Nkrumah's One-Party System

"Your country Ghana is free forever "

The world at large and Ghana have been inundated with these spirited words by Kwame Nkrumah, first spoken at the Old Polo grounds in Accra , the capital, on the eve of the declaration of independence of Ghana some fifty years ago.

Since that fateful night, a lot has gone down in our beloved country. I was fortunate enough to have listened to a recording of that whole speech given that jubilant day and I was struck by something that our leader, Kwame Nkrumah, said that underscored his vision, style and approach to governance of our newly liberated country.

He announced to the cheering gathering, and the whole world, that the speed with which the black man would develop, both politically and economically, would astonish our colonial masters. That statement drew thunderous roar from the crowd. The sad truth is that he really meant it because it served as a major characteristic of his rule thereafter.

Kwame Nkrumah delivered our young nation from the womb of the Gold Coast and immediately enlisted it in a marathon race of development.

He completely underestimated the immaturity of our young country so although some significant strides were made under his rule, our nation couldn't make the distance and we all collapsed under the weight of inefficiencies, corruption, and ridiculous and costly economic, political, and social policies.

The unfair comparison is usually struck when reasonable blame is assigned to his administration's conduct of our national affairs. His admirers claim his record of achievements ranks second to none. What usually escapes such oddity is the fact that Nkrumah drained our national treasury to the point of bankruptcy, leaving nothing for those who came after him to work with.

His blind ambition to unite Africa in his lifetime was one of the nemeses of his tenure. I'm hesitant to accept that the enthusiastic mandate Ghanaians gave Nkrumah anticipated that he'll divert our scant resources in championing the liberation of Africa .

No one should get me wrong because I do believe that the salvation of black people lie in the total liberation of Africa . However, as Kwame Nkrumah was consumed by this endeavor, four of the eight independent states in Africa were headed by monarchs, one was a declared empire at the horn of the continent, another was a leader of the Arab League, and a sister West -African state was led by a leader who showcased the so-called repatriated slaves from the New World to Africa.

All these seven leaders had no iota of an interest in surrendering their respective sovereignties into the formulation of a nucleic continental government as Nkrumah had hoped. If he was such a visionary and an insightful leader, as his admirers would have him portrayed, he should have detected such reluctance and infeasibility of a rather laudable goal. But his drive to outdo our colonial masters, as he predicted on the eve of our independence, discounted any commonsense needed to refrain from concentrating so much on the liberation of Africa whilst surrendering the day-to-day administration of our young nation in the hands of those gaping sycophants who blindly helped sustained his political base at home for their own selfish ends.

Maybe after fifty years, criticizing Nkrumah could be chalked up as being overbearing, but the template he wrote is still being used today to govern Ghana; hence, the blunders and missed opportunities of the past have been repeated often and frequently in the administration of our country. So it's necessary to take a hard look after fifty years of self rule, to dissect our history, and ascertain the commonalities of misplaced priorities that seem to define and elucidate the follies of our past style of governance.

One gentleman by the name of Nii Ardey Otoo, recently wrote in the Pambazuka newsletter online to offer his glorifications of Nkrumah's adoption of a one-party system for Ghana . Reading that article cost me a few points in the elevation of my blood pressure.

He seems to be reaching into the grab bag of shopworn reasons, i.e. colonialism, neocolonialism, imperialism, et al., to reject the inexcusable imposition of a system that justified Nkrumah's attempt to run Ghana for life.

The only reason Nkrumah adopted a one-party rule in Ghana is not because the country is divisive - far from it. The truth is it afforded him the opportunity to become General Secretary of his party, that he formed with the so-called "veranda boys" for life. And we all know in the Communist Party parlance, the General Secretary of the Party is always the Head of State. Who are we kidding here? Nkrumah laid down a process that ensured his rule for life just like Castro, Mugabe, Museveni and all those tyrants of the world.

Otoo's logic that Nkrumah always won overwhelming majorities in the few elections he held and therefore it was justifiable to impose a one-party system in Ghana at that time is not only laughable but utter ridiculous and outrageous.

Otoo would be hard pressed to cite one tyrannical, underdeveloped and besieged country in the world today where free, fair and transparent elections are held. What usually prevails in such deprived countries is that fellow citizens who conduct these elections sell their consciences and birthright, thus giving way to their own exploitations by their fellow countrymen who are in power.

I need to pause and pay a well-deserved, but overdue, respect and admiration to two great sons of Ghana who have been drowned by a nation that indulges in iconic worshipping of our leaders to our own detriment. I'm referring to the late Honorable Archie Casley Hayford and P.K.K. Quaidoo. Anybody remember these stewards of gallantry - great souls with spines of iron in our country's history? I bet many Ghanaians born after 1960 have no clue as to who these giants of courage and incorruptible repute were.

They were elected members of parliament of the C.P.P., Nkrumah's party long before he imposed the infamous one-party governance on Ghana , changed our National Flag to that of his party, and put his effigy on our currency.

They sensed, and rightly so, the slippery slope Nkrumah was gliding us on and warned all Ghanaians to find a way to stop him before he drove our young nation into ruins. At this period in our country, their gallant act in parliament was a sure gamble of their family's safety and their own to undertake such a dangerous but courageous act.

They took the uncanny step of resigning their seats in parliament and were never heard of again. Not even the celebration of our jubilee brought out the memory of these great souls of Ghana who stood up to Kwame Nkrumah and by whose example, if pursued by forward-looking Ghanaians, would have rewritten our destiny way before outside forces had to do it for us.

The lonely voices of Archie Casley Hayford and P.K.K. Quaidoo in the political wilderness of our country need to be echoed by all of us in an attempt to hold the collective feet of our representatives to our national fire of accountability and honorable servitude in the coming years. We as a people have displayed such an annoying apathy towards the political participation of our country that our representatives who are supposed to be custodians of our affairs take us all for granted. If we hope for a better governance, pursue happiness, and attain freedom and unbridle liberties, then it ought to be our national obsession to emulate our herein aforementioned gallant fellow countrymen of blessed memory.

Our nation should, without delay, erect monuments in honor of these men that would spark curiosity and strengthen our national resolve to respectfully question and offer viable alternatives to the resolution of the myriad problems facing our beloved country.

It baffles me that a small nation like ours with less than twenty-three million citizens would have two hundred and thirty representatives. We have so many ministries, some with as many as three deputies. Such redundancies are nothing but pay-offs to party functionaries - practices that are endemic in our long political history.

Our government is too large and the cost of maintaining the same is prohibitive. The resources expended to appease party functionaries could be diverted to attend to the common good. We the people must endeavor to hold our representatives to the promises they made for us to give them our votes. Our individual responsibilities to ourselves and our motherland do not end after we vote.

As a matter of fact it's the beginning of our civic responsibility to watch, like hawks, that which we've enumerated for our representative to do for us. We must also strive not to depend too much on government to do that which we can do for ourselves. It is this hopeless dependence on the custodians of our affairs that puts us in perpetual bondage

Link to allAfrica.com: Ghana: Nkrumah's One-Party System (Page 1 of 2)