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Letter of Consolation
to Dr. Kofi A. Busia – on the coup in Ghana
By Kwame Nkrumah
My Dear Kofi:
I have just heard on the air that your
government which came to power barely three
years ago has been toppled by the Ghana
Army. It is rather significant that most of
the evils of which my government and I were
accused and which were the main reasons for
the overthrow of my administration were
apparently the same reasons that motivated
the army takeover of your regime.
I am sure that you now realize that those
who criticise other people without bothering
to assign good reasons for their criticisms
eventually end up as victims of their own
circumstances.
You will also appreciate the fact that those
who sow a wind reap a whirlwind, and after
you have finished spoiling other people, you
will be surprised to find out that you have
spoiled yourself.
Perhaps, you will agree with me in my
assertion that during my tenure of office
for 15 years, I did my best to improve the
economic conditions of my people, although,
admittedly, my policies brought unexpected
difficulties which were inevitable and for
which my people were unprepared.
Nevertheless, there is evidence of some of
my achievements in Ghana, which you, of all
people, can't pretend to deny — the fact
that I made Ghana what you found it when the
same army overthrew my regime.
It would serve no useful purpose for me to
recount some of these achievements, but
suffice it to say that Akosombo Dam, Tema
Harbor, Tema Oil Refinery, Korlc Bu Teaching
Hospital, VALCO, to mention only a few are
all my handwork.
But the most important contribution I have
made to the personality of the black man was
that during my tenure of office as President
of the Republic of Ghana, I made the African
proud of his heritage.
Today, throughout the African world, many
countries have attained political
emancipation as a result of the torchlight I
lit in Ghana which my own people including
you (Kofi Abrcfa Busia) did not appreciate.
Thus my government and I were accused of a
host of unprintable evils which sought to
discredit me and to pave the way for you to
establish yourself as a successful leader on
the African political scene.
Since my government was overthrown six years
ago, and since you assumed the reins of
authority in the latter part of 1969, I have
been watching closely events in Ghana and I
often felt that the way you were handling
the affairs of the country, that is relying
so much on colonialists, imperialists,
capitalists and nco-colonialists, you will
one day end up in the gutter with the same
imperialists and capitalists nailing your
coffin.
Your handling of the Aliens Compliance Order
in which, for the first time in the history
of Africa, a neighboring government drives
out of its country fellow Africans like
cattle and oxen in open trucks, your
so-called DIALOGUE with the Apartheid regime
in which you seek to create the impression
that you are the only black man on earth who
is capable of bringing pressure to bear upon
the racists in South Africa and other
diabolical policies too numerous to mention
here.
You will recall that just before the general
elections in 1969, I broadcast on Conarky
Radio to my people in Ghana, exhorting them
not to vote for any other candidate for the
Premiership but you.
I do not know how you took this exhortation,
but I could conjecture that you probably
assumed that by exhorting the people of
Ghana to vote for you, I was placing you
above other candidates. If this was your way
of thinking, then I am sorry to say you
miscalculated and misconstrued the
motivation of my exhortation.
I had imagined that you would have realized
that the reasons for asking the people of
Ghana to vote for you was not so much
because I thought you were better than any
or all the candidates involved in the
electioneering campaign. My reason for
exhorting them to vote for you was that I
knew that being a political weakling, you
would sooner or later expose your
shortcomings.
Let me refresh your memory about some of the
events which culminated in the overthrow of
my legitimate Government on February 24,
1966, and relate them to the events which
led to the overthrow of your imperialist and
colonialist-orientated government with a
view of drawing a logical conclusion as to
whether your administration or mine was
preferable.
You will recall that while I was away in
Hanoi to effect a peaceful solution to the
capitalist aggression against the
freedom-loving people of North Vietnam, the
Ghana Army, led by insignificant and
virtually unknown soldiers in collaboration
with the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA),
conspired to overthrow my government.
You may also recall that the first thing
these irresponsible soldiers did was to
ransack my official residence and virtually
steal my personal properties as well as cash
I had left behind.
To justify their illegitimate and criminal
action, the imperialist stooges claimed that
my Government was corrupt; that my Ministers
had acquired ill-gotten wealth; that my
Government had dissipated public funds in
establishing "prestige projects" and a host
of other accusations against me without any
proof whatsoever.
But any objective political observer would
agree that the same evils of which you and
your colonialist and neo-colonialist masters
accused me, reared their ugly heads and
assumed more heinous proportions during the
days of government.
Thus, within a span of three years, you and
your Ministers became richer and acquired
ill-gotten wealth more than could be said of
the Ministers in my Government which ruled
Ghana for 15 years.
It is regrettable that your government,
which you claimed to comprise mainly of
"intellectuals and honest men," had to be
toppled within three years after assuming
office. This indeed is evidence of your
political immaturity.
Now that your Utopia has crumbled under your
feet, apparently due to the erratic policies
you pursued with the assistance and full
support of those who preach universal
brotherhood yet supervise the obliteration
of thousands of innocent souls throughout
the world, may I offer you a few words of
consolation.
I would therefore recommend to you, my dear
Kofi, that you take a long rest from the
exigencies of politics in which you woefully
failed after pursuing it for nearly two
decades in just the same way as you
cancelled your engagements in Monrovia
following our confrontation at the funeral
of the late President William V. S. Tubman
(of blessed memory).
I have the hope that when I return to Ghana,
as I surely will someday in-the-not too
distant future to help rebuild the nation
from the ruins and chaos you left behind,
the dignity of the African Personality which
was one of the legacies I left behind and
which you handed over to the die-hard
racists on a golden platter, will be
restored.
I commend you to the care of the Omnipotent
God who has sustained me in my moments of
isolation and reflection and hope that He
will take very good care of you for the rest
of your unsuccessful political life.
Perhaps, I might just as well point out to
you that it won't serve you any useful
purpose to dream of staging a come-back into
the arena of politics because I am aware
that the colonialists and imperialists will
only be too happy to support such an
attempt.
Reason for this assertion is that from
reports I have been receiving from our
compatriots in Ghana, the reaction of the
people to the February 24, 1966 coup was
less stupendous than their reaction to the
January 13 coup which toppled your unpopular
and capitalist-backed government which ruled
my people under the direction and advice of
the imperialists and colonialists.
It might be a good idea if we were to meet
face to face as we did in Monrovia last
year; then I would have told you: "KOFI, I
TOLD YOU THAT YOU WOULD BE A COMPLETE
FAILURE ON THE POLITICAL SCENE."
Finally, my dear Kofi, take heart and be of
good cheer, for this is part and parcel of
human life. But let the word go to all the
imperialists, colonialists and
neo-colonialists that my Ghana, with her
Black Star of Africa, like Ethiopia and with
Ethiopia, shall arise above the political
horizon.
I wish you Godspeed as you make your
well-deserved exit from the political arena
in Ghana.
I remain.
Faithful Yours
(signed) Kwame Nkrumah
Source KWAME NKRUMAH
The Black Scholar
Vol. 3, No. 9, BLACK BATTLES (May 1972), pp.
23-26
Published by: Paradigm Publishers
Article Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/41206378
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