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Tue, 28 May 2024 Feature Article

History Has ‘Absolved Me’ [Concluded]

History Has ‘Absolved Me’ Concluded

I had run into Mr Joe Appiah in Col. Acheampong’s house shortly after the Colonel had seized power from the Busia regime.

Joe Appiah greeted me heartily.

To my surprise, he said, unprompted: “Cameron, it is ‘BACK TO BATAAN!’ right?” This was a politically-coded message and I understood it. He was kindly suggesting that I should go and take back my post as Editor of the Daily Graphic!

You see, ‘BACK TO BATAAN’ was an expression that I had popularised by using the term as a banner headline on the front page of the Graphic,

to celebrate a famous victory the paper had chalked up regarding a scandalous and very unusual transaction between a British businessman and the Ghana Government.

The businessman, one Victor Passer, had “somehow” obtained intelligence that the Busia Government "did not like" state ownership of the means of production, and might sell off many of Ghana's state enterprises, if approached. Those who bought Communist-made things from Ghana might also, on the side, gain knowledge of Communist methods of manufacturing.

Passer, no doubt with secret British diplomatic assistance, convinced the Busia Government to sell to him, at rock-bottom prices, a fleet of fishing trawlers that Ghana, under the Nkrumah regime, had bought from the Soviet Union.

The British businessman had, in turn, "sold" the trawlers to Brazil!

It din't mke any sense to me. Although Ghanaians needed cheap fish as much as the Brazilians did,we should be selling our fishing trawlers to help Brazil obtain cheap cheap fish, while we paid high prices for the fish WE consumed? If the trawlers were no good, why were they needed in Brazil?

I ignored the politics and concentrated on practical realities. Was it a corrupt deal between the then Minister of Agriculture, Dr Kwame Asafo Adu, and the British businessman?

Had a "commission" -- in valuable foreign exchange-- changed hands? They wanted the public to believe that because the trawlers were Soviet-made, they were inferior in quality. But wasn’t that stupid propaganda? The Soviet Union could send astronauts into space but wasn’t capable of constructing efficient fishing trawlers?

In the midst of the argumentation, the businessman tried to steal the boats away secretly! But I got tipped off about this and exposed the secret manouevre on the front page of the Graphic!

A libel action was immediately instituted against the Graphic, claiming that by saying the boats had "stolen away", we had maligned the British businessman.

I went to see the brilliant lawyer of the Graphic, Mr J K Agyemang, and convinceds him thst our facts could "justify" every word we had written about the issue. And "justification" was a complete defence in libel cases.

Our defence would expose all aspects of the deal -- including the motivation for the sale.

But Prime Minister Busia wasn’t having any of that. He ordered the Ghana Navy to bring the boats back from the high seas.

It was a marvellous victory for the Graphic and I went, in a Ghana Navy dinghy boat, to "welcome" the boats back to Ghana! No, I wasn't the least bit ashamed of being "histrionic"! A good laugh was to be had by all, for newspapers also had an entertainment function, asfterb asll.

So on the day after the boats arrived back, there was this front-page banner headline: “BACK TO BATAAN!”

Joe Appiah, who was from the generation that had enjoyed the popular American World War Two film, “BACK TO BATAAN”, had appreciated the Graphic headline and hailed me, in Acheampong’s house, with the words: “Cameron, it’s ‘Back to

Bataan’, innit?"

This was, despite the joke, a coded message to me, inviting me to go back and resume my editorship of the Daily Graphic. He implied that he would on the Acheampong regime to achieve that objective.

However, I shook my head at Joe. My editorship of the Graphic had giuven me an emotional rollercoaster ride and I wouldn't enjoy a second stint at the job.

And now, over 20 years later, here was I being given a hint that I should read Joe Apiah’s autobiography, and learn from mit, something that would be of grest interest to me, .

I suspected it would be about the acrimonious debate between me and Prime Minister Busia on “Dialogue-with-South-Africa”that had caused my dismissal from the Graphic in 1970. But what form would the disclosure take?

I anxiously got hold of “JOE APPIAH, THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF AN AFRICAN PATRIOT”. It’s a very readable book, especially as it reveals aspects of Joe Appiah’s days in London, where he was Dr Kwame Nkrumah’s "personal representative" in the UK for a time.

There, he also became a comrade of George Padmore, perhaps the greatest campaigner for African independence that ever lived.

But what had Joe Appiah written in his autobiography that I was being urged to read?

I did eventually get hold of “THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF AN AFRICAN PATRIOT” was published by PRAEGER, (New York & London) ISBN-10 027464424X; ISBN-13-978 0275936723.]

The relevant, all-telling quotation is on pages 335-6 of the edition I got. It reads:

Regarding Prof. K A Busia] “I was sorry when, on a matter of principle, I was obliged to sever our political relationship of many years. He was a gentleman and a Christian and it was because he bore these trade-marks that I found it difficult to understand why he did some of the evil things that he did, or allowed his government to do.

“All these I have forgiven except one! It is the shocking revelation that “Prof”, African politician and fighter for freedom in Ghana for years, was in direct touch with the murderer of Africans in South Africa and presiding arch-priest of the doomed temple of apartheid – Balthazar Johannes Vorster!

“One letter, dated April 2 1971, marked “Secret and Confidential” to Dr Busia from ‘Kantoor van die Erste Minister (Prime Minister’s Office) Cape Town” and signed by Vorster is proof of this.

“The letter thanks Busia for his “aid”. On this letter hangs the tale of Prof’s stubborn insistence on ‘dialogue’ with the cursed apartheid regime of South Africa. This letter was left in his office after his successor, Acheampong, took over, and it was he who gave me a copy…”

In several editorials in the Graphic in 1970, I had warned Busia that the apartheid regime was wooing African leaders – some “with Pretoria cash” – to abandon their brothers in South Africa to apartheid and the slave labour it reserved for the blacks of the country.

I had quoted a report in one of the most authoritative papers on monetary affairs in the world, "The [London] Financial

Times, to make my case.

Instead of taking the warning seriously,

Dr Busia had sacked me!

Joe Appiah’s revelation shows that Dr Busia and the likes of Houphiouet-Boigny of the Ivory Coast, who also supported the "dialogue" political ploy of apartheid South Africa, manouvre, knew exactly what they were doing.

We have the word of Mr Vorster himself:

what “aid” had Dr Busia given Vorster that had made Vorster write a ‘Secret and Confidential’ letter to “thank’’ him, without specifying exactly what he was thasnking `Busia for?

Busia?

(To learn more about South Africa’s attempt to bribe Black African countries with his “dialogue” ploy, Google ‘MULDERGATE+APARTHEID’.

You will get the whole shocking story of betrayal and mendacity among some African "leaders"!

Cameron Duodu
Cameron Duodu, © 2024

Martin Cameron Duodu is a United Kingdom-based Ghanaian novelist, journalist, editor and broadcaster. After publishing a novel, The Gab Boys, in 1967, Duodu went on to a career as a journalist and editorialist.. More Martin Cameron Duodu (born 24 May 1937) is a United Kingdom-based Ghanaian novelist, journalist, editor and broadcaster. After publishing a novel, The Gab Boys, in 1967, Duodu went on to a career as a journalist and editorialist.

Education
Duodu was born in Asiakwa in eastern Ghana and educated at Kyebi Government Senior School and the Rapid Results College, London , through which he took his O-Level and A-Level examinations by correspondence course . He began writing while still at school, the first story he ever wrote ("Tough Guy In Town") being broadcast on the radio programme The Singing Net and subsequently included in Voices of Ghana , a 1958 anthology edited by Henry Swanzy that was "the first Ghanaian literary anthology of poems, stories, plays and essays".

Early career
Duodu was a student teacher in 1954, and worked on a general magazine called New Nation in Ghana, before going on to become a radio journalist for the Ghana Broadcasting Corporation from 1956 to 1960, becoming editor of radio news <8> (moonlighting by contributing short stories and poetry to The Singing Net and plays to the programme Ghana Theatre). <9> From 1960 to 1965 he was editor of the Ghana edition of the South African magazine Drum , <10> and in 1970 edited the Daily Graphic , <3> the biggest-selling newspaper in Ghana.< citation needed >

The Gab Boys (1967) and creative writing
In 1967, Duodu's novel The Gab Boys was published in London by André Deutsch . The "gab boys" of the title – so called because of their gabardine trousers – are the sharply dressed youths who hang about the village and are considered delinquent by their elders. The novel is the story of the adventures of one of them, who runs away from village life, eventually finding a new life in the Ghana capital of Accra . According to one recent critic, "Duodu simultaneously represents two currents in West African literature of the time, on the one hand the exploration of cultural conflict and political corruption in post-colonial African society associated with novelists and playwrights such as Chinua Achebe and Ama Ata Aidoo , and on the other hand the optimistic affirmation of African cultural strengths found in poets of the time such as David Diop and Frank Kobina Parkes . These themes come together in a very compassionate discussion of the way that individual people, rich and poor, are pushed to compromise themselves as they try to navigate a near-chaotic transitional society."

In June 2010 Duodu was a participant in the symposium Empire and Me: Personal Recollections of Imperialism in Reality and Imagination, held at Cumberland Lodge , alongside other speakers who included Diran Adebayo , Jake Arnott , Margaret Busby , Meira Chand , Michelle de Kretser , Nuruddin Farah , Jack Mapanje , Susheila Nasta , Jacob Ross , Marina Warner , and others.

Duodu also writes plays and poetry. His work was included in the anthology Messages: Poems from Ghana ( Heinemann Educational Books , 1970).

Other activities and journalism
Having worked as a correspondent for various publications in the decades since the 1960s, including The Observer , The Financial Times , The Sunday Times , United Press International , Reuters , De Volkskrant ( Amsterdam ), and The Economist , Duodu has been based in Britain as a freelance journalist since the 1980s. He has had stints with the magazines South and Index on Censorship , and has written regularly for outlets such as The Independent and The Guardian .

He is the author of the blog "Under the Neem Tree" in New African magazine (London), and has also published regular columns in The Mail and Guardian ( Johannesburg ) and City Press (Johannesburg), as well as writing a weekly column for the Ghanaian Times (Accra) for many years.< citation needed >

Duodu has appeared frequently as a contributor on BBC World TV and BBC World Service radio news programmes discussing African politics, economy and culture.

He contributed to the 2014 volume Essays in Honour of Wole Soyinka at 80, edited by Ivor Agyeman-Duah and Ogochukwu Promise.
Column: Cameron Duodu

Disclaimer: "The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect ModernGhana official position. ModernGhana will not be responsible or liable for any inaccurate or incorrect statements in the contributions or columns here." Follow our WhatsApp channel for meaningful stories picked for your day.

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