"Education consists not only in the sum of what a man knows, or the skill
with which he can put this to his own advantage. In my view, a man's
education must be measured in terms of the soundness of his judgement of
people and things, and in the power to understand and appreciate the needs
of his fellow men, and to be of service to them. The educated man should be
so sensitive to the conditions around him that makes it his chief endeavour
to improve those conditions for the good of all" Now read on.

 

Nkrumah: The Arising Phoenix

By Akyaaba Addai-sebo

Like the stirrings of animals before an earthquake or tremor, the hard times
signals were there for opportunists to take advantage of and strike. A
student mate and I had a long argument on the general state of things in the
country the night before the February 24, 1966 coup. We had secreted
ourselves to study late on 23 February but ended up discussing current
events in the country. 
My mate was disturbed by the difficulties his mother was having taking care
of the nuclear family of five as the father had died not long ago. He
pointed to the facts of rising cost of living and scarcity of essential
items. He drove his points home when he drew attention to the apparent
declining quality of food at the dining hall of our secondary school.
As a uniformed member of the Young Pioneers movement, although the realities
of our conditions painted and articulated by Kwabena Banson could not escape
me, I echoed the reasons given by government leaders and their appeal to
patriots to tighten their belts because "imperialists, colonialists and
neo-colonialists" were interfering in our national life to the point of
lowering cocoa prices and precipitating industrial unrest within key trade
unions.
I drifted into a deep sleep and was awakened by the shouts of a senior that
Nkrumah had been overthrown and there was fighting at the Flagstaff House,
the choice of residence of the President. I could not hold on any longer as
I found my way to seek my bosom friend, Kwabena. When I located him the
shock in his face complemented mine but his was a sense of relief tempered
by uncertainty and fear. A flowing anger overpowered me and I returned to my
dormitory to put on my Young Pioneers uniform, boots and scarf and sought
out colleagues to march into town to resist. The headmaster, Mr.
Orleans-Pobee, stopped us in our tracks and severely admonished me. I could
not understand him as it was rather his style of inspirational leadership
that had also inculcated that innervating sense of nationalism, African
self-belief and a deep sense of purpose in me and most of his students. I
never felt the same again inside me as the coupists succeeded in their utter
denunciation of President Nkrumah. What shocked me most was the burning of
books associated with Nkrumah, socialism and communism at the grounds of the
Trades Union Congress in Accra.
Western popular culture
Soon after the coup western popular culture took over as western musical
instruments penetrated selected schools, the armed forces and police. The
precursor was the Kofi Ghanaba's inspired Adisadel Jazz Band led by a
Canadian teacher, Jeffrey, which brought in its wake a post-coup shoal of
pop groups centred around Cape Coast with influence spreading across the
country
and also within the armed forces and police. Adisadel led this new found
expression with Ricky Telfer/Soga's Thunderbirds, Sam Mensah's Reverse Five,
Glen Warren's Avalanches followed in intensity by St. Augustine's Famous
Flames with Mensah Brown and then Mfantsipim's Beavers with Neal Hesse. Out
of campus life, Telfer led the Magic Aliens into the wider community to be
followed by the Todd brothers' El Polos. The army and police that carried
out the coup plot would not be left out and from there emerged Gaby Nick
Valdo and the Avengers and Pat Koto and the Police Band. Attempts at
smothering Nkrumah's African Personality heightened with the epic
Soul-to-Soul musical concert at the Black Star Square on 6 March 1971. 
What must be noted here is that while our founding fathers deliberately
chose 6 March as our historic day of independence to reverse the spiritual
and material impact of the Bond of 1844 signed on 6 March to seal our
colonisation by the British, the Busia regime unwittingly allowed
"Soul-to-Soul" to be staged on a 6th March surreptitiously to "seal" the
souls of Africans at home and abroad. This pattern of supplanting the
African essence with that of the European colonizers was not lost on our
founding fathers. Most of the forts, castles and Christian churches dotted
around the southern part of the country from Christianborg in Osu to the
Wesleyan Chapel in Kumasi were erected on African sacred grounds, after our
spiritual edifices had been razed to the ground. The story of what the coup
of February 24, 1966 did to our African soul has yet to be researched and
told.
Education
The regimes that replaced Nkrumah have made "education" not a right but a
privilege. What hurts so much is the fact that the accelerated decline in
the quality of education provision and delivery in the last twenty-five
years has actively been supervised by some of my own generation who enjoyed
the universal free education policy of Nkrumah. Unable to break free from
all the shackles and entrapment of neo-colonialism my generation continues
to live in a state of denial, thus betraying the ideals of the Nkrumah
phenomenon which emphasised education as a means to total liberation and
selfless service. 
Although some of my friends now in government would continue to deny the
significant impact of Nkrumah on our national soul the revelation here is
that for any regime to survive in Ghana they have to at least pay lip
service to the Nkrumah phenomenon and particularly his education, housing
and health policies. The Kufuor regime is faced with this litmus test as we
approach the 50th anniversary of Independence in 2007. What do they do about
this Nkrumah phenomenon which like a phoenix is arising?
Children of danquah/busia
It is laudable that the son of Obetsebi Lamptey, in the person of Jake, is
leading an "Akwaaba Anyemi" campaign to exorcise the ills of slavery so as
to seal the souls of Africans both at home and abroad. The ringing irony and
historical twist here is that it is the children of the very party that
boycotted Ghana's independence that are going to lead in the celebration of
the 50th anniversary of independence. What is the lesson here? Will Kufuor
sing wholeheartedly to Ghanaian youth and the world the story and
achievements of Nkrumah as our cherished heritage? As Jake Obetsebi Lamptey
tries to get our traditional leaders whose ancestors are alleged to have
participated in the slave trade to apologise to African-Americans, what
about the healing of the Ghanaian soul torn asunder by the events of 24th
February 1966? The year 2007 presents an opportunity for national healing
and this appears to be the destiny and legacy of the Kufuor presidency. Let
the benchmark of the Kufuor regime be that of tolerance and concord.
Nkrumah's birthday
The Kufuor presidency should seize the opportunity and ask parliament to
declare Nkrumah's birthday, 21 September, as a national holiday to put to
rest the internecine conflict that has marred Ghanaian politics since the
UGCC in 1949. Our national politics must be placed on a higher moral
pedestal where selfless service in pursuit of national developmental goals
is our benchmark. Nkrumah's nation building strategy remains a national
benchmark for all regimes now that Ghanaians have nearly twenty years of
Rawlings and eight years of Kufuor to compare. It is this benchmark that we
accept and respect as a nation when the government of the day honours
Nkrumah with a national holiday. The Americans could do it with Dr. Martin
Luther King, even though he was not a head of state.
As Ephraim Amu's "Yen Ara Asase Ni" and the Adisadel College school ode
taught me to believe, others have laboured and we share in their glory and
ours is to do exploits to add to their gain so that those who come after
would take up the story and make it worthy of singing again. And this is
precisely what President Nkrumah meant when he tried to inculcate into us
that:
Education consists not only in the sum of what a man knows, or the skill
with which he can put this to his own advantage. In my view, a man's
education must be measured in terms of the soundness of his judgement of
people and things, and in the power to understand and appreciate the needs
of his fellow men, and to be of service to them. The educated man should be
so sensitive to the conditions around him that makes it his chief endeavour
to improve those conditions for the good of all.
CAkyaaba Addai-sebo 

Author: Akyaaba Addai-sebo


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