Nkrumah Did Not Force His Views On African Leaders 2

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francis kwarteng 10 years ago

Dear Readers,

I sent Part 2 "Nkrumah Did Not Force His Views On African Leaders" and Part 2 of "Some Source Materials By And About Kwame Nkrumah" separately but the editor chose to put the two together.

I am not too su ...
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Dear Readers,

I sent Part 2 "Nkrumah Did Not Force His Views On African Leaders" and Part 2 of "Some Source Materials By And About Kwame Nkrumah" separately but the editor chose to put the two together.

I am not too sure why he put the two together. This has made the piece too cumbersome for readability.

I apologize for the mixup!

Thanks.
ADJOA WANGARA 10 years ago

Tell us concretely what Ghana and the people of Ghana in general at long last achieved from your silly Nkrumah's one-party regime.

Why are we not still politically practicing one-party state in Ghana?

Tell us concretely what Ghana and the people of Ghana in general at long last achieved from your silly Nkrumah's one-party regime.

Why are we not still politically practicing one-party state in Ghana?
Kojo T 10 years ago

Why do you fight Francis.The man is educating us : the people" Are you afraid of the truth? Does it mater if it is copy and paste? You want us to follow unworkable ideologies and systems that have failed Africans.Adjoa is t ...
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Why do you fight Francis.The man is educating us : the people" Are you afraid of the truth? Does it mater if it is copy and paste? You want us to follow unworkable ideologies and systems that have failed Africans.Adjoa is the success of multi party Al Shabab a result of failed Somalia, Boko haram, Burundi massacre,CIV war, Even South Africa with capitalist ideology has failed anddegerated into Afrophobia.Just conjure a United Africa and see if these catastrophies would not be averted.Adjoa, our people are dying in the seas trying to get a life in United Europe and we remain divided Think again my sister
Mahmoud 10 years ago

"Aspirations for African and World Leadership

Nkrumah, who is driven by ambition to be far more than Ghana's leader, aspires to be recognized not only as the predominant African political personality but as a man to be rec ...
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"Aspirations for African and World Leadership

Nkrumah, who is driven by ambition to be far more than Ghana's leader, aspires to be recognized not only as the predominant African political personality but as a man to be reckoned with on the international stage. His dreams of grandeur have led to a number of attempts to make Ghana the focal point of wider African political entities -- the abortive Ghana Guinea-Mali union, the defunct Joint African High Command, and his current project of a united Africa -- all of which have foundered in the face of reality and because of the refusal of other African leaders to accord Nkrumah the position of predominance implicit in all of his schemes. Instead, Ghana has become increasingly isolated, and Nkrumah has •earned the distrust of most African leaders and has even alienated his erstwhile radical cronies in Guinea, Mali, and the UAR.

On the international scene, Nkrumah's conception of himself as a world leader has led him to make contacts with other leaders whose real or fancied friendship he values highly. His self-created role has also resulted in frequent offers of gratuitous advice in resolving non-African problems, the details and complexities of which he is largely ignorant. He has thus attempted to insert himself in the Cuban missile crisis, the Sino-Indian border conflict, the Arab-Israeli dispute, the nuclear-disarmament question, and the Vietnamese situation. Nothing has come of any of these efforts.

Although he has succeeded in projecting himself into the African and international scene to a greater extent than most African leaders, Nkrumah is considered by most world leaders to be more of a nuisance and a figure of ridicule than a statesman. These rebuffs, and Nkrumah's consequent sense of extreme frustration, are in part responsible for his policy of encouraging and abetting subversion in Africa, activity which he also rationalizes on the grounds that many African nations -- including all of his close neighbors-- do not support the radical policies which he advocates and are followed by his government."
Ekow Essam uah 10 years ago

Leave Ghanaians to deal with our problem, Trokosi Kojo. Dumsor, mass looting of the nation coffers (the cause of which is bad-bad governance of the Mahama's led Trokosi leaning NDC government), has become the order of the day ...
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Leave Ghanaians to deal with our problem, Trokosi Kojo. Dumsor, mass looting of the nation coffers (the cause of which is bad-bad governance of the Mahama's led Trokosi leaning NDC government), has become the order of the day. The untoward hardship, the trauma and it's concomitant depression the ordinary Ghanaian is going through seems not to be a bother to these Nkrumah apologists. What is expected of any true son and concern citizens of Ghana is to pile up the heat on our policy handlers to workout their incompetent arses to find solutions to these menace plaguing our beloved Ghana. But what do we see instead? These so called 'Ghanaweb limited Nkrumaist' waist their precious time all year long glorifying their deity. If at all, somebody these useless taunting of Nkrumah's name, it will be the under 3% supporting base of the fragmented pieces of former Kwame Nkrumah CPP.
Joe Mensah 10 years ago

Ekow,yours is a biased and subjective ranting.Learn to be objective and fair-minded.Neither NPP nor NDC must be allowed to rule Ghana.

Ekow,yours is a biased and subjective ranting.Learn to be objective and fair-minded.Neither NPP nor NDC must be allowed to rule Ghana.
Gye Nyame 10 years ago

What is the point of this write up, I don’t care about Houphouet-Boigny’ especially for becoming a lifelong president but one thing I can say for sure, he chose the right path when he came to the fork in the road during t ...
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What is the point of this write up, I don’t care about Houphouet-Boigny’ especially for becoming a lifelong president but one thing I can say for sure, he chose the right path when he came to the fork in the road during the cold war, he chose to allow the West to invest in his country just as Lee Kuan Yew did which resulted in their infrastructure build up. Despite the war in Ivory Coast they seem to have their act together. Isn’t it a shame that a country like Ghana goes to Ivory Coast to beg for power?
In any case this is the last hoorah for China and its communism, give them 20 years or so, and that goes for the CPP too, the septuagenarians and octogenarians will all be buried.

Yuan Guiren is wasting his time, there are so many teachers recruited from the west to teach in China and also so many Chinese kids in the western universities including Xi's own daughter, who attended Harvard. Not to mention the influence of the Internet even though they try to block sites. It is just a matter of time, as more and more Chinese become affluent they are going to demand democracy and also get westernized.
Joe Mensah 10 years ago

IGNORE THAT HOMOSEXAUL IDIOT CALLED ADJOA WAMGARA.

IGNORE THAT HOMOSEXAUL IDIOT CALLED ADJOA WAMGARA.
GorGorDutor 10 years ago

DAMN you better check IV is a classic case of growth without development. The crisis and conflict over there stemmed directly from the policies of ofei-boahene. It is a fact that all the counties eg Taiwan south Korea etc tha ...
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DAMN you better check IV is a classic case of growth without development. The crisis and conflict over there stemmed directly from the policies of ofei-boahene. It is a fact that all the counties eg Taiwan south Korea etc that have achieved developed status did this thru one party rule and state led capitalism albeit sometimes financed by the west out o their irrational and pathological fear of " a world communist conspiracy". Further: all the so called communist movements that have been successful in liberating their countries from the clutches of the West have been nationalist in orientation. Hey the Leninist model at that point in history 70-80 years ago and till today has been the only successful model of liberation. By the way an irony of history is the US supporting a political movement of the Leninist model to operate a successful plan of state led and directed capitalism to essential develop an Asian welfare state to wit the Koumintang in Taiwan. In Angola the have done the opposite supporting a kleptocratic Leninist model in this case they have only bled the countries resources but I digress.
francis kwarteng 10 years ago

Gye Nyame,

You see where your problems lies! I don't think you have studied Ivory Coast and Houphouet-Boigny closely. You haven't. You will learn more later! How did Houphouet-Boigny become a billionaire at the expense of ...
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Gye Nyame,

You see where your problems lies! I don't think you have studied Ivory Coast and Houphouet-Boigny closely. You haven't. You will learn more later! How did Houphouet-Boigny become a billionaire at the expense of his country's development?

Yes, there are some even in the leadership of the Communist Party who attended Western Universities, but they still conform to the "traditional" structure of Chinese society.

They don't copy blindly as we do. Xia's daughter went to Harvard does not mean she accepts every aspect of Western ideas. Even many of the Chinese-Americans kids I met in New York are raised as if they were raised in "traditional" China.

In fact, many of the Chinese-American kids and adult American-Chinese I met in college do not behave like the typical American! Many of their parents still allow their children to follow the rigor of a typical Chinese curriculum, though they school in America.

The fact that Chinese kids are trained in Western institutions does not make them Westerners. There are a number of Africans (and African Americans) trained in American institutions who still offer libation to African gods, God, and ancestors, etc.

There are so many teachers recruited from the West to teach in China, so what? Are there not many Americans and Europeans who have recruited Chinese teachers to teach their kids because they know China is where the world's economic power is directed and where Westerners think their children and grandchildren might go to look for work?

Have you bothered to find out what I am saying here means? Go and ask those those Americans and Europeans who have recruited Chinese teachers to teach their children and grandchildren Mandarin, etc., are throwing away their culture so that they can uncritically accept everything Chinese!

And you think increased in individual wealth somehow translates to demands for democracy? Have you seen studies done in the West where despite increased standard of living, voting patterns are dropping? Why haven't Singaporeans, one of the wealthiest countries on the planet, don't have its citizens agitating for the overthrow of the one-party state?

In the series have "Some Source Materials By And About Kwame Nkrumah," I have listed some of the authoritative texts dealing with the relationships among wealth, education, voting patterns, etc., from around the world. You will be surprised what you learn.

And if you think Yuan Guiren is wasting his time, please go back and look at his policy again and come back and tell me if what is happening in Chinese universities today is antithetical to the policies of the Communist Party.

Mind you, in China today it is a mixture of communist, socialist, mixed economy or Keynesian economics, state capitalism, and Confucian and Maoist ideas that still govern the Chinese mindset, not democracy or unfettered free-market capitalism or vulgar Western idea, though Keynesian economics is Western. But Maoist thought added to Western thought in that regard.

You should find time to study how Chinese innovations and inventions in cartography, navigation, gun powder, etc., shaped Western civilization. So never think every idea you see in Asia that has made Asia today is necessarily of Western origin.

For instance, the Chinese had a rigorous public exams for those interested in the public service before the first of its kind appeared in the West. Go back in time and you will see how Asian-African ideas help pull Europe out of its s0-called "Dark Ages."

This is not what we are taught in school, either in Africa or in the West. My point is that never make the mistake of concluding that it exclusively Western ideas that have made the Asian Tigers what they are today. It takes good appreciation of human history to understand that the West owes its success today not only on its strength, but on the totality of human ideas of which every race has contributed. The late Drs. Martin Bernal's and Cheikh Anta Diop's works recapitulate this fact. The Ancient Greeks/Romans themselves, the primogenitors of Westen thought and civilization, meticulously recorded these facts for humanity! I don't have the time to give an extensive bibliography on these facts.

In conclusion, the fact that Xia's daughter attended Harvard does not make her "Western" in every aspect of the word. Other Chinese leaders sent their children to Harvard and other Western universies, the same way other some Westerners critical of the Chinese send their children to study in some Asian universities. Please go through the leadership of China and see which of them attended Western universities and still behave and act as the typical Chinese! There are many Westerners who have studied in China and other parts of Asia and still Western through and through!

Take time to walk through the list "Some Source Materials By And About Kwame Nkrumah" and you should be enlightened. Some of the statistics you will see completely dismantles your assumptions and arguments here.

So what are you saying?

All errors are mine. I did not proofread these comments. Besides I care less about grammar!

Thanks.

Paapa Owusu-Ansah 10 years ago

Mr. Kwarten thanks so much, explaining things very clear for everyone to understand your point regardless ones education background . It's very sad colonialism has made we the Africans believe that we can live without them,we ...
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Mr. Kwarten thanks so much, explaining things very clear for everyone to understand your point regardless ones education background . It's very sad colonialism has made we the Africans believe that we can live without them,we are so lazy and dull mentally and physically. How can one imagining Ghanaians exporting timber and importing toothpicks? Where is our brain? Mr Kwarteng please keep on giving us information because your write up will help us to come to our realisation.
Gye Nyame 10 years ago

Francis, you are in your own lost world, when was your last visit to China? My first was in the late 90s or so when the Chinese first woke up and started cutting deals with western countries and my last was a couple of months ...
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Francis, you are in your own lost world, when was your last visit to China? My first was in the late 90s or so when the Chinese first woke up and started cutting deals with western countries and my last was a couple of months ago, and trust me it is like night and day. The Chinese are clamoring from everything western (western designers, food, learning English etc.) it is crazy, there is not much difference now between Shanghai and New York, so I know you don’t know what you talking about when you say the Chinese “don't copy blindly as we do”.
When was the last time you saw a Chinese leader wearing the Chinese tunic that Nkrumah sometimes wore? The leaders are now wearing Armani suits, and Bruno Magli high end shoes. Have you seen all the Starbucks in China and the patronage of these western coffee shops? It is almost a status symbol to be seen at Starbucks in China. My own niece is teaching in China and the program specifically advertises for western educated teachers because they are trying to change the style of teaching, looking more at the western education strategy to promote innovation in Chinese students.
My Chinese associates in China are the ones telling me that it is a matter of time before they start practicing democracy, because affluent people don’t want to be dictated to, so just as we entered the Chinese market in the 90s because we anticipated this boom, the same way I am telling you that it is just a matter of time before communism is buried. So stay tuned or as they watch this space.
francis kwarteng 10 years ago

Gye Nyame,

I don't have to be in China to know what is going on in China. I don't have relatives who teach in China but I have many friends, Americans mostly, who teach in China.

There are many European, Canadian, Ameri ...
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Gye Nyame,

I don't have to be in China to know what is going on in China. I don't have relatives who teach in China but I have many friends, Americans mostly, who teach in China.

There are many European, Canadian, American, and Australian Buddhists who wear the Kasaya and are still not Indians, Chinese, Burmese, Bangladeshie, or Japanese.

I have told you how many Westerners are recruiting bilingual Chinese to teach their children Mandarin and Chinese culture because they predict most of the opportunities in the 21st century are going to be produced in China.

That said, drinking or eating in Starbucks does not make one a Westerner. Americans of all races eating Chinese food does not make them Chinese.

Africans eating Italian food do not make them Italians or Westerners. Neither does a Western-educated Chinese speaking English make him a Westerner.

There a number of Chinese-educated PhD Americans who speak fluent Mandarin and teach it and Chinese history and culture in American universities/colleges who are not Chinese.

Armed robbers, US Senators and politicians, gang members, drug cartel owners, pastors, atheists, terrorists, etc., all waer Armani suits? Timothy McVeigh, Nelson Mandela, Saddam Hussein, etc., all wore Armani suits.

Did wearing Armani suits make Mandela an European or American? What has wearing Armani suits got to do with China's "One-Child Policy"?

What has wearing Armani suits got to do with Chinese Buddhism, Taoism, or Confucianism? What has wearing Armani suits got to do with eating with chopsticks? Besides, some of the manufactories for items such suits, etc., are stationed in China. What is the percentage of Chinese who wear Aramni suits? Is it the Chinese brain, history, hard work,and culture that has making China great or the presence of Starbucks, McDonald's, and Armani suits? MAKE TIME AND READ SCIENTIFIC STUDIES ON HOW WESTERN DIET (FAST FOOD) IS NEGATIVELY IMPACTING CHINA'S AND INDIA'S (OBESITY AND ITS RELATED COMPLICATIONS) AS WELL AS HOW THIS IS AFFECTING THE PUBLIC PURSES.

When you use Armani suits, Starbucks, McDonald's as models of explanation I quickly how happy our forbears when they traded their fellow Africans for mirrors, bootleg alcoholic beverages, and other cheap items. The Chinese are interested in preserving the best parts of their cultural heritage and in investing in science, technonoly, mathematics, science, and information technology than trivial things like Armani suits and a cup of coffee or sandwich!

Could you share any studies you have read that says the averege Chinese becomes Western, or stops using chopsticks, eating noodles, practing Confucianism and Buddhism and Taosm, the momemnt he dons an Armani suit? Does the average Chinese start having more children than what is generally stipulated in the One-Child Policy the moment he wears Armani suit? You talk about Armani suit as if it is the first time your hearing about!

Do Americans or Europeans eating in African restaurants make them Africans? How has eating bread, drinking wine and champaign and beer and soft drinks, all Western legacies, made the average Ghanaian or African Western? How has eating Chinese food in Ghana turned Ghanaians into Chinese! How had ex-Kufour wearing suits turned him into George Bush or Tony Blair. I don't know what you are getting at!

There was a group of Italians I always met eating boiled yams and Kontomire stew in a Ghanaian restaurant on 149 Street, Bronx, New York. We became friends and soon told me their Italian-based Ghanaian friends introduced them to Ghanaian food. Yet they were still Italians through and through.

When was the last time you saw an European wearing the chiton, chlamys, or the himation?

By the way, what has your irrelevant diversions got to do with the substantive issues I raise in my articles? And while you waste your time talking about Starbucks, etc., have you done any research to convince yourself how dishes and recipes from the East (China, Vietnam, India, etc), like noodles, found their into Western dietary staples! There are certain dietary formulas in McDonald's, Starbucks, etc., that are of Asian origins, going back to thousands of years.

This is why I told you in one of my submissions on this forum that some of the innovative ideas people mistakenly ascribe to the West are actually of Asian or African origin! I have actually met a number of Americans who had no idea that some of the dishes and ingrediants in their Starbucks and McDonald's are actually of Asian origin! Of course most of the American-born Chinese friends I have/had knew this!

So, what is the import of your arguments? After all, it mostly the Chinese who are producing many of the ordinary things Westerners use, including toothpick and Q-tips.

And who are the rich in Chinese society, if not the political elite and those close to them. This rich elite does not want intrusive external ideas to disturb their privileged plight.

Moreover, some of the agitations for democratic rights in China have been influenced by the West. I hope you did follow the Falun Gong in the 1990s. I also hope you have seen how later declassified records indicated Western backing for this subversive group!

Anyway I have a White-Americann friend who has taught in Ethiopia, Zimbabwe, South Africa, China, South Korea, etc. He still recruits American teachers and sends them to China all the time. He and I discuss China once a while. There are journal articles he shares with now and then on every aspect of Chinese life. And I try to read original works translated from Mandarin (Chinese) into English. And when Chinese leaders express their reservations about Western culture, it is not every single piece of Western culture that the Chinese leadership is against.

That is why the journalist who reported Education Minister Guiren's criticism put some of his words (Western, etc) in quotation marks, giving it a parenthtic distiction from his general comments. Sometimes it is not what is written, but how what is written is actually read that makes some of misconstrue simple statements of facts.

You don't read statements or words in parenthetic imprisonment the same way you read other statements or words. This is what I sometimes see on Ghanaweb. Some readers think certain words are put in quotation marks merely for stylistic embelishment.

These readers sometimes overlook the fact that certain words are put in quotation marks for special reason. Therefore, I gave the word "WESTERN" which the journalist put in quotation marks a special meaning from the generality of his reportage.

So, Gye Nyame, let me assure you that neither Education Minister nor I take every aspect of Western culture to be negative. I have critiqued negative Western culture the same way that I have critiqued negative African (Trokosi, ritual murder, witch camps, etc).

Please, go back and see how the journalist put "SMEAR SOCIALISM" in quotation marks then ask yourself why he put "SMEAR SOCIALISM," "WESTERN," and other words in quotation marks.

Remember that the Chinese economy is still governed by state capitalism and democratic centralism. Aside that, free market theories are not the monopoly of capitalism. And there are the Nordic Model, Washington Consensus, and Beijing Concensus. Even Hong Kong's capitalism is tired to the manipulation of land politics, which is also the prerogative of the central government.

Thus let us stop these emotional outbursts and deal with the hard facts. I also watch CCTV News (plus Al Jazeera, Democracy Now, etc)to acquaint myself with what is going on in China. So never I do not know what is going on in China.

All in all, I do not see any meaningful connections between what you have said here and elsewhere and the issues I raise.

Thanks.
Prof Lungu 10 years ago

Nice try, Gye Nyame!

Yes, we can all agree Houphouet-Boigny chose the "right path" for "Houphouet-Boigny".

At least you a conceding the Chinese have developed under Communism, in a country where one cannot just move fro ...
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Nice try, Gye Nyame!

Yes, we can all agree Houphouet-Boigny chose the "right path" for "Houphouet-Boigny".

At least you a conceding the Chinese have developed under Communism, in a country where one cannot just move from one place to another without a license/permit.

But, to say it mildly you are off the rocker in your comparison of the Ivory Coast to Ghana, even with the mismanagement of Ghana during the last 50 years.

You cannot just conjecture, or speak in hyperbole and expect silence.

YOUR: "...Isn’t it a shame that a country like Ghana goes to Ivory Coast to beg for power?.."

WE SAY: Where is your data?

This is data for you, OMNISCIENT Gye Nyame

---------World Bank--2013 DATA------
---------------GHANA ---IVORY COAST
Life Expectancy 61 51
Sch Enrollment 107% 96%
Poverty %of pop 24% 42.7%
GNI/Capita $1,770 $1450.00
Gross D. Prod $48.14B $31.06B

So Gye Nyame, tell us... "What is the point of (YOUR) write up?
Prof Lungu 10 years ago

---------World Bank--2013 DATA------
----------------GHANA ---IVORY COAST
Life Expectancy 61yrs....... 51yrs
Sch Enrollment 107%......... 96%
Poverty %of pop 24%......... 42.7%
GNI/Capita ... $1,770...... $1450.00
Gro ...
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---------World Bank--2013 DATA------
----------------GHANA ---IVORY COAST
Life Expectancy 61yrs....... 51yrs
Sch Enrollment 107%......... 96%
Poverty %of pop 24%......... 42.7%
GNI/Capita ... $1,770...... $1450.00
Gross D. Prod.. $48.14B..... $31.06B
francis kwarteng 10 years ago

Dear Prof. Lungu,

Thanks for sharing these statistics.

And as I said to Gye Nyame, he has not studied Ivory Coast and Houphouet-Boigny closely.

I have however promised him that he will learn more later. In other wo ...
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Dear Prof. Lungu,

Thanks for sharing these statistics.

And as I said to Gye Nyame, he has not studied Ivory Coast and Houphouet-Boigny closely.

I have however promised him that he will learn more later. In other words, I will give him more facts later.

What he also forgets is that Education Minister Guiren is telling Chinese universities not to copy the West blindly.

He reads the minister selectively and draws a porous conclusion because he Gye Nyame is not confortable with the facts.

Gye Nyame is failing to tell us why party politics has not brought us on a par with China and why China has, in a generation, achieved what the West achieved in centuries?

Did the Chinese start with Western democracy or unfeterred capitalism? Some of these people like Gye Nyame mistakenly think free-market economics is a monopoly of capitalism?
Yet they also talk about democracy without telling us what democracy is really about!

Many Americans think America's "democracy" is about elections and nothing more, since it is the corporations (and special interest) that really wield decision-making powers over the federal government (legislature, executive, judiciary). Also, there are so many Americans who think these three branches of government are hardly "separate" in the technical sense of the world.

Gye Nyame also wrogly thinks increased wealth generally among a country's citizenry necessarily directly translates to agitations for democratic entitlements in a given society.

And he does not provide one study or data to back his claim. I am not too sure if he's doing this for the fun of it! The paucity of verifiable facts in his far-fetched extrapolations bespeaks an exercise in fetishized wonderment as far as his non-substantial hyperbolic rhetoric goes.

And rather than dealing with the comparative evaluation of verifiable contemporary actualities he, together with the likes of Mensah Abrampa, are dancing around a narrative shadow of irrelevancies and dabbling in needless sensationalism which this piece is not substantively about!

As I have promised him later, I will not bog Gye Nyame down in the thick of statistical rhetoric but to give him something to think about by way of what the World Bank and other international experts have to say about the comparative strengths and weakneses of the former African colonies of Britain and France.

All errors are mine!

Thanks for sharing your data with us, Prof. Lungu.
Prof Lungu 10 years ago

Hoping, maybe, when "...give (Gye Nyame) something to think about by way of what the World Bank and other international experts have to say about the comparative strengths and weakneses of the former African colonies of Brita ...
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Hoping, maybe, when "...give (Gye Nyame) something to think about by way of what the World Bank and other international experts have to say about the comparative strengths and weakneses of the former African colonies of Britain and France," maybe, Gye Nyame like the proverbial horse at the water's edge, will finally drink some water for their own good.

Greetings to all!
mensah abrampa 10 years ago

Africa has seen many dictators, including our own Nkrumah. I hope and pray we've seen or seeing the last of these them.
I posted a comment to part one of Kwarteng's feature article and was impressed with the tone of Prof Lu ...
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Africa has seen many dictators, including our own Nkrumah. I hope and pray we've seen or seeing the last of these them.
I posted a comment to part one of Kwarteng's feature article and was impressed with the tone of Prof Lungu's rejoinder. Although politically, I lean to the right of Kwarteng, I'm averse to being labelled as a "all or nothing" kind of person. Since it's nearly impossible to find a politically sacrosanct idea I like to hear from both sides.
I hope Prof Lungu and Kwarteng are not by any stretch of their imagination advocating a return to those despicable days in Ghana when Nkrumah's word was the law and threatening hands hanged over everyone's head and only Nkrumah's adulators and sycophants lived to see another day. There were those eerie nights too when one could only manage to sleep with one eye open and the hoot of a solitary owl sent a chill up your spine and you never knew when Nkrumah's "gestapo"will come for you. No nation deserves a dictator, not even the benevolent type.
Let's not pretend that Nkrumah, his ideas and principles were perfect because all humans are fallible . So are the principles and ideas conceived from human minds. Hindsight, they say is 20/20 so it shouldnt be too hard to sift through the pile of good and the rubble. "With the benefit of historical hindsight we can all see things which we would wish had been done differently or not at all" Queen Elizabeth 11.
Great leaders reproduce themselves in others. If Nkrumah was such a phenomenal leader why is his CPP still in disarray and can not boast of just one person to step into Nkrumah's big shoes? Not even from among his own children.
I'd rather, with analytical minds, we looked dispassionately into the lives, ideas and leadership principles of our past leaders and see how we can contextualize their concepts to the point where they can benefit the present and future generations.
Mr. Figure-Out 10 years ago

I do not ,and will never, subscribe to the those who still hold the beliefs that Nkrumaism is still relevant today. Arguably,the brutal dictator and Afrocentric Nkrumah was a great leader and had good visions for Ghana and so ...
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I do not ,and will never, subscribe to the those who still hold the beliefs that Nkrumaism is still relevant today. Arguably,the brutal dictator and Afrocentric Nkrumah was a great leader and had good visions for Ghana and so do countably many others who had similar visions and aspirations for our dear Ghana but their dreams were short live. They did not live to see the light of day. Some perished in prison, others were forced to exile by the same Great man who some still believe was the repository of all wisdom and come next God the creator. To these Nkrumah praise singers and worshipers, Ghana can never succeed until we go some 60 or so years back and begin our lives from whence he was given the nib in the butt. What an irony? How could any serious mind think this way when in Ghana today any idiot knows greed, corruption and incompetence( the stock in trade of all the NDCs of the 4th republic) have been the bane to our economic independence and success. Don't we have, cocoa, gold, diamond, oil and arable lands to exploit to our advantage? So what make these Nkrumaist, who are still wallowing in the slur of mediocrity, think Ghana can move on and succeed as a nation if and only if we revisit the one man jungle politics of the 1960s,where ghana's population was a mere 5-million. We had enough of this noise about Nkrumah. Busia and Danquah cold have maybe out performed Nkrumah if they were as privileged as the later who use had budget surplus and much natural resources for a small nation of 5 million population. Nkrumah had money to support the economies of Guinea and Mali. He use supplied electricity to Togo when the whole 3 Northern regions were sleeping in darkness. The operational capacity of Akosombo dam was good enough to serve the needs of the entire Ghana of 5 million people at that time, but Afrocentric Nkrumah did not see the need to serve the Ghanaian first. He extended our borders to cover part of Togoland which would later come to be known as Trokosiland . I think Nkrumah would have though twice if he knew these Trokosis would become beast of burden to the entire nation. They hijacked the nation for several years under Rawlings at gun point, loot and share our properties and continue to indulge in gargantuan crimes till today. No need to mention Woyome. Tsatsu, Solomey...etc because I know readers get my drift.
By the way methink Samia Nkrumah needs the services of Kwarteng and the Prof Lungus more than the readers on Ghanaweb, for the NKRUMAHS CPP IS ON LIVE SUPPORT UNDER HER LADYSHIP.
Dr. SAS, Attorney at Law 10 years ago

I thought for the first time in your life, you were making some sense until you digressed to spew your usual trash against our Ewe brothers.

As Chinua Achebe said, if you think a fool is making sense, keep quiet and listen ...
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I thought for the first time in your life, you were making some sense until you digressed to spew your usual trash against our Ewe brothers.

As Chinua Achebe said, if you think a fool is making sense, keep quiet and listen to him until the very end. You, a congenital idiot, will never get it right that the value of a human being can never be quantified by dint of his or her race or ethnic origin.

In this sense, you are no different from the Nkrumaists who think that Nkrumah never dies or does no wrong because Nkrumah is Nkrumah. Or that Danquah and Busia are traitors and nation wreckers simply because they are Danquah and Busia.

People like you and the Nkrumaists will die thinking that every quantum of human character is decipherable on the face of a person's race or ethnic origin, not by reference to his/her actions or deeds.

Shame on you for being so illiterate. And you think you studied science?

Koo-Fori 10 years ago

They are both ( Lungu & Kwarteng) blind, deaf and primitive in all aspects.

They are both ( Lungu & Kwarteng) blind, deaf and primitive in all aspects.
cojo opoku 10 years ago

You again with this worn out argument? Please let this trash you perceive as an intellectual exercise be the !ast on this forum. Nkrumah's political philosophy will never see the light of day even in this shambolic political ...
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You again with this worn out argument? Please let this trash you perceive as an intellectual exercise be the !ast on this forum. Nkrumah's political philosophy will never see the light of day even in this shambolic political dispensation we call the 4th Republic. What a painful read
Dr. SAS, Attorney at Law 10 years ago

Bro. Kwarteng,

Your essay is moot. Ghana is a multi-party democratic state in whose constitution the idea of one-party state is forever proscribed. Thus Ghana is NEVER going to return to one-party state again, no matter it ...
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Bro. Kwarteng,

Your essay is moot. Ghana is a multi-party democratic state in whose constitution the idea of one-party state is forever proscribed. Thus Ghana is NEVER going to return to one-party state again, no matter its merits, whether real or imagined.

The national antipathy against the one-party state, coupled with life presidency, imprisonment without trial and the abolition of all opposition, led to the glorious albeit ignominious overthrow of Nkrumah in 1966. Thereafter, he died a lonely man without the comfort of his family in Guinea in 1972, at the relatively young age of sixty two, forty years earlier than his mother who was a hundred and two when she died. In this sense, Nkrumah was the most punished of all the presidents for his gross misconduct, because even firing squad is far better than the betrayal of one's family, friends and colleagues....

My point is that your essay is useless, insofar as the present democratic dispensation has nothing to do with one-party state. Nkrumah's own political ideology, now inherited by the CPP and appropriated by the NDC, will not dare to make the blasphemous propositon to return the country to one-party state, or repeat Nkrumah's dictatorial policies of imposing life presidency or imprisonment without trial on the country, no matter how successful these Stalinist practices have been elsewhere.

Thus instead of fixating on the evil practices of Nkrumah's government with the excuse that it worked well somewhere else, why don't you come out with better ideas to improve on our democratic dispensation which we, as a people, have permanently chosen for ourselves for better or for worse?

Must you always waste your life and talent in celebration of a dead tyrant and on the condemnation of his adversaries?
francis kwarteng 10 years ago

Dear Brothers,

What you see in the two articles are merely "surface" analysis.

An in-depth analysis of the facts will follow them!

Stay tuned!

Dear Brothers,

What you see in the two articles are merely "surface" analysis.

An in-depth analysis of the facts will follow them!

Stay tuned!
Obibini 10 years ago

Great piece Francis! Very insightful I must say.I've always held the believe that we as a people should model a political system based on our traditional system of governance.Keep the good aspects,and discard or reform the ba ...
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Great piece Francis! Very insightful I must say.I've always held the believe that we as a people should model a political system based on our traditional system of governance.Keep the good aspects,and discard or reform the bad. Nkrumah did a critical analysis of the two major political/economic systems at the time and decided to adopt a hybrid form of communism/socialism because he thought it was the best for us at the time. I believe another reason for his choice was the fact that it was closer ideologically, structurally, and culturally to our traditional system of governance, which is described as "Communalism." What do readers think about our traditional system of governance? Is it a form of democracy, communism, socialism, ............?
HIDIR IBRAHIM 10 years ago

I am deeply educated on ghana's political history ever since l started reading your articles kwarteng frances. I have also been reading opposing views of your opponents (the confedrates bashers of Nkrumah as you sometimes pu ...
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I am deeply educated on ghana's political history ever since l started reading your articles kwarteng frances. I have also been reading opposing views of your opponents (the confedrates bashers of Nkrumah as you sometimes put it) and my observation is that whiles you treat every topic with respect to intellectual rigor, empirical evidence,scholarly and decency most of them present shoddy scholarship, intellectual bankruptcy, disrespect for evidence and decency. They mostly engaged in conjecture. I write to express my greatest respect for you and for getting me educated on ghana's political history especially issues relating to Kwame Nkrumah / Danquah dichotomy. Long live Kwarteng frances. Long live Ghana!
francis kwarteng 10 years ago

Dear friends,

Thanks for reading.

I am grateful to you all for your criticisms and accolades. I promise to come back again with even more interesting ideas.

Have a great week.

Thanks.

Dear friends,

Thanks for reading.

I am grateful to you all for your criticisms and accolades. I promise to come back again with even more interesting ideas.

Have a great week.

Thanks.

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Nkrumah Did Not Force His Views On African Leaders 2

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