What Should Ghana Offer U.S. President Barrack Obama & The Nation He Leads?

Anyone who has read declassified U.S. State Department and National Security documents on Africa, will understand why many an Nkrumaist and pan-Africanist, finds it so disheartening listening to those individuals in our midst, who are bereft of self-belief and lack imagination – as they prattle on about the many benefits they think will come to Ghana from U.S. President Barrack Obama’s one-day visit to Ghana.

Why do they not rather spend their energies thinking about what Ghana can also do for America, in her hour of need, instead – at a time when the U.S. is resorting to borrowing trillions of dollars from nations such as Japan and China: in order to stop its economy from imploding?

The inability of many of the members of our political class, particularly, to think of a new approach in our relationship with the U.S., which is revealed by their unrealistic expectations about what they think Ghana will gain, from President Obama’s trip here, reveals the shocking lack of sophistication and naïveté of many of the post-Nkrumah era leadership in Africa.

It has enabled the Western powers to toy with Africa for so long – and makes those nations think that they can continue their something-for-nothing policy of minimum expenditure in return for unfettered access to all the continent’s natural resources, till the very end of time.

The time has now come for that selfish and unhelpful attitude amongst the developed nations of the world to end – especially now that America has elected its first African-American president. We must replace the old cynicism and ruthless exploitation of Africa, with a new relationship of equal partnerships: each nation working for common goals, which are beneficial for both parties.

The perfidy of the U.S. establishment that is revealed in the declassified Central Intelligence Agency’s (CIA) documents from the period in office of the Kennedy and Johnson administrations, pertaining to U.S.-Ghana relations (especially during the Nkrumah era, for example), clearly show why, ultimately, African politicians must look inwards and rely on the ingenuity and hard work of their own people, for Africa’s salvation.

We all understand, however, that today, because we live in an increasingly interdependent world, as a result of globalization, we must accept that nations like ours, must, of necessity, deal with foreign nations for shared common-interest reasons.

However, it is imperative that in getting what we need from foreign nations, our relationship with them does not end up impoverishing our people and weakening the nations of the continent.

That is why the question the average Nkrumaist and pan-Africanist in Ghana would probably ask, in order to elicit responses and ideas that will enable Ghana offer the U.S. President, something positive for his country, in return for whatever help we might ask from his country, is: What can Ghana do for the visiting first African-American U.S. president, which will benefit his people and amply justify anything of value, which we might ask President Obama to give to our nation, whiles he is here?

Surprising though it might be to many Ghanaians, and to President Obama and the large entourage accompanying him, America can actually find the perfect solution to the crisis facing the U.S. auto industry right here in Ghana.

They can also find new turbine technology that obviates the need to build dams for hydroelectric power (at a time of global climate change, when most hydroelectric power plants are becoming increasingly unpredictable – because of the frequent seasonal low dam water-levels now being experienced worldwide), which, if developed by the Americans, could harness the flow of both Ghana and America’s many rivers for hydroelectric power generation.

The man whose two inventions can literally save the U.S. auto industry (by providing it with a device that makes the batteries of electric cars have unlimited range!), and help boost its renewable power-generating capacity, is Colonel Kofi Abaka Jackson – the retired air force officer, who once served as a minister in the military regime of General Acheampong in the 1970’s.

The Mills administration must quickly get in touch with Colonel Jackson – for, he holds the key, to beginning a new relationship between our nation and America: one that will be a more equal and mutually beneficial partnership.

Clearly, the old thinking that made nations like ours constantly look to the U.S. to send its taxpayers’ money to us as aid (as if we were a nation of spongers and no longer the once-proud and hardworking people that Nkrumah and others fought so hard to free from British colonial occupation) is no longer tenable.

That is why we must get the U.S. to abandon its “something-for-nothing” African foreign policy – and Ghana in turn ought to end its days as a global power in begging-bowl diplomacy. In exchange for Colonel Kofi Abaka Jackson enabling Americans (and the rest of the world) to continue their love-affair with SUV’s and other gas-guzzling automobiles, and helping America increase its renewable power-generating capacity, the U.S. must be creative – and replace its outmoded African foreign policy, at least in as far as its relationship with Nkrumah’s Ghana, goes.

If we are to offer Colonel Jackson’s remarkable ground-breaking and cutting-edge technological inventions to America, then the U.S. must agree to make Ghana its African equivalent of Israel, and treat Ghana as an ally that it can outsource some of the military tasks of its U.S. African Command’s role in meeting its African foreign policy objectives, to.

For once, in Africa, the U.S. must think creatively, and put aside its stingy something-for-nothing mindset – and make the bold strategic decision to provide substantial military assistance to Ghana’s military.

What Ghana needs from the U.S. (even though it has not yet dawned on its largely-unimaginative political class – which seldom thinks of their nation in strategic terms, sadly) is to be taken seriously enough to make it possible for the U.S. to play a significant role in helping us restructure our military forces: The U.S. must make a strategic decision to enable Ghana to dramatically increase the size of its military to some 200,000 men. 

If they decide to make a long-term commitment to help train Ghana’s military and transform it into a world-class military force (at the moment we have some of the finest fighting men and women in the world – who unfortunately are hamstrung by a crippling lack of funds), and agree to bankroll the re-equipping of our military with the modern weapons systems that will give them the capability to effectively police our territorial waters by air and by sea: with the prevention of the type of criminality that is slowly destroying the Nigerian oil and natural gas industries in mind, it will benefit both our nations, will it not?

The U.S. must also be prepared to include provision for Ghana’s new military force in its overall military budget – to ensure that it has a powerful ally in us: to partner it and assure the battle-readiness of the African component of its military’s capability to have an effective global reach, with the help of suitable regional powers.

It is only by helping us rapidly build one of the most effective armies in the world that has the capability to deploy anywhere in Africa, for effective peacemaking (in addition to peacekeeping), because it has the U.S.-provided hardware to give it the power and capability to do so, that America can contribute meaningfully to a new Ghana-U.S. relationship of equal partners.

That will be a relatively small price to pay for ensuring that the U.S. African Command has an Israeli-type ally in Africa – which gives it the same kind of foothold-rewards that its relationship with Israel’s military gives it: and helps it to achieve its Middle East foreign policy objectives. 

One hopes that the Mills administration will contact Colonel Kofi Abaka Jackson as quickly as possible – and get briefed by him about his remarkable ground-breaking and cutting-edge inventions for electric cars and hydro-power turbines, which could make a huge difference to the U.S. economy and also benefit the rest of humankind. 

If the U.S. were to agree to make it possible for us to have a military force of some 200,000 that is well-trained and well-equipped, and which is also one of the most effective armed forces in the world, in return for, say the establishment of a U.S. military base in Ghana, even that would be a small price worth paying by Nkrumah’s Ghana, in my view.

If even an Nkrumaist and pan-Africanist like Kofi Thompson, whose type of activism is the antithesis of the treasonable activities of Africa’s many stooges for neocolonialism, has now arrived at this conclusion about Ghana’s relationship with the U.S., then President Barrack Obama must put aside his country’s something-for-nothing African foreign policy for once, in this instance – and think creatively and welcome this idea: for the mutual benefit of Ghana and the United States of America.

The question is: are our current leaders prepared to think the unthinkable too – and aim for a new and more equal Ghana-U.S. relationship: by offering these original-thinking-type ideas to U.S. President Barrack Obama? One hopes they will – and above all that they will get in touch quickly with Colonel Kofi Abaka Jackson: who perhaps holds the key to any new improved Ghana-U.S. relationship.