Mr. Greenstreet, It Was Nkrumaists Who Destroyed Ghana

Greenstreet

He is in his mid-40’s and so no one can blame the Presidential Candidate of the rump-Convention People’s Party (r-CPP) for falsely believing that the Nkrumah-led Convention People’s Party (CPP) was the best government postcolonial Ghana ever had (See “NDC, NPP Have Disabled Many Ghanaians” Kasapafmonline.com / Ghanaweb.com 5/15/16).

Still, as a graduate of the University of Ghana, the country’s flagship academy, and a professionally trained lawyer, Mr. Ivor Kobina Greenstreet is intelligent enough to avail himself of the writings of the most reliable historians, scholars and economists of the Nkrumah era.

The first question he needs to ask himself is as follows: What are some of the salient factors that led to the overthrow of the Convention People’s Party on February 24, 1966? If he cares to Google up the preceding question, he would be staggered by the multiplicity of answers that pop up right in his face. Indeed, by the eve of Nkrumah’s overthrow, Ghana’s economy had been effectively bankrupted partly as a result of his profligate investment in the Pan-Africanist ideology and project at the expense of the development of the very country whose voters elected him to govern them. Nkrumah saw Ghana as a mere stepping-stone to his grand, albeit woefully premature, ambition of ruling a united continental Africa.

Unemployment had shot up the charts beyond anything witnessed in the history of the modern Ghanaian economy at the time. By 1961, all civil and public service workers would be coerced into ceding 10-percent of their salaries and wages to feed the increasingly insatiable CPP juggernaut. In the area of democratic governance and individual freedom of speech and the freedom of the press, Nkrumah had absolutely nothing worthwhile to show for his leadership.

This has even prompted some otherwise objective and well-meaning critics and scholars of the period to suggest that Nkrumah may very well have deliberately used the occasion of his self-appointed mission to Hanoi, Indo-China, to supposedly bring an end to the Vietnam War, as a deft and convenient exit strategy, to the shock and horror of his most ardent disciples, supporters and sympathizers.

But what is even more significant to highlight here is the fact that since 1982, most of the people who have held the reins of governance have been either dyed-in-the-wool Nkrumaists or leftists with the same populist and faux-socialist orientation and dictatorial mindset as Kwame Nkrumah. Mr. Greenstreet has the luxury of self-righteously decrying the inability of parents and guardians to pay school fees and access healthcare, these days, because he was not born at the time. Still, him not having been born at the time does not excuse him from visiting the record books for an accurate picture of the period.

Indeed, while the CPP regime laudably pursued a policy of free education – an initiative first suggested by Mr. William “Paa Willie” Ofori-Atta in the 1930s – nevertheless, access to decent elementary and secondary education left much to be desired. Access to healthcare was also well below even the most conservative expectations.

And so, really, Mr. Greenstreet only exacerbates matters by cavalierly presuming the CPP to be the proverbial gold standard by which to gauge Ghana’s postcolonial development. Ghanaians have also heard a far more eloquent and inventive faux-religious mantra such as Mr. Greenstreet’s so-called “Apam Fofor” or his New Covenant with the Ghanaian electorate. This, of course, is no accident at all, for his role model, Mr. Kwame Nkrumah, was a well-trained theologian.

Nkrumah would suavely, strategically and shrewdly declare as follows: “Seek ye first the political kingdom, and all else shall be added unto you.” Greenstreet’s version of the Nkrumaist mantra pathetically lacks fervor and authenticity, because it was hastily and expediently cobbled together. It also rings annoyingly déjà-vu. His political strategist, Prof. Edmund Delle is a man who appears to be ideologically stuck in the old effete mode.

The Nkrumaist principles which Mr. Greenstreet and Ms. Samia Yaba Nkrumah have been screaming for will not work, because you cannot simply pour old wine into new bottles and then mischievously and cynically label it “fresh” and “fizzy.” Sooner than later, any unsuspecting people would catch on to the truth once they uncork the bottle, only to be virulently confronted with the insufferable stench of yesteryear’s political rot.

Mr. Greenstreet would also do far better to avoid unduly playing up his motile disability, or paralysis, as a metaphorical symbol of the purported failure of National Democratic Congress and New Patriotic Party governments. The records are there for all to see. In sum, it cannot be gainsaid that when it comes to governance, the National Democratic Congress is no classmate or peer of the New Patriotic Party. Equally, it cannot be gainsaid that the rump-Convention People’s Party is the veritable clone of the National Democratic Congress.

*Visit my blog at: kwameokoampaahoofe.wordpress.com Ghanaffairs