In Part 1, we talked about how the belligerence of the two major parties resulted in DOA Ghana. In Part 2, we discussed how the sin of omission of the main opposition, NLM paved the way for Nkrumah’s sin of [ads1]commission that resulted in DOA Ghana.
Part 3 discusses the rejection of a key concept in nation building by both parties and their leaders. The concept is SANKOFA, an Akan ethno-philosophy that espouses reflection on the past as the basis to build the present, and define the future. Societies that employ Sankofa are more likely to succeed than those that do not.
100years ago (April 1918), American writer Van Wyck Brooks brought to the attention of the West what he called the “Usable Past” in his book, “The Dial.” The Usable Past is simply Sankofa. You see why the British called the Gold Coast, the model colony? We knew the “Usable Past” centuries before it entered their philosophical space.
What did we do with Sankofa at independence?
I will use two pre-colonial and two colonial/post-colonial political figures as my case studies.
KING OKAIKOI
Okaikoi, a son of King Mampong Okai and Princess Dode Akaibi ruled Ga from 1635 to 1660. He was too young to ascend the throne when his father Mampong Okai died in 1610. Dua Kwei a very powerful Ga royalist enthroned his mother as regent. Dode was killed in 1635. Dua Kwei again enthroned Okaikoi who was then of age to lead the kingdom.
Queen Dode being the first (and only) female monarch presented serious constitutional challenge in two areas. Until her, the Ga Monarch was a Priest-Warrior-King, but a woman could neither go into the ‘’Gbatsu” or Holy of Holies nor sit on the war stool – because of menstruation which was considered unclean. Dode wanted to do both. Long story short; Dode was killed.
Okaikoi met a very tense and divided kingdom. Instead of sticking to his guns and demand to continue the 3-in-1 monarchy, he relinquished direct control over the priesthood, and the military. Ga was never a theocracy. Who was the last theocratic leader and the first secular leader?
Ga did not learn chieftaincy from its Akan neighbours. In fact, the circumcision of Akwamu crowned Prince Odei who was understudying Okaikoi was the reason for the first Ga-Akwamu war.
Okaikoi created the Ga Military High Command called Akwaashon (Eku eson or group of seven) from military commanders of the seven regions of Ga. The head of the Akwaashon, the Akwaashontse came from Asere, the largest Ga sub-state, and specifically from Kpakpatse We.
Okaikoi then created MOJAWE (House of Blood) as the Supreme Court of Ga with the Akwaashon, the panel of judges. The Akwaashontse was thus the General Officer Commanding the Armed Forces as well as the Chief Justice. Okaikoi remained the Commander-in-chief though, and the only one who could call for war and for peace.
By these constitutional reforms, he created the most formidable separation of powers the world has known till date – a military and judiciary whose leaders were not appointed by the executive. Britain separated its Supreme Court from the government in 2009. Come back the model state.
PROPHET ANOKYE
One cannot talk about Anokye without his friend King Osei Tutu, but I am focussing on Anokye because he actually designed Asanteman.
Anokye created a confederacy, United Asante (I think it was more of a federation, the centre was much stronger than you find in a confederacy) in a single day in 1701, six clear years before the United Kingdom was created, and almost nine decades before the federal United States came into being through a bloody civil war. Where Anokye used common sense, the US used war.
Anokye created a kingdom whose five principal states had power proportional to their economic, numeric and military strengths, not just creating non-viable regions for political expediency. Kumasi #1, Mampong #2. Does it ring a bell? Yes, that is exactly what UAE did – Abu Dhabi #1, Dubai #2. When you fly Emirates, know that it is not a national airline. It is a state airline. In 1972, the economy of UAE was wholly oil-dependent, today oil contributes only 6% to the economy.
Anokye, a kyerepon from Awukugua became the Chief Advisor (the Imhotep) to Asantehene and the Chief of Agona. Asante political leaders did not talk about his nationality. Today, political leaders do not know who is a Ghanaian. They will argue that a Ghanaian’s allegiance is doubtful because he has another passport. Yet, the thieves who have plundered our coffers have only Ghanaian passports. Tetteh Quarshie would have held two passports if he was alive today.
BUSIA
After the defeat of NLM in the 1956 elections, Busia led a delegation of opposition leaders to London. This is what he was alleged to have said:
‘’We still need you in the Gold Coast…Your experiment there is not complete. Sometimes I wonder why you seem such in a hurry to wash your hands off us.’’ This came from a subject of Anokye and Tutu. The same man who had said before the elections that if the NLM and its allies won more 52 seats, the reins of power must be transferred to them. I am sure his audience was shocked.
But should they be shocked? Definitely NO. Busia had earlier told Richard Wright in an interview that ‘’I’m a Westener… And was educated in the West.’’ He echoed a similar sentiment in the London Times, ‘’Oxford had made me what I am today. I had eleven years contact with it….’’
Busia was a Westerner, not an African, yet he wanted to lead independence of an African state from the West. How was that possible? He went to Oxford an empty personality, a tabula rasa, and Oxford infused everything he had into him. This is the reason Busia did not see the flaw in the constituency-based election on MPs. He was too British to see beyond the British system, even if it disadvantaged him and jeopardized the new independent nation-state.
NKRUMAH
With expert propaganda according to Adamafio and rightful characterization of Busia as puppet of the West, you would expect to read something different from the Redeemer of Africa. Brothers and sisters, our problems are much deeper than we would care to know.
Nkrumah wrote to his young British friend, June Milne in August 1967:
“You see my whole thinking and action is derived from a synthesis of the materialism of Feuerbach, the dialectical idealism of Hegel, and Darwin`s theory of evolution, and the dialectical materialism of Marx. Out of these I have tried to evolve a philosophy of my own. I tried to do this in Consciencism. How much I succeeded I don’t know.’’
Curiously, there was not one black person on Nkrumah’s list Nkrumah – no Anokye, Du Bois, Garvey, Padmore, James, Lewis etc. Nkrumah also went to the US and UK an empty personality, tabula rasa, and European philosophers infused everything he had into him.
How different was Nkrumah, the African Messiah from Busia, Western puppet? At least, Busia was grateful to his benefactors, and never claimed to have solutions for Africa’s problem. These two gentlemen defied the basic logic we have all been taught – charity begins at home. For them, charity begins in Europe.
With all the imaginative and creative leadership of Okaikoi, Anokye, Tutu and others, what did our independence political leaders need to write a sensible constitution for us at independence and beyond? Why is our generation also beholden to these obviously confused Western-Africans? Lol. Time to break the shackles. Time to drop the free slaves tag.
How can a nation whose ‘’liberators’’ were wannabes of the so-called oppressor succeed? The failure of Ghana was so predictable. We have spent the past six decades arguing for and against these two gentlemen when they had acknowledged that they were Europeans in African bodies. Brothers and sisters, we are not going anywhere soon until we have thrown these traditions away.
At my recent book launch, HKP made a remark – ‘’know the mind, and you know the man’’ echoing what Solomon and Descartes had said centuries earlier, ‘’As a man thinks, so is he’’ and ‘’I think, therefore I am.” Put Nkrumah and Busia into the equation, and you will understand why Ghana was born dead on arrival.
When I say Sankofa, I mean bring back the Usable Past. Come back Ghana, the model state.
Tswa omanye aba.