact that having been rejected in the period leading up to Ghana?s independence and the establishment of multi-party democracy, the Union Government agenda, proposed in the late 1970s, was well behind the times. To be certain, it was his anachronistic attempt to hang onto power perennially that precipitated, in retrospect, the sanguinary events of June 4th, 1979.
Also, it is rather capriciously paradoxical that Joe Appiah would advocate the very kind of ideologically inflexible administrative apparatus that engendered what Appiah, himself, and his associates held to be responsible for what they termed as ?the dark period? of Ghanaian political history. Interestingly, President Nkrumah also wrote and published a book titled Dark Days in Ghana, a book worthy of critical examination in a separate study.
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