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On the Memorial Day of the brutal dictator known as Francis Kwame Kofi Kwabena Nwia Ngoloma Nkrumah, we Ghanaians must re-commit ourselves to the true legacy of democracy that the Danquah-Busia-Dombo tradition fought so hard to bequeath to our great nation. Ghana. . In fact, these ancestors shed crimson blood and endured great tribulations and humiliations so that we can live in true freedom, dignity, democracy, and independence.
Because Ghana’s independence under Nkrumah was a complete sham that only allowed the masked man to assume unlimited power to imprison without trial, abolish all opposition, declare a one-party state, remove the Chief Justice, and declare himself President for life. Under these dire conditions, the pertinent question to ask is: “What exactly was the meaning of the word ‘independence’ or ‘freedom’ that Ghana is claimed to have obtained on March 6, 1957?” Or “What do we mean by the nickname” founder and father of the nation “given to this wicked individual who imposed a nightmarish regime on the country?”
When we ponder these questions, we must not forget that Dr. Kofi Abrefa Busia’s brief regime was truncated on January 13, 1972 by a young pioneer named Ignatius Kutu Acheampong, who was executed by another young pioneer named JJ Rawlings. This last person twice disrupted our constitutional government through unnecessary coups and still dominates the evil ideology of an air-headed party that seeks to rule our beloved country. You must always watch him carefully because he is a declared enemy of all democracy!
The point of all of the above is that the ill-advised invitation of the Nkrumah UGCC from its self-imposed exile to participate in the struggle for our independence resulted in a concatenation of treacherous usurpations and fraudulent revolutions whose far-reaching ramifications will coexist with us for another generation. Nkrumah himself was a fraudulent con artist, having concocted an evil plan to impersonate the true leaders of the nation from the start; and having succeeded in imposing a false independence and freedom whose real meaning intelligent analysts will always find confusing.
But this impostor’s most heinous legacy is his ability to have burned the conscience of his then-young followers so that they see nothing bad, hear nothing bad, and say nothing bad about him. Therefore, when this remnant of fools yells “Nkrumah never dies,” alert critics of this great suitor and impostor must interpret it as an attempt at union to abolish our hard-won freedoms: take away our franchise, mortgage our sovereignty, abolish our speech, put us in jail without trial and impose on us a one-party dictatorship. But if these wayward young pioneers intend to renounce these dangerous legacies of their puppeteer, they must say so; they must tell us about their different agenda for the nation or else be perpetually associated with their evil machinations …….
And if we are tempted to become sleepwalking victims of the great fraud perpetrated on us since time immemorial, let’s remember JB Danquah, the man who was imprisoned by the evil genius more than fifty years ago. Your letter, recently published in newspapers around the world, should put an end to any self-fulfilling doubts about this dangerous man that some people mistakenly appreciate and adore. Dr. Joseph Boakye Danquah spent thirteen months in Nsawam Prison under the Preventive Detention Act (PDA) before his tragic death in a six by nine foot prison cell.
Below is the letter he wrote to Dr. Nkrumah courtesy of the Danquah Institute:
His Excellency, Osagyefo Dr. Kwame Nkrumah, PC, LL.D., etc.,
President of the Republic of Ghana, Flagstaff House, Accra.
Dear Dr. Nkrumah,
I am tired of being in pretrial detention without the opportunity to make an original or any contribution to the progress and development of the country, so I am writing to you respectfully to beg you and ask you to make an order for my release and return. home.
I am eager to resume my contribution to Ghana’s progress and development in the field of Ghanaian literature (Twi and English) and Ghana Research (history and culture), and I am also eager to establish my wife and children in a home. , develop the education of my children (ten of them) and restore my parental home in Kibi (Yiadom House) to a respectable dignity, worthy of my late father’s contribution to the progress of our country.
You will recall that when in 1948 we were arrested by the British government and sent north to arrest us, they treated us like gentlemen, not kitchen slaves, and provided each of us with a furnished bungalow (two or three rooms) with a garden. along with the opportunity to read and write. In fact, I took my typewriter and papers for that purpose, and Ako Adjei did the same, too, and there were plenty of opportunities for correspondence.
Here in Nsawam, for the four months of my detention to date (January 8 to May 9, 1964), I have not been allowed access to my books and documents except the Bible, and although I was told in January that my request to write to my wife, Ms. Elizabeth Danquah, might be considered if I addressed a letter to the Home Secretary, through the Director of Prisons, I have not, for over three months, since I wrote to the Minister as stated in the On January 31, 1964, I received some response, not even a common acknowledgment from the Minister as to whether I should be allowed to write to my wife or not. As I did not have the opportunity to make any financial provision for my wife and children at the time of my arrest, this delay in the Minister’s response has prevented me from contributing to the progress and maintenance of my wife and also to the education of my children as is my duty to the nation.
Second, you will recall that barely a month after our arrest in the north in 1948 we were taken to Accra and released to appear before a commission of inquiry created to investigate the fairness or otherwise of our arrest and detention. We duly appeared before the Watson Commission and made history for the Gold Coast and Ghana. It resulted in the conclusion that Burns’ Constitution was out of date at birth, with a recommendation that our country should achieve its independence within ten years, and that a Constitutional Committee (the Coussey Committee) should be established to lay the foundations for such independence. . and the steps to follow to achieve it.
In the case at hand, since I was detained four months ago, I have not been asked to appear before any Judge, Commission or Commission and, until now, everything I have been told is contained on a sheet of paper entitled “Reasons detention “in which I am accused that” in recent months “I have actively participated in a plan” to overthrow the Government of Ghana by illegal means “and that I have thereby planned” to endanger the security of the State “( Police and Armed Forces).
As no details of any kind were provided in the reasons for the arrest to indicate how the government of Ghana came to bring such a shameful charge against me, I spent most of January and February 1964 in prison here to write a review. of the situation. all my activities in “the last months” (approximately, since June 1962 [last release from detention] to January 1964). This writing was made through “Representations” in response to the charge …
I confidently assure you, sir, that when my representations come to you, you will realize that my contribution in the aforementioned period of the “last months” to the intellectual and cultural achievement of the country was such that what should have been sent to me on January 1964 was not a hostile invasion of my home and family, as enemy territory, along with my arrest and detention, but rather a delegation of Ghanaian civil servants and other dignitaries to offer me the nation’s congratulations and appreciation from government…
However, this was not to be the case, and I find myself locked in Nsawam Prison in a cell approximately six by nine feet, without a writing or reading desk, without a dining table, without a bed, chair or any form of seating, and forced to eat my food squatting on the same floor where two blankets and a blanket are spread out for me on the hard cement to sleep on, and where a latrine (urinal) with no cupboard, and a jug of water and a cup without a locker, they are all gathered in that narrow space for my use as a kitchen slave …
I must sleep or lie flat on the blankets and a small pillow 24 hours a day and night, except for a short period of about five minutes in the morning to empty and wash the latrine tray, and about ten to fifteen minutes at noon to bathe. Every now and then I am allowed to do a short exercise in the sun, say, once a week for about half an hour. That is all that I have been committed to in four months with my talents such as those I possess, wasting myself and my health being undermined and my life in danger from various diseases without being allowed to be taken to the Penitentiary Hospital for continuous observation and treatment . ..
Now I am staying in a cell in the special block of the Nsawam prison reserved for “dangerous criminals” and thus effectively prevented from making an original contribution to the intellectual and cultural progress of our country …
I finish as I started. I’m tired of being kept in prison kicking my heels and doing nothing worthwhile for the country of my birth and love, and for the great continent of Africa, which was the first to give the whole world a real taste of civilization … I am confident that you will accept this call for my release from detention in the spirit of utmost trust and cordiality in which it is written, and I look forward to my speedy release from prison with the greatest possible faith, expectation and confidence.
Believe me to be
Yours very sincerely and respectfully,
JB Danquah
We will never forget the disturbing background to this letter: the fact that the colonial government treated its native opponents far better than Nkrumah treated its benefactors and opponents of the last days; the fact that those who opposed Nkrumah were cruelly imprisoned and mistreated without trial; the fact that the ideological giants who overcame Nkrumah’s miserable life were consumed in prison; the fact that Nkrumah did not learn anything about democracy, freedom and independence despite his long stay and education in the United States and the United Kingdom.
In the above circumstances, the greatest tribute we can pay to the ancestors who fought so hard and sacrificed their lives so that we can live in true freedom and independence is to abolish all forms of Memorial Days, institutional recognitions, and vestiges of tyranny and dictatorship. that The misrule of Nkrumah has spawned our great nation, and to take a terrible oath, that never again will the people of Ghana allow people like Nkrumah, his evil ideology, his party, heirs and assigns and progeny to become leaders of this great country of ours. We must be prepared to shed our own blood to consign the ideas of the great imposter and con artist to perpetual oblivion, so that our great democracy may prosper and that the sovereignty of our people truly reside in the people. We must abolish all celebrations of all these charlatans, masked men, young pioneers and foolish Nkrumaists who are willing to abolish our freedoms while binding us in the chains of tyranny.
The government must not be timid or negligent in reversing the great tragedy and catastrophe that gripped this country when this evil genius arrived to join those who are working hard to achieve the country’s independence. His name must be expunged from the historical record!
Samuel Adjei Sarfo is a Doctor of Laws, Lawyer and Law Advisor, Professor of Knowledge, Certified High School English Educator, Researcher and Scholar. He can be contacted at [email protected]
