A Death of Nkrumahism? - WHO THEN IS AN NKRUMAHIST?

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Parent Category: Our Country

Category: History

Created on Sunday, 19 April 2009 00:00

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III. WHO THEN IS AN NKRUMAHIST?

For some, Nkrumahism is a crusade to eliminate or purge all forms of imperialism and neo-colonialism. To others, it is the concept by which those who felt politically maligned by the so-called "ASANTE AND THE AKYEM MATEMEHO" and all its alleged economic hegemony and ramifications set themselves free. Then is a front against critics of the CPP-led Government which strove to eliminate chieftaincy which had endured for decades and continue to thwart the emergence of classless society that the Osagyefo promised some decades ago? We hear the murmur as the debate unfolds but what seems clear and perhaps ascertainable, is that the Pan-African Campaigner never promised any of those.

So in our minds there are two products in Nkrumahism- the Nkrumahists who enjoy the fruits of capitalism and all its associated socio-economic and political innovation but disdain its related ideological hardships and economic biases- unfairness and imbalances in the distribution of global wealth and justice- we may call them the "anti-imperialists, internationalists or say, devout Pan-Africanists. Then are those who attempt to profess that all that Nkrumahism means or stood for- are that "Independence Now" and the "arms-twisting matemeho of Independence in shortest possible time" of yesteryears. Indeed there could be a "third force" that enjoys the trappings of both- they’re all fallible.

As Markovitz writes, unlike in many other African countries, including those which experienced military takeovers because they were unstable or important elements in their respective nations were neither represented in them nor decisively suppressed, and where politics, as he put it, was the monopoly of an elite coalition of middle-class intellectuals and a traditional hierarchy that excluded the peasants, skilled labourers and businessmen, in Nkrumah’s Ghana, every major social group, in the words of Markovitz, had at the time the mutiny, reached an understanding with the CPP and for that matter have passed successfully through its squabbles over coup in our in Our Homeland Ghana.

The keywords here are that every major social group, reached an understanding with the CPP regime, have passed successfully through its squabbles over coup. Today, the Convention Peoples Party, we are tempted to argue, has lost its triumphal direction ever since it was kicked out in February 1966 and for the second time in December 1981, where Peoples National Party (PNP), under the leadership of Dr Hilla Limann, was booted out in a coup. Since we are yet to witness a country with three dominant political parties rotating power, there is little doubt whether National Democracy Congress, as it appears might have usurped its political place- in terms of electoral strategy and ideology, if any.

There are many issues raised by Markovitz’s but two things stand tall- the technocrats of CPP-led regime from the nucleus of civil servants that it inherited from pre-independence days. First their numbers: "the Government acquired thousands of employees as it Africanized the administrative structure, extended its services from the large cities to millions of people in the bush, and undertook sweeping programs of welfare and economic development, instead of confining itself (as did the colonial administration) to the household tasks of maintaining peace, order, and a system of justice…"

The most frequently asked question is: So what went wrong for the stiff opposition that he encountered in a country which according to Markovitz, was neither a terrorized nor a poverty-stricken? It is suggested that he wielded enormous power which, he exercised in excess and as a consequence, gambled with his personal comfort and safety. Yet it was not only the threats of Matemeho but also the seriousness of the cult of Nkrumahism at the Ideological Institute at Winneba. Thus he surrounded himself with people who paid lip-services for their pleasures and hardly cautioned him on some fragile political moves.

Perhaps the two failed assassination bids on Nkrumah’s life that called for robust personal and national security realignment, arguably, disfigured and maimed Nkrumah’s natural self-orientation and humour as natives of his Nzema ethnic group such Boye Moseses and a Fordjors took control of the State Security Service, continue to haunt many. The alleged reliance on foreign security details for the Man Nkrumah who held so much for the "black race" and continent, and not long ago, had been brought out from jail by popular homemade opinion through boycotts and civil disobedience, worth noting.

So in our generation today, the self-pious Nkrumahists, it appears, are those who could dive into the hearts and minds of those who bear names such as Kotoka, Afrifa, Harley, Deku, Adamafios, Dankwa, Akufo, Obestesbi, Ako-Adjei, Addo and the Busias and label them as probable agents of CIA or Matemeho agitators, as there is no way that they could champion the causes of Nkrumahism? Recently they argued and indeed made a case that their own Paa Kwesi Nduom and Opeisika Agudey, could not be true Nkrumahists because they own their own business or indeed meddle in the private sector. The effects of their unsubstantiated suspicions and frustrations, are perhaps, so glaring that one needs not to consider the numerous fronts, layers, contours, sects, peripheries and yes, segments that confront the struggling Nkrumahists family of today.

At the time of going to press, the CPP which had maintained its leadership in the politics of the country, winning majority votes in both the 1954 and 1956 political struggle which according to Markowitz, pushed its opponents into disarray, to use the historical term, has a lone seat in our 230-member Legislative Assembly. Perhaps the barest minimum ever to be achieved since 1960 and 1979 if the late Dr Limann were also to be recognized as faithful servant of Nkrumahism One could hear the whispers that he was not, but rather an UP interloper. So while they seek collective condemnation of the 1966 coup, they sail with a single-engine ship of 31 December 1981, justifying it as noble?

Having said all that, one may be puzzling whether the "Nkrumahist families" of today, suffer not the characteristics of a "broken home"- characterized by divorce /and or death. Thus, their inability to overcome this emotional syndrome of the 1966 coup and the natural Death of Nkrumah that bring little or no vote to CPP, it could be argued, might have given different interpretations. No one disputes Nkrumah’s inter-continental leadership greatness and foresight: co-founder of Pan-Africanism, architect of the Organization of African Unity now the African Union (AU), and locally, the outstanding human and infrastructural developments across Ghana, are perhaps, his trademarks and foot-prints. Yet it is mystifying whether Osagyefo did not die intestate or without a Will.

Politically argued, Nkrumah had many faces and appears difficult if not complex to be understood by simplistic minds of ours who subscribe to his unrivalled ideas and vision.

On global political economy and international relations- he was "A Non-Aligned", prepared to trade with both the Chinese and the Americans. At home, Nkrumah declared himself as "A New Black Pan-African", ready to fight his own battles- "a black messiah" who never got married to a "black woma?n", one may submit. Yet we concede with Markovitz that once upon a time the Man Nkrumah stood almost alone in arguing in what has now become a global aspiration that "the progress of Ghana and perhaps, the African continent, could only be measured by the number of children in school, the quality of their education, the availability of water and electricity and true, the control of sickness."

IV. CONCLUSION

In conclusion therefore and, as it shall be shown in our next edition: CPP At Crossroads, it worth saying that Nkrumahism- complex an ideology as it appears, still holds some relevance and ought not to be mistaken with "ethnic contest" or like" a child of a broken home", struggling for crumbs and acceptance in her new abode. The ability of New CPP, to cart a vicious political path of 21st century, will go a long way of tracing and yes, overreach the true treasures of the Man, who held so much for Ghana and the World.

 

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