Founders or Founder’s Day: which way? - Founders or Founder’s Day: which way?

Dennis Austin

Dennis Austin in his seminal work, Politics in Ghana, 1946 - 1960 comments that, "there was an air of unreality about many of the demands and pronouncements of the small group of municipal leaders, but the activities of the lawyers and businessmen in Accra, Cape Coast and Sekondi helped to create a tradition of political agitation hardly to be matched in Africa".

Martin Wight also concluded in his 1946 study of the Gold Coast Legislative Council that, "The Gold Coast people find themselves the pioneers of political advance and the touchstone of political competence in Africa".

1941 to 1946

The period from 1941 to 1946, in retrospect may be described as the period of quiet diplomacy. Governor Alan Burns is quoted as expressing, "great confidence in these extremely sensible people. They know their limitations and they are very keen to take advice provided they know the man giving them the advice is really sincere".

Inasmuch as quiet diplomacy was being pursued, there were imminent dangers which lay beneath the surface fuelled by the needling activities of the Anti-Inflation and Boycott Committee of Nii Bonney and the Ex- Servicemen Union under the leadership of B.E.A. Tamakloe. When the eruption came, it was violent.

Between February 28, 1948 when the disturbances in Accra began, and March 16, 1948 when they were finally brought under control, 29 people lay dead with over 200 injured -notable among them were Sgt. Adjetey, Corporal Attipoe and Private Odartey Lamptey. The country was put under a state of emergency. Indeed Gerald Creasy, successor to Governor Burns confessed to the Legislative Council that they had been "overtaken by events".

Violent transformation

Why was there this sudden, violent transformation of the political scene?  

The reasons are many, but the more proximate causes lay in the mounting discontent among the colonial intelligentsia led by Dr J.B. Danquah. By 1947, he had gathered round him a group of companions who were dissatisfied with the reforms they had applauded the previous year - Paa Grant, R.S. Blay, R.A. Awoonor Williams, W.E. Ofori Atta, E.A. Akufo Addo, J.W. de Graft Johnson, Obetsebi-Lamptey, John Tsibo, Cobinna Kesse.

United Gold Coast Convention

Their primary objective was to push still further the movement of reform already started..What began in the Poassie Road offices of Paa Grant in Sekondi ended with the full blown launching of the United Gold Coast Convention (UGCC) on August 4, 1947 at Canaan Lodge, Saltpond.

In December 1947, a new and vibrant political actor was invited by the leaders of UGCC to join the ongoing struggle. The introduction came through Ako Adjei who had known Nkrumah as a student at Lincoln College, Pennsylvania.

Right from the beginning, Nkrumah and the UGCC were on a collision course. It, therefore, should not have come as a surprise when he finally broke off and launched the Convention Peoples Party (CPP) on June 12, 1949. From thereon, events got into the saddle and rode mankind.

The Second World War

The Second World War wrought very significant changes to the balance of global power. By the close of that war, the imperial might of Britain had been broken and was now in full retreat. Britannia no longer ruled the waves, and the hitherto sweet taste of imperial power had now turned sour. A new kid, the United States of America, had emerged on the block.

One sour note that strained the otherwise harmonious relationship between Prime Minister Winston Churchill and President Franklin Delano Roosevelt was the question of self-determination for the people of the colonies. America insisted upon it. Britain, now significantly weakened could no longer resist as it had hitherto done.

All these factors conspired the overthrow of Britain as an imperial power by 1945, and led to the period now referred to as the Decolonisation period. In large blocks, the British Empire, upon which it was said the sun would never set, began to wane.

Unto this parapet stepped the modern forces of decolonisation to renew and intensify their final assault on the colonial power in the Gold Coast.

From this short chronology of events, it is clear that the independence struggle of Ghana was more of a relay race involving many runners, each passing the baton to the other, rather than a one man marathon from start to finish.

If indeed Ghana’s long march to independence, which showed its contours from 1850 was a relay race involving many significant runners, will it be out of place to give due recognition to all the runners of the various legs? Is it not out of place to heap the praise and glory only on the runner of that last leg? My answer to the first is NO and YES to the second.

Nkrumah had the good luck, zeal, tenacity and energy to run the anchor leg of that long relay to its finish. No one must or can take away that significant contribution, but our elders say, ‘s3 wo tia obi so hwe hw3 wo de3 a, worennhu’ – to wit, “If you trample upon what belongs to others in search of what is legitimately yours, you will never find it.”

Sad curiosity

It is a sad curiosity that the names of vast majority of our national heroes who risked life, liberty and limb and who valiantly fought for our independence can no longer be found on any Honours' Roll.

Many of my generation, not to mention younger generations will find many of these names alien. But they all deserve a place of pride in our minds and hearts - Danquah, Nkrumah, Paa Grant, R.S. Blay, R.A. Awoonor Williams, W.E. Ofori-Atta, E.A. Akufo Addo, J.W. de Graft Johnson, Obetsebi-Lamptey, John Tsibo, Cobinna Kesse, Koi Larbi, R.P. Baafour, E.A. Armah, R.D. Nelson, Laud Lartey, Quist-Therson, E.O. Lartsen, K. Brakatu Ateko, Amabibie, E. Quarcoo Tagoe, Enoch Mensah,  Asuana Quartey, Molade Akiwuni, W.M.Q. Halm, Oheneba Sakyi Djan, V.B. Annan, B.E.A. Tamakloe, Nii Kwabena Boney and all those mentioned above. Can we leave out Sergeant Adjetey, Corporal Attipoe and Private Odartey Lamptey?

 Great man

I began by setting out the qualities of a great man - one who has looked through the confusion of the moment and has seen the moral issues involved; a man who has refused to have his sense of justice distorted; listened to his conscience until conscience becomes a clarion call to like-minded men so that they gather about him and TOGETHER, with mutual purpose and mutual aid, make a new period in history. All these men adequately meet the test.

My second restatement of Nikita Khruschev reads in part, "...it is impermissible and foreign to the spirit of Marxism-Leninism to elevate one person, to transform him into a superman possessing supernatural characteristics akin to those of a god. Such a man supposedly knows everything, sees everything, thinks for everyone, can do anything, is infallible in his behaviour..." Are we who are here today and beyond prepared to pass this test?

A Founders' Day to honour all who so valiantly fought and gave of themselves to the service and foundation of this nation serves a worthier cause and purpose than a Founder's Day in honour of a single participant of those momentous events, however momentous his contribution may be.

—  The writer is the Energy Minister