Dr. J. B. Danquah Was Neither A Democrat Nor A National Hero

Author's note: This article is a rejoinder to an article in the 23/2/2011 edition of the Daily Guide newspaper, written by the Hon Atta Akyea, on the anniversary of the death in detention of Dr. J. B. Danquah. Unfortunately, due to a glitch on my mobile device, the uncompleted draft, which hadn't been edited, was emailed a number of times to the paper - hence my decision to post it here. Please read on.

Once upon a time, when the Hon Atta Akyea and his New Patriotic Party (NPP) friends thought no outsider could possibly be privy to their conversation, as they plotted to manipulate the legal system and secure the presidency for their party's defeated candidate that way (in the immediate aftermath of the run-off of the December 2008 presidential election), he made a Freudian slip - which was recorded for posterity, luckily.

It encapsulates perfectly, the nauseating hypocrisy of the plutocrats in our midst, who masquerade as believers in democracy. Speaking in Twi, he said in exasperation - at the hassle they were having to go through - "Saa democracy nonsense yi."

It was much the same with Dr. J. B. Danquah, whose death in detention during the Nkrumah era, Atta Akyea and people of his ilk, seek to make maximum political capital out of. Incidentally, it ought to be pointed out, dear reader, that Danquah died from natural causes.

The irony, is that Danquah & Co themselves, actively sought to assassinate Nkrumah - in a serial bombing campaign of terror in which over three hundred innocent Ghanaians lost their lives.

And what for, you may ask? Well, just so, dear reader, a bunch of supremely arrogant and wealthy elitists, who thought they were born to lord it over others, and who had thrice been rejected in free and fair elections in 1951, 1954 and 1956, could come to power through the back door. Today, that would be picked up on the International Criminal Court's (ICC) radar - and lead to their being indicted for crimes against humanity.

Perhaps the question we ought to ask Atta Akyea and Co is: Was each one of those 300 lives not of equal value to Danquah's own life? Who does not know that Danquah, despite the repressive means employed to ensure his election by the Akyem Abuakwa State Council, was trounced in the Abuakwa Central constituency, in the elections of 1954 and 1956?

Atta Akyea & Co must find out why, exactly, as a result of the damning evidence of abuse of power by the Akyem Abuakwa State Council, contained in the report of the Jackson Commission (November 1957), a meeting of a section of the State Council was called by Nana Kena 11 at Kukurantumi, on the 13th of June 1958, which resulted in Nana Ofori-Atta 11 being deposed - and replaced by Nana Kena 11, as Regent.

Did the abuses that the Jackson Commission catalogued, not have to do with the fact that Nana Ofori Atta 11 and some of his colleagues from the Akyem Abuakwa State Council, refused to countenance anyone voting for any political party, other than the violent and murderous National Liberation Movement (NLM)?

Did they not then go on to harness Akyem Abuakwa state resources to support the NLM's parliamentary candidate, Dr. J. B. Danquah? Would today's international election observers not have condemned such action - despite which he was still defeated by the Convention Peoples Party's (CPP) candidate, Kofi Asante Ofori Atta?

Indeed, in the crucial 1956 elections to decide Ghana's future status (as a unitary republic or lose federation of mostly tribal entities!), all the NLM parliamentary candidates in the five constituencies of Akim Abuakwa lost to CPP candidates.

Furthermore, as evidence of their not practising what they preached, in September 1955, did the so-called champions of freedom and democracy, not drag as many as 140 Chiefs to Kyebi, and make them swear the Okyeman great oath that in addition to supporting Danquah's candidacy, they would promote and support only NLM candidates in Akyem Abuakwa - and ensure that everyone else did so too?

Does that not look suspiciously like making a bid for a one-party state, dear reader? So why was Danquah, the great champion of freedom, not condemning it, one wonders? Can Atta Akyea & Co offer any explanations - since they are expert revisionists of our history?

It is typical of the hypocrisy of Danquah and the privileged set he served - and their political descendants, the Atta Akyeas of this world, who also appear to have mastered the art of speaking with forked tongues: and think they are cleverer than all Ghanaians.

Incidentally, nothing much has changed in that regard - in 21st century Ghana, Chiefs are still doing same: during the December 2008 elections in parts of the Ashanti and Eastern regions, voters in Zongo communities were threatened with eviction, and prevented from casting their votes, all for the benefit of Atta Akyea's party, the NPP, and like his political forebears, he too poses as a champion of liberty and a believer in the rule of law in the face of all that. Wonders.

What could be more unlawful than unelected individuals in privileged positions in society, disenfranchising law-abiding Ghanaian citizens? Thus far, I am yet to hear the loquacious Hon Atta Akyea raise his voice in condemnation of such egregious abuse of the fundamental human rights of the inhabitants of Zongos in the two said regions. But I digress.

Such was the extent to which Danquah & Co had alienated ordinary Akyems, who resented the contempt in which the elitist Danquah and his privileged set held them, that unluckily for those elitists, despite all the undemocratic strong arm tactics employed in his favour, by the Akyem Abuakwa State Council, Danquah never once won an election in which ordinary people were able to vote.

The question is: Why did the ordinary Akyems not show any enthusiasm for this heroic figure and champion of liberty?

Atta Akyea and those who seek to give the false impression that Danquah was also a champion of free enterprise, must explain why Kwahu traders who did not own their own properties, were booted out of Akyem Abuakwa - and Akyems who tried to shelter them were warned not to do so - or face dire consequences?

Were the Kwahu traders not private entrepreneurs - so why did the great champion of freedom and free enterprise not counsel against that elitist tribal-supremacist outrage? Why, was it the case perhaps that he was selective in whom he fought for freedom for - and in what causes he felt were deserving of his advocacy?

Can Atta Akyea & Co tell us exactly what the champion of free enterprise was doing, assisting arbitrary Chiefs to deny settlers the full rewards of the fruits of their private cocoa farming-sector micro-enterprises, by the imposition of unreasonable conditions (amounting to market distortion by the arbitrary actions of traditional authorities!)?

Were those actions not so unreasonable, especially as they were contrary to Akan custom, that the outraged Amanhene of New Juabeng; Akwapim; and Krobo (who incidentally spoke out in 1933!), all had to complain loudly about the unfair treatment of their people, whose only crime was that they were not Akyems? Danquah was no champion of freedom there, was he, dear reader?

Why does Atta Akyea think so many of the settler farmers were against Ofori Atta 1's land policy of 1919 and section 123 of the Native Administration Ordinance of 1927?

Like today's NPP, of which he is such a prominent member, Danquah & Co were champions of free enterprise, only as far as it created opportunity for the elite in society to enrich themselves - ordinary people were irritants who had to be kept firmly in their place with repressive and unreasonable laws.

It is because the political descendants of Danquah, have more or less held sway in our homeland Ghana, since the overthrow of Nkrumah, that we have evolved into an unjust and unequal society, in which scores of poor people, many of whom never had any proper legal representation (because they couldn't afford the outrageous sums charged by so many lawyers), are serving long prison sentences for crimes such as: stealing a chicken; a bunch of plantains; a goat; a mobile phone; etc., etc.

Meanwhile, wealthy rogues, some of them politicians, and all of them privileged individuals, rob Ghana with impunity, by evading taxes amounting to billions of Ghana cedis, and siphoning off state revenue in countless cases of insider-dealing: most of them stashing the loot in offshore entities and everyone of them far beyond the reach of the law: because they are well-connected individuals. Rule of law, indeed . Sounds more like rule of the fat-cats to me - and they don't come any bigger than Atta Akyea & Co.

The Atta Akyeas of this world must understand that no one can put a spin on the facts of history and think they get away with it - and that it is intellectually dishonest to seek to do so. Neither can the verdict of history be purchased by bribery and through corrupt practices - historians invariably are individuals of integrity: and unlike so many Ghanaian journalists, do not sell their conscience.

Dr. J. B. Danquah may have been a highly intelligent man with a fine turn of phrase, who was pretty good at writing lofty sentences full of idealism, but in practice, often did what was totally against the spirit of his lofty exhortations.

It is time they stopped attempting to revise our history in their cynical attempt to foist Danquah on Ghanaians as a national hero. He was not. He was on the wrong side of history - and was a mere stooge of the foreigners from the United Kingdom, who occupied our country at a point in time in our history.

The whole of Danquah's so-called struggle for our independence, was endless secret collaboration with colonialists, who whiles seeking to extricate themselves from what had become a burden on Britain's public purse, after a sapping war with Hitler's Germany (and her fascist allies), sought a clever way to put themselves in a position, which would enable them to depart from our shores, yet continue maintaining their stranglehold on our spectacular array of natural resources: by handing over power on a silver platter to their local lackeys, Danquah & Co.

Nkrumah's entry unto the scene, when he did, changed the course of our history. He succeded in creating social mobility through the provision of free education: thus enabling even poor rural people with the aptitude to study to the highest levels, to become productive citizens, and contribute to the modernisation of our homeland Ghana.

The neo-colonialists and imperialists set us back decades, when they finally succeeded in removing Nkrumah from power, exactly 45 years ago, today. We are still struggling to overcome that setback, which occurred on what pan-Africanists regard as the black race's darkest day. The Atta Akyeas of this world must not irritate us with their hypocrisy at such a time.

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