J B Danquah - a Pan Africanist?

J B Danquah - a Pan Africanist?

07/04/2008

Nana Amma Obenewaa takes issue with Qanawu Gabby's article last week (re: West African unity, re-awakening that ancient dream) in which he raised issues about the conventional wisdom of Nkrumah as a Pan-African visionary.

Your quote "A visionary is not a man who seeks to achieve the improbable at the wrong time and fails. The fact that the very thing he sought to achieve is now being seen as probable defeats the generous tag that has been hitherto accorded him."

My Response:

Dearest Mr. Asare Otchere-Darko,

It is heretical, beyond imaginable proportion, to draw a parallel between Kwame Nkrumah and Nana Akufo-Addo. When will some of our nation's journalists learn to appreciate the importance of context when writing a historical account? I would like to advise the author to invest his time in practicing law, and not step into the hostile terrain of Pan-Africanism; a liberating concept which was forcefully pushed by Nkrumah, and will forever remain relevant in postcolonial Africa's quest for true emancipation.

It saddens me to see the Asare Otchere-Darkos show little understanding of, and appreciation for, continental unity. I get goose pimples when certain individuals try to belittle the enormous contributions of Kwame Nkrumah, a visionary, whose foresight is yet to be matched any living African leader. Not even can the Mandelas, of today, come any where close to Nkrumah's revolutionary ideas and zest for a free African continent.

Even in death, Nkrumah continues to guide our nation's political trajectory. He is the wind on which our nation's bruised wings fly. His name brings respect not only to Ghanaians, and Africans, it is also a door-opener to our diminutive leaders whose concept of inter-state relations, and global politics, is still primitive.

How can a nation that can barely feed its population allow its leader to talk on ways to minimise nuclear proliferation when the leader does not even understand the operable mechanics of nuclear technology? To subtract Nkrumah from our nation's political history is akin to s shelving modernity on the baseless contention that it has no value in twenty-first century politics and human development.

To suggest that Joseph Boakye Danquah was a Pan-Africanist is laughable to say the least. Not only was J.B. Danquah a conscientious objector of Ghana's independence, he was an avid defender of social reengineering. In your effort to redeem the image of J.B. Danquah as a traitor, you closeted Danquah's clandestine role in liaising with certain hostile foreign agencies to destabilise his own country simply because our populist leader, Kwame Nkrumah, sidelined the nation's chiefs, whom he saw as an impediment to national unity and development. Kwame was right. Wasn't he?

In today's Ghanaian politics, we are seeing the re-traditionalisation of the political centre; a serious precedent that could potentially proliferate inter-ethnic conflicts at the micro-level to the peril of our nation's collective security. In post-2000 Ghanaian democratic politics, the sanctity of our Republic is challenged by the ceding of state powers, and privileges, to certain favoured chiefs who are allies in the government's campaign to reassert ethnocentricity. Does the author consider the preceding to Pan-Africanism?

Mr. Author, the concept of Pan-Africanism transcends the African continent. It is a Trans-Atlantic initiative which was meant to link our forcibly removed siblings, across the Atlantic Ocean , with the homeland. It was, and still is, an aspiration to reconnect Africa with soul of our enslaved siblings with ours. Nkrumah did exactly that by bringing Du Bois, George Padmore and Stokley Carmichael (aka Kwame Toure) to Ghana where the served the Black cause.

While I have nothing personal against Nana Akufo-Addo Danquah, I am yet to see any evidence that puts him in the Pan-Africanist orbit. What kind of a Pan-Africanist would sojourn to a chief's palace to pay his respect immediately after he was chosen as his party's presidential nominee? It is an established fact that the Danquah-Busia traditionalists place premium on indigenous "odikro" politics and not national politics.

Our nation's system of democracy is flawed. Whether you like it, or not, we have allowed ourselves to be fooled by an opportunistic leadership that says one thing and does the opposite. As a nation, we have been drawn in a culture that uses the deceptions of democracy to silence us from challenging the folly at the levels of leadership.

Ghana has failed to preserve the Pan-Africanist spirit. As a neocolonial state, we have foisted on ourselves a leadership, and policymakers, many of whom have no intellectual investment in shaping our destiny, let alone produce innovative ideas on ways to address national, and continental, problems.

Where is the spirit of Pan-Africanism when the Minister for Interior labeled called for the deportation of Liberian refugees because some women exposed their breasts to register their displeasure with the Ghanaian government? Since when did the flapping of a woman's breast, in public, become a national security issue? I wish I have the technological asset to watch what Mr. Bartels does with his wife's breast. Maybe, he wraps then in an anti-explosive sheet to avoid an earth-shattering blast. We are not a serious nation. Are we?

Where was Pan-Africanism when Dr. Kofi Abrefa Busia invoked the Aliens Compliance Act to deport our African brothers and sisters? Where was Pan-Africanism when Dr. Busia, in his infinite wisdom, asked his fellow African leaders to dialogue with the repressive White minority government of South Africa when the state made the killing of Blacks its official policy?

If the author's intention was sell to the voting public the non-exiting credentials of Nana Akufo-Addo Danquah, then he has horribly failed to draw some of us into the secessionist fold. Declaratory policies, which are trademarks of Ghanaian politics, do not solve problems. For Ghana to move forward, we need a leader who is problem-solving oriented. We do not need tourist-president who contracts out his responsibilities and travel out the country for sightseeing. A Pan-Africanist leader is not afraid to stand in from of his peers to speak against the injustices in West Darfur. He is not afraid to lash out at Western hypocrisy and their intentions to see Africa spiral out of control.

In on of his most fearless speeches, Nkrumah scolded Western leaders for instigating and supervising the assassination of Patrice Lumumba. This is a true hallmark of a Pan-Africanist.

As a visionary, he condemned the United Nations Security Council, elitist club, fro playing with the destiny of poor nation-states and their citizens. In the 1960s, Nkrumah foresaw the need for the African continent to form a continental army to douse the flames in conflict-stricken African countries.

The achievements of this great leader cannot the listed here. To therefore compare him with Danquah, or Nana Akufo-Addo, is like comparing Rottweiler to a Chihuahua. The two are not the same in stature. I look forward to defending Dr. Kwame Okoampa-Ahoofe on when, and how, Danquah became a Pan-Africanist. Hope all is well. Good day and cheers.