Much as their action opened the floodgates of further military interventions, which most of us today condemn, it cannot be disputed that it was that action which opened up the political space again, and brought notions of democratic development back to the centre of our national deliberations.

The extraordinary, overwhelming popular response to the 1966 coup tells us all we need to know about the positive reaction of the Ghanaian people to it. No other coup – be it 1972, 1979 or 1981 – has received the widespread, spontaneous and enthusiastic embrace of the Ghanaian people quite like that of the first one of 1966. This is not meant to be a polemical point, just a bare statement of fact.

The Ghanaian people instinctively recognised that there was no other way. Hence, their enthusiasm, because it was Ghana’s Day of Liberation.

It is a matter of some amusement that those, who today are some of the most vociferous champions of Nkrumah’s reputation, were young persons who could not have experienced the events of the time. Kwesi Pratt and Prof. Akosa are both children of CPP parents.

Pratt, guardian of the flame, was barely old enough to be a young pioneer at the time of Nkrumah’s overthrow to appreciate the situation then. In the same way, Prof Akosa, who was not even four years old at the time of Ghana’s independence, could not have too many conscious memories of Nkrumah’s rule, other than those handed down to him from his father, the fearsome DC Akosa, whose autocratic, arbitrary rule of the Sekyere area in Eastern Ashanti, as a District Commissioner, was a notorious byword in the CPP era.

However they came by these memories, they are entitled to them and to their views of Kwame Nkrumah. By the same token, they should recognise that others are equally entitled to their views of Kwame Nkrumah. It is the height of arrogance for anybody to assume that he or she has a monopoly on patriotism.

Acknowledging this would enhance the quality and tone of our public discourse. It would breed more mutual respect between the opposing camps, which would be in the public interest. It appears, despite the passage of time, that the passions generated by the events of the First Republic will not abate. Hopefully, in the freer atmosphere of the Fourth Republic, the heated exchanges will end up by giving us a more constructive appreciation of the past for the benefit of our nation’s progress.

ONE PARTY STATE, PDA

It is important to state for the records, records which cannot be disputed by anyone that, by the time of the overthrow of Kwame Nkrumah, Ghana had become a one-party state in which the colours of the one party – the Convention People’s Party (CPP) – had become the nation’s colours, replacing the national colours. The creation of the one-party state had been effected through one of the first, if not the first, of the 90% plus “referenda” that came to characterise the results of “referenda” in post-colonial Africa.

By 1966, the multiparty state and the constitution negotiated at Ghana’s independence, just nine years earlier, laid in ruins. The United Party (UP) opposition had been decimated, with its leaders and activists either languishing in prison under the Prevention Detention Act (PDA) or in exile.

Indeed, the UP exiles in Lome, Abidjan and Lagos were the first political refugees of post-colonial Africa. The 69-year-old J B Danquah, Kwame Nkrumah’s great antagonist, the man whose scholarship gave our nation its name of Ghana, had died tragically in the dungeons of Nsawam Prison without the benefit of a trial.

It was he who, with George Grant’s money, was responsible for the establishment of the United Gold Coast Convention (UGCC), the first nationalist organisation to agitate for our nation’s independence and freedom, from which Kwame Nkrumah, a member of the legendary Big Six of Ghanaian history, broke away to form the CPP and which gave Nkrumah the platform for his political advancement.

Emmanuel Obetsebi-Lamptey, otherwise known as Liberty Lamptey, another of the Big Six, had suffered the same fate as Danquah, dying in detention without trial, chained to a hospital bed.Danquah and Obetsebi-Lamptey, the most notable victims of the PDA, were not alone. The coup of 24 February 1966 led to the release of more than 2,000 political detainees, including many long-time detainees with five or six years in prison without trial. The human rights recordsof the various military governments that succeeded Nkrumah’s were no worse than his. At least they had the “excuse” of being unconstitutional governments, ruling by decree. What of our constitutional Kwame Nkrumah?

ATTACK ON THE JUDICIARY

Judicial independence at the time of his exit existed on paper, not in reality. In 1963, in reaction to the verdict of the Special Court, a panel of the then Supreme Court, he sacked over the radio on the dreaded 1 o’clock news Chief Justice Sir Arku Korsah, the first Ghanaian Chief Justice, for presiding over the Court that acquitted his erstwhile Ministers and Party officials – Tawiah Adamafio, Ako Adjei (a member of the Big Six, the man who made the fateful introduction of Nkrumah to the Working Committee of the UGCC), and Coffie Crabbe – on charges of treason arising from the Kulungungu bomb attempt on Nkrumah’s life.

Parliament, then fully under his thumb, proceeded by legislation to set aside the verdict of the Court and a new trial ordered. The new trial was conducted by Korsah’s successor as Chief Justice, Mr Justice Sarkodie-Addo, with a jury made up of graduates of the Kwame Nkrumah Ideological Institute, who predictably returned a verdict of guilty. The retried accused persons were sentenced to death, which Nkrumah, in his ‘magnanimity’, commuted to life imprisonment.

Another consequence of the verdict of this famous trial was Nkrumah’s decision to remove the constitutional restriction on the President’s power to dismiss judges so that he could do so at his pleasure. The 90% plus ‘Yes’ votes declared in the 1964 referendum achieved this for him. He exercised the power to remove respected, well-known legal personalities from the Judiciary, including Supreme Court judge Edward Akufo-Addo, another member of the Big Six, the future Chief Justice and President of the Second Republic, who was the third member of the Court that acquitted Tawiah Adamafio and the others, to replace them with pro-CPP judges of questionable legal ability. We can see, then, that judicial independence and the rule of law were matters of little moment for the Osagyefo. But then he was a ‘revolutionary’ for whom the rule of law was an expensive nicety that had no place in the “African Revolution”.

The referendum was preceded, in the culture of the ruling CPP, by a loud and aggressive campaign, mounted by the State and Party media with the notorious Accra Evening News in the lead, against the Judiciary. It was a reactionary institution, staffed by “bourgeois” lawyers, who were agents of “neo-colonialism” with strong affinities to the “reactionary” UP. A purge of their ranks was needed to ensure that the “people” got a judiciary that was alive to its responsibilities to promote the “African Revolution”. Vicious insults, egregious abuse, character assassinations – these were the staple fare of CPP propaganda.

The all-conquering Osagyefo, who, according to legend, was adored in perpetuity by the Ghanaian and African masses, was unable for the last ten years of his rule to organise a general election to test the popularity of his party. The 1956 Parliament, elected at the instigation of the British Colonial Secretary, Alex Lennox-Boyd, had a strong CPP majority. It was this Parliament that ushered us into freedom and received in 1957 the Scroll of Independence from the hands of the representative of the British monarch to signal the beginning of our modern nationhood. In 1960, this Parliament constituted itself into a Constituent Assembly to promulgate the 1960 First Republican Constitution which gave Nkrumah unlimited power, including the power to make laws. This was the Constitution into which Kwame Nkrumah’s name was written. After promulgating the Constitution, the Constituent Assembly extended the life of the Parliament, i.e. itself, by another term of five years.

By the expiry of its extended term in 1965, the nation had become a one-party state by virtue of the 1964 referendum. It was then felt that elections in these changed circumstances were no longer necessary. Kwame Nkrumah proceeded to sit as Chairman of the Central Committee of the One Party to share parliamentary seats among his followers. There were many anomalies in this tragic exercise, which would otherwise have been laughable but for its seriousness, which, for example, led to a CPP stalwart, Kwesi Ghapson, an Nzema, being given Danquah’s old seat in Kyebi without a single vote being cast in his favour. This was Nkrumaist democracy at its best.

NON-EXISTENT MEDIA

Pluralism and diversity in the media by 1966 were things of the distant past. Not only had the PDA done its ruthless best to suppress all dissent, the Ghanaian media, which, during the period of the independence struggle in the 1950s, was as vibrant as it is today, had settled into the dull monotony of heaping greater and greater praise on his Messianic Dedication, one of the many appellations that the extraordinary cult of personality surrounding Kwame Nkrumah threw up. As his failure to manage the Ghanaian economy became more and glaring, the more strident and expressive were the paeans of praise.

Fortunately for us, none of his successors has had the craving for adulation, praise and self-glorification that drove Nkrumah. Like many of the great tyrants of history, he found nothing wrong in putting up effigies, monuments and statues to his own glory. Like the fate that befell many of them, it was no surprise that, when his opponents replaced him in power, those effigies, monuments and statues were pulled down. Ancient Roman history is replete with such examples. This is why it is always better for posterity to make the judgment on monuments and statues. They are invariably more permanent and avoid the hubris of power. Self-glorification tends to leave a sour taste in the mouth of observers.

POOR GOVERNANCE

One of the saddest aspects of Nkrumah’s poor governance practices in Ghana was their replication in a majority of the newly independent nation states of post-colonial Africa. Because of his justifiable prestige as the first black African leader, it was relatively easy for the new leaders to subscribe to the specious, spurious arguments he had articulated in Ghana to justify authoritarian, personal rule. New nations required “emergency measures of a totalitarian kind” to secure their independence; “African communalism” meant that “African socialism” provided the natural ideological context for Africa’s “development”; multi-party democracy was alien to African culture and only heightened ethnic, tribal sentiments and allegiances, posing a risk to the integrity of the new states; “bourgeois rights”, i.e., civil liberties – freedom of speech, freedom of association, freedom of conscience, the right to personal freedom, etc, — were expensive luxuries that new nations struggling to win the war against poverty could not afford.

Such nations required a single-minded focus on their “development” under the direction of an all-knowing, all-powerful “heroic” figure, who was beyond criticism and accountability. These were some of the misguided outpourings of the Nkrumaist media in newly independent Ghana. The upshot was the plethora of one-party authoritarian states with life presidents that proliferated across Africa in the first three decades of the independence era. As we now know, chronic instability, economic backwardness and persistent impoverishment of the African people were the direct consequences of the applications of these false concepts in Africa’s early development.

CONCLUSION

It should not be taken that the writer of this article sees nothing good in the political career of Kwame Nkrumah. Like many of the great figures of history, Nkrumah’s career straddled several different phases. For this writer, the Nkrumah of the late forties and fifties was undoubtedly a political figure of the first rank.

Charismatic, dynamic, with exceptional organisational abilities, Nkrumah, when he supplanted Danquah as the leader of the nationalist movement, led the movement with great panache and flair in a situation of multiparty competition. He also brought to Ghanaian nationalism the Pan-African dimension with which his name will always be associated. His period as the leader of Government in the 1950s saw a radical expansion of our social and physical infrastructure, with special emphasis on the critical impulse he gave to mass education.

He was in that period the authentic voice of the African awakening. It was for these and for the fact that he was our first leader that he should be commemorated by a “Kwame Nkrumah Memorial Day”. It is the tyrant of the 1960s that is a distasteful figure for this writer. The writer is and was not alone in this. At the time of the exit of the great avowed Pan-Africanist, all of Ghana’s borders – western, northern, eastern, i.e. Ivory Coast, Upper Volta and Togo, respectively – were closed to Ghanaians. Only the southern ‘border’ on the sea was open. Even there, a Ghanaian needed an exit permit to reach it.

There have been certain consistent features of our post-1966 constitutional order which tell us that, indeed, the Nkrumah era cannot have been the golden age that Nkrumah fanatics would have us believe.

Firstly, all the Constitutions of the Second, Third and the current Fourth Republic have been unanimous on one basic matter. The emphasis on personal rule that characterised the First Republican Constitution and governance in the First Republic has been overridden by a commitment to a system of limited government, in which the separation of powers has been expressly and carefully defined to prevent the kind of concentration of power in one person’s hands which we experienced to our cost in the First Republic. Secondly, each of the Constitutions has sought by specific provisions to reinforce the general commitment to limited government.

Thus, each of the Constitutions has forcefully prohibited the exercise of power by Parliament to pass law establishing a one-party state. Again, preventive detention legislation has been expressly outlawed by each of the Constitutions. Again, each of the Constitutions has conferred express power on the Supreme Court to strike down legislation that is unconstitutional or which infringes the letter or spirit of the Constitution.

This was one of the issues in the celebrated case of Re Akoto, when the Supreme Court rejected Danquah’s submission as to the unconstitutionality of the PDA. Fundamental human rights have been expressly defined and protected by each of the Constitutions, with the Judiciary being given the responsibility to enforce fundamental rights. In a rebuke to what happened when Parliament in 1964 nullified the decision of the first Tawiah Adamafio trial, Parliament has been expressly prohibited from altering decisions of the Courts and, by the same token, retroactive legislation is prohibited by the Constitution. Instead of the President having the power to sack judges at will, which Nkrumah exercised in 1964 to purge the Judiciary of judges that he found “politically incorrect”, complex provisions have been put in each of the Constitutions to govern the process for the removal of judges of the Superior Court of Judicature in order to bolster the independence of the Judiciary.

Again, unlike the situation in 1958 that made it possible for Nkrumah single-handedly to advance £10 million of Ghana’s money to the aid of Guinea in a spirit of Pan-African solidarity, constitutional development in our country has since insisted that only with the approval of Parliament can such acts be undertaken.

Carpet crossing, one of the means which facilitated CPP domination, has now been prohibited. A Member of Parliament who wants to cross carpet is required to resign and seek the mandate of his constituents to do so. Finally, in order not to repeat the horror of a life presidency, term limits have been placed on holders of the nation’s highest office, the Presidency. If things were so wonderful in Nkrumah’s time, why have so many events of his era been so expressly stigmatised since his overthrow?

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By: John Hamilton, Cape Coast North constituency

The post 24th February, 1966: Ghana’s day of Liberation [Article] appeared first on Citi 97.3 FM - Relevant Radio. Always.

The historical chains

Having inherited a government with the trappings of the free market, Ghana became increasingly pro-East with its attendant central planning under President Nkrumah.

As a result, our commodities, education, industries, construction, aviation, employment, transportation, media to name a few, were largely if not wholly under the aegis of the central government.

With the collapse of the Berlin Wall, the disintegration of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (U.S.S.R.) and the fallouts of Perestroika, China’s reforms and the increasing global acceptance of Adam Smith’s “invisible hand”, Fabian socialism has lost its quiddity except in the minds of those who keep mouthing it without much action.

Even the Labour Party of the United Kingdom (U.K.) under Tony Blair and later Gordon Brown would speak of a “New Labour” which embraced market forces with unpredicted fervour. In the US, the Democratic Party’s Bill Clinton would call it “The Third Way”.

The Vestiges of the Socialism of the 1960s

Today, many of the State-Owned Enterprises (S.O.E.s) of the 1960s remain under the iron grip of central government despite the oft-repeated evidence of the shambolic performance of an overwhelming majority of them. A few were divested, with hardly any evidence of benefits to us, not so much because of a belief in the free markets but as a result of our obeisance to the prescriptions of foreign and international institutions.

The ghost of central planning has ensured that these SOEs, whose shares are held entirely by the government, are used as instruments of political patronage. Friends, cronies, relatives and party members are assured of seats on the boards of these establishments when electoral power swings in their favour.

They are not held to any standards of efficiency and are at liberty to operate with freewheeling nonchalance. They were never intended to be run on the measured rods of the hands of corporate governance with a diverse collection of the best business and governance brainpower. Their guide was Marxist economic theory and the capital market was never in sight for them.

The Ghana Stock Exchange

It was not until the 1990s that Ghana set up a stock market. Thus the driving principles behind the raising of capital, corporate governance, diffusion/dispersion of shareholding, shareholder activism, the constant improvement of corporate law among others are yet to take a firm hold.

Where government has dared to participate in the affairs of the stock market it has ensured that it retains massive controlling shareholder status. That way, it still calls the shots with respect to the appointment of directors and management whose qualifications are based more on ‘right standing’ than competitively determined competence.

In the end, citizen participation on the bourse is minimal, their participation in decision-making is non-existent, the alignment of the desires of shareholders (non-government) with directors/management remains a pipe-dream and the stock market has not become the linchpin it must be to the economy.

The result is a palpable unattractiveness of the Ghana Stock Exchange (G.S.E.) to the biggest corporations in Ghana and the disincentive to investors who in the absence of free-market choice of corporate leadership cannot bet on any great returns on their investment.

The Economy

An economy that imprisons the efficient market and denies the citizenry frontline participation in it does not grow in leaps and bounds. It does not create wealthy citizens. Its private sector is small and not influential and government continues to be the employer of the overwhelming droves of its workforce.

That economy is unable to provide infrastructural expansion to enable businesses to push the possibilities of their productive frontiers. Tax evasion becomes the order of the day as the informal sector balloons as a way to avoid the taxman.

Only a minutiae of the workforce pay tax and so it is not surprising that since 2011 Ghana’s tax to GDP has consistently hovered between 17%-19% and is edging below the lower end in 2017.

Investors will not touch such an economy with a long pole unless they are promised markedly high returns that pressurize government to embark on “smart borrowing” and not-so-smart borrowing sometimes for and on behalf of companies which should be allowed to deal on the strength of their own sets of financial statements.

To make matters worse, even the right of centre party relies on economic populism and the precepts of Fabian socialism (one district one this, free this free that etc.) in order to please a people whose mind-set is fixated on state largesse.

When a social democratic party hands over the baton to a “free market” party, the citizenry struggle to “spot the difference” in strategies such as the unbridled proclivity to issue bonds to raise revenue.

At over $4 billion dollars Ghana is the African country with the highest Eurobond debt, with a poor tax to GDP ratio (currently between 15%-16%) and around 70% debt to GDP ratio excluding its recent Energy Sector Bond.

Since the economy is not innately attractive to investors, beyond the high interest rates on bonds, the government finds itself scrapping critical taxes and granting exemptions to wealthy companies to keep their interest alive. This contributes to the low revenue ‘capture’.

The way forward

Change will only come if we want it. Our political parties must give us the best all-round persons as flag bearers. Our central bank governors and each and every member of the board of the Bank of Ghana must have formal education to the highest levels (at least post-graduate) in finance/economics/business with proven track records. Our finance ministers must be highly educated in economics/finance of the proper kind and be supported by the finest brains.

Our Presidents must choose competence, knowledge, training and expertise over petty considerations. They must set in motion the process to shed central planning and allow citizens to part-own, choose corporate leadership, run and manage those companies that government currently controls with perilous consequences.

In the process we may not always need to raise revenue through debt but equity by way of releasing shareholding in say the Ghana National Petroleum Corporation (G.N.P.C.), GOIL and/or COCOBOD with the attendant infusion of the competencies of the private sector.

If domestic investors had confidence in the way these entities are managed, government may raise millions from them by way of equity instead of the now fashionable option of a bond (debt), which attracts interest. The example of Colombia with respect to Ecopetrol’s 20% shares may serve as a useful guide with modifications to suit our circumstances.

Is President Akufo-Addo the man to ignite the untapped embers of the free market or must we wait for another government, which professes an unwavering belief in the free market economy?

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By: Robert Nii Ardey Clegg 

The writer holds a Master of Laws (LL.M.) degree in Corporate Law, Finance & Governance Concentration (Harvard Law School) with cross-registration in Boards of Directors & Corporate Governance (Harvard Business School)

The post Is Nkrumah dictating Ghana’s economic policy from the grave? [Article] appeared first on Citi 97.3 FM - Relevant Radio. Always.

According to him, individuals like Obetsebi Lamptey, Edward Akufo-Addo and J.B Danquah already have streets, interchanges and roundabouts named for them and so do not require a special day to celebrate them again.

[contextly_sidebar id=”fqy0jMp2IfmdnmtOBxMjOhbTSEmCMjPY”]Speaking on The Big Issue on Saturday, Ade Coker said he believes that although others played key roles in Ghana’s attainment of independence, Kwame Nkrumah who is hailed as the country’s founder, deserves honour for his ultimate efforts in leading Ghana to gain independence from British rule.

“Nobody is saying that J.B Danquah or Akufo-Addo did not contribute to the formation of what we are talking about, but at the end of the day, somebody stood tall among them and you cannot celebrate all of them… When you go to Obetsebi Lamptey Roundabout, go to Danquah Circle, go to Akufo-Addo circle… We have celebrated them. We have recognized them. The person who stands tall [Kwame Nkrumah] is the one we are celebrating. Others have been given monuments,” he said.

There is a renewed debate over who must be celebrated as the founder of Ghana.

The former National Democratic Congress (NDC) government declared 21^st September,  Kwame Nkrumah’s birthday as a day to celebrate him as Ghana’s founder.

President Akufo-Addo recently canceled the former government’s decision to celebrate September 21 as Founder’s Day and has rather set August 4, as founders’ day to recognize all who helped Ghana to attain independence, christened Founders’ Day and rechristened 21^st September as Nkrumah Memorial Day.

August 4 as set by the New Patriotic Party (NPP) government is the day the United Gold Coast Convention (UGCC), was formed in 1947.

The UGCC was founded by President Akufo-Addo’s uncle, J. B. Danquah, his father Edward Akufo-Addo, and Emmanuel Obetsebi-Lamptey. The NPP was birthed from the UGCC.

While some have proposed the scrapping of both days, Ade Coker said it will be inappropriate not to recognize Kwame Nkrumah’s enormous role in Ghana’s independence adding that ultimately, he is the main leader who ultimately pushed the country to gain independence.

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By: Jonas Nyabor/citifmonline.com/Ghana

The post J.B Danquah, others already honoured with roundabouts – Ade Coker appeared first on Citi 97.3 FM - Relevant Radio. Always.

His posture comes at a time when the New Patriotic Party have cancelled the former government’s decision to celebrate September 21 as Founder’s Day and has rather set August 4, as founders’ day to recognize all who helped Ghana to attain independence.

John Mahama who has confessed his leanings towards the Nkrumahist ideology said in a statement on his Facebook page on Wednesday said “Osagyefo’s emergence as the Founder of modern Ghana and an international symbol of freedom was not by accident.”

He accused certain elements of making frantic attempts to revise Ghana’s history in a way to make nothing of Kwame Nkrumah’s efforts.

He said, “It remains a dark irony of our history that, the very political tradition which conspired to truncate his unparalleled vision on 24th February 1966, is today seeking to revise Ghana’s history.”

“It is an indisputable fact that Nkrumah was the critical spark that put Ghana on a high-velocity path to independence” he added.

President Nana Akufo-Addo, whose political history stems from the United Gold Coast Convention (UGCC), formed on August 4, 1947 to bring about Ghanaian independence, stirred controversy when in his presidential inauguration address when he suggested that members of the UGCC including his father Edward Akudo-Addo and uncle, J.B Danquah were the main brains behind Ghana’s independence.

Many, including the Chairman of the CPP, Prof. Edmund Delle, accused him of distorting the country’s history but members of the NPP argued that the achievement of the Kwame Nkrumah was only because of the exposure and support he had received from the UGCC before he broke away to establish his Convention People’s Party (CPP).

John Mahama, who has not directly commented on the controversy eulogized Kwame Nkrumah ahead of the celebration of his birthday, September 21.

Read John Mahama’s message below:

On the 21st day of September, I join millions all over the world to remember Osagyefo Dr. Kwame Nkrumah- the Founder of Ghana, a global icon and the BBC Listeners “Man of the Millennium”.

Osagyefo’s emergence as the Founder of modern Ghana and an international symbol of freedom was not by accident. He was a Pan-Africanist, a philosopher, a writer, and a visionary who matched his words with actions. His towering personality is still recognized in Ghana and beyond.

It remains a dark irony of our history that, the very political tradition which conspired to truncate his unparalleled vision on 24th February 1966, is today seeking to revise Ghana’s history.

The song “Kwame Nkrumah never dies” has proved true not in the sense of his immortality but in the fact that his name will continue to be written in letters of gold whenever the history of Ghana, Africa and the world is recounted.

It is an indisputable fact that Nkrumah was the critical spark that put Ghana on a high velocity path to independence.

Happy Founder’s Day Fellow Ghanaians.

–

By: Jonas Nyabor/citifmonline.com/Ghana

The post Mahama eulogizes ‘Ghana’s founder’, Kwame Nkrumah appeared first on Citi 97.3 FM - Relevant Radio. Always.

This is according to a statement from the Presidency signed by its Director of Communications, Eugine Arhin.

The birthday of Ghana’s first President, Dr. Kwame Nkrumah, on September 21, will be observed as Kwame Nkrumah Memorial Day. Dr. Kwame Nkrumah’s birthday was originally observed as Founder’s Day.

The Presidency’s statement noted that August 4, is “obviously the most appropriate day to signify our recognition and appreciation of the collective efforts of our forebears towards the founding of a free, independent Ghana.”

August 4 is noted as the date for the formation of the Aborigines’ Rights Protection Society by John Mensah Sarbah in 1897, and the formation of the United Gold Coast Convention (UGCC) in 1947 by J.B. Danquah and George Alfred “Paa” Grant.

The thinking informing this proposal, according to the President, is to acknowledge the “successive generations of Ghanaians who made vital contributions to the liberation of our country from imperialism and colonialism.”

The statement acknowledged Dr. Nkrumah’s standing in Ghanaian history and said: “it is entirely appropriate that we commemorate him for that role, by designating his birthday as the permanent day of his remembrance.”

“The President has, therefore, decided to propose legislation to Parliament to designate 4th August as FOUNDERS DAY, and 21st September as KWAME NKRUMAH MEMORIAL DAY, both of which will be observed as public holidays.”

“…In the meantime, the President has issued an Executive Instrument to commemorate this year’s celebration of KWAME NKRUMAH MEMORIAL DAY as a public holiday,” the statement added.

The Founder’s Day versus Founders Day debate has been a longstanding one, and was brought into the limelight in 2017, starting with President Akufo-Addo’s speech delivered at Ghana’s 60th independence anniversary parade.

That speech came under attack over what some said was a skewed account of Ghana’s history to suit his father, Edward Akufo-Addo and uncle, J.B. Danquah, who were critical components in Ghana’s fight for independence and the forebearers of the governing New Patriotic Party’s tradition.

Find below the full statement from the Presidency

It is unfortunate that, 60 years after independence, the history of the events leading to it continues to be embroiled in unnecessary controversy, due largely to partisan political considerations of the moment.

It is clear that successive generations of Ghanaians made vital contributions to the liberation of our country from imperialism and colonialism. It is, therefore, fitting that we honour them, as those who contributed to the founding of our nation.

The most appropriate way to honour them is to commemorate the day on which the two most significant events in our colonial political history, that led us to independence, occurred – 4th August.

On that day, in 1897, the Aborigines Rights Protection Society (ARPS) was formed in Cape Coast. The Society did a great job to mobilise the chiefs and people to ward off the greedy hands of British imperialism to ensure that control of Ghanaian lands remained in Ghanaian hands. It represented the first monumental step towards the making of modern Ghana, enabling us to avoid the quagmire of land inheritance that our brothers and sisters in Southern and Eastern Africa continue to suffer, from the seizures of their lands by white minorities.

In a deliberate act in the continuum of Ghanaian history, exactly fifty years later, on 4th August, 1947, at Saltpond, the great nationalists of the time gathered to inaugurate the United Gold Coast Convention (UGCC), the first truly nationalist party of the Gold Coast, to demand the independence of our nation from British rule, at a gathering which included “paramount chiefs, clergymen, lawyers, entrepreneurs, teachers, traders and men and women from all walks of life in the Gold Coast”, according to an eye witness. The inauguration set the ball rolling for our nation’s attainment of independence, and for the dramatic events, including the birth in 1949 of the Convention Peoples Party (CPP), that ushered us into freedom.

That day, 4th August, is, thus, obviously the most appropriate day to signify our recognition and appreciation of the collective efforts of our forebears towards the founding of a free, independent Ghana.

It is equally clear that the first leader of independent Ghana, and the nation’s 1st President, Dr. Kwame Nkrumah, played an outstanding role in helping to bring to fruition the works of the earlier generations, and leading us to the promised land of national freedom and independence. It is entirely appropriate that we commemorate him for that role, by designating his birthday as the permanent day of his remembrance.

The President has, therefore, decided to propose legislation to Parliament to designate 4th August as FOUNDERS DAY, and 21st September as KWAME NKRUMAH MEMORIAL DAY, both of which will be observed as public holidays. In the meantime, the President has issued an Executive Instrument to commemorate this year’s celebration of KWAME NKRUMAH MEMORIAL DAY as a public holiday.
……signed……
Eugene Arhin
Director of Communications
Office of the President

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By: Delali Adogla-Bessa/citifmonline.com/Ghana

The post Founders Day to be Aug. 4, Sept. 21 to honour Nkrumah’s memory appeared first on Citi 97.3 FM - Relevant Radio. Always.

The individuals are expected to refund the money with interest according to the Bank of Ghana rate.

The Auditor General, Daniel Yaw Domelevo had stated that many more people will be served surcharge notice in the coming days, adding that his outfit is committed to implementing the Supreme Court’s ruling.

Mr. Ankomah, who is also a Private Legal Practitioner  on Eyewitness News indicated that the move is a “good start” in retrieving monies belonging to the state.

“It is significant because it is the start. If after three four five we are still at eleven then  we will have cause for concern but right now I think it is a good and extremely significant and symbolic start.”

The Supreme Court in June 2017 ordered the Auditor General to surcharge persons found to have misappropriated monies belonging to the state.

The seven-member panel of justices, presided over by incoming Chief Justice Sophia Akuffo, did not give reasons for their judgment at the time.

The order followed a suit filed by pressure group, Occupy Ghana in June 2016, seeking an order that would direct the Auditor-General to issue disallowances and surcharges to and in respect of all persons and entities found in relevant, successive reports to have engaged in misappropriation of state funds.

Over GHc40 billion lost in ‘irregularities

Occupy Ghana had earlier indicated in a statement that a thorough study of the Auditor General report revealed that between 2003 and 2014, the total losses the state incurred in “irregularities” arising from Government Ministries, Departments and Agencies was about GH¢2,448,968,912.29.

“This is alarming, more so when we discovered further that for just the four years, 2009 and 2012 to 2014, amounts lost to Ghana from “irregularities” in Public Boards, Corporations and other Statutory Institutions was Five Billion, Seventy Two Million, Six Hundred and Eighty Six Thousand and Seven Hundred and Sixteen Ghana Cedis (GH¢5,072,686,716). From our projections, since the promulgation of the Constitution, the total losses to Ghana arising from “irregularities” in Public Offices, Central and Local Government Administration, Public Institutions, Public Corporations and Statutory Bodies, possibly exceeds Forty Billion Ghana Cedis (GH¢40,000,000,000),” the statement said.

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By: Marian Ansah/citifmonline.com/Ghana
Follow @EfeAnsah

The post AG’s moves to retrieve ‘looted cash’ significant – Ace Ankomah appeared first on Citi 97.3 FM - Relevant Radio. Always.

This longstanding debate was brought to the fore earlier in 2017 when President Nana Akufo-Addo’s speech delivered at Ghana’s 60th independence anniversary parade came under attack over what some said was a skewed account of Ghana’s history to suit his father, Edward Akufo-Addo and uncle, J.B. Danquah who were critical players in Ghana pre-independence.

[contextly_sidebar id=”RutGmCBC3E7ykCWAP3xtnD83dgvM3jUl”]This is criticism Kwesi Pratt would be likely to get behind given he is of the firm view Kwame Nkrumah should be regarded as the Founder of Ghana and celebrated as is done on his birth date, September 21.

Paul Adom-Otchere, on the other hand, believes Ghana’s history is incomplete without due regard given to the likes of the leadership of the UGCC, amongst others.

There can be more than one founder

Drawing from the American example, he reminded that John Adams, Benjamin Franklin, Alexander Hamilton, John Jay, Thomas Jefferson, James Madison, and George Washington “are christened as founders of the United states because they sat down together on a particular date to decide on how the federation works,” despite Washington being that country’s first president.

However, in Ghana, a few things went amiss over the decades, Paul Adom-Otchere said, starting with the work of the Aborigines’ Rights Protection Society to oppose the Lands Bill of 1897 which threatened land tenure and another layer of the indigenous sovereignty.

“This was a monumental act of John Mensah Sarbah and the aborigines and Sarbah formed the Aborigines’ Rights Protection Society on the 4th of August 1897 at Saltpond and this was the single most successful achievements of the Aborigines which helped the Gold Coast progress the way it did, and then to the West African National Congress of Casely-Hayford and others.”

In 1947, over 100 years of the Bond of 1844, J.B. Danquah, George Alfred “Paa” Grant and others put in motion moves to kick start the independence drive with the formation of the UGCC.

But on why some believe these persons have been relegated to a foot note in Ghana’s history, Paul Adom-Otchere noted two significant actions of leadership in this regard; the 1948 riots leading to the arrest of the Big Six and then the Watson Commission and Coussey Committee that determined the independence constitutions for Ghana in 1950 leading to elections in 1951, of which the Kwame Nkrumah’s Convention People’s Party, an offshoot of the UGCC, won.

“Because Nkrumah won the election of 1951, the processes that had been prescribed the constitution of the Coussey Committee fell on him to implement those processes towards independence and one of those processes occurred on a fateful day on July 1953 in Parliament where the leader of government business, as he [Nkrumah] became, was to put a motion in Parliament and it was christened by the evening news paper as the motion of destiny – a motion asking the British government to give us self-government.”

In that motion,Nkrumah outlined the history of Ghana, starting from the period of Okomfo Anokye, to the Aborigines Protection Society, but upon reaching the UGCC, he seemingly downplayed its impact by omitting the names of Paa Grant, J.B. Danquah, and others.

“This is a very important aspect where the confusion and the unnerving situation may have begun, where Dr. Nkrumah so eloquently traces the History of Ghana… and there is a clear omission of the names of the Grant, Danquah, Awonoor-Williams, Akufo-Addo, Obetsebi-Lamptey – the leadership of the UGCC that brought him here.”

August 4 not Ghana’s independence

Kwesi Pratt’s response to this was that the significance August 4, 1947 had not been downplayed, but explained that Nkrumah is recognized as the founder of the modern republic of Ghana “for good reason and there are those who are opposed to that.”

“You have to remember that at a certain point in history, certain political forces made the holding of Nkrumah’s effigy and photographs a criminal offense… they burnt books written by Nkrumah, they told lies about our History all in an effort to obliterate Nkrumah’s name.”

He further stressed that August 4, 1947, was not the day Ghana obtained independence but the day on which “a lame political party came into existence.”

“The UGCC, until Nkrumah’s arrival [when he returned to Ghana (Gold Coast) on December 10, 1947, upon invitation from J.B. Danquah to become the UGCC’s General Secretary] was a very lame political organization. It did not have any credible women’s wing. It did not have a youth wing. It was not integrated into the struggles of the working people of Ghana and so on.”

Aside from that, Kwesi Pratt said the people of Ghana “chose their own heroes in properly conducted free and fair elections [in 1951]. Danquah never won an election… if he is such a great politician, a national liberator and so on, how come his people didn’t recognize that? So I am not the one saying it. His own people did not recognize him as such in his days.”

Aware and skeptical of the fact the governing New Patriotic Party toes the line of the Danquah tradition, Kwesi Pratt said he “wouldn’t be surprised if it [September 21] isn’t acknowledged as a holiday.”

He described the UGCC as a club of elitists and asserted that Nkrumah owed no debt to the UGCC for bringing him to Ghana and slammed such “arguments as infantile and uninformed,” adding that opposing Nkrumah’s legacy was as futile as “kicking against a rock with bare feet.”

Paul Adom-Otchere, whilst acknowledging Nkrumah’s mammoth legacy, maintained that Nkrumah as early as 1953, was already showing signs of relegating the other key people in the history of Ghana.

“Nobody can actually obliterate Nkrumah from history. We are making the point that Nkrumah began something in his address of the motion of destiny to exclude people who were key.”

This exclusion is believed to have evolved into the  CPP’s Nkrumah’s Preventive Detention Act (1958), which provided for detention without trial for up to 5 years (later extended to 10 years). On July 1, 1960, a new constitution was adopted, changing Ghana from a parliamentary system with a prime minister to a republican headed by a powerful president. In 1964, a constitutional referendum eventually changed the Ghana into a one-party state.

Nkrumah’s role in the UGCC

About Nkrumah being brought into the fold of the UGCC, Paul Adom-Otchere noted that the leadership of the party needed somebody to the work as a full timer because they were also occupied in the human rights work.

“There is no doubt about the fact that Nkrumah was a better orator that a lot of the UGCC people and that he was a better mass mobiliser given his history with the American civil rights movement.”

Kwesi Pratt viewed this point from Paul Adom-Otchere as self-indicting because it was ostensibly an admission that the UGCC leadership “considered other things more important than building the political party which was the main agitator for independence,”

In his view, the reason for the debate is because people are unhappy with the declaration of Nkrumah as the founder of the republic and he feels there is a desire to substitute Nkrumah with the Big Six.

As the debate concluded, Kwesi Pratt further argued that the legitimacy of the Big Six was compromised because, despite the Big Six being renowned for their arrests following the 1948 riots, the other five “denied involvement in the agitations that led to the rioting… it was only Nkrumah.”

This notwithstanding, for people with Paul Adom-Otchere’s sentiment, this debate “is a big issue because it has to do with the spirit of the country because we want to make the history of the country complete.”

Listen to the full debate below:

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By: Delali Adogla-Bessa/citifmonline.com/Ghana

The post Adom-Otchere clashes with Pratt over Ghana’s founding history appeared first on Citi 97.3 FM - Relevant Radio. Always.

She said unlike others who also played their part even before his father came into the scene, Dr, Kwame Nkrumah was the catalyst in the struggle and final attainment of independence.

President Nana Akufo-Addo’s speech on Independence Day, has sparked some debate over the perceived sidelining of other Ghanaians who contributed to the independence struggle.

[contextly_sidebar id=”QddLdVxynCYAx169F5lgbcVGsfVd4f19″]President Akufo-Addo’s speech was criticized by some, including the CPP, as being a skewed account of history to suit his father, Edward Akufo-Addo, and uncle, J.B Danquah who also played their roles on the road to independence.

Samia Nkrumah described the whole debate as “a huge distraction” in an interview on Point Blank on Eyewitness News, as she reminded that “Kwame Nkrumah himself said the independence struggle started before him.”

She however stressed that, her father definitely played the role of a catalyst, and would have given him more prominence had she been the one who gave the Independence Day speech.

“We agree that there were so many other people [in the independence struggle] but his role was significant. Nobody can take that away from him.”

“If I was giving that speech, I would have given Kwame Nkrumah more prominence. All the records show who the main catalyst was. Kwame Nkrumah had a vision… even though he came to collaborate with UGCC [United Gold Coast Convention], but we know from history he was going to come down anyway.”

“Kwame Nkrumah had a particular pan-African vision for our independence so he was bound to be the catalyst. So yes, thousands were instrumental, but he was the catalyst and let’s give him is due,” Samia Nkrumah asserted.

Nkrumah is the founder of modern day Ghana

She went a step further to state that, Kwame Nkrumah’s influence was even being felt today because, according to her, the governing New Patriotic Party (NPP), an offshoot of the main opposition to Nkrumah’s CPP, was riding on his vision.

Samia Nkrumah said “we can praise all the others, but this is a man who fashioned our whole nation building policy; free and compulsory education, the Akosombo dam, the industries… I am happy, that finally even the offshoot of the old opposition to Kwame Nkrumah is saying one district, one factory and one village one dam. That is what Kwame Nkrumah was planning.”

“The day we realise Kwame Nkrumah’s ideas are for now, is the day we will stop quarreling over Kwame Nkrumah,” she concluded.

Nkrumah was the best African leader – Mugabe

Zimbabwean President, Robert Mugabe, has described Ghana’s first President Dr. Kwame Nkrumah, as a true revolutionist who fought for the emancipation of Ghana and Africa.

The 93-year old President made the remark while addressing the media at a special gathering at a hotel in Accra on Tuesday.

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By: Delali Adogla-Bessa/citifmonline.com/Ghana

The post Nobody can take away Nkrumah’s significance from him – Samia appeared first on Citi 97.3 FM - Relevant Radio. Always.

It says the leadership’s dishonesty and corruption in recent times is gradually discrediting Nkrumahism.

In a statement issued on Tuesday, March 8, 2017 and copied to citifmonline.com, the group said the party leadership had become irrelevant in fighting against corruption and other social occurrence, the founder of the party, Dr Kwame Nkrumah stood against decades ago.

Read the full statement below:

THE SQUIRMS OF A TWO-FACED CPP LEADERSHIP

As avowed Nkrumahists, we find it necessary to expose the corrupt, dishonest leadership of the CPP whose actions discredit Nkrumahism using Nkrumah’s own party as a conduit.

It is obvious that the current leadership of the party has become irrelevant; when it came to fighting corruption, they run for cover and suspended those who stood against it.

But as soon as the convenient matter of Nkrumah’s role in our history is up, all of a sudden, they have a meeting of minds and are jumping from one radio station to another.

When it mattered most, when the former president was using Nkrumah’s voice, footages and the party’s slogans for political gain, what productive action did they take?

Real Nkrumahist know Nkrumah didn’t leave a legacy to be worshipped but rather ideas to be emulated.

The character of the current CPP leadership tells of misplaced priorities and a certain opportunism where they only rise up on issues that have nothing to do with the price of butter.

None can rewrite our country’s history, that is a subsidiary clarification that even a JHS graduate can make; It’s therefore pathetic to see them falling over themselves in mainstream media on the matter today; when justice has already been done to the issue by unconditional Nkrumahists on alternative media.

Were they to even suspect that systematic attempts are being made over the years to rewrite Nkrumah’s role in our history; we hold that the party’s most appropriate response must be a valiant effort to annex the running of this country and reassert the true economic goal of Nkrumah for Ghana; which has been illegally truncated. That will mean more to the Osagyefo’s memory than the leadership’s after-the-fact pity pies being eaten on air.

Again, we must reiterate the fact that real Nkrumahists know Nkrumah didn’t leave a legacy to be worshipped nor exploited at convenience, but rather ideals to be emulated.

They must be ashamed of their politics of convenience and get serious or get out for focused minds to occupy the Nkrumahist space.

Signed:

Ernesto Yeboah

Commander-in-Chief

Economic Fighters League

Commander Hardi Yakubu

Fighter General

Commander Jason Tutu

Communications & Students Command

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By: Jonas Nyabor/citifmonline.com/Ghana

The post Nkrumahist group accuse CPP leadership of hypocrisy appeared first on Citi 97.3 FM - Relevant Radio. Always.

But you see, like the Akan saying ‘If you fail to speak about your haircut; you will end up with a bad cut.’

I have come to a conclusion that a sizable number of Ghanaians, have come to accept just anything at all thrown at them by our self-centered and greedy politicians.

And it really breaks my heart to see that the very people who are being short-changed, are largely blind to their sad situation – and so even for the half loaves, they seem very content with it in the midst of plenty.

And this is why the Ghanaian politician is emboldened to continually give us the left-over after they have enriched their lives and that of their families and cronies. Then we behave like children excited after being given toffees in the kindergarten; and clap for them.

I just can’t imagine that after more than fifty years of independence with the abundant resources available to this country, I am supposed to heap praises on the government merely for building a flyover over a smelly open drain (Odaw River) to ease traffic congestion. Hell No!

I haven’t traveled beyond the borders of this country; but I have read and viewed; and so I know that per global standards, our flyover is not a magnificent architectural project.

And it cannot pass for a tourist attraction site merely because of a Fountain with Dr. Kwame Nkrumah’s statue and the lighting at night – Let’s stop making fun of ourselves in the eyes of expatriates in this country – it’s embarrassing; we are not in the stone age; and Ghana is not far away from the world to have different standards – we are in a global village.

Yes – this may be news for some Ghanaians because they’ve not had exposure to such things, but seriously, all that this project will do; is to make movement a little easier, and perhaps an insignificant impact on productivity.

But what is even more shocking, is that for the purposes of political convenience and party affiliations, even people who have traveled far and wide, and are supposed to be exposed and enlightened; are behaving just as the not-so-exposed people.

And the worst of it, is the dishonesty from the politicians themselves; who have excess exposure and a perfect picture of monumental projects globally; and yet put up simple things to enable them siphon some of the money – and shamefully turnaround to brag about them.

It is a good project just for the purpose it was made for; but it is not extraordinary; and it’s not a monumental achievement just like the Tetteh Quarshie Roundabout and the George Walker Bush Highway; which has taken human lives needlessly – because pedestrians’ safety wasn’t factored into that project.

We haven’t built our first ship, neither have we built a Helicopter or an Aeroplane – it is just a simple flyover which has been built with a loan that will be borne by the tax payer’s sweat. So what’s all this fanfare if not merely for the purposes of convincing voters? We may as well declare a holiday when we achieve any major achievement in science and technology.

Let’s stop the mediocrity; and demand for higher standards from our politicians else they will take us for fools forever. Like the Akan adage ‘If you never express your hurt; they will never stop hurting you.’

We haven’t been angry enough as a people; we must not just walk to the polls every four years; come back home, and fold our alms; whiles they do what they please.

Some say the politicians deserve commendation because after all, Rome wasn’t built in a day.

Well; that’s true, but at least, Rome was built every day till it got to its magnificent and monumental state. Yet, what do we do every day? We waste all the time we have to build siphoning the very resources that is building ‘our own Rome’.

How then do we finish building when the building materials get stolen along the way?

And again, even though Rome wasn’t built in a day, like the parable of the talent in the Bible, to whom much is given; much is expected.

The many model countries that we make references to today including Rome; do not have the significant amount of resources that we have had, and continue to have. And yet, they have progressed rapidly and better than us.

I don’t even want to talk about suggestions  that the project cost may have been bloated for the purposes of kickbacks and the likes. But inasmuch I do not have evidence on that, I know it’s a possibility in this our corruption riddled society.

Some of you Ghanaians can choose to settle for less, and allow the greedy and selfish politicians to find it convenient to take you for granted by allowing them to engage in such trivialities on election days, just to woo the ‘weaker minds’ as President John Dramani Mahama reportedly once said.

Yes – they are greedy and selfish; and that’s a fact. I have concluded, that the problem with leaders on this continent, is not the lack of knowledge or the even the will to implement the desired change – greed and self-centeredness is our bane.

But for me, I will not confuse the truth with the opinion of the majority. And like Mahatma Ghandi once said ‘Even if you are a minority of one, the truth is the truth.’

A friend on Facebook, who found the Interchange project praiseworthy and surprisingly described it as victory, asked me what in my view will constitute a transformational project, and this was my response; “I am waiting for the day I will be in dire need of health services and I can call an ambulance to pick me safely to the Hospital; I wait for the day I won’t have to queue in pain at the hospital to get care because of huge numbers and less doctors; I wait for the day this country will manage it resources well enough to pay unemployment benefits and cater for the vulnerable effectively; I wait for the day factories will be built to add value to our raw materials and give jobs to the jobless – and decisions will be taken against the high levels of importation; I wait for the day it won’t take me long hours to get a mere passport in my country or pay bribe to get it; I wait for the day monies will not be sunk in building roads that last for few months only for us to rebuild and waste money, the list goes on and on; I can’t settle for less in a land of plenty – I am not saying one gov’t can do all, but there must be serious commitment enough towards these things.”

We still have a long way to go in terms of infrastructure that should be equally scattered across our country; but the pace at which we are moving is extremely slow considering how old we are.

If the blatant and cruel siphoning stops, we can achieve more than enough and make our nation great and strong.
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By: Ebenezer Afanyi Dadzie/citifmonline.com/Ghana
[email protected]

The post Afanyi Dadzie writes: Half a loaf is not better amidst plenty bread appeared first on Citi 97.3 FM - Relevant Radio. Always.