Nuclear-Bomb-Vietnam-Major-General-Ankrah and Ghana's First Losers ate their egg and expected to have it too!
“...Our aim is to establish in Ghana a strong and progressive society in which no one will have any anxiety about the basic means of life, about work, food and shelter; where poverty and illiteracy no longer exist and disease brought under control; and where our educational facilities provide all the children of Ghana with the best possible opportunities for the development of their potentialities...” (Dr. Kwame Nkrumah, Founder of Ghana).
From Protectorate Liberia, to Singapore, and Back to Africa/Ghana:
Lee Kwan Yew of Singapore achieved similar noble and human-centered aims for the people of Singapore in his lifetime as President of Singapore. Mr. Yew had a foreign policy perspective that was adjunct to US policy and interests. Singapore, after all, had just a Malaysia problem when it secured independence from Malaysia in 1959.
The Ghana Unitary position was secured at independence, in 1957, by Kwame Nkrumah!
Nkrumah, with that original progressive aim, but mindful that Ghana had the African Continental Quandary (ACQ), advanced a neutral, non-aligned position for Ghana in the 1960s. But the Western powers, among them the US, would not have none of that: They did not want to see Ghana associate, trade, or align with "The Block", (i.e. USSR, Poland, China).
Nkrumah foreign policy was pragmatic to a great degree. But the US and other Western powers proposed a binary condition - to the Western side of the "Cold War" divide. Or, forfeit aid and "free market" for Ghana's resources on the world market controlled by the West. Ghana's cocoa suffered.
As it turned out, the then-US and Western governments could use a Ghana that was more like Liberia:
1. Aligned to the West
2. Powerless
3. Destitute
4. Primary Producer of Goods
5. Informant on African Leaders
6. Lacking a Useful Liberian-Centered Agenda for Liberians.
Liberia, after its founding as an American protectorate in 1832 by freed American and West Indies slaves, declared its independence in 1847. Precisely 110 years later, in 1957, Liberia had achieved precious little for its peoples even as the US had transitioned from an agrarian slave-based economy, to the industrial revolution, to the consumer economy by the 1950s.
Ghana secured its independence from Great Britain in 1957. In 1958, Liberia and Ghana had practically the same Gross Domestic Product per capita (i.e., $1,200, normalized to 1990 dollars). But seven (7) years later in 1965, exactly one year before Nkrumah was overthrown with assistance from the United States), the GDP per capita for Ghana had increased by $200, to a little over $1,400, while Liberia's was at $1,300 (exactly 50% less).
What a difference 7 years under Nkrumah could do for the new Ghana Nation, even under economic aggression by "invisible hands of the market" !
You see, Ghana was making huge strides in development and governance even with the antagonistic international and trade environment, until the overthrow. Nkrumah was overthrown in 1969. The historical record shows that Liberia equalized the GDP per capita with Ghana at approx. $1,378, at the end of the year. Ghana was down further versus Liberia in 1967. In fact, in 1968, just two (2) years after the overthrow, Ghana's GDP had declined to $1,318 in comparison to Liberia ($1,390), $72.00 less.
The idea is, Nkrumah definitely did not want another Liberia in West Africa, in Ghana. With little experience, his government swiftly out-performed Liberia not only in economic productivity, but also in true African-centered independence, all in 7 short years.
Leadership at the top matters, always!
Note: Nkrumah was appointed Leader of Government Business for the Gold Coast in 1951.
Source: Historical Statistics for the World Economy: 1-2003 AD
(1990 International Geary-Khamis Dollars)
Rascals Played Trojan Game of Epic Proportions And Lost For Ghana:
The sad news for Ghana is this: the US, Britain, and France aided and abetted Nkrumah's overthrow at the hands of subversive Ghanaian soldiers, some of whom had actually trained in their countries. As the records show, in 1964, President Johnson had knowledge of Major General Ankrah and was asking officials around him whether Ankrah, still in the Ghana Army, was ready to take over the civilian Government of Ghana:
"...we may have a pro-Western coup in Ghana soon. Certain key military and police figures have been planning one for some time, and Ghana’s deteriorating economic condition may provide the spark. The plotters are keeping us briefed, and State thinks we’re more on the inside than the British. While we’re not directly involved (I’m told), we and other Western countries (including France) have been helping to set up the situation by ignoring Nkrumah’s pleas for economic aid....All in all, looks good...." (RWK- Robert W. Komer, Memorandum to McGeorge Bundy, May 27, 1965, www.en.wikipedia.org).
If anyone will believe RWK Robert Komer and entertain for a minute the idea that the US was "not not directly involved", we have Manhattan Island, New York, USA, for sale to them at the dirt cheap price of $80.00. (NOTE: Each dollar you pay represents about $1 million in American loans, aid, and grants the US gave to Ghana as of 1966, the year of the overthrow. For your reference, Ghana's GDP that year was about $ 2,126,861,000.00).
In July, 1965, Nkrumah "...dismissed Major General Ankrah as deputy chief of staff, holding him to be a security risk...".
Ankrah and his gang used, and were in turn used by rascals like Dr. Kofi Busia, and of course the Johnson administration to effect the coup d'état in 1966. The Kotoka-Ankrah military junta, Ghana's maiden dictatorship, attempted to project a semblance of freedom for Ghanaians. But it was all a farce as they started arresting and detaining Ghanaians. Consequently, without a Ghana-centered agenda, real power actually resided outside Ghana, by way of self-exiled traitors and puppet masters preserving Western interests. Several of the self-exiled traitors would return again!
But, we will not bore you further with our own description!
Rather, we will simply allow a Danquah-Busia cohort to tell us who those traitors were and the record they left behind after the overthrow of Nkrumah's popularly-elected government. This is in the person of none other than Dr. Kwame Okoampa-Ahoofe. Okoampa-Ahoofe characterizes the Danquah-Busia-Dumbo traitor gang as:
"...bona fide members of the Ghanaian military...(among them)...some rascal civilians...(who)...staunchly backed regressively Darwinian means of political access, including a world-renowned...former prime minister (Busia)...Busia...(who just months before Ghana's independence)...rode herd on a delegation to the British office in London, to petition the British Crown, and...colonial overlord, to desist from granting the already-scheduled return of Ghana to self-governance. Fortunately... Busia and his right-wing bourgeois reactionaries did not succeed. (Busia)...however, succeeded ten years later in backing the military junta that unseated the Nkrumah administration and facilitated the precipitous devolution of Ghanaian national destiny..." (Kwame Okoampa-Ahoofe, Jr (2004)," courtesy Atakora-Mensah, Ghanaweb, 2015-04-15 13:21:28)).
Today, in 2015, there are still "rascal... bourgeois reactionaries" who will attempt to misinform Ghanaians. They say that because leaders after Nkrumah have failed to achieve even 4% of what Mr. Yew achieved for Singapore, that it is the fault of Kwame Nkrumah. For them, time and progress were ossified in Nkrumah's Ghana, precisely on 24th February, 1966, by Kwame Nkrumah.
Hogwash, and Dr. Kwame Okoampa-Ahoofe, Jr. knows that!
Therefore, to hitch one's donkey to the wagon of those "rascal... bourgeois reactionaries" is to conflate the record of demonstrated courage and performance exhibited by Nkrumah and his CPP government with the failures of dictators and absented-minded politicians who assumed power when Nkrumah was overthrown. In fact, to the Nth degree, they all jettisoned Nkrumah's development plans for Ghana. As a result, they swiftly transformed Ghana into a
basket case, with no modicum of the African Soul and Personality Nkrumah inspired, nor the capability or capacity to manage Ghana's affairs, and the ability to actually write Ghana's own history, and eventual ticket.
In fact, one Phillip Kobina Baidoo, Jr. of London, a Danquah-Busia-Confederate apologist who claims to stand for 100% capitalism come hell or high water, when there is actually no country in the world of that nature that ever existed, told us recently that they purposefully "demonized" Nkrumah by ascribing all kinds of diabolical traits to Nkrumah in other to lure Ghanaians into supporting their traitorous actions, and to justify establishment of a military-police dictatorship in Ghana. They would go on to destroy government records and other assets as part of the plot to justify the foreign-backed usurpation of power.
Rascals Kotoka-Ankrah-Afrifa-Harlley-Busia NLC dictators were "Ghana's First Losers"!
The problem for the Kotoka-Ankrah-Afrifa-Harlley-Busia NLC military-police dictatorship was, having achieved the objective of overthrowing Kwame Nkrumah, the US and the West were not inclined to grant "Ghana's First Losers" any more aid, development loans, or assistance than Ghana would have received with Nkrumah still as the leader of Ghana. To boot, by that subversive act in 1966, the traitors forsook other lines of credit from the USSR, Poland, and China (i.e., the Block), that Nkrumah had as other option(s). Ghana therefore lost complimentary development aid and assistance, and its independence. In fact, "Ghana's First Losers" even turned over to the West equipment and materials that belonged to Ghana; and Ghana received little in return.
And so, when General Ankrah made his trip to the US in 1967 to collect his reward for himself and Ghana for overthrowing Nkrumah, he could not console himself when he found out the US was not inclined to give further, any meaningful aid. (In fact, of the $11,000,000 loan Britain was promising Ghana, $8,000,000 was actually part of the VRA loan facility Nkrumah's government had not even drawn - a fact that was probably lost on Ankrah, and not known to many people even today). To the point, Ankrah could not reconcile his more immediate desire for funds to help prop up the markets the NLC (National Liberation Council) had further destabilized in Ghana (and to keep his military and police resourced and fed, even at the same level as they were resourced and fed by Nkrumah, before the overthrow), with his bizarre, terrible, and shameful craving for the US to attack Vietnam with nuclear weapons as a way of solving the "Vietnam problem".
The historical records show that in 1966 the then-US government (Johnson's), while lying to the People of the United States about victories in Vietnam, encouraged Nkrumah to go to Vietnam to help resolve their the "Vietnam problem". In fact, President Johnson promised that Nkrumah's aircraft would not be attacked while in transit to/from Vietnam.
But that was a 'Trojan Horse' game of epic proportions!
Nkrumah's aircraft was not attacked while in transit to/from Vietnam, alright!
Rather, it was Ghana's African/Ntemaon-Aligned-centered government of Kwame Nkrumah and associated records in Accra and Kumasi that were attacked, destroyed, and demonized. And it all happened while Nkrumah was enroute on that mission to help resolve the war in Jimmy Cliff's "Vietnam".
Three (3) years after Nkrumah was overthrown, President Nixon announced that the Vietnam war was ending, that the US was unilaterally declaring victory. Between 1966 when Nkrumah was overthrown while enroute to Vietnam and 1969 when Nixon declared victory, over 36,000 US military servicemen, among them civilians, had been killed in Vietnam. (The Vietnamese dead, according to one account, was over 545,000 during the same period).
Imagine, 582,000 people dead, and Ghanaians by the name of Ankrah, Kotoka, Afrifa, Harlley and Busia, can all be reasonably positioned as possibly contributing, albeit indirectly, to some of the dead on account they are part of the group that caused Nkrumah's mission to Vietnam to abort.
Talking about opening a can of worms before time, and keeping it open. You know, when it was not necessary or in the interest of your Ghanaian mothers, fathers, brothers, sisters, children, and their childrens' children! And there was no Manna in Accra, Kumasi, Takoradi, or Sunyani, Ho, Bolgatanga, Tamale, Koforidua, Wa, etc.
For Ghana, by that singular act of betrayal on the part of Kotoka-Ankrah-Afrifa-Harlley-Busia, Ghana lost more than once. By their action, Ghana opened a can of worms before time that's grown ever so putrid. To the point, Ghana's development was arrested any way we choose to measure "development" beginning on that faithful day, 24th February, 1966.
Imagine Ghana's GDP per capita today is not even 4% of Singapore's. Possibly, if Nkrumah had operated like Lee Kwan Yew or Baidoo's super-star politician, Margaret Thatcher, maybe Ghana would never have been on this lost road to development given the breath of resources on the ground in Nkrumah's Ghana!
Danquah-Busia-Dumbo-Confederate Losers Specialize in Denial and Still Profit:
For Danquah-Busia-Dumbo-Confederate losers like Phillip Kobina Baidoo, profiting from Nkrumah's work has always been a tradition before and after the overthrow of Kwame Nkrumah.
Imagine many of them attended schools and universities Nkrumah founded, or otherwise caused investments to be made, to support.
Phillip Kobina Baidoo himself told us the other day he lived in Tema Township!
Well, do we have information for him and his ilk. In case they have forgotten, or just do not care for the truth Nkrumah engineered a mixed economy that used public funds to found, construct, and maintain Tema Harbor, Tema Township, and the Accra-Tema Motorway. The Accra-Tema Motorway is connected to Baidoo's original village by the public road network the British had no reason to construct for the benefit of Africans in Ghana.
But, Nkrumah did!
Tema Township, Tema Harbor, and Akosombo Dam were/are mixed-economy-built facilities!
Take it, or leave it!
And here is another perspective - if we can still indulge. Many of these Danquah-Busia-Dumbo-Confederate losers benefited immensely from health facilities Nkrumah funded or built out.
Imagine this!
During Nkrumah's leadership, the number of physicians rose from 0.05 per 1,000 of the population in 1960, to 0.075 in 1966. It never climbed higher, thereafter, for a long time. In fact, while Jerry Accountability Rawlings was still lording over Ghana, the number of physicians actually declined to 0.045 per 1000 of the population. Further, during Nkrumah's leadership, the number of hospital beds rose from a low 0.5 per 1,000 of the population in 1960, to nearly 1.4 in 1966. By, 1975, the number of hospital beds had declined to 1.3 per 1,000, with increase in population.
We are thinking Phillip Kobina Baidoo now knows how to count social phenomena following the education we've provided, freely, more than once! In fact, on this one, we will hazard that he was probably one of 1,480,000 pupils who received FREE compulsory education in primary schools in 1966, or thereafter (whereas in 1951 when Nkrumah was appointed Leader of Government Business there were just 154,000 pupils enrolled in all of Ghana).
Even Danquah-Busia-Dumbo Confederate Losers Cannot Have Their Egg and Eat It Too:
Ghana, imagine, a mighty conspiracy by the world cocoa trust in London and New York! In 1958, when Ghana was just one (1) year old, the price of a ton of cocoa on the world market was more than $1,000. By 1965, the price of a ton of cocoa was just about $210 a ton. Then, "within a few days after Nkrumah’s fall, cocoa for delivery in March-May 1966 was quoted on the London exchange at $499.66 a ton." (Vallin, 1966), more than doubling. (Ankrah actually discussed the manipulated price of cocoa on the world market by the cocoa cartels in London and New York in meetings and during the visit to the US after the coup.).
Kwame Nkrumah knew about the sabotage, understood, and complained about that weapon of foreign policy by the so-called free market "capitalist economies". That is the record, we must reiterate!
Phillip Kobina Baidoo and the rest of the Danquah-Busia-Dumbo Confederate losers should tell Ghana how much it cost to construct and/or capitalize Akosombo Dam, those hospitals, Tema Township, Tema Harbor, GHACEM, Black Star Line, VALCO, GOIL, Tema Steel Works, Adomi Bridge, Accra-Tema Motorway, KNUST, Cape Coast University, Secondary and Primary Schools, and other facilities and resources too numerous to enumerate here. How much did it cost to capitalize them (we know he understands "capital"), and what is the value of all those investments today, compared to when they were first built, capitalized, or sold/disinvested.
Notwithstanding the demonization and all the false and diabolical narratives about Nkrumah, all Ghanaians, including even dimwits (to use a favorite word of Attoney Samuel Adjei Sarfo), know that when Nkrumah died in exile 27 April, 1972, he did not have mansions, hotels, or executive jets in Conakry, London, New York, Paris, Ghana, or Bucharest/Romania. We know also that Nkrumah was not on that Vietnam-Mission to secure loans for Ghana. Further, Ghana did not receive any aid or loan funds from the US or the West immediately following the coup d'état. Yet, Kotoka and Ankrah found money to pay soldiers, police, civil servants, and to make all manner of expenditures, including trips to the US. (How could it have been possible that there was just $18.00 in Ghana's accounts, and no reserves?).
We are saying that it is an absurd proposition for any entity to claim that Nkrumah and his CPP government spent too much, wasted Ghana's recourses on prestige projects, left Ghana with a huge loan burden, and that there was just $18.00 or less in Ghana's accounts when Nkrumah was overthrown.
Foolishness!
Where is their proof against what we are saying, or, are they just empty boxes without data to back up their historic smear and demonization campaign against Kwame Nkrumah? Imagine, the Volta dam had already been commissioned and powered, and over $8 million of VRA loans still had not been drawn by Nkrumah in 1966, the same year he was enroute to Vietnam.
Professor Botwe Asamoah dealt competently with "The Fallacy of Britain Leaving Huge Sums of Money for Kwame Nkrumah's Government" (www.GhanaHero.Com/Vision. See under Kwame Botwe-Asamoah, PhD. says....). In a follow-up essays, we will deal directly with the lies and distortions that Ghana was broke when Kwame Nkrumah was overthrown, again, while he was on a mission to help resolve the Vietnam conflict, a conflict that incidentally was passed over to the US from France and Britain going all the way back to 1943.
Freedom and Justice For All, But Not Equally For Traitors and Economic Saboteurs:
On another related matter, we say that no one can argue today that Nkrumah's government was not on a progressive course for Freedom and Justice for all Ghanaians. Nkrumah, after all, never ordered or caused the death of a single person, Ghanaian or foreigner. (In fact, in all the literature, there is only one (1) report that says Nkrumah caused to be killed one (1) individual. We have been unable to verify that information, or align it to all reasonable possibilities, while Nkrumah was (1) Leader of Government Business, (2) Prime Minister, or (3) President of, Ghana
In all those years, (1951-1966), just one case was reported where a citizen of Ghana was ever arrested and executed while Nkrumah held the reign of power. This appears to be the case of police man Seth Ametewe, for attempted murder, subversion, and treason:
"...On January 8, 1964, the Chief Security Officer ordered the arrest and detention of J. B. Danquah, under the PDA, due to his complicity in the Constable Seth Ametewe’s assassination attempt on Nkrumah on January 2, 1964!..." (Botwe-Asamoah, 2006).
But, here is the GIHOC-Bitters rub for the Confederate losers!
Nkrumah's "Freedom and Justice" was not just for the rich who hid their wealth and avoided taxes by either transferring wealth overseas, or skipping Ghana altogether with the wealth Ghanaians in the new country helped create in the first place.
Recall the organizing principle!
“...Our aim is to establish in Ghana a strong and progressive society in which no one will have any anxiety about the basic means of life, about work, food and shelter; where poverty and illiteracy no longer exist and disease brought under control; and where our educational facilities provide all the children of Ghana with the best possible opportunities for the development of their potentialities...” (Dr. Kwame Nkrumah, Founder of Ghana).
We Say In Conclusion:
The record is clear that in other to achieve the aim/mission, Kwame Nkrumah operated pragmatically enough for the task ahead. He appointed "moderate" Ghanaians to important positions in government, without regard to where in Ghana they came from. How about that for "Justice"! Imagine, Nkrumah also appointed opposition members into other important, responsible, positions in his Unitary Government. But the Danquah-Busia cohort flatly refused to join Ghana's Unitary Government.
Why?
Because Danquah wanted to establish Akyem-Abuakwa as the capital and center of Ghana, and to lead Ghana when the people had rejected him and his ideas more than once at the free ballot box.
The historical record shows that there had been numerous unsuccessful attempts to assassinate Nkrumah by 1962, before and after independence. Even so, in 1962, Nkrumah ordered the release of 160 detainees and even granted amnesty to persons who had fled the country for fear of detention for subversive activities and economic crimes against Ghana. The following year, in January, 1963, according documents in the Johnson Library, there was yet another assassination attempt on Nkrumah. According to another record, during 1964-1965, the US was succeeding in cultivating and nurturing "very helpful contacts with various groups in Ghana—especially the more moderate pro-Western ones...". The cocoa trust conspiracy was a capitalist virtual assassination plot against Nkrumah and the CPP, and a grave one that the record shows succeeded as a significant element of the destabilization strategy against Nkrumah's Ghana.
Dr. Kwame Nkrumah government was overthrown in 1966 by those "...bona fide members of the Ghanaian military...(among them)...rascal civilian...Busia...". Naturally, Busia became primary advisor to the Kotoka-Ankrah-Afrifa-Harlley NLC dictatorship, and thus the basket case we know as Ghana was birthed. Figure that in 1965, notwithstanding the cocoa trust conspiracy and economic aggression, the GPD per capita for Ghana was $1,393. In 1972, during the second year of Busia's administration seven (7) long years later, the GPD per capita for Ghana was $1,401, just $8.00 more. (Recall the Okoampa-Ahoofe basket case!).
But that, we submit, was no Freedom or Justice for Ghanaians, even then, and especially now.
Yes, he who opens a "Can of Worms" before time kills the tree of light!
Yes, the rub of freedoms, economics, politics, commonsense, and humanity is best appreciated and understood at the level of the society and power between nations, mighty and small!
Sources:
1. Erik Wemple. Bill O’Reilly’s Levittown denialism. 17 October, 2014,
https://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/erik-wemple/wp/2014/10/17/bill-oreillys-levittown-denialism/.
2. Francis Kwarteng. Maxwell Awuku, in "What Amiri Baraka Said About Kwame Nkrumah (Part 9)", ModernGhana, 12 March, 2014. http://www.modernghana.com/news/528828/1/what-amiri-baraka-said-about-kwame-nkrumah-part-9.html .
3. Wikipedia. National Liberation Council: Anglo-American involvement, in
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Liberation_Council.
4. Kwame Botwe-Asamoah, PhD. Fallacies of J. B. Danquah's Heroic Legacy (V), at: http://www.ghanaweb.com/GhanaHomePage/features/Fallacies-of-J-B-Danquah-s-Heroic-Legacy-V-111044, 25 Septenber, 2006.
5. Kwame Botwe-Asamoah, PhD. The Fallacy of Britain Leaving Huge Sums of Money for Kwame Nkrumah's Government" (www.GhanaHero.Com/Vision. See under Kwame Botwe-Asamoah, PhD. says....), or Ghanaweb, Feature Article of Friday, 3 July).
6. Henri Vallin. Nkrumah’s Downfall, International Socialist Review, Vol.27 No.3, Summer 1966, pp.115-120.
Correction: In an earlier part we said no one was ever executed under Nkrumah's government. Constable Seth Ametewe's case as reported in this final version of the paper is the lone exception. We stand corrected.
©Prof Lungu is Ghana-centered/Ghana-Proud. We are more than talk. We are data-driven!
Prof Lungu is based in Washington DC, USA.
He Who Opens "Can of Worms" Before Time Kills Tree of Light! (2.0-Final)
© Brought to you courtesy www.GhanaHero.com©9 Aug 15.
