Opinions of Friday, 20 November 2020

Columnist: Professor N. Lungu

Samuel Adjei Sarfo crass 'Nkrumah, Rawlings and Hitler' essay

The late Dr.Kwame Nkrumah The late Dr.Kwame Nkrumah

In Remembrance and Celebration of Kwame Nkrumah's Exemplary Performance on Behalf of Unitary Ghana During 1951 - 24th February, 1966

“…A lawyer like Samuel Adjei Sarfo… who cannot maintain straight facts…who switches his life-long position on important matters of public record is no good or effective lawyer… Sarfo has not always believed all that he wrote…We reproduce below…what…Samuel Adjei Sarfo, the lawyer…wrote about Dr. Kwame Nkrumah…back in 2007… Sarfo’s essay is beneath a US-trained lawyer… It does not make sense…Dr. Kwame Nkrumah never killed anyone, or orderd anyone to kill anyone…” (Prof Lungu, 18 November, 2020).

Dr. Kwame Nkrumah, the Founding Father of the Ghana Nation was a moral force for good, patriotism, African-centeredness, and respect for all human kind in the mind and soul of Attorney Samuel Adjei Sarfo, until Dr. Nkrumah was not, in Samuel Adjei Sarfo’s now confused mind and soul. In an essay on these same pages titled, “Nkrumah, Rawlings and Hitler: A triage of crass dictators”, Sarfo made many claims bothering on delusion that we will not waste our time recalling in this response.

This response will not discuss aspects of the case with respect to the late Jerry John Rawlings who just passed this month, a victim of COVID-19. We wish his family well and send our sincerest condolence to them.

Among a litany of complaints, our Attorney Samuel Adjei Sarfo said of Dr. Kwame Nkrumah:

“…Nkrumah…had no record of any achievements in his life...He acceded to the office of president without knowledge of what independence or freedom and justice meant...dictator() with viciously flawed character()...had little to no education and...failed all his exams...".

Plainly, we can see that “Dr” Samuel Adjei Sarfo is unstrapped from reality.

Our lawyer is untethered from our common understanding of even simple English words, and from grade school world history to boot, by his comparison of Dr. Kwame Nkrumah to Adolf Hitler in his incoherent and illogical essay.

Check out what “triage” has to do with that pathetic and sorry essay!

We suspect he intended “troika”, or “triad”, or similar such word.

It does not make sense!

Actually, if we must be frank, Sarfo’s essay is beneath a US-trained lawyer.

It is especially so for an attorney trained at the Thurgood Marshall School of Law, Texas Southern University (TSU), Houston, Texas, one of the best known Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCU) that now count US Vice President-Elect Kamara Harris as one of its global and national alma mata, and a distinguished lawyer and politician, to boot.

Attorney Samuel Adjei Sarfo is not such, and probably never will be. After all, the last we heard it reported, he’d been suspended from practicing law in Austin, Texas.

This is the same lawyer who told us several years ago he drove around Travis County and the Austin Metropolitan Area for hours and hours looking for a vehicle he claimed was stolen only to be mugged and robbed by a couple of female prostitutes when all this lawyer had to do was call his insurance company, file a grade-school police report, and have others who he’d already paid taxes, fees, and insurance premiums, work at his behest.

Dr. Kwame Nkrumah never killed anyone, or order anyone to kill anyone during the years he led Ghana, whether in prison or out of prison that he did not invent.

A lawyer such as Samuel Adjei Sarfo who cannot maintain straight facts and one who switches his life-long position on important matters of public record is no good or effective lawyer. Same lawyer is not an authoritative character reference, nor can he be a good witness on this matter, if we must be gentle with him just one more time.

There is always the record and the reckoning, we must remind our lawyer.

To the point, the reader ought to know that Attorney Samuel Adjei Sarfo has not always believed all that he wrote about Dr. Kwame Nkrumah the other day himself, even as an adult.

We reproduce below, in part, what “Dr.” Samuel Adjei Sarfo, the lawyer, we imagine he still is, wrote about Dr. Kwame Nkrumah when he was his reflective self, back in 2007:

"....Biological sciences affirm the notion that all humankind are equal, and that exposure to knowledge and culture accounts for why some are more inclined than others to achieve greatness, power and wealth...Therefore the defining variable in mental development is “opportunity” which establishes the most legitimate intellectual differentials in the cognitive abilities of groups and individuals.../

\...It is in the context of all this knowledge that Ghana’s first president, soon after independence, deemed it fit and proper to concentrate on the formal school system to boost the African personality and to merge the tribes under one great banner of nationhood . Dr. Kwame Nkrumah’s vision for Ghana was the elevation of the confidence of the African and the unity of the nation and her people.

\...This vision extended beyond Ghana’s borders to include the whole of Africa.

\...What Nkrumah conceived of nationhood made philosophical sense because without knowledge and unity, no country can claim nationhood. If ignorance makes people show greater allegiances to tribes at the expense of the nation, then the survival of the nation is under serious threat.

\...For a country to be a nation, her people will have to subsume ethnicity under the aegis of the national interest. The present conflicts amongst the tribes, though so far verbal, is a testimony that our country comprises nations within the state. In effect, we of this generation have repudiated the concept of nationhood with our ethnic animosity and undermined the very tenets under which the nation was founded..." (6 February 2007, Ghanaweb, Samuel Adjei Sarfo, J.D., AKA, Dr. SAS, Attorney at Law).


In closing, we will note that it was the Danquah/Busia/United Party/NPP party’s own Mr. Victor Owusu, who, with all his flaws, after the overthrow of Kwame Nkrumah, said in London, on BBC Radio, that it was Dr. Kwame Nkrumah who was solely responsible for that Unitary-Ghana principle that still survives, today.


We will rest here in order not to waste your/our precious time and suffer your serenity with that crass Sarfo essay. Our sense is, a reproduction of the 2007 record of Samuel Adjei Sarfo for new readers settles the matter for good, especially with respect to lawyer whose word ought to be consistent, logical, historically bounded, especially when dealing with matters in the public domain.

This is all we will say about the matter.

We thank you for your time.

So it goes, Ghana!