The Futile Attempt To
Tarnish Nkrumah’s Good Name
Must Cease
Ade Sawyer
In the early 1970s, several
years ago, I had the
opportunity to work for one
of the best companies in the
world when it was at the
height of its might as a
marketing organisation
introducing computer
technology into the world.
Its slogan was very simple –
THINK. At sales school we
were taught never to talk
about the competition. We
were taught to know our
products and services in and
out. We were also taught
everything about what the
competition offered;
technical specification,
prices, special services and
offers and how our products
compared with the
competition then referred to
as the BUNCH that stood for
Borroughs, Univac, NCR,
Control Data and Honeywell.
We were well taught that the
more you disparage the
competition, the more
potential customers felt
that you had something to
hide. That advice has served
the company very well and
though computers are more
pervasive in use these days,
having moved from the air
conditioned rooms to the
desktop and the laptop, the
company still provides the
backbone to most corporate
computing establishments.
The company remains solid,
and the non disparaging
instruction still works.
And so it is worrying that
given the opportunity to
lecture some students at
some university in America,
the lecturer chose to
tarnish the image of the
founder of our nation. The
lecture incidentally has
generated more column inches
in the newspapers in Ghana
than in America where the
lecture took place.
I have had to think long and
hard about why a Director of
an institute that bears
Danquah’s name will devote a
whole lecture to Nkrumah
instead of extolling the
virtues of Danquah. Did he
agree to talk about Nkrumah
because he had exhausted all
the research and
publications on Danquah in
these few short years that
the institute has been in
existence or did he
gleefully seize the
opportunity to assassinate
the character of Nkrumah as
a cheap shot and in so doing
disparage a whole continent
with his revisionist version
of Akyem history.
I have imagined what I would
have done if asked to give a
talk on Danquah, as I was
recently asked to do on
Nkrumah at a book fair.
Would I have laid bare all
the shortcomings of Danquah,
to the whole world? I doubt
whether I would have done
that. I would most probably
have told the organisers
that there was not much to
say about Danquah, and would
probably have used the
occasion to talk about
politics and Ghana. I
suspect that I would have
worked into the talk
something to project the
image and standing of
Nkrumah but I would also
have said some good things
about Danquah.
I would have talked about
how Danquah, a political
firebrand in those days of
old was nurtured by the
likes of more seasoned
politicians such as FV Nanka
Bruce and Akilagpa Sawyerr
till he broke with them. I
probably would also have
mentioned why Nkrumah broke
with the UGCC and gone on to
comment on why the UGCC
failed to capture the
imagination of the people in
the anti-colonial movement.
Though Danquah, in my view,
did not realise the urgency
of the
agitation hoping the power
would have been naturally
transferred to them, I would
have praised Danquah and
others for recognising the
talents of Nkrumah and for
providing him with the
opportunity to put his
skills to the fight for the
independence of Ghana.
So why did the director of
the Danquah institute reject
this opportunity that could
have been used to project
Danquah from the obscurity
of politics in Ghana and
exposed to the whole world?
Was it because he did not
think that Danquah really
merited being espoused as a
great African statesman or
was it because he genuinely
felt that none of the
students would have had the
faintest idea of who he was
talking about.
Perhaps the Danquah people
still harbour this unhealthy
obsession about Nkrumah or
perhaps it is just their
forever unforgiving nature
because Nkrumah stole the
prize so they will use every
opportunity in the world to
do Nkrumah down in the vain
hope that some of the mud
they sling will stick.I pity
the executive director of
the Danquah Institute for
not having much to say about
their hero except that he
was one of many who fought
for independence but lost to
Nkrumah. I further pity him
for his continuing
ungraciousness several years
after the battles for
independence that pitted
Danquah against Nkrumah.
I pity him for his inability
to talk about the scholar
that Danquah was for failing
to find a gem in the
numerous tracts, pamphlets
and letters he wrote. Is it
because there is no basis
for comparison with the
several books that Nkrumah
wrote that are being
reviewed and republished and
reprinted several years
after his death. Why did the
director of Danquah
Institute not produce the
document that Danquah wrote
to give the name of the new
nation Ghana?
Perhaps it is because
contrary to the prevailing
myth, Danquah was only one
in a succession of many
historians who argued that
the people of the then Gold
Coast had a historical
lineage with those of the
people first of the empires
of Western Sudan. Rev. J.B .Anaman
was the first to claim the
connection between the
people of the Gold Coast the
‘Genewa’ Empire located near
Timbuctoo whose capital was
Ghanah. It was Lady Lugard,
wife of the Governor-General
of Nigeria Lord Lugard who
first pulled together
evidence to support that
claim, suggesting in the
process that Ghana might
have been modern Walata. She
was followed by the Rev WT.
Balmer, the first headmaster
of Mfantsipim School who
argued in 1926 that Fantis,
Ashantis, Ahanta and Akans
formed part of the ancient
kingdom of Ghana and
popularised this through the
history curriculum in
schools.
As Kimble indicates in the
“Political History of Ghana”
it was Balmer’s account that
“aroused the interest of the
young J.B. Danquah who
realized political
possibilities of the idea…[i]n
his *Akim Abuakwa Handbook*
published in 1928”. So Dr.
Danquah was not the
progenitor of the idea; he
exploited the work of Lady
Lugard and
Balmer and even then
proceeded cautiously. Why
does he not research and
bring to light the many
revisions that Danquah made,
first Akanland, then when
reminded that the nation
would be bigger than these
groups, then AkanGa, then
Khana when further
challenged? Should some of
those obscure tracts not be
rehabilitated to make
interesting reading about
the mind of Danquah and his
concept of Akanfo rather
than this constant bashing
of Nkrumah which serves no
purpose?
The politics of envy never
wins anyone an election,
negative campaigning really
only serves to call to
question what you are
hiding. My advice to Mr
Gabby Asare Otchere-Darko is
that he must leave the name
of Nkrumah alone and
concentrate on his
veneration of Danquah.
Stealing and tarnishing the
name of Nkrumah will not add
an inch to the stature of
Danquah as Iago observed
with these words.
Good name in man and woman,
dear my lord, Is the
immediate jewel of their
souls. Who steals my purse
steals trash; 'tis
something, nothing; 'Twas
mine, 'tis his, and has been
slave to thousands;
But he that filches from me
my good name Robs me of that
which not enriches him, And
makes me poor indeed I would
further advise the Executive
Director of the Danquah
Institute that Nkrumah was a
man of destiny, he must not
be resented for seating down
at table with his supposed
betters for as the Ga say,
‘a child who knows how to
wash his hands properly is
allowed to share the same
bowl with the elders’.
Nkrumah certainly knew how
to wash his hands properly.
And of course he was human,
if they are disappointed
that there were mishaps
along the way, it was
because he grasped the bull
by the horns and led the
country to independence,
again an old African proverb
that reminds us that the
‘chic who agrees to go to
the stream to fetch water is
the one most likely to break
the pots’ and not those
indolent ones who do not
want to work hard but take
the glory later on.
Perhaps if the military
government that toppled
Nkrumah had not been so
intent to obliterate his
name from everything Ghana,
there would have been no
need for his rehabilitation
and everything Nkrumah would
have been seen in the proper
perspective as the one who
won for us our independence
and who was bold in his work
in the social, economic and
political transformation of
our country.
For me Danquah played an
important role in the
history of Ghana, he was a
good scholar but did not
fulfil his potential because
he lacked the political
acumen of timing his moves.
Danquah was a respectable
intellectual and the Danquah
Institute must do more to
project his contribution to
the colonial struggle but
certainly not at the expense
of disparaging Nkrumah.
Nkrumah could see further
because he stood on the
shoulders of those of like
of Casely-Hayford, Akilagpa
Sawyerr, FV Nanka-Bruce and
yes Dr. Danquah and for that
we must applaud his place
and time in the history of
this nation and Africa and
for completing the work of
those who came before him.
Nkrumah never dies!
Ade
Sawyer, October 8, 2010
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