For decades, during his lifetime, in office and long after his death, a small but distinct group of his compatriots have done nothing but denigrate Osagyefo Dr Kwame Nkrumah.
Some of them were his colleagues in the United Gold Coast Convention (UGCC), the organisation which invited Dr Nkrumah to return to the Gold Coast to help liberate our country from its colonial yoke.
The difference in strategy to achieve our independence is what drove the wedge between Dr Nkrumah and his erstwhile colleagues.
His tactics following on from his Action Now! strategy proved far superior to their wishy-washy independence at some point in the future plan.
Much has been written about the narcissism and overweening sense of entitlement of this clique, to rule our country after the departure of the British.
Their hatred for Dr Nkrumah stems from a virulent jealousy of the resounding success of his Action Now! strategy that led him to become our first Prime Minister and later President.
The irony is that Dr Nkrumah never retaliated in words or kind to their hideous machinations.
J.B. Danquah’s imprisonment, however, was fully legal under the Preventive Detention Act, the anti-terrorist Law that the British had enacted and trialed out in India, and which had become part of the Law in the Gold Coast and later Ghana.
Danquah was found guilty of being involved in several attempts to assassinate Dr Nkrumah. That’s how far Danquah’s inordinate hatred of Dr Nkrumah had led him.
The unreasonable hatred this clique had for Dr Nkrumah seems to have been passed down in their DNA to their descendants who are now in power in Ghana.
As our Nigerian kinsfolk put it, today any ‘anini’ person wakes up and hurls insults at Dr Nkrumah and receives praise. Indeed, it has become a career option for some and puts food on their table.
Others like Kwame Kyei-Baffour take an obtuse route to do the same.
In a piece circulated on WhatsApp, where he painfully contorts himself to appear even-handed, Kyei-Baffour comes across as no different from these paid serial Nkrumah abusers.
Shame on him! He lazily chose the cheap and false premise of ‘mate sebi mprensa’ (I have craved your pardon three times) so I could let rip, and went on to disrespect Dr Nkrumah using some ‘huhudious’ analogies with music genres and basketball!
He simply showed himself as a lightweight, a wannabe intellectual, to be swatted aside as one would a bothersome fly.
Apart from their arrogance and ignorance, the biggest offence committed by these quislings, especially Napo, is that of ingratitude.
The willful ignorance of our nation’s history by the likes of Danquah, Busia, Napo, Kyei-Baffour and other serial Nkrumah abusers is very worrying!
Don’t they realise that we had every right to demand our country back from the British when the Bond of 1844 expired in 1944?
The Brits were not doing us a favour by granting us independence.
The reality is that the contract had expired, and skint after two world wars, the Brits were loath to stop the flow of our wealth to their coffers and return our country to us.
The injustice of this is what Dr Nkrumah fought against, for 13 long years of imprisonment, indignity and deprivation to put us on the road to political and economic freedom, culminating in Republic Day on 1st July 1960.
What is so wrong with what he did for our collective good?
The tragic irony is that after the descendants of those who wanted independence at some vague period in the future got into power in Ghana, they have been busy unravelling all the gains we made as a sovereign nation, including the cancellation of Republic Day!
They are content with the hollowness of their positions, dancing to the strings that the former and new colonialists are pulling.
They seem happy with this arrangement, so long as they get to strut about in the pomp and pageantry of their positions but are not required to do anything for the benefit of the citizens.
House niggers, game set and match!
It is against this background that the dissonance of Napo’s rant against Dr Nkrumah hit the raw nerves of long-suffering Ghanaians at home and abroad.
We are keenly aware that we plod along daily as a nation on the infrastructure (now creaking) and other services that Dr Nkrumah set up during his tenure, from 1951.
All these markers of social progress were cut short in 1966, thanks to the treachery of the ancestors of the current bunch in office who have done zilch, after nearly eight years in office. Instead, by dint of sheer incompetence, corruption and thievery they have led us into an abyss of debt that we may never climb out of.
Perhaps, feeling the whiplash of anger that his rant against Dr Nkrumah unleashed, Napo circulated a letter of apology on social media. He needn’t have bothered.
The contents were despicable. It only served to highlight the heights of his arrogance and ingratitude.
To illustrate: Napo attended two institutions (primary school and University) established by and named after Dr Nkrumah.
Did he think that those who named those institutions were playing “si, si, sii? (Akan version of Eenie, meenie, miney mo).”
Has he ever used the Tema motorway?
Or crossed the Adomi bridge?
Or flicked on the lights in his house thanks to power from the Akosombo Dam?
Does he appreciate being a Minister of the Unitary Republic of Ghana, made up of different ethnic groups, including the Ewe of Keta and not just a Minister for the Ashanti?
Who made all that possible?
None other than Osagyefo Dr Kwame Nkrumah!
It is time to put a stop to this unnecessary and spiteful treatment of Dr. Nkrumah.
It only divides us as a nation.
The only winners of this toxic state of affairs are the unseen foreign Puppet Masters that Dr. Nkrumah often warned us about, who continue to sink their fangs into our collective minds and natural resources and won’t let go.
Our elders taught us that you don’t point to your father’s house with your elbow or left hand. Let that sink in!
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