Opinions of Monday, 21 March 2011

Columnist: Agyapong, Kofi

RE: The older generation has been Ghana’s down-fall

I greatly appreciate the fears that engulfed the "Emperor" as he was growing up. Without a real father and a real mother is a curse that can befall any human being unless you come from real matriarchal society where all children of sisters are treated as one and the children of sisters are taken care by their uncle.

This does not exist any more in Ghana since Christianity and Islam teach family as man and wife and their children which is opposite to our African extended family system.

If you had lived in the 1940s and 1950s, as I did, having been born in 1939, you could easily conclude why we destroyed Ghana. BAD POLITICS which consumed 750 million dollars from 1957 to 1966, the equivalent of 750 trillion dollars in today's monetary systems 2011. What happened to the 750 million pounds the British left in Ghana? Why nobody talks about it. What happened to the Swiss money Blair tried to repatriate? Where did Nkrumah got money to give to Guinea - ten million pounds and Mali five million pounds? Do you know from where did Nkrumah got money to build the industries you dream about? All the money came from the 750 million pounds the British left to Ghana. 750 million pounds will be equal to 750 trillion dollars in present money. Ghana was the richest country in the world in 1957. Arthur Lewis, an economist from the Caribbean advised Nkrumah to concentrate on Agriculture because Ghana at that time did not even have elementary schools, how much more secondary schools and technical schools and not a single university.

Just this month a World Bank advisor said Ghana is miseducating its young people and he was right. We have very little technical schools to steer our young people toward building industries. Can you see now how Kwmae GOOFED to your suffering?. First Leader had a responsibility far beyond him, but Kwame did not heed to advise.

Nkrumah over ruled Lewis and got involved with the Soviet Union rapid industrial development by becoming communist and socialist. This is the greatest blunder of the so called older generation. Our first leader got it all wrong and now we are suffering. To develop Ghana rapidly, he proclaimed Ghana one party state, build maximum prison at Nsawam and arrested all the opposition members UNDER PREVENTIVE DETENTION ACT, and you are telling me Nkrumah is a hero in Ghana? He, in my mind and my age at 71 years old, can conclude that it was the CPP that STARTED GHANS on the road to destroy Ghana. From that time on. FEAR set in Ghana for "God has not given us the spirit of fear, but of love and of power and of sound mind".

Our sound minds were disturbed and we are what you see today. By the time the coup came in 1966, all the 750 million pounds were gone and when Nkrumah wanted to go to Hanoi, there was no money. WHO THEREFORE FAILED YOU?. Nkrumah destroyed Ghana to build Africa and he failed in both for we have no Africa Unity which is the only way to build Ghana, and Ghana has lost all.

The great men and women including me in Ghana from 1966 to 1992. did not have the chance J.J. Rawllings has given us under multi party system and freedom which you are enjoying today. Thanks to Clinton's visit; for J.J. like his body, Cadhafi, had no intention to relinquish power to the people through a constitutional governance.

Kofi Agyapong