KWAME NKRUMAH AND COUPS
Okello Oculi argues that Nkrumah would have endorsed coups which promote development, and end foreign exploitations
Osagyefo Kwame Nkrumah was elected to power from a colonial prison cell to lead self-government in the Gold Coast (now Ghana) in 1951. He had broken away from a political association by lawyers and businessmen who saw themselves as the ‘’aristocracy’’ of a British colony.
They were disgusted that as Secretary of their ‘’UNITED GOLD COAST CONVENTION’’ Nkrumah had built support among market women, mechanics other ‘’flotsam and jetsam’’ and riffraff. He formed the Convention Peoples Party (CPP), by following a Chinese injunction that a leader ‘’must live among the people’’; ‘’Learn from them’’; ‘’Love them’’; ‘’Serve them’’ and ‘’Plan with them’’. The ‘’aristocracy’’ were not only distant from the people but also held them in contempt.
Nkrumah’s political law of anti-colonial politics was: ‘’SEEK YE FIRST THE POLITICAL KINGDOM’’ and economic and social development will follow from what you do with that power. Colonial rulers held political power to serve the interest of their country. Political power must be used to fight ‘’poverty and exploitation’’.
It was paradoxical that after taking Ghana into full ‘’Independence’’ from British officials and wielding power from 1957 to 1966, he lost that power to military officers while he was in the air travelling to China to seek for peace between the United States of America and General Giap’s liberation army in Vietnam. It is as if Ghana’s military officers had thrown back to him his injunction to grab political power. The military coup was preceded by several attempts to assassinate him. WEST AFRICA magazine later reported that British and American diplomats had sponsored these violent attempts to terminate him.
Nkrumah and Prime Minister Abubakar Tafawa Balewa had publicly announced their obligation to end foreign rule in Africa. Nkrumah had put this mission this way: “As long as a single foot of African soil remains under foreign domination, the battle must continue’’. Alarm bells rung in South Africa and Portugal. The Salazar government in Lisbon had declared arrogantly that Mozambique, Angola and Guinea Bissau were ‘’provinces’’ of Portugal. They were NOT constituencies for African nationalism to strut across.
The DE BEERS company in South Africa held rights for exploration for diamonds in FIVE SIXTHS of Luanda Province of Angola. A British company owned most of the shares in the Benguela Railway in Angola which carried minerals from Katanga in Congo and the Copper Belt in Northern Rhodesia (now Zambia). American, French and Belgian governments also had interests in mines in South Africa. Portugal had also signed a contract to haul one hundred thousand ‘’natives’’ from Angola to be used as force-labourers in mines and farms in South Africa. This was lucrative colonialism.
Ears inside companies and among shareholders with influence on governments in these countries, must have been scandalised and panicked by threats from Tafawa Balewa and Kwame Nkrumah. We must assume that their reflex reactions were to terminate these cheeky Africans. They, after all, knew only the power of rhino skin whips and guns in dealing with Africans; not negotiations and dialogue. Military coups against both men came quickly. These foreign interests had conducted a military coup against Patrice Lumumba and brutally murdered him within six months after his election, on June 30th, 1960, as the first Prime Minster of Congo.
This lesson of using military coups to protect vital economic interests was being echoed in Guinea, Mali, Burkina Faso and Niger. In these countries are found vast deposits of bauxite, gold, uranium, diamond and other minerals. In a twist of fortune, the culprits who had turned to military coups to murder democratically elected African leaders (as punishment for the crime of calling for freedom), were now under attack for supporting rulers who allow them to exploit these resources. Their support was now cynically promoted under the cover of defending ‘’democracy’’.
Nkrumah had promoted the hope that political parties that had won the struggle for Independence would dissolve their identities into a united entity for wielding power in UNITED STATES OF AFRICA. Such a union would be based on the will and participation of the masses of African peoples. The support of the people would be similar to the crowds that welcomed and stood by the military coups in Mali, Guinea, Burkina Faso and Niger. Unlike the foreign economic and political interests that detested democracy based on serving the people, Nkrumah urged for a development process based on consulting the genius of the people.
In 2022, Sudan’s military terminated a tenacious mass struggle for civilian-led democratic governance. Saudi Arabia, Qatar, and United Arab Emirates are accused of promoting the coup because of fear of contagious mass protests also overthrowing their own dictatorships. Nkrumah would endorse ECOWAS coups for promoting development, ending poverty and foreign exploitation.
Prof Oculi writes from Abuja
