Library:Dark Days in Ghana: Difference between revisions
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== 4. "Opposition" Elements == | == 4. "Opposition" Elements == | ||
The members of the "old opposition" with whom the "N.L.C." are closely associated, are the same people who tried to sabotage the winning of our political independence ten years ago. They struck on 24th February 1966, just as we were about to break through and win our economic independence. In January 1966, we had inaugurated the first electricity from the [[Volta dam]]; and only three days before their treachery, I had signed a new agreement to irrigate the mighty Accra plains. Ghana was all set for a tremendous march forward into a new industrial era, and a great expansion in our food growing capacity. This was the moment for which we had worked so hard. And this was the time this small group of unpatriotic selfish men, egged on by their neo-colonialist masters, chose to strike. | |||
They shouted from the rooftops that they acted spontaneously to save Ghana from "economic chaos". But as everyone who has studied the history of Ghana over the last fifteen years or so knows, their action was only the culmination of a whole series of actions aimed against my government and against myself. They have a long record of go-slow policies, of subversive activity and of alignment with imperialists and their agents. Unable to gain victory at the polls they even resorted to assassination plots in order to impose themselves on the people of Ghana, and to avenge their political defeat. | |||
It is these same people who became members of the political committee set up by the "N.L.C." in June 1966. Nearly all were supporters of the former United Party, an amorphous group of people who for various reasons opposed my government. The chairman of the political committee, Edward Akuffo-Addo, was a well-known member of the United Party; Kofi Busia, deputy chairman, was its leader. Like their Sandhurst counterparts, these members of the civilian political committee are deeply imbued with British traditions. Most of them received at least part of their education in Britain. They returned to their native country as if in blinkers, seeing and judging everything in Oxbridge terms. They saw the liberation struggle as a movement to be conducted slowly and "respectably" by themselves, the professional and intellectual elite, and as having nothing to do with the toiling masses whom they regarded with a mixture of fear and scorn. | |||
It was men such as these, George Grant, J. B. Danquah, Ofori Atta, Akuffo Addo, Ako Adjei and Obetsebi Lamptey, who were the nucleus of the [[United Gold Coast Convention]] (U.G.C.C.), the organisation I launched in Saltpond on 29th December 1 947 to achieve independence "by all legitimate and constitutional means." Danquah, a vice-president of the U.G.C.C., was one of the original supporters of the unpopular Burns Constitution. In fact, right from the start, the U.G.C.C. lacked popular support, and it was partly in order to make it appear a movement of the people that I was invited to become its general secretary. I had then spent ten years studying in the U.S.A., and was in England taking up further studies at the London School of Economics, and at University College, but spending a large part of my time at the [[West African National Secretariat]] and the [[West African Students Union]] (W.A.S.U.), organisations dedicated to the achievement of West African unity and the liquidation of colonialism. I also spent a lot of time helping to organise the [[Colonial Workers Association]] of Great Britain. | |||
Danquah wrote personally to me urging me to accept the appointment. I was at first reluctant, having heard that the promoters of the U.G.C.C. were out of touch with the people, and were mainly middle-class reactionary lawyers and budding capitalists with whom, with my revolutionary background, I would be out of sympathy. But on the advice of the West African National Secretariat I agreed, and returned home on 16th December 1947 after an absence of twelve years. | |||
Within 18 months of my return I was compelled to dissociate myself from the slow-moving and restricted U.G.C.C. and to form a new party, the Convention People's Party. This party, based on the support of the broad masses of the people and of the youth, demanded "self-government NOW", unlike the U.G.C.C. which asked for self-government "within the shortest possible time". I proclaimed the formation of the C.P.P. before a crowd of some 60,000 people in Accra stadium on 12th June 1949. The leaders of the U.G.C.C. never forgave me. They became implacable opponents of the Party, determined to obstruct its progress at every stage, and to attack me personally on all possible occasions. | |||
They showed their hand almost immediately after the birth of the Party, when I was summoned to appear before a special meeting of the Ga State Council, the Accra traditional local authority, to explain what I meant by "[[Positive Action]]". Ex-members of the Working Committee of the U.G.C.C. were there in force at the meeting and pressed to have me banished from Accra. They blamed me for what they described as the growing "lawlessness" in the country, though what they really feared was the evidence of the political awakening of the people. | |||
I explained to the meeting that at that particular stage of our struggle, positive action entailed [[Non-violence|non-violent]] methods such as press campaigns, [[Strike action|strikes]], [[Boycott|boycotts]] and other forms of non-co-operation. That very night, I wrote and printed on my little cropper machine a pamphlet called "What I mean by Positive Action", so that there should be no doubt in anyone's mind about the legitimate and constitutional means by which we intended at that time to attack the forces of imperialism in the country, should the Coussey Report on constitutional reform, which was about to be published, prove unsatisfactory. It was this Cropper machine which was used to print the ''Accra Evening News''. | |||
But my long-standing political opponents chose to invent their own interpretation of "What I mean by Positive Action" and labelled me a dangerous rabble-rouser advocating violence. | |||
As expected, the Coussey Report published at the end of October 1949 was completely unsatisfactory. I therefore called together the representatives of over 50 national organisations to meet in the Ghana People's Representative Assembly on 20th November, to oppose the Report and to decide on effective action. The Assembly resolved "that the Coussey Report and His Majesty's Government's statement thereto are unacceptable to the country as a whole" and declared "that the people of the Gold Coast be granted immediate self-government". With typical lack of concern for the country's progress, the executive committee of the U.G.C.C. did not attend the Assembly, and afterwards, the chiefs at Dodowah, led by Nana Ofori Atta II, stated that they did not accept the views of the Assembly. | |||
Later, when I had launched the campaign for positive action, and it was really beginning to take effect, the Joint Provincial Council of Chiefs joined with the colonial government in attempting to suppress the campaign. At a meeting of the Joint Provincial Council of Chiefs I explained the need to continue positive action until the rank and file of the people were permitted, through the election of a constituent assembly, to express their views on constitutional reform. It was like speaking to a brick wall. Danquah's declaration, that "those who go against constitutional authority must expect to pay for it with their neck", sums up the defeatist attitude of these people, and explains how they never managed to lead a genuine and popular liberation movement. | |||
Instead of supporting the efforts of the man in the street to express himself and to bring pressure to bear on the imperialists, these political opponents of the Party ranged themselves on the side of the British colonial government in trying to suppress the great upsurge of nationalism. | |||
They condoned and even assisted in a wave of arrests of key supporters of the Party and leaders in the campaign of positive action. Kojo Botsio, general secretary of the Party, was arrested on 17th January 1 950. My own arrest followed shortly afterwards. | |||
I was sentenced to a total of three years' imprisonment, two years for attempting to "coerce the government of the Gold Coast" by launching the campaign of positive action, and the third year for "sedition" as publisher of the Daily Mail in which a "seditious" article had appeared. In fact, I only served 14 months. In the general election of 8th February 1 951, the Party won a sweeping victory and I was elected as member of the Legislative Assembly for Accra Central. The colonial government had no choice but to release me. I left prison on 1 2th February, and on the request of the Governor of the Gold Coast, Sir Charles Arden-Clarke, formed a government and became Leader of Government Business. At once I proclaimed that our great task was to press ahead with the struggle for "self-government now". And once again, members of the Opposition went into action to try to wreck the independence movement. | |||
Disgruntled at the success of the Party in the general election, and disappointed at not receiving positions in the new government, they proceeded to try to cause confusion and discontent among the people by announcing that now we had landed ourselves "good jobs" we had forsaken the policy of "self-government now". I challenged our political opponents to join us in a campaign of positive action in order to achieve "self-government now". I invited Danquah, Lamptey and the Executive of the U.G.C.C. ; Ollenu, Bossman and the Executive of the National Democratic Party; the chiefs of the Asanteman Council; Nana Ofori Atta I, President of the Joint Provincial Council and chiefs of that Council; Kobina Sekyi, and the Executive of the Aborigines Rights Protection Society -all our critics, to notify the General Secretary of the Party in conference to plan a nation-wide campaign of positive action if the British government rejected a motion for "self-government now". | |||
The sincerity of our political opponents and their connivance with the colonial government may be judged by the fact that not one of them answered the challenge. | |||
A few years later, after the 1 954 general election, when the Party won 72 out of the I 04 seats in the Legislative Assembly, the largest anti-government party was the Northern People's Party which had 12 seats. The remaining 20 opposition members were mostly Independents, several of whom later attached themselves to one party or another. The anti-government members of the Assembly did not then constitute an opposition in the accepted sense of the term, since there was no group among them capable of forming an alternative government. They were therefore recognised simply as a body of critics of my government---an unofficial opposition. | |||
Before long, however, the members of the unofficial opposition decided to amalgamate and to form a single party---the National Liberation Movement (N.L.M.). The reader will note the close analogy in the name of the N.L.M. and the "N.L.C.", both of which had about as little to do with "liberation" as it is possible to imagine. | |||
The circumstances which led to the formation of the N.L.M. illustrate its reactionary nature and its negative policies. It was formed shortly after the introduction of the Cocoa Duty and Development Funds (Amendment) Bill into the Assembly in August 1 954. The purpose of the Bill was to fix the price paid to [[cocoa]] [[Agriculture|farmers]] at 72 shillings a load (62 lb.) for four years, the duration of that Assembly. | |||
This measure was needed to avoid [[inflation]]. Demand for cocoa in the world market had far exceeded the supply, and the price had risen to a record height. If the price paid locally to the farmers was increased proportionately, our Development Plan would be jeopardised by the inevitable rise in prices of consumer goods which would be followed by a demand for wage and salary increases. My government, therefore, under the terms of the proposed Bill guaranteed to pay the cocoa farmers 72 shillings a load irrespective of how low the world price of cocoa might fall during the ensuing four years, and to use any funds that accrued to expand the economy of the country as a whole. | |||
The cocoa farmers in general reacted favourably to the Bill, but our political opponents seized the opportunity of fanning tribal and regional friction in order to attack us. All the remnants of various parties which had been formed at one time or another in opposition to my government joined together in the "Council for Higher Cocoa Prices". This organisation however, did not last long, and it was succeeded by the National Liberation Movement, which adopted as its ''raison d'etre'' the demand for a federal form of government. By linking the cocoa question with the idea of federation, members of the N.L.M. tried to spread discontent throughout [[Ashanti Region|Ashanti]]. They alleged that the Cocoa Bill was unjust to the cocoa farmers, and that Ashanti would be better off managing its own affairs and spending all the income from cocoa within Ashanti instead of contributing to the general development of the country. In this campaign to spread discontent and disunity, the N.L.M. were assisted by the Asanteman Council, headed by the Asantehene. For a time there was much violence in Ashanti, and hundreds of Ashanti Party members were forced to take refuge in Accra and other parts of the country. | |||
At this time, as on former and later occasions, the imperialist press supported the opposition and gave an entirely false impression of the state of the country. The object was to spread the idea that my policies were causing widespread bloodshed, and that we were not ready for independence. Already, the opposition had become very dependent on imperialist support, and therefore deeply implicated in its policies. They had a common interest in trying to undermine my government and to prevent the successful implementation of its political, economic and social programme. | |||
It was no mere coincidence that the first attempt to be made on my life occurred while the trouble in Ashanti, stirred up by the opposition, was at its height. It took place on the evening of 10th November 1955, while I was working at home. There were two large explosions which shattered all the windows, but no one was injured. I learned afterwards that enough gelignite was used to have destroyed the house entirely and to have killed everyone in it, but that it had been inadequately prepared and badly placed. The police made half-hearted enquiries, and no arrests were made. | |||
During the next few months, the opposition stepped up its agitation for a federal form of government, though it is doubtful if they could sincerely have thought this suitable in a country of nearly 1 00,000 square miles, with a population then of under six million. However, full consideration was given to their demand and every effort was made to reach an understanding. The leaders of the N.L.M. were invited by four members of the Legislative Assembly, two of whom represented constituencies in Kumasi, to discuss the matter at a round-table conference. They refused on the ground that the suggestion did not come directly from the government. I therefore, sent an official government invitation. This they refused. In the hope that they might change their mind I sent yet another invitation. They again turned it down. | |||
I introduced a Motion in the Assembly on 5th April 1 955, calling for the appointment of a Select Committee to examine the whole question of the suitability of a federal system of government. Although the opposition was entitled to have only two members on the Committee, as against seven from the government benches, I agreed to allow them to nominate five. In spite of this concession, the leader of the opposition declared that they would not co-operate, and he and his 20 supporters walked out of the Assembly just after the Motion had been seconded. The excuse they gave for boycotting the Select Committee was a strange one. They said they did not consider the Committee competent to deal with national matters, and this regardless of the fact that it was composed entirely of members of the national Legislative Assembly. | |||
The Select Committee consisting of 12 members including the Chairman, C. H. Chapman the Deputy Speaker, held 22 meetings and considered 299 written memoranda and 60 other written statements before issuing its report on 26th July, in which it advised against a federal form of government. It recommended that regional councils should be set up to which certain powers and functions of the central government should be delegated. | |||
The opposition, still dissatisfied, determined to try to delay the independence issue indefinitely by continuing to oppose everything the government proposed. Whenever the question of the constitution was raised in the Assembly they walked out. | |||
Undoubtedly, they gained much encouragement to persist in their obstructionist attitude by the support they obtained from the British government and press, which, although paying lip service to "democracy", has always in Africa where it suited their interests shown far more concern for minority rights than for the rights of the majority. Much publicity was given to the unrest in Ashanti and to opposition views, the subjects being discussed at length in both Houses of Parliament. But practically no publicity or sympathy was shown for the wishes of the overwhelming majority of the people of the Gold Coast who had demonstrated quite clearly that they supported the Party and a unitary form of government. | |||
In a further effort to resolve the constitutional issue, I asked for and received a mandate from the Legislative Assembly to invite the British government to send a constitutional adviser to help formulate a suitable constitution and to advise on the devolution of certain powers to the Regions. Sir Frederick Bourne was sent. For nearly three months he travelled in every part of the country and discussed constitutional problems with every organisation and individual who wished to see him. But when he visited Kumasi to meet the leaders of the N.L.M. and their supporters, he found that they did not wish to see him. The excuse for their unwillingness to take part in any discussions on the constitution was that the government had, in November 1 955, passed the State Councils (Ashanti) Amendment Bill. This Bill permitted those chiefs who had been destooled by the Asanteman Council the right to appeal to the Governor. Several chiefs had been destooled in Ashanti by the Asanteman Council for no other reason than that they were supporters of the government and against the federalist idea. Under the then existing laws they had no right of appeal. Clearly this was a matter which needed attention, and the State Councils Bill was designed to put an end to this victimisation. | |||
Sir Frederick Bourne, in his Report, recommended the devolution of certain powers and functions to the Regional Assemblies, but that all legislation should be enacted by the central authority. I thereupon convened a conference of all the principal representative bodies and organisations in the country to meet at Achimota on 16th February 1 956, to discuss Bourne's Report and other matters affecting the form of the constitution. Once again, the N.L.M. and its allies refused to participate. The conference was adjourned for a week to enable delegates from the Joint Provincial Council of Chiefs to persuade them to attend. But their mission failed. The delegates tried again later, but were still unsuccessful in getting the opposition elements to participate. The result was, that although the conference agreed almost all the recommendations of Sir Frederick Bourne its findings were not acceptable to the British Secretary of State as providing the necessary conditions for the granting of a firm date for independence, since the N.L.M. had not taken part in the discussions. Once more, the old alliance of the opposition and the imperialists had demonstrated their common interest in trying to delay independence. | |||
I therefore drew up my own constitutional proposals for the sovereign and independent state of "Ghana," and put them before the Assembly on 15th May 1 956. The motion was debated and passed on 5th June, after which the Assembly was dissolved and a general election declared, to take place in July. The British Secretary of State gave the pledge:<blockquote>"If a General Election is held, Her Majesty's Government will be ready to accept a Motion calling for Independence within the Commonwealth passed by a reasonable majority in a newly elected Legislature and then to declare a firm date for attainment of their purpose."</blockquote>The election was to be the final test of opinion for or against a federation. The outcome would show just how much or how little support the political opponents of the Party really had in the country. | |||
The result was decisive. The Party won 71 seats, increased later by the support of one of the Independents, which gave a majority of 40 in the Legislative Assembly. Unlike the N.L.M., the Party won seats throughout the country as a whole, and was the only Party which could claim to speak in a national sense. Even in Ashanti, then the stronghold of the N.L.M., the Party won 8 out of the 21 seats and received 43 per cent of the votes cast, an increase on the previous election. | |||
The reaction of Busia to the decisive election result was to call a press conference in Kumasi and to declare that the election had established the opposition case for a federation, since the Party had not won overall majorities in Ashanti and the Northern Territories. His action staggered even some of his closest colleagues. Everyone knew that the election had been fought on the federation issue and that the Party had won more than a "reasonable majority". Furthermore, during the course of the election campaign, Busia himself had declared that he would be prepared to form a government if the N.L.M. secured anything over 52 members. That is, he had accepted the fact that a single overall majority, even of one seat, constituted a democratic verdict. | |||
When the new Assembly was formally opened, the opposition benches were empty except for two members who turned up from Togoland. Afterwards, Busia and his friends excused themselves by saying that they arrived late and could not get through the dense crowds outside the Assembly. | |||
The Governor. in his speech at the opening ceremony, stated that the government would that week introduce a Bill declaring the Gold Coast a sovereign and independent state within the Commonwealth. The following day the opposition tabled an amendment criticising the proposal as "premature" until a further effort had been made to get "an agreed Constitution." | |||
The amendment was defeated by a majority of 37. Whereupon, adopting their old tactics, the opposition issued a statement to the press saying they would absent themselves from the Assembly when the Independence Motion came before the House. Busia, showing where his real support lay, announced that he considered the struggle centred not in the Gold Coast but in London, and that the opposition would send a delegation to the British government. | |||
As I recall these times, when the opposition persistently refused either to participate in national discussions or to respect the decision of the great majority of the people, I wonder how they managed to retain even the little support they had. Their actions were so unpatriotic, dishonest and undignified. They aligned themselves with those who wished to retard the country's progress towards independence. At the same time, while loudly proclaiming their belief in democracy, they were prepared to try to force the will of a small minority on the majority of the nation, and so make a farce of parliamentary government. | |||
Busia who led the opposition delegation to London, actually appealed to the British government not to grant independence. He said the country was not ready for it: "We still need you (the British) in the Gold Coast." I imagine he would say today that the Americans were needed! He found some support among sections of the British press, but there could be no denying that the conditions laid down by the Secretary of State, that my motion for independence should be passed by "a reasonable majority in the newly elected Legislature", had been satisfied, and at long last a date for independence was fixed---the 6th of March 1 957. | |||
The long struggle to achieve our political freedom was over. But in a sense our task of building a really independent Ghana was only just beginning. Political independence was incomplete without economic independence, and as I said in the midnight pronouncement of independence in Accra on 6th March 1 957, "the independence of Ghana is meaningless unless it is linked up with the total liberation of the African continent". | |||
My government, therefore, was pledged to the twin task of achieving economic independence for Ghana, and of participating in the wider African revolution. The former implied the adoption of socialist policies, since in the African situation genuine independence is incompatible with capitalism; while the latter involved us in actively supporting the liberation and unity movements in Africa. In both these tasks, my government immediately came up against opposition from the same quarters as before, that is, from reactionary bourgeois elements inside Ghana, and from imperialist and neo-colonialist interests outside. As before, these forces had a common interest; both wished to delay economic independence and to impede the progress of the African revolution. The tactics they employed were suitably adjusted to the new situation. | |||
After 1 957, having been repeatedly rejected by the electorate, the opposition lost hope of gaining office by constitutional means, and embarked on a campaign of obstructing the work of government without making any attempt to devise an alternative programme. They asserted themselves outside the democratic framework. Their policies, always regional in concept, became purely destructive, subversive and violent. Before independence they had been prepared to sacrifice our national liberation in order to keep me and my colleagues out of government; now they were ready to sabotage our newly-born freedom and to hold up the African revolution by al lying themselves even more closely with imperialists and the insidious forces of neo-colonialism in causing a breakdown in administration so that they might get a chance to grasp the reins of office. | |||
They employed every stratagem, from demanding the virtual secession of Ashanti, the Northern Region and Togoland from the sphere of Central Ghanaian authority, to a press campaign of abuse and lies to discredit me and the government. When this failed, they resorted to violence, assassination plots, and eventually to the subversion of army and police officers. | |||
For a time after 1 957 we tolerated the excesses of the opposition, but when their actions began to undermine the state and to jeopardise its independence we took measures, like all governments do in times of national emergency, to ensure the security of the nation. For example, we brought in the Avoidance of Discrimination Bill to deal with the control of political parties based on tribal and religious affiliations. Its effect was to cause the various opposition parties to join together into a single party, the United Party. Later, after two and a half years of putting up with a vicious opposition press campaign, certain restrictions were placed on the press; and a fifth attempt on my life made preventive detention necessary. By then, assassination attempts had resulted in the death of 30 Ghanaians, men, women and children, and the wounding of some 300 others. | |||
We could not allow a small minority of unprincipled men to continue to stir up disunity and confusion with the object of overthrowing the government, which had the support of the overwhelming majority of the people of Ghana, support shown decisively in the general election before independence and in the 1 964 referendum which established the C.P.P. as the national party of Ghana. Maximum unity and effort was vital if my government was successfully to carry out its mandate of reconstruction and development. | |||
A distinction must be made between the loss of freedom to subvert, and the loss of freedom of expression. At no time has my government denied the right of Ghanaians to hold political meetings and to discuss the country's affairs with complete frankness. In the National Assembly, as the official reports show, debates were vigorous and unrestricted; members did not hesitate to criticise and expose social wrongs and injustices. Visitors to Ghana from non-socialist countries often spoke to me of their surprise at hearing politics discussed freely and openly throughout the country, when they had been led to believe that the [[one-party system]] stifled political differences and made any kind of criticism impossible. There were wide differences of opinion within the Party, and members were always encouraged to say what they thought on all aspects of the government's policy. It has been said by a Western observer that "within the C.P.P. there were as wide political differences and antagonisms as those existing in Britain". The point I wish to make is that under our system of [[democratic centralism]], criticism comes from within and is constructive. The people of Ghana when they established a one-party state in the 1 964 constitutional referendum were merely giving ''de jure'' recognition to an established fact. | |||
The [[two party system]] has shown itself to be unsuitable in any African state. It has grown up in Britain to serve specific class interests. It was perhaps our fault that we did not realise this sooner and attempt earlier to build the type of one party state most suited to our needs. The Sierra Leonean army had exactly the same social background and British training as that of Ghana and yet carried out its coup d'état to suppress the two party system. Indeed, the excuse offered by the Sierra Leonean rebels was that their action was forced on them by the failure of the two party system. | |||
The first priority in Ghana at the time of independence was to make use of our pitifully small stock of professional and technical experts. Whatever their political views they had to be utilised to the full in the interest of the newly emerged Ghana state. From the start I had to bring not only into my cabinet but had to appoint to important posts in the judiciary, the civil service and the universities, individuals who had been active opponents of the Party in colonial days. | |||
We could not afford to do without such few qualified African doctors, accountants, architects, engineers, university teachers and professional people generally as were available immediately after independence. A formula had to be found by which they could not only be employed in state service and in development generally but brought within the Party. This in its turn meant that the Party itself could not in these conditions restrict itself to those who understood and had practised a socialist ideology. The calculated risk of admitting these persons to our organisation was one we had to take. Nevertheless, these colonial trained professional classes, with certain notable exceptions, looked on independence as a strictly national concern. In many cases, all they were concerned with was taking the places of the former colonial occupiers of their jobs and making the same money as these did in the same social and economic pattern. Insofar as they were within the Party they were a source of weakness because they sabotaged attempts to prevent corruption and, in a number of cases, actually joined in it themselves. Yet if they had been excluded from the Party, they would have joined the so-called "opposition" which had become, almost from the moment of independence, a purely conspiratorial organisation. | |||
In the same way I had to try to accommodate within the Party the leaders of traditional society, the chiefs. | |||
On reflection even though I trusted too much in the power of a reformed chieftaincy I was not mistaken in attempting to use popularly chosen chiefs within the framework of the government. It was then essential to have the broadest possible grouping of interests at home if we were to be sufficiently united to deal with the external issue, namely, the political unification of the African continent. | |||
I could have dismissed many of the higher police officers about whose loyalty I had doubts. But whom could I have put in their place? So little education was done in colonial times that actual illiteracy was a major problem in the army and police. Were it not for the continued criminal conspiracy by the opposition then I might have taken the risk of abolishing the Special Branch at an earlier stage. After all, it was not even a part of the old colonial set-up and had only been instituted to deal with me and the C.P.P. in 1 949. If I had done so, however, all security would have had to be entrusted to the Party and while I did use it as a major source of information as to what was taking place in the country, once again it would have been equally dangerous to have relied exclusively on it. | |||
I had to combat not only tribalism but the African tradition that a man's first duty was to his family group and that therefore [[nepotism]] was the highest of all virtues. While I believe we had largely eliminated tribalism as an active force, its by-products and those of the family system were still with us. I could not have chosen my government without some regard to tribal origins and even, within the Party itself, there was at times a tendency to condemn or recommend some individual on the basis of his tribal or family origin. Dangerous and defective as the police investigation system was, it did at least provide me with a second opinion from individuals trained, at any rate in theory, to give objective judgments. | |||
Further, the necessarily broad nature of the Party made some of its wealthier members quite willing to use its machinery for private ends and to discredit police officers or civil servants who were looking too closely into their affairs. Of tribal and family groups there were even those within it who might be prepared to recommend for detention individuals who took the opposite side to themselves in the election of a chief or in the running of traditional affairs. | |||
The issues we faced at independence were so gigantic that within every sphere we had to take calculated risks. We could not, however obvious were the limitations of many of the police, the civil service and the judiciary, change them overnight. We had had no revolutionary war which would have produced and trained those who might take their place. | |||
The problems we faced at independence were similar to those which confront most states emerging from colonialism. A once dependent territory if it is to survive in the modern world must try to accomplish in a single generation what it has taken developed nations 300 years or more to achieve. There is need for radical change in practically every department of national life. For example, after a people's revolution it is essential that the top ranks of the Armed Forces, Police and Civil Service be filled by men who believe in the ideology of the Revolution, and not by those whose loyalties remain with the old order. | |||
In most cases, the whole economy of the country has to be reorganised, agriculture diversified, industries started from scratch, harbours, roads, airports built, and crash programmes of education inaugurated to cope with the sudden and increasing demand for skilled technicians and administrators. In this great undertaking there can be no place for slackers or saboteurs. | |||
The one-party system of government is now the accepted pattern of government in a large part of independent Africa. But when we were evolving this form it was relatively new, and it was loudly condemned by our enemies. As I told members of the National Assembly in my Sessional Address on 1st February 1 966: "A one-party system of government is an effective and safe instrument only when it operates in a socialist society. In other words, it must be a political expression of the will of the [[The people|masses]] working for the ultimate good and welfare of the people as a whole. On the other hand, a one-party system of government in a neo-colonialist client state, subject to external pressures and control, can quickly develop into the most dangerous form of tyranny, despotism and oppression. It can become in the hands of a few privileged rascally-minded and selfish individuals in a neo-colonialist state a weapon and tool for suppressing the legitimate aspirations of the people in the interests of foreign powers and their agents. I repeat, a one-party state can only function for the good of the people within the framework of a socialist state or in a developing state with a socialist programme. The government governs through the people, and not through class cleavages and interests. In other words, the basis of government is the will of the people." | |||
The capitalist-imperialist world is still explaining the tension in the world today in terms of a conflict between "dictatorship" and "democracy"; the first is equated with communism and tyranny, the latter with enlightenment and freedom. In this way, imperialist and neo-colonialists seek to conceal the true content of the struggle which lies in the reaction between capitalism and socialism. | |||
We expected opposition to our development plans from the relics of the old "opposition", from the Anglophile intellectual and professional elite, and of course, from neo-colonialists who viewed the obvious signs of our approaching economic independence with growing alarm. What we did not perhaps anticipate sufficiently was the backsliding of some of our own party members, men like Gbedemah and Adamafio, who for reasons of personal ambition, and because they only paid lip-service to socialism, sought to destroy the Party. | |||
Right from the foundation of the Party, as everyone in Ghana knows, I have waged a ceaseless war against corruption. In the "Dawn Broadcast" made on 8th April 1961, I stressed the need to eliminate it from our society: "I am aware that the evil of patronage finds a good deal of place in our society. I consider that it is entirely wrong for persons placed in positions of eminence or authority to use the influence of office in patronising others, in many cases wrong persons, for immoral favours. I am seeing to it that this evil shall be uprooted, no matter whose ox is gored. The same thing goes for nepotism, which is, so to speak, a twin brother of the evil of patronage . . . . It is most important to remember that the strength of the Convention People's Party derives from the masses of the people. These men and women include those whom I have constantly referred to as the unknown warriors -dedicated men and women who serve the Party loyally and selflessly without hoping for reward. It is therefore natural for the masses to feel some resentment when they see comrades whom they have put into power and have given the mandate to serve the country on their behalf, begin to forget themselves and indulge in ostentatious living. High Party officials, Ministers, Ministerial Secretaries, Chairmen of statutory boards and corporations must forever bear this in mind. Some of us very easily forget that we ourselves have risen from amongst the masses." | |||
My difficulty was to get the police to enforce the principles I laid down. It was only when I personally supervised the direction of criminal investigation against ministers and prominent Party members that anything was done. For example, a former Minister of Agriculture, F. Y. Asare, was involved with one Kojo Djaba and a civil service accomplice, and was convicted. Even this case would never have come before the courts if I had not personally set up a special body independent of the police to investigate it. | |||
It is significant that the Judge who tried this particular case was the first of those to be dismissed by the "N.L.C.", even before they got rid of the Chief Justice; and after the 'coup' Asare and his confederates had their convictions annulled by the "N.L.C." constituted Appeal Court. | |||
Sufficient time has now elapsed to show that the "N.L.C." never seriously wished to investigate corruption. Had they done so it would have involved too many of their own members. It was a propaganda device directed against my own government, making use of the fact that there were a number of instances of corruption among ministers and Party officials. Unlike in Asare's case, these had not been dealt with because the police themselves could not furnish the evidence. The attitude of the "N.L.C." is shown by the fact that when I had mentioned in a broadcast from Guinea that Harlley and Deku were involved in diamond smuggling and challenged the "N.L.C." to set up an enquiry into diamond racketeering in Ghana the Commission which they were thus forced to establish sat in secret and no report by it was ever issued. | |||
This purely propaganda approach is even better illustrated in my own case. I am alleged to have "stolen" millions. In fact I have no money outside Ghana except for the sums which have been paid to me after the 'coup' as royalties on my books and which are now paid into the London Branch of the National Commercial Bank of Scotland. | |||
I never handled any money personally for any external or internal purposes and this included my own salary. All drawing both on governmental and my personal accounts was counter-signed by civil servants who were responsible to the Auditor-General for all public expenditure and who, for my own purposes, recorded my personal expenditure. Anyone of these officials could have produced a full and valid statement of how every penny was dealt with by the President's Office and exactly how my own salary was spent by me personally. If this had been done it would have been shown that I refused to accept, as a political gesture, any of the expense allowances allotted to the President by law. In the same way if my Will had been published in full it would have shown that I left nothing even to my own family but bequeathed everything I did possess to the Party and the State. Before the so-called enquiry none of these detailed accounts were produced. Yet Kojo Djaba was called to testify that I had in fact taken the money which he had been convicted of stealing. | |||
The failure of the routine Police investigation of corruption made it necessary for me to deal with it either by setting up a special body as I did in Djaba's case or by appointing official Commissions of Enquiry to expose publicly notable members of our society and even Ministers of Government. Shortly before the army and police action on 24th February 1 966, the Report of the Commission of Enquiry into Trade Malpractices in Ghana was published. It was a bold attempt to examine and to expose the activities of men and women who were sabotaging our economic development plans by indulging in various forms of trade malpractices. Some of our wealthiest and most prominent citizens were mentioned by name. There was an immediate demand that legal action should be taken against them. and this was under consideration when the military and police treachery took place. | |||
Obviously this kind of exposure brought us new and powerful enemies. But these people, by acting in the way they did, were all the time secret enemies of the people, and it was essential to bring them to the surface. | |||
I regard the events sparked off on 24th February 1 966 as a cleansing process. All those who had for so long been working either openly or secretly against us came together and exposed themselves in their true colours for all to see. By their very actions, on 24th February and in the months of "N.L.C." rule, they have clearly shown themselves to be traitors to their country and the stooges of neo-colonialism. They have displayed their reactionary nature, their complete disregard for the common man and for the progress of the African Revolution. | |||
It is like when you boil a pot hard; all the bits and pieces of useless stuff come to the top and you are able to skim them off easily. It is necessary to realise, that, in many ways, the so-called "coup d'état" has not been a set-back but has been merely a symptom of how neo-colonialism is breaking down. | |||
Almost all African countries came to independence without armed struggle. This meant that it was impossible, in practice, to reconstruct these new states upon a socialist basis immediately. I was well aware of the compromises which it was necessary to make and the dangers which this entailed but Ghana's independence on any condition was the first essential in securing the freedom of Africa. Not to have seized independence when we had a chance of obtaining it, whatever the liability we inherited, would have been criminal. The circumstances under which the C.P.P. was formed resulted in it being a compromise organisation composed of some genuine revolutionaries but containing many of those who are interested in independence only so as to better themselves and to take the place of the previous colonial traders and businessmen. This meant that I had to include in any government which I formed representatives of all tendencies in the Party including businessmen on the make such as Emmanuel Ayeh-Kumi and William Halm. In the circumstances of the day there was at least a reason· able chance that such people would act honestly and would assist to build the state on a new basis. | |||
The experiment which we tried in Ghana was essentially one of developing the country in co-operation with the world as a whole. Non-alignment meant exactly what it said. We were not hostile to the countries of the socialist world in the way in which the governments of the old colonial territories were. It should be remembered that while Britain pursued at home co-existence with the Soviet Union this was never allowed to extend to British colonial territories. Books on socialism, which were published and circulated freely in Britain, were banned in the British colonial empire, and after Ghana became independent it was assumed abroad that it would continue to follow the same restrictive ideological approach. When we behaved as did the British in their relations with the socialist countries we were accused of being pro-Russian and introducing the most dangerous ideas into Africa. | |||
In fact, the fault was that, from the very circumstances in which we found ourselves, we were unable to introduce more "dangerous ideas" or to get them more widely understood. What went wrong in Ghana was not that we attempted to have friendly relations with the countries of the socialist world but that we maintained too friendly relations with the countries of the western bloc. | |||
Before the military revolt the policy of Ghana was based upon an attempt to develop the country along what were essentially socialist lines. This policy could have succeeded had the western world been prepared to see coming into existence a genuinely independent African state. In fact, they were not prepared to do so and we thus gave innumerable hostages to fortune. | |||
The "coup d'etat" on its surface was a military revolt against myself and what I stood for. If it is analysed more deeply, however, it is a mark of the breakdown of the western attempt to influence and control Africa. The western countries, having failed to control democratically supported African governments, were forced into the final extremity of substituting regimes which depended upon no other mandate than the weapons which they held in their hands. Such puppet governments cannot survive for long either in Ghana or elsewhere in Africa. They are, in the first place, based on internal contradictions. Why they are tolerated is that their initial popularity is due to a sort of sympathetic magic. The prosperity of the western world at the moment depends upon exploiting less developed countries. Each year the western world pays less for its imports and each year charges more for its exports. Those who make our "coups" believe, however, or at least pretend to believe, that if they copy, or claim to copy, the outward image of the western world, then-in some miraculous way---they will secure the advantages which the western world enjoys. The contrary is the case. The individuals who have made the counter-revolution from Saigon to Sierra Leone are dependent for their political existence upon western support. The countries over which they temporarily obtained control are therefore exploited all the more viciously. By supporting the reactionary rebellions in Africa and western countries have dug graves for imperialism and neo-colonialism and have put before the African people the clear choice which was unclear before, either to go forward with a thorough revolution or else to continue in a situation which, year by year, impoverishes and humiliates them further. | |||
Events in Ghana since the military rebellion illustrate this admirably. Those who seized power claim they came forward to save the economy, restore prosperity, democracy, freedom of the press and the like. Instead, in order to maintain themselves in office at all they have had to impose harsher taxation, sell out state enterprises to foreign interests, murder democracy, curb the press and forcibly to suppress any type of consultation with the people. Instead, therefore, of proving that capitalism and the western way of life are the best, they demonstrate that it only brings increasing misery to all those who attempt to reproduce it in Africa. They thus, by their example, produce a genuinely revolutionary situation which did not previously exist and which was, through its absence, one of the main reasons for African disunity and for the poverty of the continent. | |||
I had for long the gravest doubts about many of those in leading positions in my Party. Despite the establishment of the ideological institute at Winneba which I hoped might be used to teach some general understanding of what we were attempting it was clear to me that many in high positions still failed to understand the political and social purposes of the state. On Ghana's external policy, however, depended to a large extent the progressive line which Africa as a whole used to follow. I had to weigh against the desire to move fast at home the d angers of concentrating too much upon internal matters and achieving a revolution at home at the cost of temporarily withdrawing from the international field. | |||
The conduct of many of those in the higher Party leadership has demonstrated to the people of Ghana that one can no longer trust in a broad coalition of interests. The old civil service and the Judiciary went over almost to a man to the usurping regime. By so doing they were of course serving personal interests and to this extent what they did was understandable if not excusable. The lesson, however, which their conduct provides, is that they had no loyalty to the state or understanding of the social purposes which we were attempting to achieve. It might be possible to work in the future with people who were merely dishonest through self-interest but it is absolutely impossible to utilize a machine which has shown itself so defective of understanding. | |||
For these reasons, the "coup" has achieved something which it would have been impossible to achieve without it, namely, a complete and public exposure of the impossibility of continuing along old lines. | |||
The slate has been wiped clean and now at least we can begin to build again upon new foundations. For the people of Ghana life under the "N.L.C." is a form of political education which they could never otherwise have had. For the C.P.P. it is an even more important lesson in that it shows that the old organisation was defective and that the old leadership in many cases which was inherited from the struggle against British imperialism was inadequate for its task and when put to the test of crisis failed. | |||
In the old days popular opinion forced me to maintain in positions of authority individuals who were well-known in their localities through their local families and tribal influences. In the past many such people rendered important services to the Party. Now, however, a new testing time has arisen and these people, when weighed against events, have had all the defects of their characters exposed for the whole world to see. | |||
In a larger sense the "coup d'état" has made it plain that the C.P.P. can no longer follow the path of the old line. It must develop a new and reformed revolutionary leadership which must come from the broad mass of the Party. There is now a genuinely revolutionary situation in Ghana. For this reason, while the present is dark, the future is bright. And indeed the misfortunes of Ghana in its darkest days are a necessary lesson for all African revolutionaries. | |||
== 5. The Big Lie == | == 5. The Big Lie == | ||
Revision as of 14:56, 11 May 2024
Dark Days in Ghana | |
|---|---|
| Author | Kwame Nkrumah |
| Publisher | Lawrence & Wishart |
| First published | 1968 London |
| Type | Book |
| Source | archive.org |
Author's note
Ghana's experience since 24th February 1966, costly but priceless, must be viewed in the context of the African Revolution as a whole.
It is with this in mind that I have written, in Conakry, about Ghana's "dark days" in the hope that publication of the facts may help to expose similar setbacks in other progressive independent African states.
24th August 1967.
Letter to Kwame Nkrumah from Richard Wright: Black Power
I say to you publicly and frankly: The burden of suffering that must be borne, impose it upon one generation! Do not, with the false kindness of the missionaries and business-men, drag out this agony for another five hundred years while your villages rot and your people's minds sink into the nicrass of a subjective darkness ... Be merciful by being stern! If I lived under your regime, I'd ask for this hardness, this coldness ...
Make no mistake, Kwame, they are going to come at you with words about democracy; you are going to be pinned to the wall and warned about decency; plump-faced men will mumble academic phrases about "sound" development; gentlemen of the cloth will speak unctuously of values and standards; in short, a barrage of concentrated arguments will be hurled at you to persuade you to temper the pace and drive of your movement ...
But you know as well as I do that the logic of your actions is being determined by the conditions of the lives of your people ...
There will be no way to avoid a degree of suffering, of trial, of tribulation; suffering comes to all people, but you have within your power the means to make this suffering of your people meaningful, to redeem whatever stresses and strains may come. None but Africans can perform this for Africa. And, as you launch your bold programmes, as you call on your people for sacrifices, you can be confident that there are free men beyond the continent of Africa who see deeply enough into life to know and understand what you must do, what you must impose ...
*This extract is reproduced by the kind permission of the author's London agents, John Farquharson Ltd., and of Harper and Row, New York.
1. Peking to Conakry
The word "coup" should not be used to describe what took place in Ghana on 24th February 1966. On that day, Ghana was captured by traitors among the army and police who were inspired and helped by neo-colonialists and certain reactionary elements among our own population. It was an act of aggression, an "invasion", planned to take place in my absence and to be maintained by force. Seldom in history has a more cowardly and criminally stupid attempt been made to destroy the independence of a nation.
When the action took place, I was on my way to Hanoi, at the invitation of President Ho Chi Minh, with proposals for ending the war in Vietnam. I had almost reached Peking, the furthest point in my journey. The cowards who seized power by force of arms behind my back, knew they did not have the support of the people of Ghana, and therefore thought it safer to wait until I was not only out of the country, but well beyond the range of a quick return.
The news was brought to me by the Chinese Ambassador in Accra who had gone on ahead to Peking to meet me, and to be with me during my visit to China. He had just accompanied Prime Minister Chou En-lai, Liu Shao-chi and other officials when they welcomed us at the airport, and he had come straight on out to the government house where I was staying. I remember his exact words:
"Mr. President. I have bad news. There has been a coup d'etat in Ghana."
I was taking a brief rest after the long flight from Rangoon, and wondered if I had heard him correctly.
"What did you say?"
"A coup d'etat in Ghana."
"Impossible," I said. "But yes, it is possible. These things do happen. They are in the nature of the revolutionary struggle."
I learned later that the Chinese welcoming party had known about events in Ghana when I stepped from the aircraft at Peking, but with characteristic courtesy had waited to break the news to me privately.
My first reaction was to return immediately to Accra. If the VC10 of Ghana Airways in which we had travelled most of the way had been at Peking I would have embarked at once. But we had left it behind in Rangoon and had continued to Peking in an aircraft sent by the Chinese government.
I knew that to avoid unnecessary bloodshed I would have to be back in Ghana within 24 hours, and this was clearly impossible. I decided, therefore, to make an immediate statement to the Ghanaian people, and to fight back on African soil just as soon as my hosts could make the necessary travel arrangements.
What had happened in Ghana was no more than a tactical set-back in the African revolutionary struggle of a type which I had often predicted. At the very first conference of the O.A.U. in Addis Ababa, I had warned my fellow Heads of State that none of us was safe if we remained disunited. For this reason, I considered that the overall strategy remained unchanged but what had happened in Ghana made it all the more necessary to press on by revolutionary means to secure a united Africa.
The following is the text of the statement I released to the press:
"On my arrival in Peking, my attention has been drawn to reports from press agencies which allege that some members of the Ghana armed forces supported by some members of the police have attempted to overthrow my government-the government of the Convention People's Party.
I know that the Ghanaian people are always loyal to me, the Party and the Government, and all I expect of everyone at this hour of trial is to remain calm, but firm in determination and resistance.
Officers and men in the Ghana armed forces who are involved in this attempt, are ordered to return to their barracks and wait for my return.
I am the constitutional head of the Republic of Ghana, and the supreme commander of the armed forces.
I am returning to Ghana soon."
I followed this up with a cable to all Ghanaian embassies:
"Be calm and remain firm at your posts. Send all messages and reports to me through the Ghana Embassy, Peking, and not, repeat not, through Accra until further notice."
As I discussed the news from Ghana with the 22 officials accompanying me, among them A. Quaison Sackey (Foreign Minister), Kwesi Armah (Minister of Trade), M. F. Dei-Anang (Ambassador Extraordinary, in charge of the African Affairs Secretariat), J. E. Bossman (Ambassador to the U.K.), F. Arkhurst (Ghana's Permanent Representative at the United Nations), I was somewhat disappointed to note their reaction. At a time like this, I would have expected them to show courage and fortitude. But most of them were frightened. Quaison Sackey, for example, developed diarrhoea, and must have visited the lavatory about twenty times that day. Their obvious dismay was in striking contrast to the calmness and courage of the 66 other personnel—the security officers and members of my personal secretariat. These were men. Compared with them, the politicians were old women.
With Alex Quaison Sackey, I will deal later. Kwesi Armah settled down in London where it appeared that he had considerable funds of money available to him. The rebel regime, on the basis of this, attempted to have him extradited on the grounds that he had stolen the money in question. His many trials before the English Courts exposed at least the falsity of the allegations which these authorities had made. I am glad that he was acquitted since I am sure that the particular charges made against him were false. Nonetheless, I believe that he brought his misfortunes on himself by failing to take a positive political stand. His various court cases however prove the nonsense contained in many of the allegations of corruption against my government.
Enoch Okoh and Michael Dei-Anang were old British trained civil servants. They had made their way up through the colonial structure. They had been among my most trusted officials but they chose to return to Ghana, presumably in the hope that they would be accepted by the counterrevolutionaries.
Enoch Okoh, as head of the civil service and as the person who knew therefore which promotions had been made and why, was treated with leniency and was appointed to be in charge of the Housing Corporation. Since the new regime did not intend to build any houses for the people this was perhaps the appropriate punishment for his desertion. Michael Dei-Anang was not so treated and, much to his surprise, was thrown into prison.
Fred Arkhurst, after his treachery, returned to his former position at the United Nations but was eventually removed by the 'N.L.C.' who could not trust someone who had, at least, ability.
Naturally, we were all of us anxious about the safety of our families in Ghana, but I suppose the official members of the party were also thinking about their bank accounts and their property. It is said that a man's heart lies where his treasure is. But even allowing for the fact that they had more to lose than the other personnel, I still find it hard to understand how they could have lost grip of themselves so easily. It was as though they had put their hands up at the first whiff of danger.
However, they did manage to pull themselves together sufficiently for me to be able to discuss the next moves with them. It was not until later, after they had left Peking, and were on their own, that the full depth of their defeatism became apparent, and they deserted.
We agreed that for the next day or two, while arrangements were being made. I should carry out official engagements as planned.
This was also the wish of the Chinese government. The Chinese made it clear that they regarded the military and police action in Ghana as no more than a temporary obstacle in the long struggle against imperialism, the kind of event to be expected, but which had no effect whatsoever on the final outcome. "You are a young man," Chou En-lai told me, "you have another forty years ahead of you!"
At the banquet held in my honour on 24th February, Liu Shao-chi spoke of Afro-Asian solidarity, and the African peoples' revolutionary struggle:
"Most of the African countries have won independence, but the African peoples' revolutionary struggle against imperialism is by no means completed. They still have to carry on this struggle in greater depth. The imperialists headed by the United States are more active than ever in pressing forward with their policies of neo-colonialism in an attempt to subvert independent African countries and suppress the anti-imperialist revolutionary struggle of the African peoples. In his latest book, 'Neo-Colonialism—The Last Stage of Imperialism', President Nkrumah gave a detailed description of neo-colonialism and explicitly pointed out that 'foremost among the neo-colonialists' is the United States, which is 'the very citadel of neo-colonialism'. However hard the imperialists may whip up revolutionary adverse currents, the anti-imperialist revolutionary struggles of the African peoples can never be suppressed but are bound to win final victory. The Chinese people have unswervingly stood on the side of the African peoples and resolutely support their just struggles.''
He went on to condemn U.S. policy in Vietnam, and to expose the hypocrisy of American so-called peace moves. No direct mention was made of the news from Ghana, or the possibility that I might not proceed to Hanoi.
In my reply, I also attacked neo-colonialism, and said that final victory would rest with the common man. I went on to condemn U.S. aggression in Vietnam, and called for the complete withdrawal of all American forces from Vietnam so that peace negotiations could begin.
I knew that I could not now go to Hanoi. My duty lay first with the people of Ghana, and I was determined to return to Africa as quickly as possible. But I was sorry to have to abandon mv mission as it was the second time that President Ho Chi Minh had asked me to go, and I wanted to do anything I could to help end the war. I was, and as far as I know, still remain the only head of state or government that the President of North Vietnam has invited to Hanoi to discuss the war since the American phase began. When I informed him of my decision, he replied that I would be welcome in Hanoi at any future date.
During the next two days, while I continued to carry out official engagements and to deal with the messages which began to pour in from abroad, the Chinese could not have shown greater care for my safety. If anyone near to me so much as put his hand in his pocket he was instantly pounced upon by security officers. They trusted no one, not even the Ghanaians who were with me.
Messages of encouragement and support continued to arrive from heads of state and governments all over the world. Many African leaders offered me immediate hospitality. Among them were President Sékou Touré of Guinea, President Nasser of Egypt, President Nyerere of Tanzania and President Modibo Keita of Mali. I was very touched that they should declare their solidarity so quickly and with such generosity, and it was only after deep thought that I decided to accept the invitation of President Sékou Touré and the Political Bureau of the Guinean Democratic Party. I sent the following note to President Sékou Touré:
Peking.
25th February 1966.My dear Brother and President,
I have been deeply touched by your message of solidarity and support I have received today. It is true, as you say, that this incident in Ghana is a plot by the imperialists, neo-colonialists and their agents in Africa. As these imperialist forces grow more militant and insidious, using traitors to the African cause against the freedom and independence of our people, we must strengthen our resolution and fight for the dignity of our people to the last man, and for the unity of Africa. It is heartening to know that in this struggle we can count on the support and understanding of Africa's well-tried leaders like yourself.
I know that our cause will triumph and that we can look forward to the day when Africa shall be really united and free from foreign interference and the intrigues of saboteurs and puppets.
I am safe and well here in Peking, and I have sent my special emissary who will deliver this message to you to let you know the plans I am making for my early return to Africa. I trust that you will give him every possible assistance for the fulfilment of his mission. I shall visit you in Guinea soon.
With sincere and brotherly affection,
Shortly afterwards, I received a further message from President Sékou Touré:
The Political Bureau and the Government after a thorough analysis of the African situation following the seizure of power by the instruments of imperialism have decided:
1. To organise a national day of solidarity with the Ghanaian people next Sunday. Throughout the length and breadth of the country there will take place popular demonstrations on the theme of anti-imperialism.
2. To call on all progressive African countries to hold a special conference and take all adequate measures.
We think that the time factor is vital here, since it is important to make a riposte without further delay, by every means. Your immediate presence would be very opportune, it seems to us, and we are therefore impatiently waiting for you.
Yours very fraternally,
Ahmed Sékou Touré.
I do not propose to publish in full all the messages I received from Heads of State and governments. But I would like to quote from the messages of two other African leaders. First, the note from President Modibo Keita of Mali:
I am happy to hear that you are well. Please thank our comrades of the People's Republic of China for this important contribution to Africa's struggle for liberty and progress.
Yesterday, the 24th of February, we learned of the serious events which took place in Ghana and which do no credit to those who have provoked them.
For us, the authors of the coup d'état have committed an act of high treason. ... This is one phase of the unremitting struggle waged by neo-colonialists and imperialists against Africa which wishes to live in freedom and dignity and in friendship with all peoples who are peace-loving and who wish to build a just society. All Africans, conscious of the grave dangers posed to our peoples and our continent, should mobilise themselves to bar the way to neo-colonialism and imperialism.
The Malian people consider themselves engaged in this struggle.
Secondly, I quote from the message from Albert Margai then Prime Minister of Sierra Leone:
Whilst we are conscious of the many and divers forces working in Africa which daily and constantly strive to foil our struggle for the final emancipation of those still subject to colonial rule and our ultimate claims to unity, I have nevertheless formed great hope and fortitude in the courage of your convictions and determined efforts to defy ill odds in refusing to accept the results of the recent revolt as a fait accompli. Please accept, my dear Brother, the assurance of my highest consideration, esteem and prayers for your personal well-being and safety.
Apart from the fact that Guinea and Ghana formed a union in 1961, and a strong bond of friendship exists between President Sékou Touré, the Political Bureau of the Guinea Democratic Party, the people of Guinea and myself, I wanted to go to a country as near to Ghana as possible.
This would leave no one in any doubt about my intention to take up the neo-colonialist challenge and to restore legal government in Ghana. Guinea is only some 300 miles from Ghana. Jet flying time between the two countries is a mere 30-40 minutes. From Guinea I knew I would be in a good position to carry on the African revolutionary struggle. I decided that we should all, with the exception of Quaison Sackey and Bossman, go to Guinea via Moscow.
Quaison Sackey as foreign minister was entrusted with a very important mission. He was to go to Addis Ababa to represent the legal government of Ghana at the O.A.U. conference of foreign ministers due to open there within a few days. Instead of rising to the occasion, and accepting this great challenge and responsibility, he went to Accra and offered his services to the neo-colonialist puppets, the so-called National Liberation Council. The latter, it seems, made little use of him. Traitors have no friends.
I heard of his betrayal when I arrived in Moscow on the first of March, and it was there that I was also told of Bossman's defection. By then, Kwesi Armah and other officials had left Moscow to deal, as they said, with "urgent private matters." They were to return to Moscow, and we were all to travel together to Conakry. Instead, they defected. I then decided to proceed at once to Guinea with my personal entourage and members of my Guard Department. I wanted no one with me who was faint-hearted or two-faced. Every member of my party knew he was free to leave at any time. The security officers and other members of my personal staff decided to remain with me.
The Russian government sent an aircraft to Peking to fetch me, and I left from an air-strip near Peking on 28th February. Before leaving, I made the following statement to the press:
I think you all know that certain members of my armed forces have attempted to usurp political power in Ghana while I was on the way to Hanoi. What they have done, in fact, is to commit an act of rebellion against the Government of the Republic. I am determined to crush it without delay, and to do this I rely upon the support of the Ghanaian people and of Ghana's friends in the world.
By the arrest, detention and assassination of ministers, the Party's civil servants, and trade unionists, and by the massacre of defenceless men and women, the authors of these insane acts of robbery, violence and anarchy have added brutality to their treason.
Never in the history of our new Ghana have citizens, men and women been assassinated in cold blood. Never have their children become orphans for political reasons. Never before have Ghanaians, our people, been shot because of their political convictions.
This is a tragedy of monstrous proportions. The excessive personal ambition and the insane acts of these military adventurers, if not stifled now, will not only destroy the political, economic and social achievements of the last few years, but will also obstruct the course of the African revolution.
All that has been achieved by the Ghanaian people with the assistance of all our friends is in jeopardy.
I am returning to Ghana; I know that the friendly nations and people of good will everywhere will support me in restoring the constitutional government of Ghana.
I take this opportunity to express my sincere condolences to all the families whose valiant sons and daughters have given their lives in the defence of Ghana.
At this moment, as I leave Peking, the capital city of the People's Republic of China, I express my profound gratitude to the Chinese people and to their leaders for their support and their kind hospitality.
We landed near Moscow at dawn on 1st March, after a brief stop at Irkutsk in Siberia, and were met by leading Soviet government officials. After a busy day of talks I re-embarked at midnight for the flight to Guinea.
We touched down briefly in Yugoslavia, and in Algeria, and reached Conakry in the afternoon of Wednesday, 2nd March. It was wonderful to be on African soil again. Guinea was agog with excitement. President Sékou Touré and members of the Political Bureau of the Democratic Party were among the huge crowd at the airport to welcome me. A twenty-one gun salute was fired.
At a mass rally in the packed sports stadium in Conakry the following day, President Sékou Touré announced that I had been made Secretarv-General of the Guinean Democratic Party and Head of State of Guinea. "The Ghanaian traitors," he said "have been mistaken in thinking that Nkrumah is simply a Ghanaian. ... He is a universal man." It looked as though the entire population of Conakry was in the stadium that afternoon and I shall never forget the reception they gave to Sékou Touré and myself as we were driven round the arena in an open car. The crowds rcise to their feet, cheering, shouting anti-imperialist and anti-neo-colonialist slogans, and waving placards: "Long live the African Revolution," "Long live Kwame Nkrumah," "Long live Sékou Touré," "Down with neo-colonialists," etc. It was a deeply moving experience, and I found my thoughts turning to similar mass rallies held in the Polo Ground, Accra. The people of Ghana were now being made to suffer for something which was not of their own making. They had been overcome by powerful external forces, and by the plotting and deception of a few selfish and ambitious reactionaries.
President Sékou Touré made a long speech. I did not know at the time exactly what he said. He spoke in French, and my knowledge of that language was then sketchy. I understood that I had been presented to the people of Guinea, but had no idea that I had been made President. It was not until after the ceremony, when I heard the press reports, that the full realisation of my new appointment became clear to me.
Such a gesture of political solidarity must surely be without historical precedent. When our historians come to record the events of 1966 they will doubtless consider the action of the Guinean Government as a great landmark in the practical expression of Pan-Africanism.
In this way began one of the most fruitful and happiest periods of my life—the time I spent in Conakry, about which I shall write later in this book.
2. 24th February, 1966
One of the first things I did after my arrival in Guinea was to establish an efficient communications system so that I could be kept fully informed of what was happening inside Ghana. Almost at once I began to receive detailed eye-witness accounts of what actually took place on 24th February and in the dark days which followed the army and police usurpation of power. At the same time there began a steady flow of Ghanaians to visit me in Conakry, to tell me about what had happened in Ghana and to express their loyalty. Some of them had walked all the way; others had found quicker means of travel. But all came at great personal risk to themselves and their families. Letters also began to pour in, and gradually the full, terrible story of violence and bloodshed took shape, and has since been confirmed to me over and over again by innumerable people who were there at the time of the military and police action and saw what took place. Several of the eyewitnesses who came to me still bore the marks of the brutal attacks made on them.
The true account of the seizure of power in Ghana by traitors and neo-colonialists does not make pleasant reading. But the facts must be faced and put on record so that the enormity of the crime committed against the people of Ghana can be accurately assessed.
I left Accra on 21st February 1966. I was seen off at the airport by most of the leading government and Party officials, and by service chiefs. I recall the handshakes and the expressions of good wishes from Harlley, Deku, Yakubu, and others. These men, smiling and ingratiating, had all the time treason and treachery in their minds. They had even planned my assassination on that day, though they later abandoned the idea. I remember shaking hands with Major-General Barwah-to be murdered in cold blood three days later when he refused to surrender to the rebel army soldiers. I little thought then that l would never see him again, or that Zanerigu, Command1:r of the Presidential Guard Regiment, Kojo Botsio. Kofi Baako and other ministers who were there at the airport, would be shortly seized by renegade soldiers and policemen and thrown into prison.
After a week of so-called "manoeuvres," the operation began early in the morning of Wednesday, 23rd February 1966 when the garrison at Kumasi, numbering 600 men, was ordered to move southwards to Accra. On the way, the convoy of some 35 vehicles was met and halted by the two arch-traitors Colonel Emmanuel Kwesi Kotoka, Commander of the Second Infantry Brigade Group, and Major Akwasi Amankwa Afrifa of the Second Brigade. Kotoka had only recently been put in charge of the Kumasi garrison, and I had not yet confirmed his appointment.
Afrifa was left in command while Kotoka went to Accra to report progress to Commissioner of Police, John Willie Kofi Harlley and to find some soldier better known than himself to be the nominal head of the revolt. The man chosen was Major-General Ankrah even though the conspirators had thought so little of his abilities than they had not previously troubled to consult him. He was, however, one of the few officers who had held even the rank of major in colonial days and had seen service in the world war if only as a quartermaster. In the Congo he had shown some bravery and, at least, routine ability and I had decorated him for his services but essentially he was of mediocre calibre. He held the post of second in command in the armed forces after independence through seniority, not ability. He would not have been appointed even to this post but for the death shortly before of another senior officer. In 1965 I retired him. Undoubtedly, it was his lack of understanding of what was going on around him which recommended him as a figure-head to those manipulating the 'coup'.
The troops were then told that I intended sending them to fight in Vietnam and in Rhodesia, and that I had deserted Ghana taking with me £8 million. There was, they were told, no government left in Ghana, and it was their duty to assume control of the country to maintain law and order. Already, it was said, Russian planes were landing on a secret airstrip in northern Ghana. Furthermore a secret tunnel had been made from Flagstaff House, the presidential residence, to Accra airport, and for days Russians had been arriving. The only way to save Ghana, and to avoid being sent to fight in Vietnam, the troops were told, was to take Flagstaff House.
Several days after the military seizure of power, Kotoka and Afrifa appeared on Ghana TV congratulating themselves on their easy success. One remark stood out unmistakable and clear: "And you know, we didn't find any Russians at allnot one! Nor could we find any trace of that tunnel." This was followed by peals of laughter at the poor soldiers who had believed their story.
The first object of the military operation was to force the surrender of Major-General Barwah, Army Chief of Staff and Deputy Chief of Defence Staff, who was in command of the Ghana Army in the absence from the country of the Chief of Defence Staff, General Aferi. At the same time, Brigadier Hasan, Head of Military Intelligence, and Colonel Zanerigu, Commander of the Presidential Guard Regiment, and Owusu-Sekyere, former head of the C.I.D. and in charge of the Special Branch. were to be arrested.
This stage of the operation was badly bungled. Hasan was arrested, but Zanerigu, when confronted, escaped through a window of his house and drove to Flagstaff House to warn the Presidential Guard Regiment. Barwah could not be intimidated. Woken from his sleep in the early hours of the morning of the 24th by the arrival of Kotoka and some 25 men, he courageously refused either to join the traitors or to surrender. Thereupon, Kotoka shot him dead at point-black range in cold blood in the presence of his wife and children. The seven security officers who were stationed at Barwah's house were also murdered on the spot on Kotoka's orders.
Kotoka subsequently boasted of his killing of Barwah but said because he was protected by a "juju" he was able to catch the bullets which Barwah fired in his defence and to throw them back at him. When the counter coup of April 1967 took place Kotoka's "magic" could not save him. Unlike Barwah he surrendered without protest or struggle to those who had captured him at his headquarters. His "juju" did not prevent him being shot in his turn.
Barwah's murder was one of the most disgraceful and ghastly crimes ever committed in Ghana's history. In an attempt to wipe the blood from their hands the so-called "N.L.C." gave Barwah and the security officers a military burial a few days later. What a mockery, and what hypocrisy! Yet these terrible, cold-blooded murders were only the first of many which occurred on 24th February and during subsequent days. They set the tone, as it were, of the whole operation which was characterised throughout by cowardice, bloodshed and criminal stupidity.
By 6 a.m. on the 24th, the Accra police, acting on Hadley's orders, had rounded up most of the ministers and other key political figures, and fighting had broken out at Flagstaff House between members of the Presidential Guard Regiment and rebel army units. There were about thirty members of the Guard Regiment at Flagstaff House when the alarm was raised. These were soon joined by others who managed to slip in by a back entrance to reinforce their comrades. Although heavily outnumbered they successfully held up the rebel detachment sent to seize the Ghana radio station a short distance from Flagstaff House. Only eight of the 124 detailed for this operation managed to get through. These captured the radio station, apparently without incident, and at 6 a.m. Kotoka arrived to broadcast that the army and police had taken over the government of Ghana.
The announcement was premature. At 7 a.m. resistance was actually increasing at Flagstaff House, as the defenders, less than a hundred of them, fought fiercely back against some 600 rebel troops. By this time a battalion in Accra under Ocran had joined them, not knowing what the fighting was all about. Thus the rebels were able to gain control of the airport, cable office, radio station, and all the approach roads to Accra.
Kotoka had established a combined HQ. with the police at Police Headquarters, and from there the order was given for the 2nd Battalion to go into action at Flagstaff House. The Guard Regiment fought on. though their position was now hopeless. The outside walls of Flagstaff House had been blasted open, and the defenders had retreated behind the second gate. Still they refused to surrender. It was only after the rebels threatened to blow up the family residence at Flagstaff House in which my wife and three young children were sheltering that they finally gave in.
The fierce fighting at Flagstaff House at this time was in striking contrast to the failure at the time of the April I 967 counter-coup of Kotoka's body guard to defend his headquarters. He had made Flagstaff House into a strong point from which he commanded the armv. Yet when it was attacked by a small detachment of some 25 men the garrison immediately surrendered as did that of the Broadcasting Station which was also only attacked by a force of similar size. Again a small group of soldiers, not more than 50 in all, were sufficient to capture the Castle at Osu from which the "N.L.C." conducted their government. Ankrah 'the Chairman' of the "N.L.C." was the first of its defenders to run away, jumping over the Castle wall, plunging into the sea and wading down the shore.
What followed the fall of Flagstaff House on 24th February 1966, has been concealed from the world. But the people of Ghana know, and will never forget.
It may be explained in part by the fact that the soldiers who had carried out the 'coup' were frightened men. They had been told that there was a great store of arms beneath Flagstaff House and a hidden Russian army was concealed there which would suddenly emerge to attack them. They were jittery and fired on anyone on the slightest suspicion. They so frightened officials of the Japanese Embassy that they put placards on all their cars saying "We are NOT Chinese". There was also potential indiscipline. Despite the fact that Ghanaian armed forces in the Congo were regarded as the best of the African troops stationed there, the habit of drug-taking and excessive drinking which some of the soldiers had acquired there led to a mutiny in one battalion in which the Commanding Officer was so badly injured that he was left for dead, and in which the mutinous soldiers took over for two or three days complete control of the camp. In order to restore discipline it had been necessary to disband this battalion.
The officers who organised the "coup", having deceived their men, were now in no position to discipline them.
Rebel troops, many of them almost mad from the effects of Indian hemp which had been issued to them, others intoxicated with alcohol looted from ransacked houses and trigger-happy, carried out the most cruel and senseless attacks on innocent men, women and children. Thousands of pounds worth of damage was done to government property, and valuable historical documents and records were destroyed.
At Flagstaff House itself, troops dashed from one room to another, smashing windows and furniture, tearing up papers, ripping telephones from desks, and destroying anything they could lay their hands on. My own office was singled out for special treatment. The full extent of the loss of books and manuscripts I shall discover on my return. I am hoping that by some miracle the precious notes I was compiling for a history of Africa may have been spared. If not, years of work will have been wasted, and the labour of collecting and sorting material and writing it up will have to begin again from scratch.
The stupidity of this needless destruction of government property, and the failure of the rebel officers to exercise any control over their men, demonstrates the quality of their leadership.
In the six-roomed two-storey house where I lived with my family, troops were allowed to run riot, seizing clothes and other intimate personal possessions including rare old books and manuscripts. My wife and children, although not physically harmed, were not permitted to take a single thing with them when they were turned out of the house and forced to take refuge in the Egyptian Embassy.
My mother, 80 years old and almost blind, who was staying at Flagstaff House, was forcibly ejected and told to go "where you belong". I understand some friends took her to Nkroful where I was born. Later, the actual house in which I was born was burnt down on "N.L.C." orders.
My mother was forced to appear before a 'commission of enquiry' with the idea of making her admit that I was not her son and indeed was not a Ghanaian at all. I am proud to know that she resolutely refused to say anything of the sort and conducted herself with the utmost dignity.
From Flagstaff House, the troops went to Kanda Estate where many security officers have their quarters. There they hurled grenades into the compounds, broke into houses and flats, tossed furniture out of the windows, and carried off radios, refrigerators and other property. Anyone who resisted them was brutally shot. Women, children and old people were driven out into the streets. Many of the women were raped. Even young children were hit with rifle butts. A woman with a child on her back was shot, and both mother and child were thrown to the ground from a three-storey window.
The rank and file police who had taken no part in the 'coup' were horrified at what was taking place and did their best to restrain the soldiers and this led in some cases to actual fighting between the two forces.
Meanwhile, the soldiers had been reinforced by a new element. It was part of the propaganda against Ghana abroad and internally that my government had detained thousands of individuals. There were, of course, political detainees but their number, for state security, was fortunately small. Most of these detainees under the Preventive Detention Act were the so-called "criminal" detainees. As industrialisation developed in Ghana so. as in all countries. organised crime increased and at one stage in the immediate post-independence period we were faced with a situation which, if we had not dealt with it, would have resulted in the country being terrorised by organised criminal gangs. The view of the police was that it was not possible in many cases. any more than it was in the United States at some periods of its history, to secure convictions in courts of the gang leaders or of their supporters. The Preventive Detention Act was therefore extended to cover habitual criminals suspected of gangsterism.
If the rebels had only released the genuine political detainees the total would have been so small as to discredit them and in any case they required the prison accommodation occupied by the criminal detainees in order to lock up anyone suspected of being a C.P.P. member or supporter. In the days following the 'coup' the criminal detainees were not only released but were able to represent themselves as "the heroes of the counter-revolution". By day they joined. naturally, in the demonstrations against my government and at night returned to their old activities to such an extent that even the strictly controlled "N.L.C." press demanded that they should be returned to prison.
Accra was handed over to lawless elements which the rank and file police had no means of controlling. Bar owners were forced at gun point to sell free beer to soldiers and to the "heroes of the counter-revolution", the criminal detainees. These people assaulted women, thieved, and looted. It will be only after the return to legal government in Ghana that it will be possible to assess exactly the number of those who died in fighting against the rebel soldiers or were subsequently killed in the looting and robbery which followed. The casualties in the fighting were certainly heavy. The number of civilians killed, it is more difficult to estimate. Two members of Parliament certainly lost their lives and a number of people in no way connected with politics died. Among those shot dead near Flagstaff House was an air hostess on her way to the airport. In all, the total was probably around 1 ,600 dead and many more injured. So much for the "bloodless coup"!
One thing is clear. Never before in the cherished history of our new Ghana had citizens, defenceless men and women, been assassinated in cold blood by their own soldiers. Not a single Ghanaian life was taken during the whole fifteen years of my administration. There are few, if any, governments in the world which can say as much. Yet here was this handful of traitors at one blow spoiling our proud record, and dragging Ghana's name through the mud.
In the days which followed the insurrection, hundreds of patriotic Ghanaians were thrown into prison. All ministers. M.P.s, officials of the Party and of all its subsidiary and associate organisations including the trade unions were arrested and detained. The same applied to branch officers throughout the country. In fact, the entire leadership, except for the few who managed to escape or go into hiding, was at one swoop rounded up and thrown into prison.
The prison authorities, with some exceptions, continued to act in the humane and considerate way which we had insisted upon in the prison service, since the establishment of independence. The Director of Prisons, in particular, saw to it that no one, insofar as he could prevent it, once inside the prison, was ill-treated. It is significant that subsequently he was pronounced by the "N.L.C." to have become insane and taken to a lunatic asylum where he died, mysteriously electrocuted.
Professor Kojo Abraham, Fellow of All Souls, Oxford, and a former Governor of the School of Oriental and African Studies in London, was mercilessly beaten when soldiers arrived to arrest him. He was flung unconscious into the police van. Abraham, at the time of his arrest, was an M.P. and Acting Vice-Chancellor of the University of Ghana. His only crime was that he was a leading member of the Party. The manuscript of a new book he was writing was among the first of a pile of papers and books publicly burnt. Nazi-style, by the mutinous soldiers who arrested him.
Geoffrey Bing, Q.C., a distinguished British lawyer, and one of my legal advisers, who had come to Ghana at Government invitation to help in our legal and constitutional work, had his clothes and shoes torn off him and was made to walk up and down barefoot and to stand up and sit down in repeated succession without being able to use his hands. Bayonets were stuck into his back, and it was not until a Commander of the Ghana Navy arrived on the scene that they stopped torturing him.
Typical of the sort of thing which happened was the wounding of the Deputy Manager of one of the hotels in Accra. He was being driven by his driver on hotel business but suddenly was shot by a soldier. The explanation subsequently given was that as be was sitting at the back of the car the soldier thought he must have been a minister in my government.
These are only a few examples of the countless acts of brutality carried out within the first week or so, by the traitorous renegades and cowards who seized power in Ghana on 24th February 1966. The people of Ghana were stunned. Nobody outside Accra knew what had happened, or was happening. In some cases, particularly in the remoter districts, it was days before they realised what had taken place. Even then, the full implications of the am1y and police action dawned only slowly as they began gradually to see through the lies poured out over the radio and in the press, and saw with their own eyes the way in which the independence and progress of their beloved country was being destroyed, and its assets sold to foreign interests.
In Accra, military police and soldiers in full battle dress and armed with sub-machine guns patrolled the streets. In such circumstances, and with all the Party leadership arrested, it was not surprising that there was no immediate and open resistance. But secret, underground resistance began at once.
It grew by leaps and bounds.
While a number of the ministers hastened to ingratiate themselves with the rebels, others remained firm. Nothing for example has been heard of N. A Welbeck, Minister of Information and Party Propaganda who resolutely refused to make any cringing retraction of his past political activities. And the same is true of other ministers such as I. K. Chinebuah, Minister of Education and former Headmaster of Achimota School. The most heartening demonstration, however, came from the resolute attitude adopted by many of those in the intermediate and lower ranks of the Party.
The journalists, regional commissioners, district commissioners and party secretaries were imprisoned in the central block of Ussher Fort prison. Almost from the first day of their imprisonment onward they were singing in chorus Party songs so loudly that they could be heard well outside the prison and this despite the fact that their block was patrolled by armed soldiers.
Ghanaians are not a timid people as has been suggested in the foreign press. Far from it. They may be slow to anger, and may take time to organise and act. But once they are ready they strike, and strike hard. It pays no one to tamper with Ghanaian freedom and dignity. Ghana is out of the gambling house of colonialism, and will never return to it.
The American, British and European press has made much of the "demonstrations" which occurred in Accra in celebration of the 'coup'. It is interesting, however, that even in the Ghanaian papers there were no reports of any such demonstrations in the villages or in the country-side where one would have expected them. if the revolt had been genuinely popular. It is understandable however that certain elements, particularly in Accra, should demonstrate in favour of the new regime. The criminal detainees naturally led the celebrations but they were joined by more sober citizens. The intellectuals and the professional classes had always been against my government which they felt, quite rightly, was challenging their position of privilege. The lawyer and the clergyman thus found themselves joining in the same processions through the streets as the criminal. There was a section of the market women who had been exploiting the shortage of goods due to the measures which we had to take for the control of non-essential imports. They had been exposed by the Abraham Commission and they naturally were delighted that its Chairman should have now been thrown into jail. In addition to this there were at the start a number of people who were genuinely deceived by the revolt.
The disastrous fall in the world price of cocoa had led to inevitable import shortages of consumer goods. These people really believed that the 'coup' would change all this, and so they joined the gangs in the streets. Others joined them out of curiosity. Even so it was necessary for the army to force children from their school rooms and to dragoon demonstrators in order to make a satisfactory show. A small number of students from the university at Legon, wanting to demonstrate in favour of the new regime, asked for and were given police protection, so fearful were they of the reaction of the people of Accra. It was not until instructions were issued from police headquarters that the first street "demonstrations" took place.
Banners and posters, most of them prepared beforehand in the U.S. Embassy, were pushed into the hands of the unwilling "demonstrators". Many of the slogans and words used on them were quite foreign to the Ghanaian people, and in some cases completely incomprehensible. The same kind of thing was noticeable in the newspapers and news bulletins issued immediately after the seizure of power. Words and phrases were used which had never been seen in a Ghanaian newspaper before. The same discrepancy occurred on the radio as bulletins and news flashes were broadcast. The voice was Ghanaian, but the unfamiliar words and the glib expressions were foreign, and often caused the announcer to hesitate and falter.
Clearly, the polished editorials, news bulletins and unfamiliar slogans had been devised by experts trained in the art of overthrowing "undesirable governments'', but who had not taken the trouble to familiarise themselves with the Ghanaian way of thinking or expression.
I understand that the Uganda government in its investigations following the abortive coup which took place in Kampala on 26th February, only two days after the action in Accra, discovered prepared news bulletins, posters and newspaper editorials which were strikingly similar in style and content to those actually used in Ghana. I leave the reader to draw the obvious conclusions.
In the Makola market, a woman who had a large picture of myself above her stall was shot dead by an army officer after refusing three times to hand it over for destruction. This kind of incident, not seen by foreign journalists, who obediently and very willingly photographed and reported only the staged demonstrations and rigged press interviews, was typical 01 many other pathetic but deeply moving acts of heroism performed by the ordinary men and women of Ghana during those dark days.
Much publicity was given in the imperialist press and on T.V., to the pulling down of the statue of myself in front of the National Assembly building in Accra. It was made to appear as though angry crowds had torn the statue from its pedestal and had carried off chunks of it. But it was not for nothing that no photographs could be produced to show the actual pulling down of the statue; and the few women seen carrying away portions of the statue on their heads were photographed backview. In fact when the statue was pulled down the Parliament building where it stood had been cordoned off by the military and no unauthorised person was allowed into the area. All those who were there at the time had been those brought in by the military, who had closed to all civilians the whole of the High Street onto which the statue faced. When the statue had been pulled down about half-a-dozen terrified young children were forced to sit on it as it lay on the ground. Even the Jubilant imperialist press evidently saw nothing strange in publishing photographs of bewildered toddlers, tears running down their cheeks, sitting on a headless statue, while the same imperialist press extolled what it described as a "most popular coup". Since even the women shown carrying away pieces of it on their heads were photographed from behind, it is impossible to be certain whether they were from a group of the market women condemned by the Abraham Commission or as was widely rumoured in Accra, "soldiers dressed up as women''.
There are many other incidents which could be recorded, but sufficient has been written to show the manner in which the military and police action of 24th February 1966 was carried out.
Of course there were some who were happy at the turn of events. In any country there are always elements glad to see a change of government, and the traitors among the army and police who seized power in my absence could not even have attained the degree of success they did manage to achieve without support. The nature of this support, internal and external, I now intend to examine.
3. The "National Liberation Council"
In a proclamation published on 26th February 1966 the people of Ghana were told that the constitution had been suspended and that a "National Liberation Council" had been established which constituted the new government of Ghana. According to this proclamation, I and all my ministers were dismissed from office, the National Assembly was dissolved, and the Convention People's Party disbanded. Further, the "N.L.C." assumed full powers to make and issue decrees "which shall have the force of law in Ghana" and to appoint committees to administer their "affairs of state".
The proclamation ended, as it had begun, with the names of the eight traitors who formed the "N.L.C.":
J. A. Ankrah, Chairman (Army)
J. W. K. Harlley, Deputy Chairman (Police)
E. K. Kotoka, Member (Army)
B. A. Yakubu, Member (Police)
A. K. Ocran, Member (Army)
J. E. Nunoo, Member (Police)
A. A. Afrifa. Member (Army)
A. K. Deku, Member (Police).
It was in this way that the people of Ghana were informed of the names of their so-called liberators. Few had ever heard of them. They were nonentities. Yet here they were, four soldiers and four policemen, arrogantly claiming. without any shred of a mandate from the people, that they constituted "the new government of Ghana". Small wonder Ghanaians were at first stunned, and then became increasingly incensed as this clique of misguided and ignorant upstarts proceeded to unmask not only themselves but their neo-colonialist masters.
Very soon they became universally known not as the "National Liberation Council" but as the Notorious Liars Council, a name I gave them when I spoke to the people of Ghana on Radio Guinea's Voice of the Revolution soon after my arrival in Conakry.
In a booklet entitled "The Rebirth of Ghana" the members of the "N.L.C." found it necessary to publish photographs of themselves, selected facts about their shoddy careers, and information about their shady characters and trivial hobbies. It reads rather like excerpts from a poor imitation of the well-known British directory of notable personalities: "Who's Who." We are told that Ankrah was born in 1915, was a "keen sportsman" at school, and was trained at the Officer Cadet Training Unit in Britain. We are informed that "he is companionable, friendly and full of good humour". The authors of the booklet, gluttons for unnecessary detail, go on to say that Ankrah's hobbies are "gardening, films and an occasional swim". Not a very fitting list of interests and hobbies for the Chairman of the so-called National Liberation Council. No mention, of course, is made in the booklet of the fact that I found it necessary to dismiss Ankrah in 1965. He was becoming lazy, incompetent and unreliable. In addition to this, Ankrah and Major-General Otu revealed to me that they had, on several occasions, been written to anonymously and asked to join plots to overthrow the government. It seemed to me that, even if they had refused to join, their names had become associated with treason, and they should no longer continue to serve in the Ghana army. I retired them, gave them six months' pay, gratuities, and positions in two of the leading Accra banks.
Harlley, we are told, was born in 1919 at Akagla in the Volta Region. He enlisted in the Ghana Police service in 1940 and rose through the ranks to become inspector in 1952. He then went to the Metropolitan Police College in Hendon, England, and on his return to Ghana was step by step promoted to become head of the Special Branch. I was amused to read that he is "of a quiet disposition, considerate, kind-hearted, but very firm". And it is edifying to learn that "he enjoys the sight and sound of water, but hates to see fire or anything connecㅅed with burning". Again, not very inspiring qualifications for political leadership. Harlley, we are finally told. is married and has eight children. This is evidently considered respectable.
We are not told about Ankrah's four wives and 22 children.
Kotoka, generally credited with commanding the actual military operations on 24th February, was also trained in Britain. In fact, all members of the "N.L.C." were trained in the U.K. The four policemen were at the Metropolitan Training College in Hendon and the four soldiers at various British army training centres, though only Afrifa, the youngest, managed to get to Sandhurst.
We are informed that Kotoka "is a fine soldier, disciplined, loyal, resolute and firm". I must confess I am unimpressed by his "discipline" and "loyalty".
When his name was flashed across the headlines of the world press on 24th February, I had hardly heard of him. At the time when I reorganised the armed forces, he came to Flagstaff House to take the oath of allegiance to me as Supreme Commander of the Ghana armed forces. Kotoka was the only one late in arriving. I remember turning to Aferi, Chief of Defence Staff at that time and asking: "Who is this chap?"
As for Ocran, for a time my A.D.C., he is described as "rather reserved; shy of publicity". His interests are simply "bird watching". Yakubu, after a "brilliant career in the Inspectorate", rose gradually to the rank of Deputy Commissioner of Police. He is the only Northerner on the "N.L.C.," and his inclusion was doubtless for political reasons. Yet, like his colleagues on the "N.L.C.", he makes no claim to either political interests or experience. He is "quiet and always smiling" and likes to do farm work in his spare time.
Little space is given to Nunoo. After a brief sketch of his police career we are informed that he "has a pleasant baritone voice, and has sung in choirs and choral societies for over 15 years." He might have been more suitably employed, one would think, on Ghana radio or television.
The last two members of the "N.L.C." to be written about, Afrifa and Deku, leave the reader finally in no doubt about the quality of Ghana's so-called "new government". Afrifa, born in 1936 was one of those typical mis-fits which are produced in any developing society. As a school boy he had been expelled from Adisadel school and therefore could not obtain the university education for which he was hoping. Instead he joined the army and exploited his School Certificate education so as to be sent to Sandhurst. Indeed he was the only one among the mutinous officers who had had the conventional British army training. As he himself confesses, even when he was a senior cadet at Sandhurst he was always doing punishment drills for insubordination. It was only because we were desperately short of officers to serve in the Congo that he was commissioned at all. The fact that he had served there led to his securing rapid promotion and at the time of the 'coup' he was a major.
Anthony Deku was a typical colonial policeman. In colonial days Michael Collins, the English Commissioner of Police, in the days before my arrest and imprisonment sued me for libel as publisher of the Evening News for what I had written about the conduct of the colonial police. He persuaded Deku to be his co-plaintiff so as to make his action appear not to be exclusively European versus African. It was part of what I think now may have been a mistaken policy of letting all by-gones be by-gones that I never allowed this fact to prejudice his subsequent promotion in the Police Service.
If it were not for the great harm these traitors have done to our beloved Ghana, we could laugh at them. They appear so ridiculous. None of them makes any claim to an interest in politics; and not one of them has any political experience. How could men such as these imagine for one moment that they had any hope of successfully administering the country? Their stupidity can only be matched by their conceit. But we cannot laugh when we see what suffering and destruction they have caused in their attempt to sabotage our great struggle for economic independence, and our efforts in the African Revolution to achieve the total liberation of the continent and a Union Government of Africa. Were it not for the support of a small reactionary element inside Ghana, and the help of neocolonialists, they could not have organised and carried out the action of 24th February 1966, much less have maintained themselves in power for even a few months.
It is necessary to look more closely at the leadership of the army, police and civil service in order to understand how it became possible for these reactionary, counterrevolutionary forces, internal and external, to make use of them.
It has been said, particularly by well-wishers from outside Ghana. that if I knew of the potential disloyalty in the army why did I not deal with it? The very posing of this question discloses the fundamental misunderstanding about the Ghanaian position as it existed before the 'coup' in many friendly circles abroad.
As I then saw it, my task was two-fold. On the one hand, I had to secure a firm basis in Ghana and on the other, conduct an external policy which would lead to the liberation and unity of the whole African continent, and to the economic co-operation which was essential if any territory in Africa was to escape from neo-colonialism. In the military sense these two aims were contradictory.
I could, for example, have avoided any risk of a military revolt by maintaining the system which the British Government assumed would be maintained after independence, by which Britain would continue to supply for 10 to 15 years our key military personnel. The individual loyalties of such officers and their training, combined with the political complications for Britain which would have resulted in their joining in a revolt, would have made it unlikely that a military take-over could take place. On the other hand, if I maintained a non-African officered army, Ghana could not play a significant military part in the affairs of the continent.
Yet the tragedy of the Congo made one thing absolutely clear, that even small African forces on the spot at the right time could control the situation and prevent a neo-colonialist take-over. I therefore was not in a position to abolish the Ghanaian army, though this would have been an ideal course. It was a heavy charge on our limited resources for industrial development. On the other hand, looking at the problem from a continental point of view, if Ghana had no armed forces at all it must lose much of its influence with other African states. I have always said that for me the issue of African unity came before any other consideration. It was for this reason that I was prepared to run the risk of maintaining for the time being a traditional British-type army.
A Ghanaian army with British officers could have no influence in Africa. In the first place, while British officers were prepared to be loyal to the regime they were serving they were not prepared, as General Alexander, the last British Commander of the Ghanaian army says very frankly in his memoirs, to follow a military policy abroad which was contrary to what they conceived to be Britain's interests. Secondly, even if the British officers had been pure mercenaries, with no allegiance other than to their paymasters, they would still have been rightly distrusted by other African states. Once therefore the Congo crisis arose, irrespective of any question of internal security, it became necessary to dispense with the British officers.
Unfortunately, the "preparations" for independence had not included the training of anything like sufficient officers or even NCO's to make it possible for me to choose on political grounds who should be promoted. There were, in fact, insufficient soldiers with the necessary training or qualifications to fill even half the positions left vacant by the departing British. In order to have an army at all, I therefore had to accept what existed even though I knew the danger of this course. In fact, the most efficient of the British trained Ghanaian potential officer class were the most neo-colonialist. One or two of these I might pass over on this ground, but in general, if I was to have an army at all, I had to accept the framework bequeathed to me and an officer corps which contained a high proportion of individuals who were either actively hostile to the C.P.P. and myself and who were anti-socialist in outlook. Worse still, the fact that the bulk of the infantry came from the North, where education had been almost completely neglected in colonial times, made many of the rank and file soldiers easy prey to anyone who wished to mislead them.
In regard to the police the problem was even more complex. We were going forward rapidly with the development of the economy and industrialisation. As experience throughout the world has shown, even the movement of population this must occasion breaks down old traditional restraints and a criminal class rapidly develops in expanding towns. By independence, crime had become a real problem in Ghana where many transactions such as cocoa buying are conducted in cash and where the import of quantities of constructional material and the like provides a ready market for the thief. Further and even more important, I was faced with the problem of financial corruption and a well organised Fraud Division in the Police was essential if this was to be held in check. I could not however possibly continue with the existing British police officers. Prior to 1951 Michael Collins, the British Commissioner of Police had not only brought various personal court cases against me arising out of my political activities but was so contemptuous of the change in the political atmosphere that, even after my release from prison and my appointment as Prime Minister, he continued to demand from me, and indeed received payment, for the balance of the damages awarded him by the colonial court. The rank and file police officers who were loyal to the C.P.P. would not have tolerated the retaining in command of such persons. On the other hand, it was impossible immediately to make promotions to the higher ranks of police, men who had had training in detective work or administration. As with the army, I therefore had to accept a police force many of whose higher officers were politically hostile to the new Ghana. They, after all, had been those chosen for promotion by the colonial regime and they had thus a monopoly of the specialist training required. Further many of them were corrupt but to obtain proof of this was a difficult matter.
I tried in these circumstances to build up a new security service which would be completely independent of the police force, but to obtain its personnel I had to go to the civil service and the conduct of Eric Otoo the Civil Servant I put in charge shows how unreliable was the support I could get from this quarter.
The third element supporting the present regime is, in fact, the civil service. Again, I was faced at independence with similar problems to those that I had with the army and the police. For example, it would be impolitic for me to have appointed abroad a former colonial British civil servant as a Ghanaian Ambassador. I had to appoint Ghanaians for the diplomatic service.
The Information Services which were the most important channel in letting the people know what was taking place and the reasons for any particular government action were all manned by civil servants originally trained by the old colonial Information Department which had been set up specifically to conduct propaganda against the C.P.P. and the idea of colonial independence.
However, I was able to pick and choose among the civil service much more than I was with the army and the police and I was able, in many cases, to reform the diplomatic and the information services. Despite this, throughout the public service as a whole, there was a tradition of serving whatever government was in power. Many of the senior officials had all originally served with the old colonial regime which had opposed trade unionism and socialism in any form and was against any real representation of the people in government. After the C.C.P.'s victory in 1951 they changed over to administer the new ideas, becoming supporters of "enlightened colonialism".
When colonialism gave way to independence, these same men gave support to the new order of things. As gradually we changed social and political conditions in Ghana they accepted the changes without protest and though there may have been a degree of sabotage behind the scenes, always openly proffered their support for my policies and that of my Party.
In such circumstances it is only natural that they should have in the first place uncritically accepted the rebel government. Indeed behind the scenes the civil servants always looked back to the colonial times when their senior members were described as "political officers" and they in practice ran the country. They welcomed the military revolt because they believed that behind the facade of military power they would be the real rulers. It is only now that they are becoming disillusioned and are discovering that however incompetent in administration and politics senior military and police officers are, those who have seized power are determined to use their authority to maintain their own personal interests.
There is quite a record of police hostility towards me personally and towards my government. It dates back to pre-independence days when I was campaigning for freedom from colonial rule, and the British government founded the Special Branch in Ghana to keep an eye on me. For years, members of the Special Branch were trained to regard me as a dangerous man whose political views and activities threatened all that was stable and respectable in British eyes. Harlley, Deku and Nunoo all served in the Special Branch. Nunoo actually gave evidence against me in my trial after the declaration of Positive Action. Old habits die hard, and I regret now that I did not abolish the Special Branch in 1957, at independence. It was a typically British creation, and really had no place in our society. But it was thought at the time that it might prove useful in some areas of police work. In fact. members of the police and Special Branch have been involved in each of the six attacks made on my life, and have frequently ignored, and sometimes aided, the activities of people they knew were plotting to overthrow the government.
In 1958 the General Secretary of the Opposition Party, R. R. Amponsah, and one of its leading Members of Parliament, M. K. Apaloo, who was the Opposition spokesman on military matters, entered into a conspiracy with Major Benjamin Ahwaitey who was then the most senior of the Ghanaian officers and was Camp Commandant of Burma Camp. The plot leaked out and Amponsah was arrested at the beach where he had gone to meet Ahwaitey. A very full enquiry was held in public but undoubtedly the full facts and the extent to which the Opposition as a whole was involved did not come out.
In the enquiries conducted after the bomb attack on me at Kulungugu on 1st August 1962 in which several innocent people lost their lives, it was also discovered that leading police officers were closely involved. Before Obetsebi Lamptey, one of the ringleaders in the plot to kill me, was caught, Special Branch knew that he was going around dressed as a Moslem, and had even entered the Parliament building in Accra, yet they did not arrest him.
On a later occasion, on 1st January 1964, another attempt was made on my life. On this occasion it was a policeman who actually made the attempt. It was at 1 p.m. in the garden of Flagstaff House. I was leaving the office to go for lunch when four shots were fired at me by one of the policemen on guard duty. He was no marksman, though his fifth shot succeeded in killing Salifu Dagarti, a loyal security officer who had run towards the would-be assassin as soon as he spotted him among the trees. The policeman then rushed at me, trying to hit me with his rifle butt. I wrestled with him and managed to throw him to the ground and to hold him there on his back until help came, but not before he had bitten me on the cheek.
Investigation showed that the policeman who had made the attempt on my life did not happen to be in Flagstaff House by accident. He had been picked by senior police officers one of whom had repeatedly invited him to his home. At around the same time came the revelation of another unsuccessful plot within the police. The officer in charge of the Police Band which used to play at official functions approached two friends of his among the bandsmen and suggested to them that they should shoot me with revolvers which he would provide when I came over as I always did to congratulate them on their performance. Fortunately the two men not only would have nothing to do with the plot but reported it, as did independently the policemen who had been approached to smuggle into Flagstaff House the weapons required. In such circumstances I considered it best to make a clean sweep of the top command in the police and Madjitey, the Commissioner of Police, and his Deputy, Amaning, were arrested together with the bandmaster. In view of the events of February 1966 it was a great pity that there was not a complete reorganisation of the police service from top to bottom. However, at the time it appeared not really practical to change the whole structure of the force without evidence that the next most senior officers had not been in any way involved in this or other conspiracies.
Thus it was that Harlley and Deku who had both served in the Special Branch came to be appointed Commissioner of Police and Head of the Criminal Investigation Department respectively. What I did not know then was that although they had exposed to me various criminal and corrupt acts of their colleagues, they themselves were involved in dubious dealings.
I had asked Geoffrey Bing who had been the Attorney-General to investigate racketeering in diamonds. It appeared that there was growing smuggling of Ghana diamonds and other malpractices in regard to their sale. After making enquiries, Bing came to suspect a European diamond dealer who had been made a prohibited immigrant in colonial times. This man had managed to return to Ghana but had been again deported. When Bing saw the Special Branch records he discovered that Harlley, using my name without my authority, had revoked the deportation order. I gave orders that the man should be arrested and deported again forthwith. When his private notebook was examined by the security services, it was found to contain the private home and office telephone numbers of Harlley and records of a conversation which he had had with Deku. Bing made a full report on this whole matter to Eric Otoo who however never forwarded it to me. I believe that one of the motives of Harlley and Deku in promoting the "coup" was that they feared exposure in this matter.
Certainly the "N.L.C." made the greatest efforts to secure Bing's arrest demanding him from the Australian High Commission where he had taken refuge. When he was in their custody he was continually interrogated as to what he knew about the diamond matter and was kept in prison for a month. His secretary, an English lady who had served continuously in Ghana from colonial days, was placed under house arrest and not allowed to leave until she had found and handed over personally to Deku all the papers in Bing's wrecked office which dealt with diamond smuggling. Bing's subsequent deportation was not an act of grace by the regime but an attempt to hush up the reason for his arrest.
It was Harlley and his close associates who subverted the army and persuaded certain officers to carry out the military side of the operation. Afrifa, in the apologia which appeared in his name in November 1966, boasts that he thought of a military ''coup" as far back in 1961. Incidentally, I was amused to see that he used the final sentences from my Autobiography as the opening to the Postscript of his book, though he makes no acknowledgement, and the passage appears without quotation marks. Kotoka has also claimed credit for the "coup." In fact, immediately after the "N.L.C." was proclaimed there was a positive rush to claim entire credit for the betrayal of Ghana. In London, Daniel Amihia, calling himself the leader of the African Democratic Party, whatever that may be, appeared on B.B.C./T.V., resplendent in a new shantung suit and said that he had "master-minded the coup". He boasted that he had been trained by the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency (C.I.A.) and the Americans did not deny this. Amihia was lured back to Accra, publicly exposed as a "fraud" by the jealous "N.L.C.", and promptly thrown into prison and no one seems to know what has become of him. Kofi Busia, former opposition leader, was also interviewed by the B.B.C. in London. He was too much of a politician to say openly that he had plotted the overthrow of the constitutional government of Ghana, but obviously tried to give the impression that he had played an important part in planning the military and police action.
Doubtless, there were traitorous and disloyal thoughts in the minds of all those who carried out and supported the action of 24th February 1966. But I am convinced that it was Harlley and his close associates, inspired and aided by disgruntled former opposition party members and neo-colonialists, who were the real initiators. They alone possessed the necessary vital information needed for its success.
Much of this information they obtained from Eric Otoo, a civil servant whom I appointed chief executive officer in charge of security, and whom I left behind in Ghana in a position of great responsibility and trust when I departed for Hanoi. Otoo betrayed the trust put in him and revealed everything to the traitors. Without his co-operation they might not have succeeded. The moral wickedness of it astounds me. How a man trusted with such responsibility could assist a clique of traitors defies understanding.
For years traitors among the old colonial police had plotted the overthrow of my government. Their original idea was to kill. But having failed in several assassination attempts, and no doubt inspired by neo-colonialist aided military coups in other parts of Africa, they then decided to look for support in the army.
Police subversion of certain army officers was not difficult. Harlley knew and trusted Kotoka. They belonged to the same tribe (Ewe), both were born in the Volta Region, and even attended the same school. They met on many occasions in Kumasi and elsewhere and plotted. Kotoka then began to approach other officers, notably Afrifa, an Ashanti. There has always been a close link between the Ewes and Ashanti reactionary elements, and Kotoka judged rightly that Afrifa would be likely to respond favourably. So it went on, until a sufficient number of officers had been roped in.
Here I must make the point that only a relatively small number of officers were actually subverted. Once the rebellion had begun others offered no open resistance, for the majority were taken completely by surprise and were faced with a fait accompli.
The fact that Hadley and others found it fairly easy to get support in the army may also be explained by what has been called "the Sandhurst mentality" of certain officers. These men trained in various English military establishments prided themselves on being more "English" than Ghanaian, and tended to frown on everything in our Ghanaian way of life which did not conform with English customs and traditions. They gradually became more British than the British as they slavishly tried to imitate the traditional English army officer. Ankrah is a typical example with his enthusiasm for the Turf Club, his love of ceremonial, and his sense of caste.
Afrifa has called Sandhurst "one of the greatest institutions in the world". He looks with nostalgia on the days he spent there: "through its doors have passed famous generals, kings and rulers ... It is an institution that teaches that all men are equal, that the profession of men-at-arms is essential and a peaceful one." The confusion in his mind is obvious.
Like many other army officers in the developing countries who have received part of their training in imperialist establishments, he had been brainwashed into showing more devotion to his counterparts in imperialist countries than to his own countrymen. He considered himself a "gentleman", far superior to the peasants and workers of his own country. He admits that it was while he was in Britain that he first heard criticism of the Ghanaian government. He listened to people running down our efforts to achieve economic independence. He read in the British press that I was a "dictator", and that Ghana had stepped out of line in establishing a one-party state and in pursuing such revolutionary aims as the complete liberation and unity of the African continent. Instead of being proud to be Ghanaian and in the vanguard of the African revolutionary struggle, he identified himself with the critics of his own government and people.
Afrifa's case history is similar to that of many more of our army officers in the independent states of Africa. While training in imperialist countries they became imbued with ideas and traditions which made them easy game for those plotting the overthrow of progressive governments.
I sometimes wonder what the imperialists teach in their military training centres in the way of "loyalty"-surely one of the basic qualities of a good soldier. The record of treason among those who have passed through their courses of training is prodigious. Afrifa is a fair example.
Approximately one-sixth of Ghana's officer corps were trained at Sandhurst, though for some years we had been sending an increasing number to train in the Soviet Union and in other socialist countries. It is significant that not one of the officers trained in the Soviet Union took part in the February rising.
Throughout the independent states of Africa there are foreign military missions and training schemes which involve the indoctrination of our young armies with imperialist ideas and traditions. It is estimated that in 1964 nearly 3,000 French officers and men were seconded or contracted to the armed forces of the independent African states, while 1 ,500 Africans were training in France. Recently the United States has greatly increased its military expenditure and activity in Africa. In 1964-65 U.S. aid to the Congo (Kinshasa) quadrupled that of Belgium. Liberia and Ethiopia are also receiving large-scale American military "aid". Growing numbers of African officers are being sent for training in the U.S.A. and West Germany.
Over the years, links have been forged between army officers of different African states who have received training in the same or similar overseas military establishments. These links have been strengthened by organisations such as the Defence Commission of the Organisation of African Unity (0.A.U.), the Equatorial Defence Council and the Afro-Malagasy Defence Organisation. One coup could therefore tend to spark off another.
The arrogant, ambitious "élite" of imperialist-trained officers among our professional armies have already caused much suffering and confusion in Africa. They have been the willing tools of neo-colonialists and of reactionary, counter-revolutionary forces within their own countries. In a rash of army mutinies and coups between the end of 1962 and March 1967 fifteen African Heads of State have been removed and the positions of others seriously endangered.
The only way to ensure against the possibility of internal subversion carried out by the army and inspired and aided by outside forces is eventually, when an All-African Union Government has been established, to abolish professional armies altogether and to build instead a people's militia, by arming the peasants and urban workers, as in China and Cuba. Such an armed force cannot be subverted and is the best guardian of the people's interests and welfare.
We were moving towards the establishment of a people's militia in Ghana, and this is one of the reasons why there was support among certain army officers for a seizure of power. They feared competition from the militia and the Presidential Guard Regiment, thinking I was building up a "private army''. Kotoka admitted this when he visited New York to consult his masters some months after the setting up of the "N.L.C." "Nkrumah," he said, "was building a militia. Who can tolerate that?"
| Record of Military Action in Africa,
December 1962—March 1967 | ||
|---|---|---|
| 17th December 1962 | Senegal | Attempt to overthrow President Senghor. Failed. |
| 13th January 1963 | Togo | Assassination of President Olympio. |
| 12th-15th August 1963 | Brazzaville | Forced resignation of President Youlou. |
| 19th-28th October 1963 | Dahomey | President Hubert Maga deposed. |
| 3rd December 1963 | Niamey | Military mutiny. Suppressed by President Hamani Diori. |
| 20th, 23rd, 24th January 1964 | Tanzania
Uganda Kenya |
Military mutinies. Suppressed with aid of British troops. |
| 18th February 1964 | Gabon | President Leon M'ba deposed. |
| 18th June 1965 | Algeria | President Ben Bella overthrown. |
| 25th November 1965 | Congo (Leo) | Presidential powers assumed by General Mobutu. |
| 22nd December 1965 | Dahomey | Assumption of power by General Soglo. |
| lst January 1965 | Central African Republic | Forced resignation of President David Dacko. |
| 4th January 1965 | Upper Volta | President Yameogo deposed. |
| 15th January 1966 | Nigeria | Federal Prime Minister Balewa and two regional premiers killed (General Ironsi in power). |
| 24th February 1966 | Ghana | Seizure of power by neo-colonialist inspired army and police officers. |
| 29th July 1966 | Nigeria | General Ironsi killed. General Gowon in power. |
| 29th November 1966 | Burundi | King Ntare V deposed. |
| 13th January 1967 | Togo | Forced resignation of President Grunitzky. |
| 24th March 1967 | Sierra Leone | Army seizure of power. |
Nearly all these military interventions were counter-revolutionary in character and have set the clock back in the states in which they occurred. It seemed for a time as though Africa might be going the same way as Latin America. Obviously the precise course of the military action in each territory differed, but most of them had certain factors in common which give the clue to their true nature and origin. In each case where there has been counter-revolutionary armed action there has been a link-up between foreign-trained army officers, local reactionary opposition elements and imperialists and neocolonialists.
Ten of the 38 independent states of Africa now have military regimes established as a result of "coups". These military so-called governments administer some 99 million people. The neo-colonialists smile: the peoples of Africa suffer. But the African Revolution triumphs.
As I said in my sessional address to the National Assembly in Accra on 1st February 1966: "It is not the duty of the army to rule or govern, because it has no political mandate and its duty is not to seek a political mandate. The army only operates under the mandate of the civil government. If the national interest compels the armed forces to intervene. then immediately after the intervention the army must hand over to a new civil government elected by the people and enjoying the people's mandate under a constitution accepted by them. If the army does not do this then the position of the army becomes dubious and anomalous, and involves a betrayal of the people and the national interest."
For some years, imperialism has had its back to the wall in Africa. It has been faced with a growing liberation movement which it is powerless to stop but which, if it allows it to go unchecked, will before long end the exploitation on which imperialism's very existence depends. It has therefore resorted to a co-ordinated strategy in an attempt to preserve, and if possible to extend, its grip on the economic life of our continent.
An all-out offensive is being waged against the progressive, independent states. Where the more subtle methods of economic pressure and political subversion have failed to achieve the desired result, there has been resort to violence in order to promote a change of regime and prepare the way for the establishment of a puppet government.
Fragmented into so many separate states, many of them weak and economically non-viable, coup d'etats have been relatively easy to arrange in Africa. All that has been needed was a small force of disciplined men to seize the key points of the capital city and to arrest the existing political leadership. In the planning and carrying out of these coups there have always been just sufficient numbers of dissatisfied and ambitious army officers and politicians willing to co-operate to make the whole operation possible.
It has been one of the tasks of the C.l.A and other similar organisations to discover these potential quislings and traitors in our midst, and to encourage them, by bribery and the promise of political power, to destroy the constitutional government of their countries. In Ghana the embassies of the United States, Britain, and West Germany were all implicated in the plot to overthrow my government. It is alleged that the U.S. Ambassador, Franklin Williams, offered the traitors 13 million dollars to carry out a coup d'état. Afrifa, Hadley and Kotoka were to get a large share of this if they would assassinate me at Accra airport as I prepared to leave for Hanoi. I understand Afrifa said: "I think I will fail'', and declined the offer. So apparently did the others.
It is particularly disgraceful that it should have been an Afro-American ambassador who sold himself out to the imperialists and allowed himself to be used in this way. It was this same man who deliberately lied when he publicly described the coup as "bloodless." However, his treachery provides a sharp reminder of the insidious ways in which the enemies of Africa can operate. In the U.S.A. the "Uncle Tom" figure is well known. We have mercifully seen less of him in Africa.
The activities of the C.I.A. no longer surprise us. We have experienced many examples of the work of this organisation in recent years. Last May (1966) the subversive activities of the U.S. Embassy military attaché in Somalia, Colonel Rozmer, were exposed. He had been making approaches to Somali army officers and had organised the illegal importation of arms into the country with the object of carrying out a coup d'état. In July 1965 Taylor Odell, an attaché of the U.S. embassy, was expelled from Egypt after being caught red-handed receiving confidential documents from Mustafa Amin, an Egyptian C.I.A. agent. In South Sudan, the so-called Azana Liberation Front was founded with CI.A. support and funds. Its purpose was to detach South Sudan from the rest of the country and to proclaim an independent state of Azana. In the Congo (Brazzaville) the CI.A. has been involved in various attempts to sabotage the progressive government of President Massem ba-Debat. The record of CJ.A. activity in the Congo (Kinshasa) is equally disturbing and continuing.
Between 1961 and 1964, C.I.A. agents murdered a number of politicians and important public men in Burundi; the last being the Prime Minister of that country, Pierre Ngendandumwe, whose assassin, C.I.A. agent Gonzalve Muyenzi, worked as an accountant in the U.S. embassy. When his flat was searched, 3,000,000 francs were discovered which Muyenzi had received from the C.I.A. Having disposed of Ngendandumwe, pressure from the U.S. compelled the new Burundi government to refuse help to the Congolese nationalists whose victory the C.I.A. believed would obstruct U.S. activities in the Congo.
The C.I.A. was deeply implicated in the attempted coup in Tanzania in 1964. It paid lavishly for the services of a number of Tanzanian politicians.
Further examples of C.I.A. activity and the work of other foreign intelligence organisations in Africa could be given. They would provide material for a book of their own. As I write here in Conakry, I have just learned that five C.I.A. experts have arrived in Liberia to find out how I manage to communicate with my supporters inside Ghana. Doubtless they have been called in by the puppet "N.L.C." whose creation owed so much to U.S. and British Intelligence.
Dean Rusk, U.S. Secretary of State, at a meeting of 150 American top businessmen in June 1966, predicted that the "downfall' of President Ben Bella, President Sukarno and myself would be followed by the overthrow of more left-wing world leaders. He started to name them, but thought better of it, and ended his predictions with an enigmatic smile.
We know both the strength and the limitations of imperialist intelligence organisations. While being responsible for a great deal of the unrest in Africa in recent years, they have not been as successful as many would have us believe. This is partly because they have frequently been outwitted by the superior techniques and organisation of certain counter-intelligence services. It is also due to the fact that they have failed in many instances to buy the co-operation of a sufficient number of key Africans who are prepared to betray their countrymen, and on whose sell-out they depend ultimately for their success.
In Ghana, Harlley, Kotoka, Afrifa and Deku were just the kind of men they were looking for. It was when all had been arranged and the army and police seizure of power was about to take place that Ankrah was finally approached and without a thought he replied in one word: "Mafé", which in the Ga language means "I will do it."
4. "Opposition" Elements
The members of the "old opposition" with whom the "N.L.C." are closely associated, are the same people who tried to sabotage the winning of our political independence ten years ago. They struck on 24th February 1966, just as we were about to break through and win our economic independence. In January 1966, we had inaugurated the first electricity from the Volta dam; and only three days before their treachery, I had signed a new agreement to irrigate the mighty Accra plains. Ghana was all set for a tremendous march forward into a new industrial era, and a great expansion in our food growing capacity. This was the moment for which we had worked so hard. And this was the time this small group of unpatriotic selfish men, egged on by their neo-colonialist masters, chose to strike.
They shouted from the rooftops that they acted spontaneously to save Ghana from "economic chaos". But as everyone who has studied the history of Ghana over the last fifteen years or so knows, their action was only the culmination of a whole series of actions aimed against my government and against myself. They have a long record of go-slow policies, of subversive activity and of alignment with imperialists and their agents. Unable to gain victory at the polls they even resorted to assassination plots in order to impose themselves on the people of Ghana, and to avenge their political defeat.
It is these same people who became members of the political committee set up by the "N.L.C." in June 1966. Nearly all were supporters of the former United Party, an amorphous group of people who for various reasons opposed my government. The chairman of the political committee, Edward Akuffo-Addo, was a well-known member of the United Party; Kofi Busia, deputy chairman, was its leader. Like their Sandhurst counterparts, these members of the civilian political committee are deeply imbued with British traditions. Most of them received at least part of their education in Britain. They returned to their native country as if in blinkers, seeing and judging everything in Oxbridge terms. They saw the liberation struggle as a movement to be conducted slowly and "respectably" by themselves, the professional and intellectual elite, and as having nothing to do with the toiling masses whom they regarded with a mixture of fear and scorn.
It was men such as these, George Grant, J. B. Danquah, Ofori Atta, Akuffo Addo, Ako Adjei and Obetsebi Lamptey, who were the nucleus of the United Gold Coast Convention (U.G.C.C.), the organisation I launched in Saltpond on 29th December 1 947 to achieve independence "by all legitimate and constitutional means." Danquah, a vice-president of the U.G.C.C., was one of the original supporters of the unpopular Burns Constitution. In fact, right from the start, the U.G.C.C. lacked popular support, and it was partly in order to make it appear a movement of the people that I was invited to become its general secretary. I had then spent ten years studying in the U.S.A., and was in England taking up further studies at the London School of Economics, and at University College, but spending a large part of my time at the West African National Secretariat and the West African Students Union (W.A.S.U.), organisations dedicated to the achievement of West African unity and the liquidation of colonialism. I also spent a lot of time helping to organise the Colonial Workers Association of Great Britain.
Danquah wrote personally to me urging me to accept the appointment. I was at first reluctant, having heard that the promoters of the U.G.C.C. were out of touch with the people, and were mainly middle-class reactionary lawyers and budding capitalists with whom, with my revolutionary background, I would be out of sympathy. But on the advice of the West African National Secretariat I agreed, and returned home on 16th December 1947 after an absence of twelve years.
Within 18 months of my return I was compelled to dissociate myself from the slow-moving and restricted U.G.C.C. and to form a new party, the Convention People's Party. This party, based on the support of the broad masses of the people and of the youth, demanded "self-government NOW", unlike the U.G.C.C. which asked for self-government "within the shortest possible time". I proclaimed the formation of the C.P.P. before a crowd of some 60,000 people in Accra stadium on 12th June 1949. The leaders of the U.G.C.C. never forgave me. They became implacable opponents of the Party, determined to obstruct its progress at every stage, and to attack me personally on all possible occasions.
They showed their hand almost immediately after the birth of the Party, when I was summoned to appear before a special meeting of the Ga State Council, the Accra traditional local authority, to explain what I meant by "Positive Action". Ex-members of the Working Committee of the U.G.C.C. were there in force at the meeting and pressed to have me banished from Accra. They blamed me for what they described as the growing "lawlessness" in the country, though what they really feared was the evidence of the political awakening of the people.
I explained to the meeting that at that particular stage of our struggle, positive action entailed non-violent methods such as press campaigns, strikes, boycotts and other forms of non-co-operation. That very night, I wrote and printed on my little cropper machine a pamphlet called "What I mean by Positive Action", so that there should be no doubt in anyone's mind about the legitimate and constitutional means by which we intended at that time to attack the forces of imperialism in the country, should the Coussey Report on constitutional reform, which was about to be published, prove unsatisfactory. It was this Cropper machine which was used to print the Accra Evening News.
But my long-standing political opponents chose to invent their own interpretation of "What I mean by Positive Action" and labelled me a dangerous rabble-rouser advocating violence.
As expected, the Coussey Report published at the end of October 1949 was completely unsatisfactory. I therefore called together the representatives of over 50 national organisations to meet in the Ghana People's Representative Assembly on 20th November, to oppose the Report and to decide on effective action. The Assembly resolved "that the Coussey Report and His Majesty's Government's statement thereto are unacceptable to the country as a whole" and declared "that the people of the Gold Coast be granted immediate self-government". With typical lack of concern for the country's progress, the executive committee of the U.G.C.C. did not attend the Assembly, and afterwards, the chiefs at Dodowah, led by Nana Ofori Atta II, stated that they did not accept the views of the Assembly.
Later, when I had launched the campaign for positive action, and it was really beginning to take effect, the Joint Provincial Council of Chiefs joined with the colonial government in attempting to suppress the campaign. At a meeting of the Joint Provincial Council of Chiefs I explained the need to continue positive action until the rank and file of the people were permitted, through the election of a constituent assembly, to express their views on constitutional reform. It was like speaking to a brick wall. Danquah's declaration, that "those who go against constitutional authority must expect to pay for it with their neck", sums up the defeatist attitude of these people, and explains how they never managed to lead a genuine and popular liberation movement.
Instead of supporting the efforts of the man in the street to express himself and to bring pressure to bear on the imperialists, these political opponents of the Party ranged themselves on the side of the British colonial government in trying to suppress the great upsurge of nationalism.
They condoned and even assisted in a wave of arrests of key supporters of the Party and leaders in the campaign of positive action. Kojo Botsio, general secretary of the Party, was arrested on 17th January 1 950. My own arrest followed shortly afterwards.
I was sentenced to a total of three years' imprisonment, two years for attempting to "coerce the government of the Gold Coast" by launching the campaign of positive action, and the third year for "sedition" as publisher of the Daily Mail in which a "seditious" article had appeared. In fact, I only served 14 months. In the general election of 8th February 1 951, the Party won a sweeping victory and I was elected as member of the Legislative Assembly for Accra Central. The colonial government had no choice but to release me. I left prison on 1 2th February, and on the request of the Governor of the Gold Coast, Sir Charles Arden-Clarke, formed a government and became Leader of Government Business. At once I proclaimed that our great task was to press ahead with the struggle for "self-government now". And once again, members of the Opposition went into action to try to wreck the independence movement.
Disgruntled at the success of the Party in the general election, and disappointed at not receiving positions in the new government, they proceeded to try to cause confusion and discontent among the people by announcing that now we had landed ourselves "good jobs" we had forsaken the policy of "self-government now". I challenged our political opponents to join us in a campaign of positive action in order to achieve "self-government now". I invited Danquah, Lamptey and the Executive of the U.G.C.C. ; Ollenu, Bossman and the Executive of the National Democratic Party; the chiefs of the Asanteman Council; Nana Ofori Atta I, President of the Joint Provincial Council and chiefs of that Council; Kobina Sekyi, and the Executive of the Aborigines Rights Protection Society -all our critics, to notify the General Secretary of the Party in conference to plan a nation-wide campaign of positive action if the British government rejected a motion for "self-government now".
The sincerity of our political opponents and their connivance with the colonial government may be judged by the fact that not one of them answered the challenge.
A few years later, after the 1 954 general election, when the Party won 72 out of the I 04 seats in the Legislative Assembly, the largest anti-government party was the Northern People's Party which had 12 seats. The remaining 20 opposition members were mostly Independents, several of whom later attached themselves to one party or another. The anti-government members of the Assembly did not then constitute an opposition in the accepted sense of the term, since there was no group among them capable of forming an alternative government. They were therefore recognised simply as a body of critics of my government---an unofficial opposition.
Before long, however, the members of the unofficial opposition decided to amalgamate and to form a single party---the National Liberation Movement (N.L.M.). The reader will note the close analogy in the name of the N.L.M. and the "N.L.C.", both of which had about as little to do with "liberation" as it is possible to imagine.
The circumstances which led to the formation of the N.L.M. illustrate its reactionary nature and its negative policies. It was formed shortly after the introduction of the Cocoa Duty and Development Funds (Amendment) Bill into the Assembly in August 1 954. The purpose of the Bill was to fix the price paid to cocoa farmers at 72 shillings a load (62 lb.) for four years, the duration of that Assembly.
This measure was needed to avoid inflation. Demand for cocoa in the world market had far exceeded the supply, and the price had risen to a record height. If the price paid locally to the farmers was increased proportionately, our Development Plan would be jeopardised by the inevitable rise in prices of consumer goods which would be followed by a demand for wage and salary increases. My government, therefore, under the terms of the proposed Bill guaranteed to pay the cocoa farmers 72 shillings a load irrespective of how low the world price of cocoa might fall during the ensuing four years, and to use any funds that accrued to expand the economy of the country as a whole.
The cocoa farmers in general reacted favourably to the Bill, but our political opponents seized the opportunity of fanning tribal and regional friction in order to attack us. All the remnants of various parties which had been formed at one time or another in opposition to my government joined together in the "Council for Higher Cocoa Prices". This organisation however, did not last long, and it was succeeded by the National Liberation Movement, which adopted as its raison d'etre the demand for a federal form of government. By linking the cocoa question with the idea of federation, members of the N.L.M. tried to spread discontent throughout Ashanti. They alleged that the Cocoa Bill was unjust to the cocoa farmers, and that Ashanti would be better off managing its own affairs and spending all the income from cocoa within Ashanti instead of contributing to the general development of the country. In this campaign to spread discontent and disunity, the N.L.M. were assisted by the Asanteman Council, headed by the Asantehene. For a time there was much violence in Ashanti, and hundreds of Ashanti Party members were forced to take refuge in Accra and other parts of the country.
At this time, as on former and later occasions, the imperialist press supported the opposition and gave an entirely false impression of the state of the country. The object was to spread the idea that my policies were causing widespread bloodshed, and that we were not ready for independence. Already, the opposition had become very dependent on imperialist support, and therefore deeply implicated in its policies. They had a common interest in trying to undermine my government and to prevent the successful implementation of its political, economic and social programme.
It was no mere coincidence that the first attempt to be made on my life occurred while the trouble in Ashanti, stirred up by the opposition, was at its height. It took place on the evening of 10th November 1955, while I was working at home. There were two large explosions which shattered all the windows, but no one was injured. I learned afterwards that enough gelignite was used to have destroyed the house entirely and to have killed everyone in it, but that it had been inadequately prepared and badly placed. The police made half-hearted enquiries, and no arrests were made.
During the next few months, the opposition stepped up its agitation for a federal form of government, though it is doubtful if they could sincerely have thought this suitable in a country of nearly 1 00,000 square miles, with a population then of under six million. However, full consideration was given to their demand and every effort was made to reach an understanding. The leaders of the N.L.M. were invited by four members of the Legislative Assembly, two of whom represented constituencies in Kumasi, to discuss the matter at a round-table conference. They refused on the ground that the suggestion did not come directly from the government. I therefore, sent an official government invitation. This they refused. In the hope that they might change their mind I sent yet another invitation. They again turned it down.
I introduced a Motion in the Assembly on 5th April 1 955, calling for the appointment of a Select Committee to examine the whole question of the suitability of a federal system of government. Although the opposition was entitled to have only two members on the Committee, as against seven from the government benches, I agreed to allow them to nominate five. In spite of this concession, the leader of the opposition declared that they would not co-operate, and he and his 20 supporters walked out of the Assembly just after the Motion had been seconded. The excuse they gave for boycotting the Select Committee was a strange one. They said they did not consider the Committee competent to deal with national matters, and this regardless of the fact that it was composed entirely of members of the national Legislative Assembly.
The Select Committee consisting of 12 members including the Chairman, C. H. Chapman the Deputy Speaker, held 22 meetings and considered 299 written memoranda and 60 other written statements before issuing its report on 26th July, in which it advised against a federal form of government. It recommended that regional councils should be set up to which certain powers and functions of the central government should be delegated.
The opposition, still dissatisfied, determined to try to delay the independence issue indefinitely by continuing to oppose everything the government proposed. Whenever the question of the constitution was raised in the Assembly they walked out.
Undoubtedly, they gained much encouragement to persist in their obstructionist attitude by the support they obtained from the British government and press, which, although paying lip service to "democracy", has always in Africa where it suited their interests shown far more concern for minority rights than for the rights of the majority. Much publicity was given to the unrest in Ashanti and to opposition views, the subjects being discussed at length in both Houses of Parliament. But practically no publicity or sympathy was shown for the wishes of the overwhelming majority of the people of the Gold Coast who had demonstrated quite clearly that they supported the Party and a unitary form of government.
In a further effort to resolve the constitutional issue, I asked for and received a mandate from the Legislative Assembly to invite the British government to send a constitutional adviser to help formulate a suitable constitution and to advise on the devolution of certain powers to the Regions. Sir Frederick Bourne was sent. For nearly three months he travelled in every part of the country and discussed constitutional problems with every organisation and individual who wished to see him. But when he visited Kumasi to meet the leaders of the N.L.M. and their supporters, he found that they did not wish to see him. The excuse for their unwillingness to take part in any discussions on the constitution was that the government had, in November 1 955, passed the State Councils (Ashanti) Amendment Bill. This Bill permitted those chiefs who had been destooled by the Asanteman Council the right to appeal to the Governor. Several chiefs had been destooled in Ashanti by the Asanteman Council for no other reason than that they were supporters of the government and against the federalist idea. Under the then existing laws they had no right of appeal. Clearly this was a matter which needed attention, and the State Councils Bill was designed to put an end to this victimisation.
Sir Frederick Bourne, in his Report, recommended the devolution of certain powers and functions to the Regional Assemblies, but that all legislation should be enacted by the central authority. I thereupon convened a conference of all the principal representative bodies and organisations in the country to meet at Achimota on 16th February 1 956, to discuss Bourne's Report and other matters affecting the form of the constitution. Once again, the N.L.M. and its allies refused to participate. The conference was adjourned for a week to enable delegates from the Joint Provincial Council of Chiefs to persuade them to attend. But their mission failed. The delegates tried again later, but were still unsuccessful in getting the opposition elements to participate. The result was, that although the conference agreed almost all the recommendations of Sir Frederick Bourne its findings were not acceptable to the British Secretary of State as providing the necessary conditions for the granting of a firm date for independence, since the N.L.M. had not taken part in the discussions. Once more, the old alliance of the opposition and the imperialists had demonstrated their common interest in trying to delay independence.
I therefore drew up my own constitutional proposals for the sovereign and independent state of "Ghana," and put them before the Assembly on 15th May 1 956. The motion was debated and passed on 5th June, after which the Assembly was dissolved and a general election declared, to take place in July. The British Secretary of State gave the pledge:
"If a General Election is held, Her Majesty's Government will be ready to accept a Motion calling for Independence within the Commonwealth passed by a reasonable majority in a newly elected Legislature and then to declare a firm date for attainment of their purpose."
The election was to be the final test of opinion for or against a federation. The outcome would show just how much or how little support the political opponents of the Party really had in the country.
The result was decisive. The Party won 71 seats, increased later by the support of one of the Independents, which gave a majority of 40 in the Legislative Assembly. Unlike the N.L.M., the Party won seats throughout the country as a whole, and was the only Party which could claim to speak in a national sense. Even in Ashanti, then the stronghold of the N.L.M., the Party won 8 out of the 21 seats and received 43 per cent of the votes cast, an increase on the previous election.
The reaction of Busia to the decisive election result was to call a press conference in Kumasi and to declare that the election had established the opposition case for a federation, since the Party had not won overall majorities in Ashanti and the Northern Territories. His action staggered even some of his closest colleagues. Everyone knew that the election had been fought on the federation issue and that the Party had won more than a "reasonable majority". Furthermore, during the course of the election campaign, Busia himself had declared that he would be prepared to form a government if the N.L.M. secured anything over 52 members. That is, he had accepted the fact that a single overall majority, even of one seat, constituted a democratic verdict.
When the new Assembly was formally opened, the opposition benches were empty except for two members who turned up from Togoland. Afterwards, Busia and his friends excused themselves by saying that they arrived late and could not get through the dense crowds outside the Assembly.
The Governor. in his speech at the opening ceremony, stated that the government would that week introduce a Bill declaring the Gold Coast a sovereign and independent state within the Commonwealth. The following day the opposition tabled an amendment criticising the proposal as "premature" until a further effort had been made to get "an agreed Constitution."
The amendment was defeated by a majority of 37. Whereupon, adopting their old tactics, the opposition issued a statement to the press saying they would absent themselves from the Assembly when the Independence Motion came before the House. Busia, showing where his real support lay, announced that he considered the struggle centred not in the Gold Coast but in London, and that the opposition would send a delegation to the British government.
As I recall these times, when the opposition persistently refused either to participate in national discussions or to respect the decision of the great majority of the people, I wonder how they managed to retain even the little support they had. Their actions were so unpatriotic, dishonest and undignified. They aligned themselves with those who wished to retard the country's progress towards independence. At the same time, while loudly proclaiming their belief in democracy, they were prepared to try to force the will of a small minority on the majority of the nation, and so make a farce of parliamentary government.
Busia who led the opposition delegation to London, actually appealed to the British government not to grant independence. He said the country was not ready for it: "We still need you (the British) in the Gold Coast." I imagine he would say today that the Americans were needed! He found some support among sections of the British press, but there could be no denying that the conditions laid down by the Secretary of State, that my motion for independence should be passed by "a reasonable majority in the newly elected Legislature", had been satisfied, and at long last a date for independence was fixed---the 6th of March 1 957.
The long struggle to achieve our political freedom was over. But in a sense our task of building a really independent Ghana was only just beginning. Political independence was incomplete without economic independence, and as I said in the midnight pronouncement of independence in Accra on 6th March 1 957, "the independence of Ghana is meaningless unless it is linked up with the total liberation of the African continent".
My government, therefore, was pledged to the twin task of achieving economic independence for Ghana, and of participating in the wider African revolution. The former implied the adoption of socialist policies, since in the African situation genuine independence is incompatible with capitalism; while the latter involved us in actively supporting the liberation and unity movements in Africa. In both these tasks, my government immediately came up against opposition from the same quarters as before, that is, from reactionary bourgeois elements inside Ghana, and from imperialist and neo-colonialist interests outside. As before, these forces had a common interest; both wished to delay economic independence and to impede the progress of the African revolution. The tactics they employed were suitably adjusted to the new situation.
After 1 957, having been repeatedly rejected by the electorate, the opposition lost hope of gaining office by constitutional means, and embarked on a campaign of obstructing the work of government without making any attempt to devise an alternative programme. They asserted themselves outside the democratic framework. Their policies, always regional in concept, became purely destructive, subversive and violent. Before independence they had been prepared to sacrifice our national liberation in order to keep me and my colleagues out of government; now they were ready to sabotage our newly-born freedom and to hold up the African revolution by al lying themselves even more closely with imperialists and the insidious forces of neo-colonialism in causing a breakdown in administration so that they might get a chance to grasp the reins of office.
They employed every stratagem, from demanding the virtual secession of Ashanti, the Northern Region and Togoland from the sphere of Central Ghanaian authority, to a press campaign of abuse and lies to discredit me and the government. When this failed, they resorted to violence, assassination plots, and eventually to the subversion of army and police officers.
For a time after 1 957 we tolerated the excesses of the opposition, but when their actions began to undermine the state and to jeopardise its independence we took measures, like all governments do in times of national emergency, to ensure the security of the nation. For example, we brought in the Avoidance of Discrimination Bill to deal with the control of political parties based on tribal and religious affiliations. Its effect was to cause the various opposition parties to join together into a single party, the United Party. Later, after two and a half years of putting up with a vicious opposition press campaign, certain restrictions were placed on the press; and a fifth attempt on my life made preventive detention necessary. By then, assassination attempts had resulted in the death of 30 Ghanaians, men, women and children, and the wounding of some 300 others.
We could not allow a small minority of unprincipled men to continue to stir up disunity and confusion with the object of overthrowing the government, which had the support of the overwhelming majority of the people of Ghana, support shown decisively in the general election before independence and in the 1 964 referendum which established the C.P.P. as the national party of Ghana. Maximum unity and effort was vital if my government was successfully to carry out its mandate of reconstruction and development.
A distinction must be made between the loss of freedom to subvert, and the loss of freedom of expression. At no time has my government denied the right of Ghanaians to hold political meetings and to discuss the country's affairs with complete frankness. In the National Assembly, as the official reports show, debates were vigorous and unrestricted; members did not hesitate to criticise and expose social wrongs and injustices. Visitors to Ghana from non-socialist countries often spoke to me of their surprise at hearing politics discussed freely and openly throughout the country, when they had been led to believe that the one-party system stifled political differences and made any kind of criticism impossible. There were wide differences of opinion within the Party, and members were always encouraged to say what they thought on all aspects of the government's policy. It has been said by a Western observer that "within the C.P.P. there were as wide political differences and antagonisms as those existing in Britain". The point I wish to make is that under our system of democratic centralism, criticism comes from within and is constructive. The people of Ghana when they established a one-party state in the 1 964 constitutional referendum were merely giving de jure recognition to an established fact.
The two party system has shown itself to be unsuitable in any African state. It has grown up in Britain to serve specific class interests. It was perhaps our fault that we did not realise this sooner and attempt earlier to build the type of one party state most suited to our needs. The Sierra Leonean army had exactly the same social background and British training as that of Ghana and yet carried out its coup d'état to suppress the two party system. Indeed, the excuse offered by the Sierra Leonean rebels was that their action was forced on them by the failure of the two party system.
The first priority in Ghana at the time of independence was to make use of our pitifully small stock of professional and technical experts. Whatever their political views they had to be utilised to the full in the interest of the newly emerged Ghana state. From the start I had to bring not only into my cabinet but had to appoint to important posts in the judiciary, the civil service and the universities, individuals who had been active opponents of the Party in colonial days.
We could not afford to do without such few qualified African doctors, accountants, architects, engineers, university teachers and professional people generally as were available immediately after independence. A formula had to be found by which they could not only be employed in state service and in development generally but brought within the Party. This in its turn meant that the Party itself could not in these conditions restrict itself to those who understood and had practised a socialist ideology. The calculated risk of admitting these persons to our organisation was one we had to take. Nevertheless, these colonial trained professional classes, with certain notable exceptions, looked on independence as a strictly national concern. In many cases, all they were concerned with was taking the places of the former colonial occupiers of their jobs and making the same money as these did in the same social and economic pattern. Insofar as they were within the Party they were a source of weakness because they sabotaged attempts to prevent corruption and, in a number of cases, actually joined in it themselves. Yet if they had been excluded from the Party, they would have joined the so-called "opposition" which had become, almost from the moment of independence, a purely conspiratorial organisation.
In the same way I had to try to accommodate within the Party the leaders of traditional society, the chiefs.
On reflection even though I trusted too much in the power of a reformed chieftaincy I was not mistaken in attempting to use popularly chosen chiefs within the framework of the government. It was then essential to have the broadest possible grouping of interests at home if we were to be sufficiently united to deal with the external issue, namely, the political unification of the African continent.
I could have dismissed many of the higher police officers about whose loyalty I had doubts. But whom could I have put in their place? So little education was done in colonial times that actual illiteracy was a major problem in the army and police. Were it not for the continued criminal conspiracy by the opposition then I might have taken the risk of abolishing the Special Branch at an earlier stage. After all, it was not even a part of the old colonial set-up and had only been instituted to deal with me and the C.P.P. in 1 949. If I had done so, however, all security would have had to be entrusted to the Party and while I did use it as a major source of information as to what was taking place in the country, once again it would have been equally dangerous to have relied exclusively on it.
I had to combat not only tribalism but the African tradition that a man's first duty was to his family group and that therefore nepotism was the highest of all virtues. While I believe we had largely eliminated tribalism as an active force, its by-products and those of the family system were still with us. I could not have chosen my government without some regard to tribal origins and even, within the Party itself, there was at times a tendency to condemn or recommend some individual on the basis of his tribal or family origin. Dangerous and defective as the police investigation system was, it did at least provide me with a second opinion from individuals trained, at any rate in theory, to give objective judgments.
Further, the necessarily broad nature of the Party made some of its wealthier members quite willing to use its machinery for private ends and to discredit police officers or civil servants who were looking too closely into their affairs. Of tribal and family groups there were even those within it who might be prepared to recommend for detention individuals who took the opposite side to themselves in the election of a chief or in the running of traditional affairs.
The issues we faced at independence were so gigantic that within every sphere we had to take calculated risks. We could not, however obvious were the limitations of many of the police, the civil service and the judiciary, change them overnight. We had had no revolutionary war which would have produced and trained those who might take their place.
The problems we faced at independence were similar to those which confront most states emerging from colonialism. A once dependent territory if it is to survive in the modern world must try to accomplish in a single generation what it has taken developed nations 300 years or more to achieve. There is need for radical change in practically every department of national life. For example, after a people's revolution it is essential that the top ranks of the Armed Forces, Police and Civil Service be filled by men who believe in the ideology of the Revolution, and not by those whose loyalties remain with the old order.
In most cases, the whole economy of the country has to be reorganised, agriculture diversified, industries started from scratch, harbours, roads, airports built, and crash programmes of education inaugurated to cope with the sudden and increasing demand for skilled technicians and administrators. In this great undertaking there can be no place for slackers or saboteurs.
The one-party system of government is now the accepted pattern of government in a large part of independent Africa. But when we were evolving this form it was relatively new, and it was loudly condemned by our enemies. As I told members of the National Assembly in my Sessional Address on 1st February 1 966: "A one-party system of government is an effective and safe instrument only when it operates in a socialist society. In other words, it must be a political expression of the will of the masses working for the ultimate good and welfare of the people as a whole. On the other hand, a one-party system of government in a neo-colonialist client state, subject to external pressures and control, can quickly develop into the most dangerous form of tyranny, despotism and oppression. It can become in the hands of a few privileged rascally-minded and selfish individuals in a neo-colonialist state a weapon and tool for suppressing the legitimate aspirations of the people in the interests of foreign powers and their agents. I repeat, a one-party state can only function for the good of the people within the framework of a socialist state or in a developing state with a socialist programme. The government governs through the people, and not through class cleavages and interests. In other words, the basis of government is the will of the people."
The capitalist-imperialist world is still explaining the tension in the world today in terms of a conflict between "dictatorship" and "democracy"; the first is equated with communism and tyranny, the latter with enlightenment and freedom. In this way, imperialist and neo-colonialists seek to conceal the true content of the struggle which lies in the reaction between capitalism and socialism.
We expected opposition to our development plans from the relics of the old "opposition", from the Anglophile intellectual and professional elite, and of course, from neo-colonialists who viewed the obvious signs of our approaching economic independence with growing alarm. What we did not perhaps anticipate sufficiently was the backsliding of some of our own party members, men like Gbedemah and Adamafio, who for reasons of personal ambition, and because they only paid lip-service to socialism, sought to destroy the Party.
Right from the foundation of the Party, as everyone in Ghana knows, I have waged a ceaseless war against corruption. In the "Dawn Broadcast" made on 8th April 1961, I stressed the need to eliminate it from our society: "I am aware that the evil of patronage finds a good deal of place in our society. I consider that it is entirely wrong for persons placed in positions of eminence or authority to use the influence of office in patronising others, in many cases wrong persons, for immoral favours. I am seeing to it that this evil shall be uprooted, no matter whose ox is gored. The same thing goes for nepotism, which is, so to speak, a twin brother of the evil of patronage . . . . It is most important to remember that the strength of the Convention People's Party derives from the masses of the people. These men and women include those whom I have constantly referred to as the unknown warriors -dedicated men and women who serve the Party loyally and selflessly without hoping for reward. It is therefore natural for the masses to feel some resentment when they see comrades whom they have put into power and have given the mandate to serve the country on their behalf, begin to forget themselves and indulge in ostentatious living. High Party officials, Ministers, Ministerial Secretaries, Chairmen of statutory boards and corporations must forever bear this in mind. Some of us very easily forget that we ourselves have risen from amongst the masses."
My difficulty was to get the police to enforce the principles I laid down. It was only when I personally supervised the direction of criminal investigation against ministers and prominent Party members that anything was done. For example, a former Minister of Agriculture, F. Y. Asare, was involved with one Kojo Djaba and a civil service accomplice, and was convicted. Even this case would never have come before the courts if I had not personally set up a special body independent of the police to investigate it.
It is significant that the Judge who tried this particular case was the first of those to be dismissed by the "N.L.C.", even before they got rid of the Chief Justice; and after the 'coup' Asare and his confederates had their convictions annulled by the "N.L.C." constituted Appeal Court.
Sufficient time has now elapsed to show that the "N.L.C." never seriously wished to investigate corruption. Had they done so it would have involved too many of their own members. It was a propaganda device directed against my own government, making use of the fact that there were a number of instances of corruption among ministers and Party officials. Unlike in Asare's case, these had not been dealt with because the police themselves could not furnish the evidence. The attitude of the "N.L.C." is shown by the fact that when I had mentioned in a broadcast from Guinea that Harlley and Deku were involved in diamond smuggling and challenged the "N.L.C." to set up an enquiry into diamond racketeering in Ghana the Commission which they were thus forced to establish sat in secret and no report by it was ever issued.
This purely propaganda approach is even better illustrated in my own case. I am alleged to have "stolen" millions. In fact I have no money outside Ghana except for the sums which have been paid to me after the 'coup' as royalties on my books and which are now paid into the London Branch of the National Commercial Bank of Scotland.
I never handled any money personally for any external or internal purposes and this included my own salary. All drawing both on governmental and my personal accounts was counter-signed by civil servants who were responsible to the Auditor-General for all public expenditure and who, for my own purposes, recorded my personal expenditure. Anyone of these officials could have produced a full and valid statement of how every penny was dealt with by the President's Office and exactly how my own salary was spent by me personally. If this had been done it would have been shown that I refused to accept, as a political gesture, any of the expense allowances allotted to the President by law. In the same way if my Will had been published in full it would have shown that I left nothing even to my own family but bequeathed everything I did possess to the Party and the State. Before the so-called enquiry none of these detailed accounts were produced. Yet Kojo Djaba was called to testify that I had in fact taken the money which he had been convicted of stealing.
The failure of the routine Police investigation of corruption made it necessary for me to deal with it either by setting up a special body as I did in Djaba's case or by appointing official Commissions of Enquiry to expose publicly notable members of our society and even Ministers of Government. Shortly before the army and police action on 24th February 1 966, the Report of the Commission of Enquiry into Trade Malpractices in Ghana was published. It was a bold attempt to examine and to expose the activities of men and women who were sabotaging our economic development plans by indulging in various forms of trade malpractices. Some of our wealthiest and most prominent citizens were mentioned by name. There was an immediate demand that legal action should be taken against them. and this was under consideration when the military and police treachery took place.
Obviously this kind of exposure brought us new and powerful enemies. But these people, by acting in the way they did, were all the time secret enemies of the people, and it was essential to bring them to the surface.
I regard the events sparked off on 24th February 1 966 as a cleansing process. All those who had for so long been working either openly or secretly against us came together and exposed themselves in their true colours for all to see. By their very actions, on 24th February and in the months of "N.L.C." rule, they have clearly shown themselves to be traitors to their country and the stooges of neo-colonialism. They have displayed their reactionary nature, their complete disregard for the common man and for the progress of the African Revolution.
It is like when you boil a pot hard; all the bits and pieces of useless stuff come to the top and you are able to skim them off easily. It is necessary to realise, that, in many ways, the so-called "coup d'état" has not been a set-back but has been merely a symptom of how neo-colonialism is breaking down.
Almost all African countries came to independence without armed struggle. This meant that it was impossible, in practice, to reconstruct these new states upon a socialist basis immediately. I was well aware of the compromises which it was necessary to make and the dangers which this entailed but Ghana's independence on any condition was the first essential in securing the freedom of Africa. Not to have seized independence when we had a chance of obtaining it, whatever the liability we inherited, would have been criminal. The circumstances under which the C.P.P. was formed resulted in it being a compromise organisation composed of some genuine revolutionaries but containing many of those who are interested in independence only so as to better themselves and to take the place of the previous colonial traders and businessmen. This meant that I had to include in any government which I formed representatives of all tendencies in the Party including businessmen on the make such as Emmanuel Ayeh-Kumi and William Halm. In the circumstances of the day there was at least a reason· able chance that such people would act honestly and would assist to build the state on a new basis.
The experiment which we tried in Ghana was essentially one of developing the country in co-operation with the world as a whole. Non-alignment meant exactly what it said. We were not hostile to the countries of the socialist world in the way in which the governments of the old colonial territories were. It should be remembered that while Britain pursued at home co-existence with the Soviet Union this was never allowed to extend to British colonial territories. Books on socialism, which were published and circulated freely in Britain, were banned in the British colonial empire, and after Ghana became independent it was assumed abroad that it would continue to follow the same restrictive ideological approach. When we behaved as did the British in their relations with the socialist countries we were accused of being pro-Russian and introducing the most dangerous ideas into Africa.
In fact, the fault was that, from the very circumstances in which we found ourselves, we were unable to introduce more "dangerous ideas" or to get them more widely understood. What went wrong in Ghana was not that we attempted to have friendly relations with the countries of the socialist world but that we maintained too friendly relations with the countries of the western bloc.
Before the military revolt the policy of Ghana was based upon an attempt to develop the country along what were essentially socialist lines. This policy could have succeeded had the western world been prepared to see coming into existence a genuinely independent African state. In fact, they were not prepared to do so and we thus gave innumerable hostages to fortune.
The "coup d'etat" on its surface was a military revolt against myself and what I stood for. If it is analysed more deeply, however, it is a mark of the breakdown of the western attempt to influence and control Africa. The western countries, having failed to control democratically supported African governments, were forced into the final extremity of substituting regimes which depended upon no other mandate than the weapons which they held in their hands. Such puppet governments cannot survive for long either in Ghana or elsewhere in Africa. They are, in the first place, based on internal contradictions. Why they are tolerated is that their initial popularity is due to a sort of sympathetic magic. The prosperity of the western world at the moment depends upon exploiting less developed countries. Each year the western world pays less for its imports and each year charges more for its exports. Those who make our "coups" believe, however, or at least pretend to believe, that if they copy, or claim to copy, the outward image of the western world, then-in some miraculous way---they will secure the advantages which the western world enjoys. The contrary is the case. The individuals who have made the counter-revolution from Saigon to Sierra Leone are dependent for their political existence upon western support. The countries over which they temporarily obtained control are therefore exploited all the more viciously. By supporting the reactionary rebellions in Africa and western countries have dug graves for imperialism and neo-colonialism and have put before the African people the clear choice which was unclear before, either to go forward with a thorough revolution or else to continue in a situation which, year by year, impoverishes and humiliates them further.
Events in Ghana since the military rebellion illustrate this admirably. Those who seized power claim they came forward to save the economy, restore prosperity, democracy, freedom of the press and the like. Instead, in order to maintain themselves in office at all they have had to impose harsher taxation, sell out state enterprises to foreign interests, murder democracy, curb the press and forcibly to suppress any type of consultation with the people. Instead, therefore, of proving that capitalism and the western way of life are the best, they demonstrate that it only brings increasing misery to all those who attempt to reproduce it in Africa. They thus, by their example, produce a genuinely revolutionary situation which did not previously exist and which was, through its absence, one of the main reasons for African disunity and for the poverty of the continent.
I had for long the gravest doubts about many of those in leading positions in my Party. Despite the establishment of the ideological institute at Winneba which I hoped might be used to teach some general understanding of what we were attempting it was clear to me that many in high positions still failed to understand the political and social purposes of the state. On Ghana's external policy, however, depended to a large extent the progressive line which Africa as a whole used to follow. I had to weigh against the desire to move fast at home the d angers of concentrating too much upon internal matters and achieving a revolution at home at the cost of temporarily withdrawing from the international field.
The conduct of many of those in the higher Party leadership has demonstrated to the people of Ghana that one can no longer trust in a broad coalition of interests. The old civil service and the Judiciary went over almost to a man to the usurping regime. By so doing they were of course serving personal interests and to this extent what they did was understandable if not excusable. The lesson, however, which their conduct provides, is that they had no loyalty to the state or understanding of the social purposes which we were attempting to achieve. It might be possible to work in the future with people who were merely dishonest through self-interest but it is absolutely impossible to utilize a machine which has shown itself so defective of understanding.
For these reasons, the "coup" has achieved something which it would have been impossible to achieve without it, namely, a complete and public exposure of the impossibility of continuing along old lines.
The slate has been wiped clean and now at least we can begin to build again upon new foundations. For the people of Ghana life under the "N.L.C." is a form of political education which they could never otherwise have had. For the C.P.P. it is an even more important lesson in that it shows that the old organisation was defective and that the old leadership in many cases which was inherited from the struggle against British imperialism was inadequate for its task and when put to the test of crisis failed.
In the old days popular opinion forced me to maintain in positions of authority individuals who were well-known in their localities through their local families and tribal influences. In the past many such people rendered important services to the Party. Now, however, a new testing time has arisen and these people, when weighed against events, have had all the defects of their characters exposed for the whole world to see.
In a larger sense the "coup d'état" has made it plain that the C.P.P. can no longer follow the path of the old line. It must develop a new and reformed revolutionary leadership which must come from the broad mass of the Party. There is now a genuinely revolutionary situation in Ghana. For this reason, while the present is dark, the future is bright. And indeed the misfortunes of Ghana in its darkest days are a necessary lesson for all African revolutionaries.