KB Asante pushes for constitutional dictatorship

Former Diplomat K B Asante says if constitutional dictatorship is what will transform Ghana, then “let’s have it”.

In his view, there was nothing wrong with having one president govern for a long time if that is what it will take a country to leap forward. “I’m not saying that you needed one strong president for a long time but if that’s what we need, let’s have it,” he said.

He told XYZ Breakfast Show most Moro Awudu on Monday that countries like Malaysia and India have gone far ahead of Africa because they had strong leadership either under a one-party state or a dictator.

The 90-year-old former Secretary who worked closely with Ghana’s first President, Dr Kwame Nkrumah, made the comment in response to financial analyst Sydney Casely-Hayford’s celebration of Nkrumah’s overthrow in 1966.

At an economic forum last week Thursday, Mr Casely-Hayford said: “The Nkrumah overthrow was a good thing because we had a constitutional dictatorship.”

According to him, Nkrumah had “amended the Constitution in such a way that he was the only person who could ever become president.”

“We can’t have that,” he said, and added: “Something had to give and he had to go some way; one way or the other.”

Nkrumah was the Gold Coast’s first Prime Minister and also became the first President of Ghana after the Gold Coast gained independence in 1957.

On February 24, 1966, while Nkrumah was on a state visit to Hanoi, Vietnam, his government was overthrown in a military coup led by General Emmanuel Kwasi Kotoka and the National Liberation Council. Declassified intelligence showed the CIA had a hand in his overthrow.