Opinions of Monday, 3 August 2015

Columnist: Prof. Lungu

He Who Opens Can of Worms Before Time Kills Tree of Light! (v2.1)

He Who Opens "Can of Worms" Before Time Kills Tree of Light! (v2.1)


Nuclear-Bomb-Vietnam-Major-General-Ankrah and Ghana's First Losers ate their egg and expected to have it too!


“...Our aim is to establish in Ghana a strong and progressive society in which no one will have any anxiety about the basic means of life, about work, food and shelter; where poverty and illiteracy no longer exist and disease brought under control; and where our educational facilities provide all the children of Ghana with the best possible opportunities for the development of their potentialities...” (Dr. Kwame Nkrumah, Founder of Ghana).


From Protectorate Liberia, to Singapore, and Back to Africa/Ghana:

Lee Kwan Yew of Singapore achieved similar noble and human-centered aims for the people of Singapore in his lifetime as President of Singapore. Mr. Yew had a foreign policy perspective that was adjunct to US policy and interests. Singapore, after all, had just a Malaysia problem when it secured independence from Malaysia in 1959.

The Ghana Unitary position was secured at independence, in 1957, by Kwame Nkrumah!

Nkrumah, with that original progressive aim, but mindful that Ghana had the African Continental Quandary (ACQ), advanced a neutral, non-aligned position for Ghana in the 1960s. But the Western powers, among them the US, would not have none of that: They did not want to see Ghana associate, trade, or align with "The Block", (i.e. USSR, Poland, China).

Nkrumah foreign policy was pragmatic to a great degree. But the US and other Western powers proposed a binary condition - to the Western side of the "Cold War" divide. Or forfeit aid and "natural" economic markets for Ghana's resources, cocoa, in particular. As it turned out, the then-US and Western governments could use a Ghana that was more like Liberia in all respects: Aligned to the West; Powerless; Destitute; Primary Producer of Rubber; Informant on African Leaders; Lacking a Useful Liberian-Centered Agenda for Liberians.

Liberia, after its founding as an American protectorate in 1832 by freed American and West Indies slaves, declared its independence in 1847. Precisely 110 years later, in 1957, Liberia had achieved precious little for its peoples.

Ghana secured its independence from Great Britain in 1957. In 1958, Liberia and Ghana had practically the same Gross Domestic Product per capita (i.e., $1,200, normalized to 1990 dollars). But seven (7) years later in 1965, exactly one year before Nkrumah was overthrown with assistance from the United States), the GDP per capita for Ghana had increased by $200, to a little over $1,400, while Liberia's was at $1,300 (exactly 50% less).

What a difference 7 years under Nkrumah could do for the new Ghana Nation, even under economic aggression by "invisible hands of the market" !

You see, Ghana was making huge strides in development and governance even with the antagonistic international and trade environment, until the overthrow. Nkrumah was overthrown in 1969. The historical record shows that Liberia equalized the GDP per capita with Ghana at approx. $1,378, at the end of the year. Ghana was down further versus Liberia in 1967. In fact, in 1968, just two (2) years after the overthrow, Ghana's GDP had declined to $1,318 in comparison to Liberia ($1,390), $72.00 less.

The idea is, Nkrumah definitely did not want another Liberia in West Africa, in Ghana. With little experience, his government swiftly out-performed Liberia not only in economic productivity, but also in true African-centered independence, all in 7 short years.

Leadership at the top matters, always!


Rascals Played Trojan Game of Epic Proportions And Lost For Ghana:

The sad news for Ghana is this: the US, Britain, and France aided and abetted Nkrumah's overthrow at the hands of subversive Ghanaian soldiers, some of whom had actually trained in their countries. As the records show, in 1964, President Johnson had knowledge of Major General Ankrah and was asking officials around him whether Ankrah, still in the Ghana Army, was ready to take over the civilian Government of Ghana:

"...we may have a pro-Western coup in Ghana soon. Certain key military and police figures have been planning one for some time, and Ghana’s deteriorating economic condition may provide the spark. The plotters are keeping us briefed, and State thinks we’re more on the inside than the British. While we’re not directly involved (I’m told), we and other Western countries (including France) have been helping to set up the situation by ignoring Nkrumah’s pleas for economic aid....All in all, looks good...." (RWK- Robert W. Komer, Memorandum to McGeorge Bundy, May 27, 1965, www.en.wikipedia.org).

If anyone will believe RWK Robert Komer and entertain for a minute the idea that the US was "not not directly involved", we have Manhattan Island, New York, USA, for sale to them at the dirt cheap price of $80.00. (NOTE: Each dollar you pay represents about $1 million in American loans, aid, and grants the US gave to Ghana as of 1966, the year of the overthrow. For your reference, Ghana's GDP that year was about $ 2,126,861,000.00).

In July, 1965, Nkrumah "...dismissed Major General Ankrah as deputy chief of staff, holding him to be a security risk...".

Ankrah and his gang used, and were in turn used by rascals like Dr. Kofi Busia, and of course the Johnson administration to effect the coup d'état in 1966. The Kotoka-Ankrah military junta, Ghana's maiden dictatorship, attempted to project a semblance of freedom for Ghanaians. But it was all a farce as they started arresting and detaining Ghanaians. Consequently, without a Ghana-centered agenda, real power actually resided outside Ghana, by way of self-exiled traitors and puppet masters preserving Western interests. Several of the self-exiled traitors would return again!

But, we will not bore you further with our own description!

Rather, we will simply allow a Danquah-Busia cohort to tell us who those traitors were and the record they left behind after the overthrow of Nkrumah's popularly-elected government. This is in the person of none other than Dr. Kwame Okoampa-Ahoofe. Okoampa-Ahoofe characterizes the Danquah-Busia-Dumbo traitor gang as:

"...bona fide members of the Ghanaian military...(among them)...some rascal civilians...(who)...staunchly backed regressively Darwinian means of political access, including a world-renowned...former prime minister (Busia)...Busia...(who just months before Ghana's independence)...rode herd on a delegation to the British office in London, to petition the British Crown, and...colonial overlord, to desist from granting the already-scheduled return of Ghana to self-governance. Fortunately... Busia and his right-wing bourgeois reactionaries did not succeed. (Busia)...however, succeeded ten years later in backing the military junta that unseated the Nkrumah administration and facilitated the precipitous devolution of Ghanaian national destiny..." (Kwame Okoampa-Ahoofe, Jr (2004)," courtesy Atakora-Mensah, Ghanaweb, 2015-04-15 13:21:28)).

Today, in 2015, there are still "rascal... bourgeois reactionaries" who will attempt to misinform Ghanaians. They say that because leaders after Nkrumah have failed to achieve even 4% of what Mr. Yew achieved for Singapore, that it is the fault of Kwame Nkrumah. For them, time and progress were ossified in Nkrumah's Ghana, precisely on 24th February, 1966, by Kwame Nkrumah.

Hogwash, and Dr. Kwame Okoampa-Ahoofe, Jr. knows that!

Therefore, to hitch one's donkey to the wagon of those "rascal... bourgeois reactionaries" is to conflate the record of demonstrated courage and performance exhibited by Nkrumah and his CPP government with the failures of dictators and absented-minded politicians who assumed power when Nkrumah was overthrown. In fact, to the Nth degree, they all jettisoned Nkrumah's development plans for Ghana. As a result, they swiftly transformed Ghana into a
basket case, with no modicum of the African Soul and Personality Nkrumah inspired, nor the capability or capacity to manage Ghana's affairs, and the ability to actually write Ghana's own history, and eventual ticket.

In fact, one Phillip Kobina Baidoo, Jr. of London, a Danquah-Busia-Confederate apologist who claims to stand for 100% capitalism come hell or high water, when there is actually no country in the world of that nature that ever existed, told us recently that they purposefully "demonized" Nkrumah by ascribing all kinds of diabolical traits to Nkrumah in other to lure Ghanaians into supporting their traitorous actions, and to justify establishment of a military-police dictatorship in Ghana. They would go on to destroy government records and other assets as part of the plot to justify the foreign-backed usurpation of power.

Sources:
1. Erik Wemple. Bill O’Reilly’s Levittown denialism. 17 October, 2014,
https://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/erik-wemple/wp/2014/10/17/bill-oreillys-levittown-denialism/.

2. Francis Kwarteng. Maxwell Awuku, in "What Amiri Baraka Said About Kwame Nkrumah (Part 9)", ModernGhana, 12 March, 2014. http://www.modernghana.com/news/528828/1/what-amiri-baraka-said-about-kwame-nkrumah-part-9.html .

3. Wikipedia. National Liberation Council: Anglo-American involvement, in
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Liberation_Council.

4. Kwame Botwe-Asamoah, PhD. The Fallacy of Britain Leaving Huge Sums of Money for Kwame Nkrumah's Government" (www.GhanaHero.Com/Vision. See under Kwame Botwe-Asamoah, PhD. says....). Get final article with graphics and comments, at: http://www.ghanahero.com/Visions/Nkrumah_Legacy_Project/Botwe_Asamoah/The_Fallacy_of_British_Leaving_Huge_Sums_of_Money_v2.pdf. (See also Ghanaweb, Feature Article of Friday, 3 July).

5. Henri Vallin. Nkrumah’s Downfall, International Socialist Review, Vol.27 No.3, Summer 1966, pp.115-120.

NOTE: This is a 2-part essay. As always, readers can get the final paper (in PDF) with graphics, charts, and hyperlinks at www.GhanaHero.Com/Visions. See under "Prof Lungu Says... .


©Prof Lungu is Ghana-centered/Ghana-Proud.
We are more than talk. We are data-driven!
Prof Lungu is based in Washington DC, USA.
He Who Opens "Can of Worms" Before Time Kills Tree of Light! (v2.1)