Mills' Ghana and the purge of the big six

Indeed, the history of WASU offers a peak into Paa Willie's history of reconciliation. recalls the efforts by William Ofori-Atta in 1937 to resolve a dispute that threatened to break-up WASU.

Solanke was accused of wasting money while in Africa, and of attempting to personally control the new lodgings, Africa House.

independence struggle
How anyone can say Paa Willie played no role in the independence struggle shows how desperate this revisionist programme is being pushed under Mills' Ghana.

Paa Willie, for his part, in his characteristic modesty, did not claim greatness for himself. In 1979, after more than three decades in frontline politics, he said, 'My political experience derives from many years of apprenticeship to some of the great men who laid the foundation of our nation.'

In 1937, the Times newspaper of London felt it worthy enough to capture Paa Willie's role: 'The son of Sir Ofori-Atta, Knight of the British Empire and a great friend of the colonial government, says British Imperialism is a fraud.'

In those series of speeches, he shared platforms with George Padmore, Jomo Kenyatta, Arthur Creech-Jones and Sir Stafford-Cripps, whose daughter, Peggy Cripps, married a Ghanaian lawyer, politician and victim of PDA, Joe Appiah, and one time president of WASU.

It was during this time that Kwame Nkrumah became Joe Appiah's close friend, to the point of Nkrumah becoming Joe Appiah's first choice for best man at his controversial socialite wedding to the British aristocrat, Peggy in 1953. Until his return to Ghana in 1954, he was the personal representative in London of the leader of the Gold Coast government, Kwame Nkrumah.

But Joe Appiah was soon to be disillusioned with Nkrumah and joined the National Liberation Movement to become the MP for Atwima-Amansie in 1956.

It was during his time as MP that he was twice arrested and detained, under the Preventive Detention Act, in 1961 and 1962.

Joe Appiah and Paa Willie both had aristocratic upbring, from the two royal households of Manhyia (Ashanti) and Ofori Panin Fie (Kyebi), yet their politics was noted for the welfare of the average person, steeped in social justice principles.

social justice
Indeed, the development of Paa Willie's strong sense of social justice can be partly traced to his relationship with those politicians with aristocratic backgrounds who became the key movers of socialist-Marxist ideologies of the period, namely Creech Jones, George Strauss and Stafford-Cripps.

Joe Appiah, of course, had a father-in-law in Sir Stafford-Cripps. In early 1939, during Paa Willie's acquaintance with Cripps, the former was expelled from the Labour Party for his advocacy of a Popular Front with the Communist Party and anti-appeasement Liberals and Conservatives.

Infact, Cripps was seen then as the biggest threat to Winston Churchill's premiership, leading to him being expediently shipped out to India by the Prime Minister to negotiate with nationalist leaders Ghandi and Jinnah for a convenient arrangement that guaranteed India's loyalty to the British war effort in exchange for albeit an informal promise of full self-government after the war.

Fortunately, so successful was this intervention that it helped pave the way for the series of independence from British Colonial rule that followed the end of the War.

Creech-Jones, another anti-colonialist acquaintance of Paa Willie then, was very instrumental in easing British Colonial resistance to Ghana's struggle for independence. Elected to Parliament in 1935, two years before meeting Paa Willie, he became the Secretary of the Colonial Office in the Labour government of 1945-1950.

Creech Jones presided over a conference at Lancaster House for the African colonies in 1948, where the ongoing events in Ghana were instrumental in shaping the outcome.

It is recalled that the Watson Commission, which contained, prominently, the views of the Big Six, had recommended in 1948, in paragraph 100 of the report, that 'the Gold Coast should become  self-governing within ten years.'

This report went to London to the Secretary of State for the Colonies, same Arthur Creech-Jones, who, on behalf of the British government, issued a white paper on the Watson report, with the pledge that the British government would speed up with implementing the recommendations.

It led to the formation of the Coussey Constitutional Committee's appointment in December 1948, a wholly African body put together to recommend the necessary interim measures to carry out the Watson recommendations and the constitutional arrangement for self-government.

Its report was ready in September 1949, three months after the formation of the CPP and four months before the declaration of 'Positive Action'.

It is this same Creech-Jones who introduced the Government Bill to give the colony of Ceylon (Burma) dominion status and eventual independence.

He thus presided over the Colonial Office's first granting of independence to a 'non-white' colony, which was followed a year later by Independence for India and Pakistan.

Is Paa Willie's role being diminished today because he was not in Ghana at the material time of independence declaration in March 1957? For the period 1955-59 Paa Willie returned to England to study law, emerging from Gray's Inn as a Barrister-at-Law. Surely, that would be preposterous.

K A Gbedemah says of Paa Willie:
'As a result of the Watson Commission, the Coussey Constitution replaced the Burns Constitution, and, under it, William gained a seat in the National Assembly in 1951.

For the three and half years of this Parliament, William was one of the assiduous members, debating toughly with humour, wit and pungency, but without acrimony.

He, however, lost his seat in the 1954 Parliamentary Elections, but most members of the house labeled him the Non-Elected Parliamentary member because of his continued interest and concern for national affair.

He was often there in the galleries. It was during this period that from 1961-1965 that he suffered his 2nd and 3rd detentions under the First Republic.'

R R Amponsah says more of Paa Willie:
'In the United Gold Coast Convention, the Ghana Congress Party, the United Party, the Progress Party and lately the United National Convention, he always strove to foster understanding, not only within his own political party but also between his party and the opposing parties.'

He continues:
'The irony of the politics of Ghana was that he was himself detained in prison five times by two independent Ghana governments.

And while the British Colonial administration kept him and his colleagues in government bungalow at their place of detention, the two Ghana governments of his own kith and kin detained him in prison with criminals.

political life
Yet, throughout his political life, he never showed any sign of vengeance, malice or bitterness against those responsible.'

All of this revisionist obliteration is to cement a political dualism that denigrates the NPP as enemies of progress, with the hope of getting the NDC to annex the CPP.

This is part of a piece by the Executive Director of the Danquah Institute.

   Comments0