By Kweku Darko Ankrah
From time to time, it becomes necessary to set the historical record straight. Kwame Nkrumah is routinely condemned for four principal actions:
(a) The establishment of a One-Party State
(b) The dismissal of Chief Justice Sir Arku Korsah and four other judges-Justices Edward Akufo-Addo, Robert Samuel Blay, Kofi Adumua Bossman, and Henry Kwasi Prempeh
(c) The enactment of the Preventive Detention Act
(PDA) and Alien Deportation Act.
(d) The Re Akoto case
These measures undeniably occurred under Nkrumah’s government. Yet critics-often displaying selective historical memory-present them as unprecedented authoritarian excesses. What is conveniently ignored is that the National Liberation Council (NLC) and the Progress Party (PP) regime that followed perpetrated comparable actions, in several instances with greater severity.
Relook at (a) The One-Party State and Political
Proscription
While Nkrumah’s 1964 constitutional amendment formally established a One-Party State, the NLC itself enacted the Prohibited Organisations Decree, 1969 (issued on 6 June 1969), banning the Convention People’s Party (CPP) and proscribing individuals associated with Nkrumah.
Notably, Dr Willie Kofi Lutterodt and sixty-seven others-including lawyer Nee Odoi Annan, Geoffred Aduamah (barrister-at-law), Ambassador O. B.
Amankwa, and former CP ministers Kwasi Amoako-Atta, J. Y. Ghann, and Imoru Egala-were barred from contesting the 1969 elections. Their pro-Nkrumahist People’s Popular Party (PPP) was also outlawed (see Daily Graphic, Issue 5,811, 7 June 1969, p. 1: “68 P.P.P. Members Disqualified”).
This political ban was later entrenched in the 1969 Constitution, which was simultaneously advertised to the public as enshrining “Fundamental Human Rights.” The contradiction is obvious.
Relook at (b) Judicial Purges: Nkrumah versus the NLC
It is true that Nkrumah controversially dismissed
Chief Justice Korsah and four other judges: Edward Akufo Addo, Robert Samuel Blay, Kofi Adumua Bossman and Henry Kwasi Prempeh. However, they were paid severance packages of £10,000 each for the loss of office (see Geoffrey Bing, Reap the Whirlwind, page 415)..
Following the 1966 coup, Justice Edward Akufo-Addo-himself one of the dismissed judges and now a member of the NLC-was recalled to office. Chief Justice Julius Sarkodee Adoo, who had replaced Korsah, was summarily removed, paving the way for Akufo-Addo’s reinstatement as Chief Justice.
More troubling still, Akufo-Addo subsequently advised the NLC to dismiss over thirty-six judges across the Supreme Court, Court of Appeal, High Court, and even Circuit Courts. These judges include Justices Augustus A Akainyah, George Commey Mills-Odoi, William Stacy Bruce-Lyle and Johnson Boaten Siriboe, who were kicked out of the Supreme Court.
At the High Court, Justices George Lawer Arthur Djabanor, Akilano Molade Akiwumi, Henry Peter Lankai Bannerman, Kodwo Ebu Boison, Kwame Okyere-Darko, Sarpong Asafu-Adjaye, Samuel Aryeetey Attoh and Samuel Akuamoa Wiredu (see ANE Amissah, The Contribution of the Courts, page 215).
Unlike Nkrumah’s dismissed judges, these jurists received no severance payments.
