What Did Nkrumah Do for the People of Akyem-Apedwa?

There is an Nkrumah-leaning article circulating on the World-Wide Web or the Internet titled “The True History of Dr. JB Danquah that Should Be Taught in Schools” (See DailyMailGh.com / Ghanaweb.com 4/18/19). It is an Nkrumah-leaning or Nkrumaist-inspired screaming propaganda piece because it luridly rehashes all the predictable apocryphal malarkey that is the hallmark of the writings of the virulently anti-Danquah operatives of the so-called Convention People’s Party (CPP) hacks and shills. For instance, we are scandalously told that the most distinguished Ghanaian Monarch of the Twentieth Century, The Real Osagyefo, Nana Sir Ofori-Atta, I, was the biological father of Nana Akyea-Mensah, the extant Chief of Akyem-Apedwa and the granduncle of the author of this column. No such statement could be more absurd; and yet, the Nkrumacratic propagandists would have such plain logical absurdity, which they crudely and falsely pass off as canonical knowledge, taught to our schoolchildren and grandchildren as an objectively and historically established truth. What we should be asking these fanatical Nkrumacrats is the following: If Danquah was that hostile to the integrity, collective interests and aspirations of the people of Akyem-Apedwa, precisely what kind of material development did Nkrumah and his Convention People’s Party deliver to the relatives and subjects of the immortalized victim of the infamous Kyebi Ritual Murder?

But, of course, this early-morning propagandistic poppycock is scarcely surprising, when one reckons the fact that the radical fabric or epistemic roots of Nkrumaism, so-called, inhere in vile and abject propaganda. Which is precisely why these Left-leaning Nkrumacrats would rather have the infamous Kyebi Ritual Murder replace the impeccably erudite and distinguished biography and career of Dr. Joseph (Kwame Kyeretwie) Boakye-Danquah, who is also the great-granduncle of this writer. Indeed, the brutal and equally primitive assassination of Nana Akyea-Mensah, the Apedwahene, and at the time the Head of the Three Counties (or Ammantuomiensa), is indelibly inexcusable. In have written quite extensively on this subject and therefore do not intend to rehash the same here (See my political biography of the man, titled “Dr. JB Danquah: Architect of Modern Ghana” iUniverse.com, 2005). Thankfully, what is incontrovertibly established is the fact that there is absolutely no forensically established evidence pointing to the active involvement or participation of Ghana’s foremost Constitutional Lawyer of his generation or Dr. Danquah’s being privy to the conspiratorial and sinister activities and circumstances that precipitated the assassination of Nana Akyea-Mensah.

On the other hand, it goes without saying that the same dissociative narrative of noninvolvement cannot be confidently and morally righteously said about then-President Kwame Nkrumah, vis-à-vis the brutal poison-induced assassination of Dr. JB Danquah at the Nsawam Medium-Security Prison, in February 1965. As well, or in similar vein, the same cannot be said for the infamous self-proclaimed “Presidential Spare-Tire” vis-à-vis the “mysterious” circumstances leading to the death of then-President John Evans Atta-Mills at the Osu Castle. We must also poignantly observe the rather inescapably repulsive fact that other than opportunistically capitalizing on the political haymaking invocation of the Kyebi Ritual Murder to wantonly and unconscionably desecrate the image, personality, integrity and reputation of Barima Ohemeng – aka Nana Akyea-Mensah – in order to win a couple of elections, to enable him to accede to the Presidency and tyrannize the very Ghanaian electorate whom he claimed to have liberated from the vampiric clutches of British imperialism, Mr. Kwame Nkrumah did absolutely nothing by way of enhancing the material circumstances or development of the people of Akyem-Apedwa. And, of course, on the latter count, I am thinking about President Nkrumah’s assistance to neighboring West African countries like Guinea and Mali. So, it is quite clear and obvious that the purpose of the diehard Nkrumacrats of having the Kyebi Ritual Murder taught in our public schools as scandalously constituting the essence of the life and times of Dr. Danquah or what the latter represented in Ghanaian history and culture, could definitely not be well-meaning.

We are also well aware of the fact that Nkrumah’s veritable Reign-of-Terror far surpasses the Kyebi Ritual Murder, in terms of impact and its psychological implications on the “Ghanaian Personality.” Which means that at the end of the day, when the political and behavioral balance-sheet has been drawn up in the moral ledger book, Dr. Danquah may clearly be envisaged to stand head-and-shoulders over and above his much younger and relatively more poorly educated personal and political archnemesis (See Richard Rathbone’s “Murder and Politics in Colonial Ghana”; also Dennis Austin’s “Politics in Ghana: 1946-1960”; also, Richard Mahoney’s “JFK: Africa Ordeal”). It is also decidedly beneath contempt for any critic to claim that the founding of the Grant and Danquah-led United Gold Coast Convention (UGCC), the first nationally based pro-independence mass political movement, was the direct result of Danquah’s acute dissatisfaction with the legal and/or judicial outcome of the fate of the criminal suspects in the brutal assassination of Nana Akyea-Mensah. There is more than ample reliable evidence to authoritatively refute such ratiocinative mendacity than time will permit me to delve into or examine herein. The incontrovertible fact of the matter, however, is that anybody who proudly identifies himself or herself as a “Ghanaian” owes more of such identity or his/her citizenship to Dr. Danquah than to Mr. Nkrumah. It is as simple as that.

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

By Kwame Okoampa-Ahoofe, Jr., PhD
English Department, SUNY-Nassau
Garden City, New York
April 24, 2019
E-mail: [email protected]