Folks, I recently went to Kumasi to nose around for filla, and there is this one that I must tell you! I heard a man ranting at Kajetia so I approached him to find out what was wrong. The man told me that few weeks ago, he bought a brand new Land Cruiser four-wheel car, and as you know, most of such vehicles have the inscription “4×4” on them. According to the man, he parked his car at a suburb of Kumasi to attend to some pressing needs. When he returned, some kids had added “=16” to the “4×4” with a nail, producing some nasty scratches on his new car.
Friends of the man advised him to re-spray the portion of the car where the scratches are and put the inscription “4×4=16” so that the kids would not have anything to write about; but they were wrong. Few days later the man parked his car at the same spot with the new inscription “4×4=16” and went to do business as usual. When he returned, the incorrigible kids had written “correct” beside the inscription “4×4=16” with a nail, and that was what made the man furious.
On a more serious note the mention of Kumasi reminds me of an incident that took place there a few days ago. And I’m talking of a demonstration by a group of about 30 old women. I felt more sorrowful than I wanted to be; for the sake of politics, the elderly are selling honour and dignity. I was exceedingly disturbed and considerably puzzled when I saw pictures of half-naked old women purported to have taken part in the demonstration. I felt a mixture of anger, sadness and something else! Disappointment! The pride of old age has been bruised.
The demonstration reeks of politics and mischief; and the opposition have a lot of answering to do – it is reasonable to suppose that they had a hand in bringing this about. And I think that was a tawdry political tactics which had been the most godawful of all opposition backed demonstrations. With this orchestrated demonstration, what next? Perhaps a demonstration involving 5-year old ragamuffins I guess! Desperate times call for desperate measures indeed.
The indubitable truth is that: avarice, deceit, “at all costs” and “all-die-be-die” have always been the four hallmarks of a certain opposition party in Ghana from time immemorial, and the first president of Ghana, Osagyefo Dr. Kwame Nkrumah was not spared. There was bloodletting anytime the Danquah-Busia tradition lost general elections to Dr. Nkrumah’s CPP. It happened in 1951, 1954 and 1956. Kikikikiki, all these elections were not conducted by Dr. Kwadwo Afari-Gyan, but by our colonial masters.
Having been thrashed soundly by Dr. Nkrumah’s CPP in elections, in an effort to activate an “at all costs” strategy, Danquah and Busia travelled several times to the United States of America to tell lies about Nkrumah, and pleaded with the then US president, General Dwight Eisenhower not to give any loan to Dr. Nkrumah to enable him construct the Akosombo Dam! The US, therefore, refused to give out the $70 million loan Ghana was looking for.
While the US government would not give Ghana a loan of $70 million, it gave Taiwan $81.6 million for free. From 1959 – 1962, America gave Taiwan a total of $471.7 million as grants. Imagine what Nkrumah would have done with that kind of money; but Danquah and Busia went and scuttled everything just because they were rejected by Ghanaians in the three general elections.
Nkrumah’s original dream of an integrated industrial project was, therefore, killed. Later, the British government and Kaiser, a private Aluminium company helped Nkrumah with only 35 million pounds which was added to Ghana’s own Internally Generated Funds to finally build the Akosombo Dam. The rest of the projects were abandoned for lack of funds.
The Danquah-Busia tradition are experts in painting their opponents black, and making them look bad. I was about six years old when Kwame Nkrumah was overthrown on February 24, 1966, and I recall that there were publications portraying Nkrumah as a blood thirsty “demon” who sacrificed pregnant women to his god called Kankan Nyame. As a child, I saw Nkrumah as very wicked, and loathed him. Many years later we have come to know that Dr. Nkrumah was the quintessential selfless president; and most of the bad things attributed to him were false. Today, the nation has deeply regreted his overthrow.
In their voracious quest for power, what the opposition is currently doing to President John Dramani Mahama is not different from what Osagyefo suffered many years ago. They are judiciously malicious, awfully terrible: and they have strayed way over the line that separates patriotism from unpatriotism; hehehehe, and they call themselves patriots! As part of their “at all costs” agenda, it would not be a surprise to me at all if someone tells me that they are behind some of the challenges we are facing as a nation.
After all, during Nkrumah’s reign as president, more subtle methods of economic pressure and political subversion were applied, and Ghana’s economy was in a precarious state at a point. In 1965, world cocoa prices plummeted through manipulation, and the enormous development spending begun by Nkrumah four years earlier severely impacted the country’s economy. Foreign exchange and government’s reserves shrank and disappeared.
Unemployment rose dramatically. Food prices skyrocketed up over 250% from 1957 levels. Eventually, there were massive food and essentials shortages affecting every area, sector and individual in Ghana. Economic growth, which had ranged from 9% to 12% per annum until 1960, dropped to between 2% and 3%, insufficient to sustain a population expanding at almost 3% per year. These served as a catalyst to the 1966 coup.
In conclusion, one can have deep-seated aversion to President Mahama, but one thing is certain: there have been an unprecedented sea of change in infrastructure development in this country under his leadership. I admire his valorous stance in taking tough decisions; and his humility. I tingled with enthusiasm when he recently apologised to the Okyehene and his people for calling Kyebi a “Galamsey Headquarters”. He is absolutely unique! It will be an irretrievable lost for us not to retain him in 2016. And like Osagyefo Dr. Kwame Nkrumah, posterity will not forgive us if we allow him to slip through our fingers.
