Let's face it: Nkrumah made some mistakes, because he was human--and not super-human, plus the fact that he was also a politician, and did some things that are wont of politicians, but a careful assessment of his accomplishments should not go unnoticed. This was my response on his blog:
"deeply alienated from significant portions of the Ghanaian populace" That is a serious fallacy. Nkrumah was a man of the people. Even JB Danquah, hailed as the doyen of Ghanaian politics, as much supported this when he said that "even if we fail you, Nkrumah won't."
I know this, not just because my paternal grandfather worked with the Nkrumah regime [as Minister of Works and Housing], but also because I have in front of me the book, published by the Socialist Forum here in Ghana, entitled "The Great Deception: The Role of the CIA and Rightwing forces in the overthrow of Nkrumah".
It contains de-classified documents by the CIA, with extracts of letters written by Nkrumah to the US government about his aspirations for Ghana, and by extension Pan-AFrican movement.
Not only that, but documentary evidence of the same JB Danquah going to the new US ambassador to Ghana demanding why his pay from the US government was not forthcoming!!!!
I feel the heat here in Ghana, because somehow, somewhere, the acceptance by both parties that Nkrumah was a great man, with all his flaws--the Preventive Detention Act of 1958 for example was deemed a mistake, but was used in equal measure by the British over Northern Ireland in the seventies -- is coming into form.
Both the NDC, and even the ruling NPP, have recently accepted that Nkrumah was a great man.
Finally, I do not think that you have to be a socialist to appreciate the magnitude of social development Nkrumah brought to Ghana. SO, statements like "the economy tanking under the weight of socialist central planning nostrums, trusting in the show of force represented by military support" that amazeddad makes isn't just fallacious, it is a great disservice to the memory of not just the founding father of Ghana, but ALSO of Pan-Africanism.
I must preface all this by saying that I am an amateur diplomatic historian by training, so the ideas over bias are not lost on me. To boot I challenge anyone to provide PROOF that Nkrumah can be likened to those dictators like Mobutu and Bokassa who seriously regressed Africa.
That’s my two cents, cheers!!
I must even also add that Nkrumah was not power-hungry for the sake of it: this was an intellectual, who had studied for his Ph.D, as well as Theology. He was an enlightened man, who made Ghana what it is today by encapsulating ALL manner of tribes within government. Compare that to the Rwandans, and other parts of Africa, where the ethnic divisions were accentuated to disasterous levels.
Ghana has never had that level of violence--except in the Northern region. Apart from coups in Ghana, have you, in Ghana's 49th years, ever heard of a civil war in Ghana even when JJ.Rawlings ruled the country in 20 years?
Please...
2 comments:
This is reasoning-lite. When I say Nkrumah had alienated "significant portions of the Ghanaian populace," your response should be the citation of a poll that refutes my assertion. Or better yet, the results of a free and fair election that was contested by any Ghanaian who met the Constitutional requirements, within a multiparty state. This latter condition couldn't have been met because your idol had foreclosed that option. Would you seriously prefer to live in a one-party state today? Saying that Nkrumah made mistakes because he was "human," and believing that that absolves him of critical judgement just opens the floodgates for each and every dictator and historical miscreant, starting, let's say, from Genghis Khan to Pol Pot to wash away their sins.
Your calumny against JB Danquah should not go unanswered. I'm not an expert in the history of that period, so I throw out a challenge to anyone who is to come set the record straight.
You might as well say that Nkrumah's tilt toward...what?...I'd say the senseless cult of egomaniacal personality placed him in the pay of his Soviet masters, who in the end had to provide guards to protect him from Ghanaians. Isn't that rich in irony?
All of Nkrumah's so-called achievements do bear scrutiny, there can't be any doubt that the record is mixed. There is no question that the trajectory of the country at the time of his ouster was not a pleasant one. Having said all of this, though, I think that the sooner Ghana gets over this and seizes a true destiny away from false nostalgia the better.
Lastly, I hope you don't really believe that being an intellectual with a Ph.D (of course, Nkrumah didn't even have that, I believe, what he had was a honorary degree - which really doesn't entitle one to call oneself "Dr." - and his calling himself such was the regrettable beginning of Ghana's worship of the fatted calf of the golden Ph.D idol) and a student of Theology qualifies a person to be a good head of state.
Very amusing. If Nkrumah were that independent of American patronage, what was the "African Show Boy" doing in Hanoi on the day of his ouster?
You can make any curious financial claims between Danquah and the CIA. But the fact remains that Nkrumah unconstitutionally wasted Ghana's material resources on his personal, external political ambitions, and this is patently unpatriotic.
In sum, why did it have to take a myopic dictator like Mr. Rawlings to extend electricity to the northern parts of Ghana, while President Nkrumah siphoned the same into Togo and the Ivory Coast, at no particular benefit to Ghana?
I happy this dialogue is going on!
Finally, we may be able to put some definitive closure to the Nkrumahist myth.
Kwame Okoampa-Ahoofe, Jr., Ph.D.
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