There are kingmakers and they are not kings; why we do celebrate Nkrumah

E. Ablorh-Odjidja, Ghana dot

September 20, 2009

What we forget about Ghana we may remember in some of the original acts of the now so-called “Big Six,” But what we forget about a United Africa, we will only remember in the work and vision of one man: Kwame Nkrumah.

The above statement is simple, but it still makes Nkrumah an exceptional, incomparable leader, especially in the context of Ghana, Africa, and what is happening now.

Celebrating a Founder’s Day for Kwame Nkrumah doesn’t mean we hold J. B. Danquah and the rest of the “Big Six” in derogatory esteem. We do consider them as great men in Ghana, except they had narrow outreach in vision and were men for whom destiny bypassed the founding of the new nation that became Ghana.

At the same time, we do note that in the scheme of things, there are roles for kingmakers, just as there are for kings in a country like ours. Thus, we must accept the rest of the “Big Six,” Nkrumah exempted, as kingmakers.

That these men brought Nkrumah to Ghana is the best visionary statement we can make about them. It is through their action that the history we celebrate today was enabled. But it doesn’t necessarily follow that they should, by this act alone, be made the “Founders” of Ghana because they didn’t.

The founding of Ghana in its current geographic form is a deliberate political act. But this relationship between what was and what was founded is being purposefully blurred today because of opposition to Nkrumah’s legacy.

Consequently, our history is being toyed with.  Yet, there is some reluctance on our part to ask some salient questions about the founding.

The rest of the “Big Six” were already in the Gold Coast (Ghana) before Nkrumah’s arrival.  And he arrived by their collective invitation for Nkrumah to come back home from Britain to take over the Secretary Generalship of the UGCC in 1947. It was then that the national movement for the liberation of the country started.

What was the ability that these men of the “Big Six” found in Nkrumah that they could not discover within their ranks before the invitation for the latter to take over the Secretary Generalship of the UGCC?

In hindsight, we know they wanted something done, namely for the Gold Coast to win its independence. And they needed help in that direction. The job at hand was to drive the British out. They wanted a candidate with the attributes and skillset for the job: the intelligence, the organizational skill, and political know-how to stir up the masses for the attainment of this goal.

They got the man to do the job.  And in this regard, the men of the “Big Six” (Ako Adjei for that matter) were very correct with their choice.  For, regardless of who and what they were at that time, they recognized their limitations. They were not cut for the job.  This recognition has already been proven, honored, and accepted as a statement of public spiritedness.

That largeness of public spirit they offered was a credible point to be proud of.  But it will be also fair to note that it wasn’t the UGCC political platform they provided that Nkrumah stood on to attain independence for the country. He had to create a more vibrant political party, the CPP, with the appropriate and adequate ideology to get the job done.

Nkrumah brought awareness, excitement, and a strong sense of nationhood and Black pride for the job to be done.  He brought color and a biting edge to the struggle in a manner that was far removed from the staid style of his former patrons of the UGCC. 

That said, there is still some praise to be made for the men of 1947 and their public spiritedness.  Compared to the political leaders of today, the current CPP included, the men of the “Big Six,” would fare better.

He did all the above alone and after he was out of the UGCC. The other men became the UGCC and remained in opposition to Nkrumah and his aims.

The words “Founders” or “Founder” have been turned into opposites in a battle of wills by men of later generations. It is divisive. In the end, it will diminish the foresightedness, the poignancy, and the public-spiritedness of the very people some wish today to label as "Founders."

Certainly, we must have a pantheon of our heroes. There must be room for the Danquahs, the Ako-Adjeis, and others. But not necessarily to crowd all of them at the top. That level must be reserved for Nkrumah because the rest must be made “kingmakers” but mostly because he did something extra, the something extra being what the rest couldn’t or didn’t have the opportunity to do.  In this regard, Nkrumah is the only “Founder.”

In accepting the rest o the “Big Six” as “kingmakers,” the recognition must also come with the reality that they had serious differences with Nkrumah. It was Nkrumah who won the day.

But those differences should not be made light of.  Stacking all of them at the same podium dismisses the seriousness of the differences and the actions or consequences that resulted.  And this, in turn, diminishes the award given to the “Founder”.

With, Nkrumah, at the top, it should then be easy to rank the rest below as “kingmakers.”  In our traditional cultural settings, this is not a lowly position.  It is a place reserved for the most honorable.  Then, it will be time to rejoice, either silently or openly, and to take pride in the knowledge that this one great patriot who was Nkrumah was able to stand on the shoulders of the rest ‘Big Six” to reach the top.

Whether the capacity to accept Nkrumah as the “Founder” existed among the “Big Six” or not is a conjecture that we, as citizens of Ghana, still involved in the process of nation-building, cannot tackle. But fighting among ourselves as to how this position should be allotted and stubbornly demanding they should be lumped together as “Founders,” because of some partisan progeny is tantamount to being small-minded.

But I will make this claim for the heroes of the past.  That if they were truly deserving of the hero worship that we want for them today, they would graciously accept the “kingmaker” role we reserve for them now.

They would not have collectively welcomed the 1966 coup and the extreme violence that befell our recent history.

They would not have appreciated the unplugging of our liberties by military regimes and the neglect in the continuance of infrastructure building for the good of the country.

In unison on the advent of the 1966 coup, they as real leaders of a country that was being strangled at the behest of the CIA would have cried out asking, is this our beloved country?

But note, our heroes of the past are dead and therefore not the proponents of the problems associated with the drive for "Founders." Our half-baked politicians of today are. They are the ones that have grown partisan and limited in vision to make this story one of a difference.

They have promoted the idea of “Founders,” as an all-inclusive term. In reality, the wish is to diminish Nkrumah’s historic achievements. Nkrumah has been out since 1966. But we have yet to match his monumental achievements under any subsequent leader.

Try as much as we may want to diminish Nkrumah, we have only managed most of the time to compound our problems. Even the mistakes that some claim he made, we have managed to multiply them tenfold over the course of the many administrations after him.

For instance, after 1966, the much-detested Preventive Detention Act (PDA) did not die.

The Nsawam prison became home to a population of three times more political prisoners than there were under Nkrumah.

The tradition of targeting political enemies that Nkrumah was accused of is still carried on. Note that former President Kufuor was also in prison at Nsawam some years after Nkrumah was gone, as were others in the 70s and 80s. And many innocents were slaughtered by military regimes such as under Rawlings’.

But again, these are the lessons of history. We must react to them by carrying on with the positives, as presumably, we did under President Kufuor when tolerance for civil discourse and dissent were appreciated as attributes of democratic governance.

In part, many of the mistakes in our governance arise because we refuse to accommodate our political differences.

And continuing with the arguments over "Founder" and "Founders," will increase the chasm between us. It is time we noted that we have already grounded ourselves in public acrimony that will last for a long time to come.  Eventually, the hostile attitudes generated by the subject will ground the initial selflessness of those we now have included the “Founders,” if indeed there was such a thing.

And what a poor way that will be in our attempt to serve the next generation!

Abraham Lincoln, the 16th President of the United States of America, from 1861 to 1865, like Nkrumah in the Gold Coast, had previously bitter rivals.  They came together as key members of his cabinet as a “team of rivals.”  And, they helped give Lincoln an effective administration. Where is our “Team of Rivals”?

The rivals of Nkrumah’s era are not here now. Hopefully, after September 21, 2009, on Nkrumah’s 100th birthday, this argument of “Founder versus Founders” will be fully resolved – and with it, at least, the recognition that Nkrumah managed to pull off a marvelous experiment in nation-building, that also served as a model for many others in Africa.

The task now is to improve on Nkrumah’s efforts, not to fight to find who was on first, just to pull the real “Founder” down.

Regardless of the “buyer’s remorse” some in the “Big Six” may have had for appointing Nkrumah as the General Secretary, there remains the fact that Nkrumah had the job done. We must honor these men as “kingmakers” while recognizing Nkrumah as the “Founder.”

E. Ablorh-Odjidja, Publisher www.ghanadot.com, Washington, DC, September 20, 2009.

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