Full text of “Reap The Whirlwind An Account Of Kwame Nkrumahs Ghana”

GEOFFREY BING 


Reap the Whirlwind 

An Account of 
Kwame Nkrumah’s Ghana 
from 1950 to 1966 



MACGIBBON & KEE 



FIRST PUBLISHED 1968 BY MACGIBBON & KEE LTD 
3 UPPER JAMES STREET GOLDEN SQUARE LONDON W I 
COPYRIGHT @ GEOFFREY BING 1 9 68 
PRINTED IN GREAT BRITAIN BY 
EBENEZER BAYL1S & SON LTD 
THE TRINITY PRESS 
WORCESTER AND LONDON 

sbn: 261 62009 6 



For our adopted son 
PATRICK ADOTEY BING 


this account of his country 
during the first sixteen years 
of his life 



CONTENTS 


1 AFRICAN PROSPECTIVE Page II 

2 GOING TO GHANA 40 

3 THE COLONIAL COLLAPSE 73 

4 INTERREGNUM OF LOST OPPORTUNITY 117 

5 CONSTITUTIONAL ADVISER 160 

6 ATTORNEY GENERAL 19S 

7 THE STRANGE CASE OF MAJOR AWHAITEY 239 

8 DESIGNING A REPUBLIC 278 

9 MINISTRY OF JUSTICE TO FLAGSTAFF HOUSE 313 

10 EDUCATION 340 

11 THE LAST YEARS 372 

12 THE NON-POLITICAL ARMY 416 

13 THE HARVEST 439 

APPENDIX 451 

INDEX 497 



For they have sown the wind, 
and they shall reap the whirlwind : 
it hath no stalk: 
the bud shall yield no meal: 
if so be it yield, 

the strangers shall swallow it up. 

hosea 8 : 7 



CHAPTER ONE 


AFRICAN PROSPECTIVE 


For nine years, from its independence in 1957 to 1966, Ghana 
was illuminated by the glare of world publicity. Every figure who 
appeared on its stage was magnified and distorted, almost beyond 
recognition. Then suddenly in February 1966, as the result of a 
military rebellion this little country was, so it seemed, cut down to 
size. Overnight it was converted into what in fact it had always been, 
a small state on the West Coast of Africa in no way historically, 
strategically or economically important to the world. 

In size, it is true, Ghana, or the Gold Coast as it used to be 
called when still a British colony, is almost equal to Great Britain; 
but this is no criterion in a continent where some states, like the 
Sudan and the Congo, exceed in area the whole of Western Europe. 
Its population is minute compared with, say Nigeria. It commands 
no strategic river or land communications and its territories have 
never been essential as a military or naval base for any world power. 
Its mineral resources are of marginal importance, and in no way vital 
to world industry or defence. Only in the production of about one- 
third of the world’s supply of one semi-luxury crop, cocoa beans, 
has it any global significance. Except, therefore, for the threat that if 
Ghana dissolved into chaos, a bar of chocolate might, for a time, 
cost a penny or so more, it had no importance to the world economy, 
and from the point of view of the overall strategy of the great 
powers it could be ignored whatever its military policy. Its sole 
importance was its example. 

But its example of what? By African standards, it is true, Ghana 
was relatively wealthy and in its first nine years of independence 
achieved, despite having one of the fastest-growing populations in 
the world, a net increase in its gross national product. Ghana had 
begun its independence on roughly the same level of production as 
Mexico but it soon pulled ahead and maintained this lead over 
Mexico’s relative achievement until the destruction of the Nkrumah 
Government. This is a success which was worthy of note, but at 


XI 



AFRICAN PROSPECTIVE 13 

companies threatened to close their mines, their assets were acquired 
on the London Stock Exchange by the Ghana Government in a 
take-over bid whose orthodoxy and propriety were equal to any 
similar operation by the most staid of British capitalist enterprises 
and differed from such only in the more generous terms it accorded 
to the retiring shareholders. 

This remarkable world interest in Ghana presents, from the start, 
a problem of presentation to anyone who, like myself, was a member 
of its administration, played a part in the formulation of its policy 
and is now writing a book about it. It might seem that the best and, 
indeed, the most honest course would be to take the allegations 
which have been made against Dr Nkrumah and others like myself 
who worked with his government, where possible refute them, and, 
in those cases when they must be admitted to have substance, 
explain the circumstances which produced the miscalculations, 
mistakes and even crimes which, on occasion, certainly occurred. 
The fact that similar miscalculations, mistakes and crimes, made 
contemporaneously in other parts of the world, were passed over in 
silence or even applauded as acts of statesmanship and political 
realism would appear, certainly at first sight, to have nothing to do 
with the matter. That the preacher continually calls one sinner to 
repentance while ignoring the obviously more heinous offences of 
other members of his flock is no justification for the wrong-doer in 
question refusing to examine his conscience or considering the 
propriety of those of his actions for which he has been called upon 
to account. This angle of approach has, in the case of Ghana, a 
further advantage. The very exaggeration of much of the attack, 
the misstatement of verifiable facts and the self-contradictory 
grounds from which it was often mounted make refutation easy. 

Yet this is not, I think, the best purpose which a book such as this 
should attempt. Accordingly I have not tried to write primarily a 
personal defence of Dr Nkrumah, his Ministers, or his Partv the 
CPP, nor have I aimed to do so in my own case. If, ; n t j }e ^ urse 
of the narrative these matters incidentally emerge, then well and 
good, but to concentrate on them would only obscure the important 
lesson in its world context which Ghana provides. ” 

The fact that Ghana in general, and Dr Nkrumah i n particular 
excited world comment, accompanied by adverse criticism when 
the same comments and criticisms could have been made in'regard 



I4 REAP THE WHIRLWIND 

to other countries and individuals and were not, cannot be explained 
away by the excuse of a hostile Western press. A journalist sent to 
visit a game reserve will naturally go in search of wild life. He may, 
out of a decent regard for the expenses his editor has been put to in 
sending him there, underestimate the distance he was from the 
beasts which he saw, and exaggerate the number of species he 
observed, but his journey to the remote area in question would never 
have been financed by his newspaper unless there was an outside 
interest in what the game reserve contained. 

In other words, the interest in Ghana and the hostility to it were 
the result of external pressures, and the initial attitude of the 
Western media of communication was the result of a climate of 
opinion generated outside their editorial offices. The bad press 
from which Ghana so often suffered was only one symptom of the 
dislike for the country’s policy and its leaders shown by, not only 
the Establishment in the West, but also by many supposedly non- 
Establishment centres of opinion. The really interesting question is 
why such hostility should ever have arisen at all and particularly 
over such a broad front. 

The answer most often given was that the Convention People’s 
Party of Ghana having won power in colonial times through the 
ballot box, abandoned, once independence was secured, the 
democracy it had promised to establish, immediately instituted a 
dictatorship, built up its leader Dr Kwame Nkrumah into an almost 
godlike figure, flung its political opponents intojail and then indulged 
in an orgy of ostentatious spending, corruption and general mis- 
management that was bound to end in national disaster. Against 
such conduct by Dr Nkrumah and his party had not those in 
positions of responsibility in the developed countries not only the 
right but the duty to protest ? Would they not have been failing in 
their commitment to the developing world if they did not rigorously 
investigate and publicize these matters as a warning to other states 
coming to independence and which might otherwise fall into 
similar evil ways? 

It would be wrong to say that the Western attitude to Ghana was 
in no way influenced by these high-minded principles. There were 
many people in Britain, and indeed in the United States and else- 
where, who had been fierce opponents of British colonialism. They 
had regarded it as a dictatorship under which civil liberty was 



AFRICAN PROSPECTIVE 15 

disregarded and the colonial peoples impoverished and exploited. It 
was only natural that they should feel that Ghanaian independence 
was, at least in part, a result of their labours. They therefore 
considered they had reason to protest when they were led to believe 
that a country which they had helped towards independence, and 
with whose reputation their own credit was involved, was continuing 
to follow the evil methods of colonial rule. It is only human that 
they should have, without inquiring too deeply into the truth of 
the allegations so widely made, hastened to dissociate themselves 
from a regime which was reported to be doing the very things which 
they had assured their political opponents no liberated African 
colony would ever do. Above all, there was a belief, particularly so 
far as British liberals were concerned, that in one field at least 
Ghana could succeed where Britain, the United States and the 
Western World had failed. They were certain that, if only Ghana 
gave the proper example, it would be possible to correct the 
great African error which their forebears had made fifty years 
before. 

The South African settlement had reversed what had been 
consistent British policy for a hundred years, namely never to 
entrust political power to the local white minority. The old alliance 
born from the struggle against the slave trade in which the colonial 
administrator, the radical and the missionary identified themselves 
with the African was fragmented by the peace of Vereeniging, which 
ended the Boer war, and which at the same time guaranteed to the 
defeated Boer republics that Britain would not, by the exercise of 
the imperial authority she had reasserted by arms, extend the right 
to vote to any African. 

Complicated pressures at home had converted the British anti- 
imperialist of the nineteenth century to the pro-Boer of the twentieth. 
The stern Dutch Calvinists of Southern Africa had seemed, even to 
the Roman Catholic Irish fighting to destroy a minority Protestant 
ascendancy at home, the prototype of the anti-colonial freedom 
fighter. Thus it was, thanks to support of English and Irish liberals 
who, in the previous century, had been the strongest defenders of 
African rights, that there triumphed the conception of a great gold 
and diamond territory run, not on colonial, but on neo-colonial 
principles, where the white minority would be free to corral and 
exploit cheap black labour without any embarrassing social issues 



x 6 reap the whirlwind 

being raised in the United Kingdom Parliament. Fifty years, almost 
to the day, before the establishment of Ghanaian independence 
internal self rule had been restored in the Transvaal and the Orange 
Free State and every black or coloured man in the then most 
advanced and developed part of the African continent was thus 
denied for ever the opportunity of achieving constitutionally the 
right to determine his own future. 

In 1910 the Conservative spokesman in the House of Commons, 

A. J. Balfour, enunciated what had already become, and was to 
remain, British policy throughout the first half of the twentieth 
century. You cannot, he told the British House of Commons, give 
Africans in South Africa equal rights with Europeans without 
‘threatening the whole fabric of white civilization’. This earlier 
‘Balfour Declaration’, though less well known, has had perhaps a 
more profound effect on world politics than his subsequent more 
publicized ‘Balfour Declaration’ on the rights of the Jewish people 
to Palestine. 

British liberal interest in Ghana arose in part from the belief 
that Britain had, fifty years after granting self rule to the Boer 
Republics, suddenly reverted to the older nineteenth-century policy 
of putting justice to the African first. Those who had suffered from 
the inherited guilt of the creation of South Africa suddenly felt 
purged by the construction in Ghana of a replica of the British 
Parliamentary system. OnDrNkrumah, an African Prime Minister, 
it seemed miraculously fashioned in the Downing Street model, 
was to fall the burden of righting the wrong their fathers had done. 
To many British liberals, and to some perhaps in the United States 
and Western Europe also, Dr Nkrumah was under a solemn 
obligation to lead the Africans to their long Promised Land along a 
stricdy constitutional path. It was only when he started marching 
around the walls of Jericho blowing trumpets that their faith 
wavered. After all their kith and kin were inside the fortifications 
and no one knew what trumpet-blowing might lead to. 

Dr Nkrumah was cast as a Messiah, but as a Messiah of ortho- 
doxy, who, by his exercise of British political techniques would 
convert the racialists of Southern Africa. To Mr Dennis Austin, for 
example, who is a Senior Research Fellow in the Institute of 
Commonwealth Studies at the University of London and who spent 
many years in Ghana, Dr Nkrumah ‘was not evil or even vicious . . .’ 



AFRICAN PROSPECTIVE 


17 

According to this student of Commonwealth affairs ‘The main 
impression he leaves behind is one of silliness . . . Ghana’s foreign 
policy simply bore no relation to the size or resources of Ghana’. 
In other words he should have stuck to the conversion of South 
Africa by the practice of Western democracy and not concerned 
himself with anything else. To Mr Austin and those like him the 
problems of the world were no concern of the developing African 
nations. Peace or war, the United Nations, the hunger and unrest 
that haunt mankind today were matters which should be left strictly 
to the rulers of the great powers. Mr Austin was, at first, prepared to 
concede that Dr Nkrumah’s endeavours in these fields ‘did no harm 
perhaps except once again to show the dream like world of myth 
which Nkrumah inhabited’ but, by the time he had reached the end 
of the article in which he had expressed these views, he could not 
even stand by this soft impeachment. At his back, as with so many 
British liberals, he too had heard the winged nemesis of the Southern 
African betrayal. Dr Nkrumah in other circumstances might have 
been laughed at — but nevertheless excused — for concerning himself 
with humanity, but, in the African circumstances of the day this was 
the great betrayal. Mr Austin was compelled to qualify his con- 
clusion that Dr Nkrumah’s principal offence was ‘myth making’ : 

\ . . Perhaps this is to be too kind,’ he concluded his summing up, 
‘for one of the unhappy consequences of Nkrumah’s rule was that it 
encouraged, and gave a spurious justification to, those who opposed 
African independence. . . . One has only to consider how powerful a 
criticism of white minority rule the preservation of a free political 
society in Ghana would have been, to lament the failure of Nkrumah.’ 

Those who study historical myths may be pardoned for wondering 
whether the greatest myth of all may not be the persistent liberal 
belief in Britain and elsewhere that somehow somewhere some 
African country will emerge and, by its example, convert South 
Africa, Portugal and Southern Rhodesia to an acceptance of 
democracy and racial equality. Dislike of Dr Nkrumah’s regime 
sprang, in part no doubt, from the fact that there were liberals who 
genuinely believed that Ghana had been called into existence out of 
pure imperial beneficence so that Western Africa might prove 
Southern Africa wrong. They never realized that Ghana was as 
much a prisoner of its past as South Africa, and what Dr Nkrumah 



REAP THE WHIRLWIND 

could or could not do was to a large extent governed by Ghana’s 
past history as the British colony of the Gold Coast. 

Nevertheless had the criticisms of Ghana only come from sucti 
sources they would have been understandable and, to some extent 
perhaps, even justifiable. What is really of interest is that the bulk of 
the criticism came, not from these liberal origins, but from organs 
of orthodox conservative opinion in Britain, the United States, and 
in many ways more significant still, in Western Europe and par- 
ticularly in Federal Germany. Whatever the motives which promp- 
ted criticisms from these quarters they were not caused by 
disappointment that Ghana had not, through the force of its example, 
dethroned white supremacy in Rhodesia and South Africa; nor 
were they likely to be due to any overriding regard for human 
values, parliamentary democracy or civil liberties in the under- 
developed world in general. 

It is difficult to escape from the conclusion that so far as those 
in power in the Western countries were concerned Dr Nkrumah s 
sin was not denial of civil liberty — that he behaved for example as 
the British Government was contemporaneously behaving in 
Kenya — or that his administration was extravagant or corrupt. If 
Western policy had been directed specifically against these two 
latter evils its first target would surely have been the oil sheikdoms 
of Arabia and the immense wealth amid poverty which exist in 
countries like Liberia and Thailand. It was motivated by something 
else but what was there about his policy which produced this 
response? Ghana’s example during the nine years of Dr Nkrumah’s 
rule provoked apparently quite disproportionate world interest, 
usually coupled with hostility, which cannot be explained, in the 
main, in terms of the humanitarian excuses which were given for it. 
Why then was the interest so sustained? What, in the last resort, 
did it matter to Britain, the United States or Western Europe what 
Ghana did? 

There are some obvious partial answers but none of them provide 
a completely satisfactory explanation. Africa has been the great area 
of nineteenth-century colonization. It was here that for three- 
quarters of a century' the white man had carried his burden. If 
Africans now were proved able and ready to rule themselves, could 
they not have done it before? Might not the moral excuse for 
colonialism be exposed as a task of supererogation by Ghana’s very 



AFRICAN PROSPECTIVE 19 

existence? American civilization had, in part, been built on slavery. 
The wealth of Belgium had been augmented by the horrors of 
King Leopold’s exploitation of the Congo and Britain’s prosperity 
in the eighteenth century had owed much to the slave trade. If 
history could not excuse these past wrongs at least they could be 
explained if it were shown that, even in the conditions of the 
present, Africans could not rule themselves and the theory of 
the inherent superiority of the white races, which had provided 
the moral justification for past crimes, had at least some intrinsic 
validity even today. 

These reasons contributed, no doubt, to the Western disapproval 
and publicized fascination that surrounded everything that Ghana 
under Dr Nkrumah did, but they do not explain it adequately; 
otherwise everything that Africans south of the Sahara did would 
have been subject to a similar detailed and disparaging analysis and 
it was not. One is driven back on the possibility that what Ghana was 
doing during these years, ineffectual and confused as it might appear, 
presented nevertheless a challenge to the Western system powerful 
enough to compel it to mount a sustained counter-offensive. 

Ghanaian policy had many facets. There was the advocacy of 
African unity and the campaign against racialism, colonialism and 
neo-colonialism. There was the belief in a ‘Third Force’, a grouping 
of non-aligned states which would not depend on East or West and 
which would yet have a definite and concerted policy of its own. 
There was theoretical support for socialism but acceptance in 
practice of a mixed economy. There was, at the United Nations and 
elsewhere, an assertion of international equality and at home a 
Government press which, at times, violently and rudely questioned 
Western policy. But in all such things Ghana was by no means alone. 
These may have been the outward features of Ghanaian policy, but 
in total, it must have amounted to more than this to produce such 
sustained hostility. 

In the last resort Ghana, I think it can be shown, was attempting 
to achieve a means of co-existence between the industrialized 
nations and the poorer states who comprise the great bulk of man- 
kind. Certainly its policy, including even its inconsistencies, fits 
exactly into this pattern. On this small stage an experiment, I 
believe, of great interest to the world was attempted and failed. 

It was the all-prevailing feeling that this was so which kept me in 



AFRICAN PROSPECTIVE 


21 


and other technicians did was essential. If there was to be develop- 
ment on a mixed capitalist-socialist basis, not only such laws as those 
governing concessions and labour relations, but the whole legal 
framework of the state, required rebuilding. If it was impossible, for 
example, to reform police and court machinery so as to render 
unnecessary such laws as preventive detention, then the blame must 
be shared between those from outside who came to help in Ghana 
and those who might have come but did not. 

In fact, for reasons which it is one of the objects of this book to 
examine, the policy of internal and external co-existence tried by 
Dr Nkrumah failed and the technical achievements in law and 
administration which we accomplished were wasted efforts. Yet so 
far as I am concerned one thing at least was saved from the wreck 
and with this alone I am content. By working for ten years in the 
Ghanaian Government I have established, at least to my own 
satisfaction, that cooperation between African and European on a 
basis of equality is possible and that, irrespective of colour, what one 
has attempted, even if it has not been successful, is understood, 
acknowledged and accepted at levels at which one would never 
expect. 

When I was in prison my wife was under armed guard in our 
house. Alone, the telephone disconnected, and cut off from all our 
friends she settled down to complete an elaborate patchwork quilt 
on which she had been long engaged. An elderly and illiterate 
policeman from the Northern Territories was among the sentries. 
He told her that he could remember me from the time, sixteen years 
before, when I first visited the Gold Coast. I was, he said, ‘a good 
man’ and he would like to send me a message but he could not 
write. Would my wife allow him to sew one of the six-sided patches 
she was joining together? Afterwards if I was released she could 
show it to me. Perhaps I would remember him and think of him 
sometimes. Since then the quilt has been finished and my wife has 
put around his few stitches a ring of ‘french knots’ so that we might 
easily pick out that particular patch. If nothing else remains of what 
I attempted in Ghana these few stitches in a patchwork quilt are, for 
me, a sufficient memorial. 

But why was co-existence unsuccessful? It is necessary first to 
deal with the obvious paradox. What possible basis can there be for 
arguing that if Ghana in fact was attempting a policy designed to 



22 


REAP THE WHIRLWIND 

bridge the gap between the wealthy nations and the poor ones, this 
would have occasioned the hostility of the Western World? A 
peaceful and, particularly, a non-communist solution to die prob- 
ems of world poverty and under-development has always been 
proclaimed to be a matter of urgent Western concern. Mr Harold 
Wilson, for example, in his book The War on World Poverty , 
wntten in 1953 , makes the same point as was to be made by Dr 
Nkrumah in his Neo-colonialism-The Last Stage of Imperialism 
welve years laten Mr Wilson's argument, like thaf of Dr Nkrumah, 

dch ind nnT l the t,lat the growing disparity between 

taken civl t- 8 m ^ ° n C ° llisi ° n COUrsc and ™lcss actio » 
Ihe fin^r T Tu- ? b ° Und t0 be destr °y cd - Mr Wilson, in 
Britain and 1 °^ b °° k ’ descnbes how men of good will in 

themselves' on th! - 10SC ln tbe Movement, had prided 

industrialism and* 6 ' 11 ^ ^' CarS marcb out °f nineteenth-century 

■>■= welfare 

dedicated rlmm 1 British Labour Movement, he said, had 

Jnu“dpirf S v!°, ' S,r ° yine ! hc " Blincss ' squalor, misery, 
" ' "‘i "fVictorran capitalism, and he continued: 

Itm™r^L b rV' ry a rB ? r cali “ d - N »w rvho honour 

half of this war-torn 7 ° 7 ° h '’ nzons: l hcir mission in the second 

want not merely to the shn^ , C *° CaiTy tbe ' var on P ovcrt 7' and 
of the earth. We shall findTh °t *■ ^ lslands but t0 tbc uttermost ends 
as we know it find an! L r '° ° th T *** C3n world civilization 
mies we h„e boil, up " on °- 

aehat has 1,77777 77177777°"" “ *7' Wils0n h:,d Suggested, 

deal with it? If one accents the U J. ears f smce be wrote his book to 
°f The Wall Street Journal verv lVt-l^ °!i an ] edltorlal correspondent 
■he rath May , 9 6, , he coiresidem",^™ " B ” iK iss “' of 

t: S' d n T,t h sa “» “ •»» — 

iissss k ”f ~ 



AFRICAN PROSPECTIVE 23 

widening “between a white, complacent, highly bourgeois, very 
wealthy, very small North Atlantic elite and everybody else, and this 
is not a very comfortable heritage to leave to one’s children.” 

« “Everybody else” includes approximately two-thirds of thepopula- 
tionofthe earth, spread through about 100 nations. . . .Many diplo- 
mats and economists view the implications as overwhelmingly— and 
dangerously — political. Unless the present decline can be reversed, 
these analysts fear, the United States and other wealthy industrial 
powers of the West face the distinct possibility, in the words of British 
economist Barbara Ward, “of a sort of international class war”.’ 

Dr Nkrumah in his book, having referred to a number of such 
analyses as this, went on to quote President Truman’s statement of 
1951 which Mr Wilson had placed in the forefront of his: 

‘The only kind of war we seek is the good old fight against man’s 
ancient enemies . . . poverty, disease, hunger and illiteracy.’ 

on which he commented tartly: 

‘Sentiments of a similar nature have been re-echoed by all political 
leaders in the developed world but the stark fact remains: whatever 
wars may have been won since 1951, none of them is the war against 
poverty, disease, hunger and illiteracy. However little other types of 
war have been deliberately sought, they are the only ones which have 
been waged.’ 

Dr Nkrumah however argued that this difference between expressed 
purpose and the actual result achieved was not the consequence of a 
planned deception. ‘Nothing is gained, he said by assuming that 
those who express such views are insincere. s ™sis was that the 
internal pressure within developed states would always frustrate 
such good intentions unless a mechanism for counter-pressure was 
devised on an international scale. 

‘But,’ he wrote, ‘world pressure is not exercised by appeals, however 
eloquent, or by arguments, however convincing - - - It is necessary 
to secure a world realignment so that those who are at themonientthe 
helpless victims of a system will be able in future to exert a counter- 
pressure. Such counter pressures do not lead to war. On the contrary, 
it is often their absence which constitutes the threat to peace. . . 

To accept that world conflict is inevitable is to reject any belief in 



2 4 


REAP THE WHIRLWIND 


co-existence or in the policy of non-alignment as practised at present 
by many of the countries attempting to escape from neo-colonialism. 
A tvay out is possible. To start with, for the first time in human history, 
the potential material resources of the world are so great that there is 
no need for there to be rich and poor. It is only the organization to 
deploy these potential resources that is lacking.’ 


But why was this organization lacking when leading spokesmen 

fJr tbe deVC Oped and the under-developed world had for so 
long called for its establishment? 

hewinl S ,> ^ Ghana s nine tumultuous years is interesting just 
n even V ^ ° f the ba ™ a * d antagonisms Shich 

fact that i IS n - th i e br ° ad deSlgn that P rovokes hostility. It is the 
some vested^ . partlcu a ^ atte ™P t to implement it runs counter to 
rule bv an ali 0 ° n . labsm has never consisted merely in 
financL m SaTT * br T in itStrain a of commercial, 
the ending of iron™ i SOC | a rekl tionships which do not disappear at 
to be regarded ^ t and ' aVe obten > from long usage, come 

colonial System cammt l ** “S” 1 ° rder ° f th ings Thus the old 

The bonds which bindVou by S ° me b ™ ad SWeep ° f policy ' 
independence are not nf "r/ P °° r colonial territory come to 
thousand separate stn d S ° weave - They are composed of a 
many,atfirsS t Indeed 

state forward rather tharF b lr r lndlvldu:d strings pulling the new 
Ghana and the btSe^f 11 bacL Both the hostility to 
attempt to build a new ed'fi C * aroused > s P ra ng in part from its 
building was not destroyed^ * “■ the C ° lonial fou ndations. The old 
remodelled. Often the feam U l m partlcidar a h er particular, it was 
those who had hh bked T *7 ^ ° ne most ad ^d by 

was an ancient C ,° lonial To them it 

not a proprietary interest Intp sdd bad a sen timental, if 

necessary but to destroy the BririkT^T^L they acce P ted as 

er w ed W3S an °ther matter entirely ^ had S ° laboriousl y 
We are all victims of n u 

independence came, both Brhabandru 10115 presum Ptions. When 
" one - E " h 



AFRICAN PROSPECTIVE 25 

they had imagined it. Britain, on its side, presupposed that Ghana 
had undertaken to behave like a Commonwealth country in that it 
would preserve the outward semblance, at least, of what was always 
supposed, in Britain, to be the colonial heritage, the rule of law, a 
two-party system and the like. Ghana, on the other hand, regarded 
itself as the inheritor of the methods of government in practice used 
in the past by the British colonial administration and it considered 
it was now fully authorized to employ them for its own national 
purposes. The two beliefs were incompatible. 

However, mistaken presumptions went deeper than this. Only 
nine years prior to Ghana’s independence, Ernest Bevin, then 
Foreign Secretary, had spoken of the mutual benefits which might 
be derived from trade between African colonies and the industrial 
nations. He was discussing ‘the organization in respect of a Western 
union’ and he emphasized that he was not only concerned with 
Europe ‘as a geographical conception’ : 

‘Europe,’ he told the House of Commons, ‘has extended its influence 
throughout the world, and we have to look further afield. In the first 
place, we turn our eyes to Africa, where great responsibilities are 
shared by us with South Africa, France, Belgium and Portugal . . . 
The organization of Western Europe must be economically supported. 
That involves the closest possible collaboration with the Common- 
wealth and with overseas territories, not only British but French, 
Dutch, Belgian and Portuguese. These overseas territories are largely 
primary producers . . . They have raw materials, food and resources 
which can be turned to very great common advantage . . .If Western 
Europe is to achieve its balance of payments and to get a world equili- 
brium it is essential that those resources should be developed and made 
available, and the exchange between them carried out in a correct and 
proper manner. There is no conflict between the social and economic 
development of those overseas territories to the advantage of their 
people, and their development as a source of supplies for Western 
Europe. . . .’ 

It would be wrong to assume that Ernest Bevin’s plan, outmoded 
as it might appear today, was a plea to return to imperial theories of 
the pre-war years or that the Labour Party as a whole did not accept 
his views. It was something to which I myself subscribed. Almost 
a year before Ernest Bevin made this declaration, some fifteen 



REAP THE WHIRLWIND 

Lab ° M t mbers of Parliament, of whom I was one, wrote a 
pamphlet, Keep Left, with the idea of putting new policy proposals 
before the 1947 Margate Conference of the Labour Party. By 1964 
one 0 its authors was dead and four, including myself, were no 
longer m Parliament but of the remaining ten, six (R. H. S. Cross- 
™, n ’ Fr f Lee, George Wigg, J. P. W. Mallalieu, Harold Davies 
ndbtephen Swingler) were appointed Ministers. From the start of 
a r four, Michael Foot, Ian Mikardo, Leslie 

w r .°° r f ow ^y att were to represent, though in different 

I eft trr 6 V ° 1Ce ° P ro . test ' Parliamentary survivors of the Keep 
trend^rifP ™ by ^ deadly representative of the main 

SL r” ? Party and ° nr -947 pamphlet fore- 
he •B irr" 1 ' ' 7 S fU '“ e Lab °” P° lic y* Meed, in many ways 
““ - t0 "*■* Harold Wilson and man, others of 

the descendant b „ otb Ideologically and organizationally 

matttrot,, nolt ' " P a UfP gr ° U P' Yct African colonial 
Ernest Bcvi/ In n ^ ^ that tlme surprisingly close to that of 
heading^ ^ ^ 

SHc C an n Sloi C r Perati0n France ’ ° n the development of our 

decrca T ° 7** f ° r African freedom and to 

erease European dependence on America.’ 

lon^it t „ t rk : h ;' Ve . TO '.' Af tiean freedom’ seemed to all of us a 
heading -The Importa„L^r A frirf°t lid:' Pan ’ Ph ''' " n<ler 

concentrate our wnpovver and'r« ld lhC M ' d f 6 Elst b y force, we can 
which should be ou^main ml • ? UrCeS ° n the Afncan development 
years . . . The deTebn' “ lo f nial . rcs P™sibility in the next twenty 
Africa for the growan/of " ’ S ° f a ,ar S e area in East 

never again be short of fats^Toa rh ^ - h u 0Uld enSUre that We sha11 
bear the responsibility for rh P Sher " ,th France and Belgium, we 
should make even- effort to major part ofthe African continent. We 
similar schemes. As well nc _°~°f erate closely with them in many 
World for foodstuff and raw de P enden ce on the New 

mic ^ for African sclMemrS’ ** P r0vide ** econo- 
““ » »y that .he 

uropcan Socialism depends on the 



AFRICAN PROSPECTIVE 2 7 

success of our combined colonial policies in the African Continent. 
Up till now American, British and European democracy have been 
tacitly based on racial discrimination, and the reactionary ideas of 
White ascendancy. We have talked vaguely about the brotherhood ot 
man and equality of races, but we have done little to put them into 

practice’. 


The good intentions were there. What was lacking was an exact 
appraisal of the underlying facts. Those of us whose experiences are 
largely confined to Britain, Western Europe or the United States ar 
perhaps inclined to take for granted the way in which today the 
relations between employee and employer and between consumer 
and producer are regulated by law and custom and not to realize, to 
the full, the extent to which the internal stability of the develope 
world depends upon these comparatively modern developments an 
the degree to which a comparable regulation is lacking in th 
relations between the rich and the poor nations. 

One hundred years ago Britain seemed, in Disraehs phrase to 
have become ‘Two Nations’— the one which he called The Privi- 
leged’ and the other ‘The People’. Their differences, it then seemed 
would have to be solved by civil war. That class antagonism with 
Britain did not develop to the point of revolution was not only t 
politicians, such as Joseph Chamberlain, realize t at P^P 
must ransom the evil it has done’ but that there existed the electoral 
machinery which insured that radical property owners, suci 

Chamberlain, achieved office. , T 

From Britain from the franchise reform of 1867 ^nd m the Umt 

States from almost the same date after the ivi a idc'for a 

conscious effort to reconcile the ‘two Nations ’ and to provi dc f or a 
system of internal co-existence. This change of relationship was no 
achieved without hesitation and struggle. During the ast hun r d 
years many Western countries have experienced ac te class confiict^ 

Revolutionary working class part.es have emerge 
1 ' (~iniralists who have refused to contemplate 

been many powerful ® ^vcrthelcss, as the policy of the 

paymg any ransom whaLsoc :«r. : N Brf y Trade Union Congress 

Ca^cnativeCm^^^^^^^ ^ ^ ugA ^ 

in the inter-war stars ami tna • Machinery 

the dominant tendency was to negotia c n f (1 - sccin" that wealth 
was built up throughout the twentieth century fo. seen, that wealth 



28 REAP the whirlwind 

in fact paid its ransom. The workers’ bargaining power was deli- 
erately strengthened by laws which encouraged trade unions. The 
State stepped in to regulate conditions and hours of work. The 
system of unemployment insurance in Britain and elsewhere was in 
itse a tate guarantee of a minimum wage. By delicate manipu- 
ations o e law a balance was struck between consumer and 
pro ucer. onopolistic exploitation was prevented yet retail price 
maintenance m an open or concealed form protected the middle 
man an t e s op keeper. Because the farmers’ vote in an industrial 
country cou on occasion be politically decisive his products were 
C ’ C T- V £ m , e ? ntl as * n tbe case °f sugar beet, subsidizing 

of the les°s P devel C oped’ “world! C ° mpete SUgar CaM 

tlieorv ■° P .^ le second world war it had become accepted in 

develoned C0 ^ n P5 0m * se S ^ 0U W be negotiated between the 

Western world 6 ^ ° pm “ W0ldd and that it was the duty of the 
It found exnrpQ 0 ' ^ a ransom . por the evil done by past exploitation, 
‘aid’ What wa , e umvers al acceptance of the principle of 

/i Th.re^ r 6 ' WaS P ° Iitilal ™ chi "“r » it a 

agreements aimed V 1 1S trU - 6 ’ 3 Pew unsa tisfactory international 
HtadHSL, S ; PPOrt “; B the P races °f some primary pro- 
which has to 'sell to rb ^ ut ’ ri raa ' n a developing country 

uieguted balTnW l0P 'd S° rld is as «”“* at •!>= nteroy of 
beginning of the nineteemh cenm®™’ 11 agnCul<ural ' ,orler at ,hc 

as a qu esti o n' (if hack fd \'^ £ . e ^. pai ?P hlet we saw the problem solely 

tvhite’aseS^bw' taST„r,h nd ,ie itos " f 

One of Dr Nkrumah’s main ^ tbe s y m Ptom for the disease, 
postulate the problem in “ ntr ^ U , tlons t0 world thinking was to 

christened it, of ‘neo-colonialism’ a Co! n ter - m -’ 3S ksUe ’ as he 

potential exploitation but tdi P -° ° Ur 1S lm P or tant as a badge of 
miracle the pigmenTatS s ci f W ° uld Sti11 exist if b y 

to one uniform hue. The exchan^f ^ changed overnight 
Africa cannot be carried out ‘in a^orr^Y 3 between Eur0 P e and 
Ernest Bevin’s phrase nor K P ect and proper manner’, to use 

most Europeans white but bTcYseYY A f icans are b!ack and 
nationally the regulating mart,' there does not exist inter- 

veloped states. Yet at first siehTY Y‘ Ch exists within the de- 
hrst sight it would appear that just such a 



AFRICAN PROSPECTIVE 


machine existed in embryo. The development of trade unions and 
other methods of wage support, the guaranteed prices for farmers in 
developed countries and the maintenance of retail margins for the 
benefit of shop keepers are all of them a by-product of democracy. 
The existence of popularly elected Legislatures in the Western world 
has meant that no political party can maintain itself in power unless 
it operates a governmental machine that provides for social justice, 
at least of a sort. After the war it appeared for a time that the 
United Nations might, on an international scale, perform the role 
which popularly elected governments provided on the national plane. 

As a Parliament, the United Nations, in a way, superficially 
resembles the British House of Commons before the great Reform 
Bill of 1832. Iceland with a population of 197,000 and India with a 
population of over 498 millions each have the same vote. There 
exist a number of what might be called 'rotten Boroughs’, scats 
which are controlled in practice by the Western powers, a fact which 
was frankly acknowledged by the awarding ‘pocket boroughs’ 
Belorussia and the Ukraine, to the USSR as a counter-balance! 
The procedure used and the arguments advanced for excludin'' the 
rightful representative of China and for seating in his p I aC e the 
nominee of the defeated Chiang Kai-shek Government arc identical 
with those used in the eighteenth century English House of Com- 
mons to exclude John Wilkes and to seat in his place the defeated 
candidate who supported the Government of the day. The United 
Nations’ delegates are chosen, as were the members of the old 
unreformed British Parliament, in a number of ways ; 
which preclude the populat.on whom they nornin a ll v ’ rC n r ' 
having any voice in their selection. The delegate who Ls the pS 
nominee of an absolute monarch notoriously unrcp rc%n 
people or who is sent there by some quite irres ponsib * 
clique precariously in power after having overthrown a p 
chosen Government, is as much a member of, he Gece„, 
as the delegate appointed by the democratic ? j m; J^-mbl, 
country universally agreed to be represents „ r 

opinion. . n 

Nevertheless, history’ shows that even a Parliament & 

such an illogical basis as that of Britain pnor t >1832 t , „ f 

i ’ ind in act the General Avv~<,? unle 

to the pressure of opinion an« , f . 

t • • 1 x- • v Kv no m-*ans an exact copy of th» - Jt me 

Lmted Nations is by no rnrans , ■ 


3° reap the whirlwind 

British Parliament. While some states may be over-represented and 
some under-represented, the total vote of the poor nations of the 
world is generally proportionate to the sum of their populations and 
a vote supported by two-thirds majority in the Assembly is likely to 
be supported in practice, by Governments of countries whose 
combined population represents two-thirds of such of the world 
population as is represented at the United Nations. (In such calcu- 
ations it is necessary to exclude China, as being, in fact as it is, 
unrepresented.) The argument by the great powers that because the 
system of representation in the General Assembly is illogical, they 
n .^ e no attention to its decisions, is as false as the assumption 
t at mg George III was entitled to rule as an absolute monarch 
ecause certain of his subjects were under-represented and certain 
others over-represented in his Parliament. 

In the same way as the unrepresentative character of the unre- 
orme ng is Parliament was in large part the result of manipu- 
ations thought by the Tudor monarchs of the day to be to their 
S0 r the , “ m p osi tion of the United Nations General 
, fn ed ^ ^ ^ eat P°wers, presumably with a similar 
small mrin eir f 0 ] ' vn mt fj CSts > l° n g before the great majority of the 
ereat nmvm ° / e ' VOr t J were admitted to membership. It ivas the 
the form of a P ^ ^ tlei,v ' ar designed the General Assembly in 
the Tu/o Parliament of the world. Yet drey lacked the wisdom 

setting un an !!!° narC f S °^^ n giand. Having correctly decided upon 
them when the ° ''T r °P‘ n ‘ on which ivas capable of warning 

diem. Havinn- ,1 ’• te . r .> Unore any tvarnmgs it might give 

might be to provide ' ^ lnstltutI0n > rudimentary and defective as it 
type of 'discipline affairs for the beginning of that 

pUdVdSld* th “ inSt-tions had 

avoid internal conflirt cou ” tnes an d which had enabled them to 
own action Yet thev hiH ^ S ^ ran ^ ; ^ rom t h e consequences of their 
In the same wav £ L 7 "*** Ut0 P ian ™rld authority, 
to their Council all real , 0r monarchs reserved to themselves and 
Assembly of the United NT,p C1S10ns u P on P olic y, so the General 
authority lav with the five '° nS " aS °' Ven no execut ive power. All 
the Securin' Council Neve^ t I e “ en . ts ’ P er manent members of 

in "hich a'compromi hr ^l 1 "^ 111 ^' 0 there listed a body 
compromise benveen the ‘haves’ and ‘have-nots’ could 



AFRICAN PROSPECTIVE 


3 1 


have been worked out and which could have devised a scheme for 
the mutually profitable development of the world as a whole. 

The less developed states which, like Ghana, supported the 
United Nations, did not do so because of any legal powers residing 
in the General Assembly. They well knew these, in practice, to be 
non-existent. What they did believe was that the United Nations 
was a pressure organization deliberately created by the great powers 
as a safety valve and which, therefore, if intelligently used, could 
influence the course of world events. It was, once again, this attempt 
by Ghana to use an essentially Western institution, in an essentially 
Western way, in order to redress the balance in the world, which 
resulted in so much criticism of its activities. To the. industrialized 
nations the United Nations was a front, a facade behind which real 
business might be transacted. To countries like Ghana it was a 
piece of democratic machinery which they were entitled to exploit 
for the purposes for which they believed it had been created. To 
them the General Assembly was a world representative organization 
despite all its limitations and lack of power. In the same way as 
Tudor monarchs allowed themselves to be guided by the consensus 
of opinion in their Parliament, when they were under no legal 
obligation to do so, so the newly independent states imagined that 
the developed powers would never have created an organization m 
which their voices were to be heard unless they intended to pay 
some attention to what they said. It was a fatal misunderstanding. 

British public opinion believed that Ghana should follow a 
parliamentary system at home of the type that cxistc in the United 
Kingdom and were shocked when it appeared not to do so. The 
same public opinion, however, did not demand that Britain should 
internationally pursue a policy ot parliamentary democracy, even in 
its Tudor form so far as the United Nations were concerned and 

were hostile: and con.cn.pn.ous of Britain 

for not so doin'-. The Western world were not ev cn prepared to 
permit am- political dialogue on a basts of equal, ty bettveen i,s c lf and 
rtte dev" opine wo, Id. Ncmcolomahsm was pro„ 0IInKd 

ca'hedn not to exist and social™ was ruled out as a remedy even 
cjnicur.1, noi uih . ■ socialist journals. 

by \\ cstern socialists w n'= Minister of Britain , , , 

Sir Alec Douglas Home, then n "ton, addressed 

the Parliament of Nigeria on «.« -Oih . l..rc i tr/,. 2nd t0 ,j ft? 
Members: 



32 


REAP THE WHIRLWIND 


Neo-colonialism had no place in Britain’s political dictionary.’ It was 
a slander which should be allowed to evaporate ‘like the hot air which 
it is . The first need was capital and the second ‘the confidence which 
will attract it and allow it to fructify’. 

Creating confidence’ was equated by even sympathetic Western 
observers as disowning any socialist pretentions. Mr Dennis 
ustin, or example, pointed out that socialism was a luxury which 
the less developed world could not afford. Writing in the English 
a ,i an . oclet y Journal Venture devoted, according to its title page, 
o Socialism and the Developing World ’ he thus put Dr Nkrumah’s 
policy as he saw it: 

Tu 1 and Welfare Services runnin S at levels far ahead of the 
tent f ti° 1 C cconon b' ■ The remedy is to increase the socialist con- 
art' ° C C< ? on ° n p r ’ and t0 wam those that criticize that they may be 
be r of I' k ° f , neo - col ^alists. No wonder that a growing num- 
nonsense '° r SemntS t0 WOrk overseas than endure this 

be obtained^hv 6 ' th at increased welfare services could 

incrteXtr- , mStalImg a g 0 vernment whose policy was ‘to 
which the Britishnen ^ eC( ? nom y’ had been the policy for 

before Mr Austin w °P ^ T otec ^ in March 1966, three months 
apparently never struck S artlC f ' Pact that this contradiction 
home as Mr Austin • even . suc h a keen supporter of socialism at 

obsen-ers^ubcoSu v "= mt£reSU f S eXample of how Western 
with the less developed world mC 2 d ° UbIC standard when dealing 

cteiliXSntSr Ld dieted and 

before Sir Alec Douglas H ° n K ^ nter national Law fifty years 
In x 9 3 3 a tding ** PaA "' 

International law examine! ^ St ’ Lawrence, m his Principles of 
thus: CXam ‘ ncd P revi ous accounts of it and explained it 

plcasaStTord^. t0 . di ^ uise unpalatable facts in 

arrangements that would h-i 1152 U - ^ ^ °^ tCn I s 10 sec ure assent to 
'heir naked harshness dkn, ^ TCSentmcnt if set forth in 

instruments for use whe^ 3 ^ an &“ a S c °f many international 

use when prectston of statement is above all things 



AFRICAN PROSPECTIVE 


33 

desirable. In order to group together under an appropriate heading the 
part-sovereign states, we want a phrase that expresses dependence . , , 
Might we not give the name of client states to all those international 
persons who are obliged to surrender habitually the conduct of their 
external affairs in any degree, great or small, to some state authority 
external to themselves. A client state implies a patron; and a palr'/n 
state is, of course, the state who acts on behalf of the client state in a 
manner defined either by long continued custom or by the terms of 
some formal agreement or both. . . . Such terms as suzerainty and 
protectorate have been so carefully avoided in all official documents 
that the use of them might be regarded as indiscreet. But there can f;e 
no reasonable objection to a description of Cuba as a client state/ 


That the country singled out. over forty years ago by Lawrence as 
the best example of neo-colonialism in the New World should today 
be the centre of revolutionary activity in the American continent 
may perhaps be a matter that those who practise neo-colonialism in 
Africa should take into account. 

Nevertheless, despite the fact that neo-colonialism had thus been 
described in the past. Dr Nkrumah was considered to have offended 
against all international proprieties by writing a book on its darters 
His offence was, first, that he had coined a new phrase 
Colonialism’ to describe the relation between the ‘patron’ irA 
‘client’ state and secondly that he had sought to examine ;V; ; r; 
cation afresh and to expand its horizons. Such a task was v.-JJ 

T-Tr~id of State bv the cstahni,. 


irmai protest on the puDiirauon m tn c f.SA 

C.M™, Tk LM Suff tfrynJhmU h W.-& ... 

passages avhich caused the most oflcncc uerc su Bk o - 
passages ctin noscdlv educational and -e.i. ." 

nection between sup|** ^ thtf rr,™l 

onranizations working »n ,,, , , . - • 

slices. A vear af.tr Dr Nkrumah s la hr ,\m net, 

• *. • j . t, tlic onraniz.iuons concern* 

not only admiuct • j mc l!it:cncc Agency but -C ? ' 
supported by the ^ ‘ a£ '. cd with the full y// ™ 

supporting them, tn<- U- e , u , nd thc 3r .d 

approval of the St.a c ‘ ^ , Knipcror’s d-c.' ' ' Dr 

Nkrumah’ s sin was not no.cnv 1 - --a. 



34 REAP THE WHIRLWIND 

It is at least a mark of progress in the study of these matters that 
m t e supplement to the Sunday Times of the 5th March 1967 Mr 
ruce age in a special feature on Dr Nkrumah, entitled Messiah 
ant ug was, whatever else unflattering he had to say, prepared to 
admit that Dr Nkrumah was right and Sir Alec Douglas Home 
wrong about neo-colonialism : 

‘Neo-colonialism of course,’ he wrote/. . . certainly exists. It dates 
™ C iscmery, made just after the war by the Western powers, 
rl ■ Cre 7 aS . a muc h better way of making money out of Africa than 
the v° ° nie ^ an< 3 dependencies there. This was to pull out and put 
actuillv ma - n ‘V a , r ® C ' ^ ou ' vcre t ' lcn absolved from the cost of 
what J“ S 1 1C P aCC> administrators, policemen, troops and 

free to e\ commcrc ‘ a * enterprises were in fact rather more 

tree to exploit the locals than before. 

and asThrn^kfV 011 bept a ** tflc lucra dve business in your hands, 
naive and in ' ^ ^ ovcrnmcnts were likely to be a good deal more 

ceTed £m ? enenCCd than thG ' Vhitc civil scr vams° who had pre- 

-tt:^ss^ siness ** 

more of a threauTAr htly ’ * bat tIl ' s Phenomenon was even 
preceded it It could eTl” , natl0nallsm tha n the colonialism which had 

of their exploitable asseK ^ndh J "T ^ nationS bcil * stri PP cd 

tion, to show for it ’ ’ C " 111 no mvestment, no industrializa- 

Lefi proposals, horden" beTif BeV f 1 f s thesis or on our °wn Keep 
account the existing neo ml . C< f s ? ful > would have had to take into 
then understood its essem ‘ COl ° nial u SItuation and neither he nor we 
could be made to reflect a Fiir Mt £r ’ - a ^ 0p assumcd that Africa 
poise to the power of the T unit y which would be a counter- 

understanding, that as eady Soviet Union, ** 
Tsarist Russia, had been mrt' ^ ^ nited States, as indeed 
partitioned Africa so that h * 5 ® Act of Berli n which had 
disunity of Europe. The 1 re ^ ect ’ not the unity, but the 

arranged, was not primarily tn a 6 P ur P° r s f °f the partition, then 
uropean power dominating rt^\ e ° P APldca hut to prevent any one 

TheconfirminaofP ^ g .. H COntlnent ‘ 
of this neutralization policy which*^ claims was typical 

warded immense areas of Africa 



AFRICAN PROSPECTIVE 


35 

to a state with no pretence of possessing the necessary resources to 
develop it. It was the same principle which led the great powers to 
insist that Belgium, whose neutrality they had all guaranteed, should 
control the heartland of Africa, the Congo. Indeed to increase 
further this neutralization and sterilization of its possible potential, 
the Congo was not even awarded to Belgium as such but personally 
to its King. The settlement of 1885 was modified even before the 
first world war by Turkey’s final exclusion from Africa in favour of 
Italy. As a result of the subsequent world war Germany was 
deprived of its African colonies and as a consequence of the second 
world war Italy, who in any case had come late to the feast, lost hers. 
Nevertheless the principle enunciated at the Berlin Conference of 
sixty years before, namely that European stability depended upon 
African disunity was reaffirmed in the Peace Treaties after the first 
world war and was still intact in 1945. One of Dr Nkrumah’s 
principal crimes was to be that he challenged this conception. 
Further, by the time that Ernest Bevin spoke and we wrote our 
pamphlet Keep Left, a new factor, ‘the cold war’ had come more and 
more to dominate world thinking on African problems and the 
possible re-partition of the African continent had acquired a new 
dimension. 

In 1966 Fritz Schatten, the head of the Foreign Department of the 
West German Broadcasting system and a man who, according to his 
publishers, ‘has a wide reputation in Germany and Switzerland for 
his many studies of African problems in books and in the press’ 
wrote a general study of the Continent entitled Communism in Africa 
to which I shall refer from time to time, as it is a convenient encyclo- 
pedia of Western misconceptions about events, not only in Ghana 
but throughout Africa. Yet even he had no doubt upon the basic 
importance in African affairs of ‘the East-West conflict’: 

‘. . . We have arrived at a point which is of fundamental importance ’ 
he wrote after summing up the evidence he was adducing. *. . "piie 
independence of the African peoples is not the result of an examination 
of conscience in die West, it is not the result of a voluntary act of re- 
pentance and a determination to follow the straight and narrow path 
in the future— let there be no illusions about that. It is ma inly the 
“East-West” conflict that has forced the West to repair some of its 
errors and cure some of its own moral sores.’ 



REAP THE WHIRLWIND 


36 


Yet even so the West failed to learn from its own history. As with 
the United Nations so with the granting of independence to African 
States; the developed world shrank from the consequences of its 
own act. Having correctly, in its own interests, allowed former 
Colonies to be self-governing it almost immediately repented and 
stepped in to prevent them governing themselves. 

Yet a solution to the African question entirely in accordance with 
the expressed aspirations of the developed world not only lay to hand 
but had been projected and piloted in the past experience of the 
industrial world when it was itself emerging from its undeveloped 
state. If East and West had worked together, Africa was above all 
the continent where they could have begun an experiment in 
co-existence and co-operation. Why these apparently natural 
consequences failed to follow upon the emergence of an independent 
frica, the story of Ghana under Dr Nkrumah and its economic, 
political and ideological relations with the rest of the world, in part, 
at least, explains. 


tt, 1 T°? d he presumptuous of me to suggest that this book gives 
e w 0 e o the answer. It is not written with any such ambitious 
p an in mind, even if I had the basic material upon which to work 

^l are tW ° reaSOns wh y 1 lack this. In the first place, on the 
-4 1 e ruary 1966 when the victorious mutineers fought 
the D ° Wnin S Street of Ghana, Flagstaff House, all 
“ ° :edl In my l office everything was destroyed, even the desks 

™ apar u '? le CarpetS and curtains cut into ribbons, filing 
v t0 f d the documc nts torn to fragments, 
troved Fve ° ' :ve f yt ln S else of value were either stolen or des- 
Ser alW^ 6 “ C0nd ! tl0ners were riddled with bullets. I was 
for the la t nine 111(166(1 6Ver t0 a ee the house where 

Zrs a cXinJ^- 1 had i iVed ' 1 h3d made 0V6r course of 
and destroyed Thu documents hut these were all scattered 

prevSt US6d mat6rial which has not 
ofhwafLmvflfr ’ t ***** 15 0nly becaus6 ’ by ‘hance, a copy 
claim that the^niiHM^™ 3nd S ° Survived > but 1 can in no way 
way representative. ^ n ° W ln my P osse ssion are in any 

AfriSfeandZv <a " P0SS t SS that knowledge of 

be based. 1 



AFRICAN PROSPECTIVE 37 

January 1950 but I was still a British Member of Parliament until 
May 1955 and I only visited the Colony from time to time on legal 
matters. I did not settle there until February 1956. I served in the 
colonial Gold Coast Government during the last months of its 
existence as Constitutional Adviser to the Prime Minister and I 
continued in this capacity after independence until September 1957, 
when I became Attorney General, a post I was to hold for four 
years. From October 1961 until the coup d'etat of the 24th 
February 1966 I was one of the officials attached to the President’s 
office. Throughout I was a civil servant. It may well be that in 
Britain civil servants really run the Government and that if any 
senior British civil servant so far forgot himself as to write a frank 
and candid account of events as he saw them, this might prove a 
more exact chronicle than any politician’s memoirs. It was not so in 
Ghana. The civil servant was confined within narrow limits. The 
country was run by Dr Nkrumah, his Cabinet and the various Party 
and quasi Party organizations which shared in the government. 

Part of the mythology which was built up around Dr Nkrumah’s 
Ghana was that there was some sinister and secret influence 
exercised by individuals who came from abroad and, so far as 
Britain was concerned, I was cast for this role. To give one example. 
In August i960 I visited London. This was marked by a centre page 
feature article in the Daily Express by Douglas Clark entitled ‘MR 
MEDDLESOME, Q.C.’ — ‘SEE HIM FLITTING FURTIVELY IN WHEN TROUBLE 
IS IN THE AIR’ — 

‘From time to time,’ wrote Mr Clark, ‘emerging from Africa like a 
genie from a botde, there flits into Britain a most mysterious figure. 
You catch only fleeting glimpses of him — this plump, toothy man with 
the almond-shaped eyes and the strange, sudden smile. His plane 
touches down at London Airport. Then with a whoosh he is away by 
fast car to a third-floor flat above a chemist’s shop in Great Portland- 
street. For the next day or two the road outside is all bustle. Black 
limousines roll up. Black dignitaries roll out and hurry upstairs for 
enigmatic conferences. Then abruptly it is all over. A puff of smoke, a 
whiff of sulphur, and— presto !— Mr Geoffrey Henry Cecil Bing, 
Attorney-General of Ghana, has vanished back to Accra. . . . 

Where might such an extraordinary career not end? Who could 
predict a limit to the powerful influence that Mr Bing is gathering to 



REAP THE WHIRLWIND 


himself in the seething politics of Africa ? At this moment he is thick 
in the Congo business. Deep in Ghana’s manoeuvres with Guinea. 
Establishing personal relations with Lumumba. It may even be that 
Mr. Bing, lying like a rhinoceros under the surface of the Zambesi, 
may eventually prove a more formidable figure in Africa than any of 
the coloured leaders who now capture the headlines. . . .’ 

In fact, so far as I can reconstruct the purpose of this particular 
visit, it was primarily to discuss with Mr L. C. B. Gower then Sir 
Ernest Cassell Professor of Commercial Law in London University, 
the coordination of the work he was doing for the Ghana Govcrn- 
°. n ° m P an y Law reform with that of a Ghanaian Commission 
which had been appointed to draft a new law of Insolvency. I appear 
also to have had discussions with Sir Eric Tansley, then Managing 
of *> Cocoa Marketing Comply, and have 

matte C mCeClnB - at ' High Commission about some legal 

matters in connection with gold mining. 

affairs 1S w^ g r fiCa i d0n T' d j stortio1 ? °. f the part I played in African 
from othe argC y - COn f ned t0 Britain. Commentators on Ghana 
in tiei rlnccr ^ f ° r this rolc individuals better known 

painstakimr^Ynl Ve L F ° r exam Plc, in Dr Schatten’s 

influences in ° ' V lat Le believed to be pernicious outside 

American Prnfe ^ 1S not mcnt ioned. It is true, die 

Fall of Kwame Nl' Bretton > in hi s book The Rise and 

ran of Kwame Nkrmnah included me in his list of ‘kev advisers’ 

Nkrumah’s Wonafm d T- eX ’ Plai " inB ' vhat he conceivcd was Dr 
d’etat. Indeed he described ^ ^ eX1 f cd .°. n the ev . e of the C0U P 
tutoring noliticallv i'np ■ me j as a socla hst Robinson Crusoe 

social revolutionary worid^polfti^^Hm “ ^ hi S h strate gies of 
expatriate advisers whom ij lists ^ ** 0t Jf r tW ° key 

this tutoring, were the West r ’ d , who P res umably aided in 
Noe Dreviti, and Genem/ % ^ na " ‘* oc °late manufacturer, Dr 
eightieth year, the Chairman nf Spe . ars ’ by cb ‘s time in his 

Conservative Member of Pari' 16 i ^ sbant i ^°i d Fields, a former 
of Directors. f Parhamen t and the founder of the Institute 

Professor Bretton thwUdy Jackson^h^-^'f?^!) 11 appeared t0 
a senior British Treasury' official seconded!^ Ghana^was’a figure°as 



AFRICAN PROSPECTIVE 39 

sinister as myself. Lady Jackson, better known under her maiden 
name of Miss Barbara Ward, was a former Governor of the BBC 
and is a noted Roman Catholic economist with a reputation in 
academic circles in the United States. It was her views which were 
quoted in the Wall Street Journal article to which I have previously 
referred. It was she rather than me who, according to Professor 
Bretton, ‘in particular assisted Nkrumah in his effort to cover up the 
intellectual nakedness of his rule’. Nevertheless to him, it was not 
even Lady Jackson, General Spears, Dr Drevici or myself who were 
most influential. The dangerous figures were primarily, according 
to him, ‘Negroes ... or as Nkrumah preferred to call them Afro 
Americans . . . not a few of whom were self exiled from the United 
States.’ 

In fact Dr Nkrumah had no colour or nationalist prejudices and a 
number of people with special expertise but who were not Ghanaian 
were either employed whole time or consulted on particular prob- 
lems about which they were familiar. None of us could know by 
reason of our work everything that was taking place and there was a 
natural reluctance on the part of Ghanaians generally to seek advice 
from Europeans on purely African issues. 

For these two reasons I believe the best contribution I can make 
to the history of Ghana is to write a largely personal account of the 
sixteen years, from 195° during which I was associated with 

the country. I can at least thus provide a source book which subse- 
quent students may find of value but I do not offer it as any final 
answer to the many questions which I hope it will raise. 



CHAPTER TWO 


GOING TO GHANA 


A coincidence of coincidences first took me to Ghana. The chain 
of chance was begun in May 1945 when I was in a military hospital 
at \\ roxeter awaiting some plastic surgery for wounds to my face. 

te war-time Coalition Go\ eminent came to an end and a General 
Election was announced. Leave, even from hospital, was to be had 
or the asking by soldiers who could show that thev were being 
considered as Parliamentary candidates. A description of mv pre- 
war activities had been on a general list circulated bv the Labour 
arty anc t ie Pembroke County’s Labour General Management 
Committee had, on the basis of this information, and, without ever 
laung seen me, put my name on a short list to appear before their 
selection conference in some three or four weeks’ time. 

wwJtT a ia< ? an CX - CUSC t0 CSC3pc from hospital, go back home, 
frlnl 1 r d , n ? t - bccn "! nCc lllc Normandy landing and look up old 
Pembrnl LXP aini 'i 1K " ltl C tendcnti °^ly I '\as not certain when 
mc 80 d0Wn - 1 8 0t a l "° and, in 

bombed n7 ’ f ° r L °" dun th °ugh '»>’ ^ had b en 

nZe 0 nw n,Tr Std Umnhabilabl< -‘- My family was’ in Ireland and 

0 nSe d nCndS , S T Cd t0 bt ar0Und ‘ So in thc c,ld > fwr "ant 

in m nfe r f°’ 1 . wcnt t0 the ^an Society offices. Even 
StS3 vS,r- n r rC ° btainable to and it was an 

1 soughuhese rn!!? ^ u Sa ’ Vation toy Hostels where normally 
John °Parkcr whn ° rtS ’ i, dcrc ’ ^ last, I did run into one old friend, 
outing Member P ? Cncral r Scwc ^ of the Society and the 
distinguished bv ho' ^ ia f cnt f or Romford. His constituency was 
FoSSn/eW S a - th3t UmC b >’ far tbc largest in England. 
Dagenham John P-it-Ly'' r " aS ,r° bc Spbt j nt0 three. For one part, 
constituency Romford*^ h-iTV "T Standln S' T he heart of thc old 


40 



GOING TO GHANA 


41 


told me, to choose a local Councillor or, at any rate, someone from 
the area but if I was willing to let my name go forward it would at 
least oblige his Party by providing them with the prescribed range 

of choice. . . 

Here at least, I thought, is the formal excuse for getting my leave 
from hospital prolonged. However slight the chance of being chosen, 
the experience of going to selection would at least be of value before 
I went down to Pembroke. So, thinking nothing would come of it 1 
agreed, subject to the Hornchurch conference being held before the 
other. Meanwhile out of curiosity I went to see a journalist friend at 
the offices of the old News Chronicle to find out about Hornchurch 
where I had never been and knew nothing of. The same was true 0 j 
Pembroke but at least one could buy a guide to that county while all 
that I could learn about Hornchurch from the books of reference 
was that there was an Urban Council, a telephone exchange (manua ) 

and a station on the District Line. , 

These were the days when Commonwealth and other Independent 
Candidates had been winning most of the by-elections and there- 
fore it did not seem strange that my News Chronicle friend advised 
me that the man most likely to win in Hornchurch was an Inde- 
pendent already in the field, a certain Charles Avon Deller. He was 
campaigning with the slogan ‘Elect a local man who has served 
throughout the war in the ranks’. Having been what was known as 
P.A.F.— Prematurely Anti Fascist— I had in fact fought for a good 
part of it in the Royal Signals as a signalman and then as an instru- 
ment mechanic but my disability had eventually disappeared and I 
had been commissioned and become a parachutist. This and the fact 
that I had never been in Hornchurch let alone lived there seemed 
to me fatal to my chances against Deller I was therefore delighted to 
find, when having surprisingly been selected as the candidate, that 
the local Party were not greatly perturbed by his riva ry- 
With Deller there were four candidates in the running. 
Nomination D ky we all turned up with our supporters and foo 

deposits, redrew favour of a 

Mil Wet Van der Elst, a worthy lady who devoted a considerable 
is vioiet fip-htins elections in order to protest agamst the 

Pft ofl her weal hh to fight :mg e ^ Ae qualities which he 



GOING TO GHANA 


43 


future by resuming my practice at the Bar. ‘Returning to regimental 
duties, eh,’ said Lord Attlee when I told him. Mine had not been a 
key position in his Administration and it was the first time we had 
spoken. There were many things I thought then a backbench 
Member of Parliament ought to do and I had a number of interests 
— opposing preventive detention and other infringements of civil 
liberty in Northern Ireland where I had been born and lived 
opposing monopolies— the Brewers and their tied public houses 
seemed a good target-even foreign affairs in general but Colonial 
matters I believed should be left to the experts. I may ave istene 
to the debates on them but from Hansard I see I never jome in 
them. My regimental duties were to extend to questioning many 
aspects of Government policy but until I came to visit e o 
Coast they never went so far as to criticize Labour s ommonwea t 

methods. , r . 

Meanwhile Charles Deller had settled down as the editor of the 
local Hornchurch newspaper. I saw him occasionally and then 
learnt quite casually that he had abandone is jo o join ® 
Colonial Information Services. He left the constituency and I 
thought, passed out of my life. The fact that he had been posted 
the Gold Coast meant nothing to me. Except for a Tossing 
in England ten years before, what little I ' ew a ° u . , 

from George Wigg who had been to West Africa and was ed 

in promoting Adult Education there. He more than anyone, 
realized the impact returning soldiers would be hkely tc -have on 
African traditional societies. It was at a party S lve J 
Extra-Mural Studies who had gone out there thanks to Wig£s 
initiative, that I came to recall my previous slight contact with the 

Colony. Fverutive of the National Council for Civil 

3S approached by , Mr George E. 
Mo»“ nd a Mr Samoel R. Wood mo 

Coast Aborigines Rights Protection Society w ho wished to arouse 
British public 

laws under which Dr Azikiwe t mnpm TtiA* t- - 

Nigeria, and and forcedl^^vTSeliilo^ 

“xh^-Three years ago. rvhen 

Society sent these delegates to London, their or 3 m ation had come 



44 


REAP THE WHIRLWIND 


to be regarded as far too radical to be given, any longer, official 
countenance. Despite the fact that their constitution, adopted in 
r 897 , stated that one of their objects was ‘to inculcate upon the 
members the importance of continued loyalty to the British Crown 
and to educate them to a proper and correct understanding of the 
relations which had existed for about four hundred years between 
Britain and the Gold Coast’, they were no longer in favour. The 
Colonial Secretary, it was true, had felt obliged to receive a Gold 
oast Deputation on the matters in which they were interested but 
this was restricted to the then African Establishment. This respect- 
able delegation included Sir Edward Asafu-Adjaye, as he aftenvards 
became, who was to be the first Ghanaian High Commissioner in 
London and among the other members were Sir Arku Korsah, the 
Chief Justice at Independence, Dr J. B. Danquah and Dr F. V. 
an 'a ruce of Accra, reputed to be the best dressed man in the 
o ony. mmaculate as ever’ one Gold Coast newspaper famous for 
Jr ° UCU ' Vr ° te ° f ' b ‘ m at tbc Governor’s garden party, 

and as aiways. wuh a krg 6 ^ in his bottomhole.’ 

Mnnrf* h a 0n ® ln *: s ^S bts Protection Society delegates, George 
rf 1?? fr0m ? P' Coast Which tad been the British 
still ' in an 1 Untl , somc S ' X V y ears before and which was 

SamnllVclj o ,?' 1 ' 1 , *** lhc Africa » intellectual centre. 

since before the Bet “a” Hecr' f b 'T Gol<l ^ P 0 '™? 

town whirb wLn t ’ . e came ^ rom Axim, a western coastal 
of those ahost riti "fH° Vlslt . lt: Lventy years later, resembled one 

vLtVietotantaMn ?!? ‘V* Un!tcd S,a,es '"hose ™" s of 

mines Axim bail ^ S n s 7? ld H uarl i over the abandoned silver 
c”S Fm a shm, ’ h ‘T r t0 lhe “ <l™i American 

town of the Gold Coast The°A W ° rld War k was the boom 

the newly opened aold fi U Ankobra nver °n which it stood led to 
and Axim atffie Z ofS ^ C ° nCeSsi ° ns of the interior 
of self-made African hue' Cn Ufy seemed B^ely, with its new class 
society, to become an im m , S S mEI ?. ! vbo owed httle to traditional 

of a new port further to theS at S 1 C “ tre , Withthe buildi "& 
interior traffic ceased i-e n , at d aborac ^ and a railway into the 

■93! the t have been "’ 0 t »» d "en by 

Cape Coast, a backwater m decillc an d have become, like 

Mr Moore and Mr Wood retained their pride. They represented 



GOING TO GHANA 


47 


in excess of what were thought necessary to qualify as an intel- 
lectual’ in the Labour Party or indeed among British Members of 
Parliament as a whole; but, though he was devoting himself almost 
whole-time to African politics, he was not satisfied as yet that he had 
sufficient academic background. He had started to read for the ar, 
since apparently to enter Gold Coast politics it was almost obligatory 
to be a barrister; but he had abandoned it having come to the 
conclusion that Gold Coast problems could never be settled within 
the narrow ambit of its existing colonial frontiers. What was needed 
he believed was one united or federated state covering the whole of 
West Africa and run on a socialist basis He had now wntte 
pamphlet which was about to be published on colonialism He 
promised to send me a copy but never did. It was a casua ^ e ^ 
and it was not until he reminded me of the conversation some years 
later that I realized my fellow guest had been Kwame N kum . 

Since, except for this meeting, I had had noWest African contacts 
I was surprised to receive, just before the House rose for the 1949 
Christmas recess a long letter from a Gold Coast lawyer, a 1 lr 
Albert Heward-Mills He enclosed a record of a murder trial and 
“ f I wouffibe prepared to come to Accra to conduct the 
aDDeaWsainst^'the conviction. I had been most strongly recom- 

mended by a Mr Charles Delta who had gone so far as to say m h.s 
men. Dy , , f f • nf1 vT rs Van der Elst, that I was the only 
opinion and that ofhls frl ' nd i reversal of the verdict. We are all 
lawyer alive who could secure ar , , desnite the 

susceptible to flattery and I determined to do the case despite the 
suscep m w n i a.t ; iic seemed to me to have rather pointedly 

fact that Mr Heward-Mills seem - c nni L;i: t : 

failed to endorse my old election opponents views ot my capabilities. 
At the time there seemed no internal or external political objection 
At the tim British Parliament was in recess 

to taking the case. Tte Vnus ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ 

over Christmas an fixed f or t h e 16th so I would have 

January and the . London before Parliament 

plenty of time to do x and be^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ 

resumed. Every 1 » i c( j„ c 0 f its affairs was confined to the odd 

Coast though mj ^ h British press and in the House of 

mentions that they recerveu m 

Commons. f c mmons had been impressed by its 

Many of us in the House Bums> when hc addressed the 

S«U°h Smcmao- . 946 . He 



4 8 RLAI* hil whirlwind 

had told us about this ‘model Colony’ and its new ‘Burns’ Consti- 
tution. The people are really happy,’ he had said, ‘and reallv 
satisfied with the new Constitution they base gained.’ No doubt 1 
-was surprised when the Colons fifteen months later dissolved into 
riots and a Commission of Enquiry under Mr Aiken Watson, K.C., 
ported that the ‘Burns’ Constitution had been extremely unpopu- 

i tla . t p ”? lcaU y c 'crj thing was wrong with the Colony’s 
dm n,s ration, However it appeared that this had now been put 

relo m C , COm ^r n ° f J: m l uir >' l,ad Inad c \->nous proposals for 
hiuhlv 1 “ Afr ,‘ Can p^rmittcc-xshich seemed to me then a 
annliLtion K T| Sn ,t l ? ea ~ had bccn appointed to work out their 
acclaimed liv tl^ 13 now n j adearc port which had been universally 
had 2 tl ^ Stlldil;d Africa " Gonial affairs in Britain. I 
Committee Ren >' 3t 1 m , Uc!l prj ' scd document— the Cousscv 
was on the n,!inr r" JS T - Hc COn,rJr - v J kintJ of ««mc bomb which 

r^udona^douSon'iSrSZl,” Jb " m “ pn, '“ Lc a 

affairs wasTm W yf r Parl «n«ntuy recollection of Gold Coast 
our Keep Left croon I * t^™' 1 Issue " llcn Sir Winston Churchill and 

Sir 0(25 AuaYTbn 31 \TTi “ P tt * cthw - ^ Chief, Nana 

Rights Protection Sock-tv ^ lcarncd of froni l, te Aborigines 
■Sinj-ono » 'MS- W. •> ot 

then and i, stiU !" ‘ l ? G ° W . C ° M 

monies continued intern,;,, .i , ana lot *a\, his funeral cerc- 
these, in in,, a . u i . ■ <f c " } on H aktcr his burial and during 
who had come to pav his t \ C . ICVcd t0 .* lave bL>cn onc °f his sons, 

investigations followed and tS rclaf d “PP“ rcd - Policc 
some of his other sons were rc,aUvcs of the old chief, including 
chief’s murder. The motive arrcitcd and charged with the sub- 
tly 1 the killing had been don^r" 0 '^ C „ ar buc t,lc allegation was 
knight would have a sooir ,° r mUa P ur P°ses so tliat the old 
whither he had gone. accompany him to the regions 

death. In Brifain Tt kaTt in Novcmbcr *944 sentenced to 

their guilt and the case wic fr scemcd considerable doubts as to 
July 1946 the Privy Council hJwr C ° , mnlamcra blc appeals, but by 
Sir Alan Burns came to address the ^. lsscd the l ast of these. When 
Association some Member? ui, Commonw ealth Parliamentary 
mbers, led by Leslie Hale and Sidney Silver- 



GOING TO GHANA 


49 


man, expressed to him their concern about the case and later - some 
eighty-five Members of the Commons petitione e 
Secretary for a reprieve for the condemned men. In the mterv ^ 0 
of the eight had died and two had been reprieved but manyMe 
bers were disturbed to learn that the execution of the other five ha 

been fixed for the 4th March 1947. „ 1 +n nut 

On the day before the proposed hangings Leslie Hal « ^ ied 
a Private Notice Question to the Colonial Secretary, - i 

Jones, as to whether the Prerogative of Mercy might not be : exerc d 
directly by the Colonial Secretary. His question was ruled out of 
order and he raised this ruling as a point of order m the House 

“S sudden storms 

sweep without warning through Parliament. 

appeared to admit the men had been ^mem 

execution before being, on each ocas , ' 1 ^ ^ passioI1 and 

and then Churchill intervened with a _ld war made 

humanity which had, in the 

him so effective as a reforming Honi ^ of the House, 

Colonial Secretary shouted T ° a b skin g him once again to 

agreed to telegraph to Sir Alan B ^ the question was 

postpone the execution. Two days d : fferent . Arthur Creech 
again raised the atmosphere was v , demonstrations of 

Jones, in a lengthy statement .referred to pop^ ^ sentences ,. 
public indignation at the dcla} ^ ^oth on the Executive 

According to him there was s g Gover ° nor > s view ’ he said ‘the 
and Legislative Councils . in Colony has already been 

administration of British Ff 10 ? • was conveyed that the 

discredited.’ All the same the ^ case had at least been 

executions would not take P £ . wee h s later the executions 

debated in Parliament. Never ^ ^ condemned men were hanged 
were authorized and three o ec h ntrs reac hed the Governor, 

before notice of further C J^ n Respited and finally reprieved. The 
The two survivors were a ‘’^ jsc Commons in a written answer 
news was conveyed to the ^ t j ucc wce ks before so momentous a 
and a matter, which had see .. j t0 disappear without any subse- 
question of principle, w as a 

quent discussion. profound was the effect of the case in the 

Later I was to learn how proi 



REAP THE WHIRLWIND 


5 ° 


Gold Coast. Even ten years later when I became Attorney-General 
I had still to deal with its reverberations and it determined, to an 
extent very difficult to estimate, relations between those of the 
African establishment who had supported the Governor and those 
who had stood by the accused members of Ofori Atta’s family. Dr 
Nkrumah in Ghana, an autobiography which he wrote in 1956, 
roundly asserted that Dr J. B. Danquah ‘withdrew his support from 
the Burns Constitution’ on account of the case and in point of time 
the United Gold Coast Convention, the original organization 
formed to oppose Colonial rule, was first planned in April 1947, the 
month following the executions, with Dr J. B. Danquah as one of its 
leading forces and having on its executive two other relatives of Nana 
Sir Ofori Atta I. 


However when I was preparing to leave for the first time for 
West Africa, all this background seemed of little significance. Sir 
Alan Burns’ Constitution everyone now agreed must be scrapped. 
Sir Alan himself had retired shortly after the controversy over the 
executions. Sir Gerald Creasy, appointed in his stead, had occupied 
the Governorship for two uneasy years during the riots and the 
subsequent inquiries, had then, for reasons of health, relinquished 
is post and gone off to govern in the more salubrious climate of 

r-u 1 ' xt S 3 Pkce n0W re ‘S ned ^ old West African hand, Sir 
lar es Noble Arden-Clarke, who had served a long apprenticeship 
in lgeria. There seemed no possible political reason why I should 
not spend a week in West Africa conducting an appeal before the 
\\ est African Court of Appeal at its session in Accra. 

mirl/ rra r? ed i, t0 Ai eaVe ° n Wednesda y the nth January at 
r( . n C ay ;, ° n th ^ Monday before I was to go, the London papers 

mSrnS t“ , * ^ had begUn m the Gold Coast. ° n the 

dissolveH t !^ ey announced that Parliament was to be 

StS L'S"™ 1 ElMi »" on. The old York 
African eerT ' ln d KjSe days maintained its West 

seventeen hoT’ T* S ,° W by modern standards. It was not until 
Northern Nia ^ a ter eavin S London that we reached Kano in 
had been nrnrl ^ ^ • "if 6 We were tcdd that a State of Emergency 
m ? e G v° ld C0aSL Tt was m > r experience of 
one’s self to the 'if t0 - 1VE between Britain and Africa and adjust 

A A c 1 51115 P0kical situations ^ both. 

Accra airport to meet me were Charles Deller and his new 



GOING TO GHANA 


51 

employer, a Mr Fuad Taymani, a Syrian trader and, so I under- 
stood from Deller, a student of law, and indeed the nearest thing 
in West Africa to Mrs Van der Elst. Taymani was a close friend of 
my client Neif Halaby, now awaiting the result of his appeal in 
Ussher Fort Prison and, by an odd coincidence, imprisoned in the 
same cell in which sixteen years later I was myself to be held. There 
was no sign of the lawyer, Albert Heward-Mills, who had instructed 
me. This Mr Taymani dismissed as of no importance and he 
plunged into Middle Eastern politics. He and Neif Halaby, he 
explained, were Druses, an exclusive Mohammedan sect whose 
membership is restricted to a group of mountain dwellers in the 
Lebanon. They had strong family feelings. This made the case very 
difficult. Neif had been convicted, after all, of murdering his 
brother. In these circumstances, I argued, the sooner I saw my 
instructing lawyer the better and anyway what about the State of 
Emergency. Neither were important, replied Mr Taymani, it was 
better that we talked first. As Deller had told me, he himself had 
studied law. This was certainly true for in the Accra Law Library, 
long after the Halaby case was over, there was exhibited a list of 
ancient and exotic law books which he was prepared to dispose of at 
a reasonable price. However, said Mr Taymani, this was not a 
matter of law, I must understand first the Druse position. As to the 
Emergency — that was nothing. He himself, like all his compatriots, 
had enrolled as Special Constables. This force alone could deal with 
the agitators. The Syrians understood the Africans. It would be 
necessary for me to get a special pass to go out after Curfew time 
but Colonel Cawston could arrange that. 

I imagined Colonel Cawston to be the military officer in charge of 
Accra for the emergency but they said, no — he was just a very nice 
man. I would like him and we would find him at the hotel and he 
would explain who he was and what he did. 

I had been told that there were only two hotels in Accra, one at 
the Airport, a former United States Air Force mess, now Portuguese- 
run and renamed 'The Lisbon’ and the other, ‘The Seaview’, Greek- 
run and in the old part of Accra. It was to the Seaview that Deller 
and Taymani took me. Popularly it was believed originally to have 
been a slave market. What living quarters existed were on its first 
and only storey. Six or seven bedrooms opened on to a passageway 
which served as a hotel lounge. They had doors like those of a stable 



REAP THE WHIRLWIND 


52 


loose box in which the top half could open independently of the 
bottom. This was necessary if one was to get any draught at all but it 
was disconcerting in that it enabled passers-by to look in to see if 
whoever was in bed was anyone they knew. Later I was to come to 
enjoy its atmosphere and,' until I took a little house of my own, I 
always stayed there after this first visit; but now the hotel was full. 
There was no sign of Colonel Cawston. No room had been booked 
for me. It was better so, said Mr Taymani. I could stay at a new 
establishment, just opened, the Avenida. At present it was the 
unofficial headquarters of the Syrians serving in the Special Con- 
stabulary. I would be among friends. Meanwhile we must find the 
Colonel. 


Our search for him gave me my first view of the Gold Coast 
capital. Cape Coast, the home of the Aborigines Rights Protection 
Society had been the original seat of Government. But its Castle, 
taken over from the Dutch in 1667 and rebuilt in eighteenth- 
century classical style, was tenanted by too many ghosts to make it 
the appropriate seat for the new style Colonial administration. In 
t e inscription on its walls, even in the graves in its courtyard, it 
reflected that Indian summer of British rule in Africa when, the 
slave trade abolished, a real mingling of the races on a basis of 
equality seemed for a moment possible. Here in its great central 
square was the grave of Philip Quaque, the first African to be 
ordained into the Anglican Church. By his side lay Governor 
MacLean, the just Briton of Gold Coast tradition who had ruled a 
“ rC , y f rs a S 0- There are still today in Ghana goldsmiths who 
V ' 1 V 1 a e a s ^ x ~h°°t chain of intricate linkage, a copy of the 

necklace which Governor MacLean designed and presented to the 

Cane rnfl'f 0 ’ U1 l egend ’ had been his faithful companion. In the 
brieflv nm °) Vn n at ^ ew around tb ‘ s castle, prematurely and 
dismitv of Af' ° a m ! xed cu lture which understood the 

accented the 1Can • ltl0na ^ hfe and where missionary compassion 
3 lotlv P t U i 10ns 0fas0cicty in which the white man was 
English namec° r ?° k , “ African Their children, with their 
the first to question | d a , catI0n and their indigenous ancestry, were 
which thevhad he ’ Euro P^ an terms, the justice of the world into 

ttszsssrt ? pe Coast was n ° piace f ° r the capitai 
Sr and in 1877 ^ - ° f 



GOING TO GHANA 


53 

Accra was, when the change was made, then inhabited almost 
exclusively by Gas, a people who did not belong to the main ethnic 
grouping of Southern Ghana, the Akans. They were a race of sea- 
faring traders who had migrated to the area in the seventeenth 
century. Their language had no affinity to Akan and their social 
organization was in every way different, but they too had had a 
similar mixed Colonial past. Originally Accra had been divided into 

three European enclaves, British, Dutch and Danish. Jamestown 

where the Seaview Hotel was — had been the British quarter. It was 
called after James Fort, now a prison, and in which, a few (Jay, 3 f t , r 
my arrival, Dr Nkrumah was to be lodged. James Fort was 
named because it had been one of the headquarters of the ‘Comnan" 
of Royal Adventurers of England Trading to Africa’ of which Jam'-" 
Duke of York, afterwards King James II, was a distinguished 
shareholder. About a quarter of a mile down the High Street aJon" 
which we drove in search of Colonel Cawston, was Ussh^r Frit 
where my client Halaby was being held and in which I was to b <• 
imprisoned in my turn. It had been, until a century before* \hr- 
Dutch headquarters and their slave trading depot. Somr* A <--1 ° 

on, following the line of the High Street was Christiansbor" of t 
now the Governor’s residence but again until a centurv a" ** if’ 
territory of another European power and the Danish seat rfC°’ / ° 
ment. In the High Street between Christiansborg and Ur-rh^ 
was still another historic building of perhaps equal si^nif ^ 
the old Basel Mission— now a general warehouse far 
Trading Company of Switzerland. In the nineteenth r r t 
Gold Coast had been the nearest thing to a Colony Vihfah ^ 
land ever possessed and even at this time the Swiss comn '' /Itzer “ 
to the British and the Syrians, the largest foreign ,L P .’ n( f 1 
population. ^ JC1 ” CTt ” th = 

The Basel Mission which had established itself } n .u, n . , _ 
and on the Indian Calabar Coast m the 1840’s. old 


ana on me lnuiuii ^ was a cr-J f 

pietist and protestant organization. From the profa''r^ PP ° r ? ni 
ventures it had financed its religious and educ^C,/ ^trading 
certainly contributed as much, if not more, to pr ° )e . CtS ' u 
Colony in the second half of the nineteenth century i n . ** 

colonial administration. At an early stage it ^ ,d the J nt S 
cocoa. It established botanical gardens, enc 0 U r a .i C J In ? en 1 ted *f d 
made attempts to develop local industry. Wfc 


REAP THE WHIRLWIND 


taught and preached in African languages and recruited Africans to 
its Ministry. Its scholars translated the Bible from Hebrew and 
Greek direct into Ga and Fanti. But the first World War had des- 
troyed its religious influence and it was only the stronger fabric of 
its commercial structure which, submerged for a time, reappeared 
as an important institution in the Gold Coast in the inter-war years. 

In 1918 the whole of the Swiss missionary' corps were rounded 
up as German spies and interned. Their religious organization was 
entrusted to the Church of Scotland under the mistaken belief that 
the faith they taught was Calvinistic. Their commercial property 
was confiscated and handed over to a hastily formed British trading 
company, ‘The Commonwealth Trust’. It was a curious mixture 
between a public and a private company. Its board of directors was 
appointed by the Secretary' of State for the Colonies who naturally 
chose retired Colonial officials. When later I w T as to become Attorney 
General and investigate it, I found one of them was over eighty' 
years of age and most of them over seventy'. Though it was the duty 
of the Commonwealth Trust to provide, as did the Basel Mission, 
for education out of its earnings, for some reason this new Company 
scarcely made any profit. Still worse, the Swiss Government had 
made a claim against the British Government for the illegal confis- 
cation of the Mission’s religious and secular property'. After 
considerable haggling Britain agreed to make a large dow’n pay'ment 
m compensation and to return to the Mission its confiscated trading 
pr< ‘. m ‘ scs : Gold Goast Government was told to find the money 

nm tlC Ge = ls ^ adve Council of 1926 was ordered by the Colonial 
ce to \ote the necessary funds. The incident w'as interesting as 
C ‘? s ijr OCCasion when nominated European members voted 
tL 1 1C " , rlcan | no . m ‘ Ilecs against the Colonial administration. As 
ere was then a built-in majority of officials on the Council this was 

recrvnn'rh c" . ln 3 j ie end dle Gcdd Coast tax payers had not only to 

commn K ^ Government for property' handed over to a British 

susffin?! • ab °- t0 COmpensate that company for the loss it 

Swk Th!" rrT S thC bmldin S s now be handed back to the 

of an English t A' ° n ' " 2S made l ° pa ^’ *° r ^ P ro P e rty and capital 

income m S. rT S . con “ m had returned up till then no 

excluded The ' T' ^ :rom "hose management it was totally 

the directors C fce.f“ eCt “TT 1 » Britain was small— 

dtreclors fees were only ftoo a yea, but the damage to British 



GOING TO GHANA 


55 

prestige was immense. The one positive achievement of my period 
as Attorney-General to be universally applauded was my arranging 
of the handing back of the Commonwealth Trust to the Ghana 
Government. 

Between the old Basel Mission buildings and the Danish castle of 
Christiansborg stood the European Club. Tradition held that it had 
originally been the railway station for Balmoral and when it was 
decided to erect a more fitting royal train stop Queen Victoria had 
ordered that the original wooden building should be sent as a gift to 
the Gold Coast. However this might be, it was certain that the core 
of the club premises were of timber already fashioned before 
importation and that it resembled an out-of-date railway station. 
Here it was that, at last, we found Colonel Cawston. His history I 
never fully discovered. All I could establish was that in the past he 
had had something to do with War Graves but by the time I came 
to meet him this was in the background and he had adapted himself 
effectively to the Colony of his adoption, though surprisingly he had 
become a Moslem, since this faith only comprised some ten per cent 
of the Gold Coast population. At the moment he was practising as a 
solicitor in Kumasi, the second largest town of the Gold Coast and 
the capital of the Ashanti Region. 

It was in Kumasi that the murder in which I was concerned had 
taken place and Colonel Cawston, who had originally been instructed 
with Albert Heward-Mills to conduct the defence had, early in the 
proceedings, realized that what his client needed was not a lawyer 
but a ballistics expert. Having some army experience with firearms 
he threw away his brief and appeared as an expert witness for the 
defence We had just settled down for a drink— generally speaking, 
Colonel Cawston explained, Moslems in the Gold Coast did not 
consider they were bound to refuse alcohol when the steward, an 
African, whispered something to him and a little embarrassed he 
suggested we should return to the Seaview, as, he muttered to me, 
the Club’s rules about Europeans were strict A Turk, yes, they 
qualified by reason of the area around Istanbul but a Syrian or a 
Cypriot, no, they were Asiatics. We must either ask Mr Taymani, 
the special constable, to go or else leave in a body m dignified 
protest. As an anti-colonialist himself this was the only choice. He 

would lead the way. . 

This extraordinary club continued in existence even after Inde- 


REAP THE WHIRLWIND 


56 


pendence. That it did so was the measure of the lack of political 
appreciation by a large section of the European community as to 
what was happening around them. Certainly the higher British civil 
servants ceased to belong to it but it was still patronized by junior 
officers and by business and professional men. A resolution, 
proposed just before independence, to admit Africans was con- 
temptuously rejected by the membership and considerable public 
comment naturally was aroused. At the time I was Constitutional 
Adviser to Dr Nkrumah and, in a joking way, he requested me, 
through the Civil Service machine, to advise him. I suggested that in 
existing circumstances there was no reason why the Government 
should continue to let to the Club their premises for the nominal 
rent of one shilling a year and if the members wished to continue 


practising apartheid they should at least do so in a building for 
which they paid the economic rent. He minuted back that this was 
no doubt right in law but if the Government was to set an example 
of tolerance in Africa it must avoid conflicts which raised racial 
issues. To put up the rent at this moment would suggest that no 
sooner did Ghana become independent than it victimized its 
uropean inhabitants. In the end the Club voted to admit Africans, 
, u fj,. once been refused, no one would join. Eventually its 
ui dings were acquired for the Government and used as an experi- 
mental theatre. Its Committee, protesting, did not take up the offer 
ot other land on which to rebuild. Apartheid in Ghana ended not 
with a bang but a whimper. 

This however did not help us at the time and we had to go back 
pi 6 1 r V1CW 1 WC wanted multi-racial drinking. Here expanding, 
Mr Alh a !V St0n j SS A U , r< ;, d me t ^ lat ^ I had any difficulty in getting 
was uffim Heward - Mll ls to instruct me he would. However, that 
momenJ T A f ® Urgent thmg was t0 S et a curfew pass. At the 
He had W d ’ h /7 aS n ° £ S ° popular with ^e civil authorities, 
m ssion whthh 0 H d “ ‘ nf ° rmal meetin S the Watson Com- 
W caui wpt !TH lnt ° the ri ° tS 0f I( H8 and their under- 
that even some T! v 1 , , £ ° tcd ^em, Colonel Cawston explained, 

In the end T tlSh P ° llCe ° fficers were corrupt, 
were printed nie^e ^ P3SS w \ t h° ut Colonel Cawston’s help. They 

of geometrical teigns'The'BririshTffiM 0 " the ”' ° nl> ’ a “ rieS 
f»nd, y and f.^mmg. He ei'pllLS 3 



GOING TO GHANA 


SI 

many of the police were illiterate so it was no use having anything 
written. Each day, he said, one changed one’s pass for one with a 
different design which the police and the army previously had been 
taught to memorize. I may have seemed apprehensive, for e 
reassured me. The strike, he said, was being run by Nkrumah and a 
few fellow extremists. They would soon have them in jail an t en 
everything would return to normal. The next time I was to meet 
him was six years later. I had just been appointed Constitutiona 
Adviser and he was the Principal Secretary in Dr Nkruma s o ce. 

It was approaching curfew time before I got sett e into e 
Avenida and I was becoming desperate. The hearing e ore e 
West African Court of Appeal was due in three days time and since 
the Gold Coast Criminal Code and criminal procedure generally 
was somewhat different from that of England I sti a to oo u 
local cases and discuss with someone who had appeare e ° re 
Court how the judges liked argument to be presen e . n 
latter point I got little help from my companions. ey 
sympathy for Mrs Van der Elst’s point of view, sai • 

never get them to realize about the Druse, sai ay • 
thing considered, said Colonel Cawston, per aps 1 
stucLo ballistic;, he and 

not always seen eye to eye. Taymam ha § , t fTC . 

they all had to go off but if I was insistent about it why didn 1 1 go 
and see Albert Heward-Mills myself. He only lived round the 

corner and I had a curfew pass ^ it became 

I set out to find his house not reali & t f lip-htw in 

dark in the tropics. In those days ther % Wa , S p ^ at the roldsidf lit 
Accra but as soon as dusk fell the petty traders at the roadside lit 
Accra out as soon as r ^ streets had a f airy i and 

htt e lamps to illuminate tot “ nQw and then ^ s j 

ook with every colour ^ c ., e _b rea king bus, manned by police and 
searched for the house a s * Then, out of the darkness 

covered m wire netting, V f S lm ;‘ roar f rom a hidden crowd. I 
behmd the lights wou c ^ ^ ^ eighteenth-century quarter of 
ound the house a as . ^ wa u. The loud-pealing Victorian 

ccra and surroun L, ered by w hat seemed to be the concerted 
bell which I rang wa when I pushed open the door and 

neighing of innumerable horses. ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ size 

pon^ThteT^vards discovered, were Gold Coast race 


REAP THE WHIRLWIND 


horses. The noise they made brought someone down who told me 
that Albert Heward-Mills was not available as he had ‘travelled’ in 
connection with not the Emergency nor my case but his racing 
interests. 

The next day everything was different. Albert Heward-Mills 
turned up at the Avenida and we got down to preparing the case. 
As it was explained to me later, people in the Gold Coast and indeed 
in other parts of Africa, had very good manners. It would not have 
been kind for my friends of the night before to tell me after I had 
come all the way from Europe, that the lawyer I was to meet had 
gone off on some business of his own. Albert Heward-Mills I 
subsequently got to know well, came to like and respect and did a 
number of cases for him. At the time he was, I suspect, justifiably 
annoyed that I should have been brought from London to do this 
Appeal. In time of call he was senior to me at the English Bar and 
was, in addition, one of the foremost criminal lawyers of West 

nca. He pointed out, what I had begun to suspect from reading 
t re papers of the case, namely that far from a legal genius being 
required, it would need a very bad lawyer indeed to lose the Appeal. 
It was clear the only reason I was there was the influence of Charles 
Defler with Fuad Taymani. I owed my brief to the mystic of Mrs 
an der List and the vague hope that a lawyer from Britain might 
appreciate the importance of the Druse. 

The legal matter upon which I now found myself engaged had 

rVvIc't-H NJ t0 d °L V , lth Afr , icans or with the political crisis in the Gold 

to see lllustrated perfectly, if I had then had the wit 

surmise’™ 6 f f S ° f law enforcement which later were so to 
surprise me when I became Attorney General. 

DeculiarTnd 11 ' 11 i n ^* rCU ™ 5 3tances arose in the first place out of the 
St If f, del f P0S1 , tl0n 0f the S0 - calIed Syrians. This was a 
Unlike the FreneWL P p VT British colonial authorities, 
immiln^f rW m West AfH ea restricted European 

class from Britain^ T * 6 ^ renc ^ cad ‘l es petits blancs’. The social 
were the wealthv Tli ° , en . coura ° ed t0 sett l e in the Colonies 
living and at one ti ^g t th °^ ght r in terms ofIar S e farms and gracious 
Coast to this sort of e - 1 ^ W£re attem P ts t0 open up the Gold 

might have made it poSbleTd' h™ 6 ° f l897, whkh f 

1935 Samuel WnnH ' . brought my old acquaintance of 

ood, into politics and had resulted in the formation 



GOING TO GHANA 


59 


of the Gold Coast Aborigines Rights Protection Society which, at 
its inception, was an organization embracing both chiefs and African 
intellectuals. The strength of the forces at that time at its command 
impressed even Joseph Chamberlain. He received a deputation of 
its members in London and ordered the then Governor, Sir William 
Maxwell, to withdraw the proposed land legislation. The success of 
this combination of chief and intellectual gave the Aborigines Rights 
Protection Society for a time the status of ‘The Parliament of the 
Africans’. Successive British Colonial Secretaries were compelled 
to refuse permission to the Colonial authorities to undertake 
legislation which they wanted but which threatened the economic 
and socio-religious basis of the existing African society v> hich it v> as 
the object of the Aborigines Rights Protection Society to perpetuate. 
Thus the monied British colonist was kept out. 

But the African system, which was powerful enough to exclude 
him, was not capable, from its very T nature, of proriding its own 
capitalist class in his place. The majority of the people m the 
Colony belonged to a matrilinian type of society and were influenced 
by the form of morality which goes with this type of social organi- 
zation. A man’s first duty was to his family-in the matnlinian case 
to the descendants of the woman who had founde it. - j one ui s 
large group who was impoverished or in need of help, education or 
training could look for support from the better-off members of this 
enlarged family. In terms of Christian standards there was, perhaps, 
more to be said for this arrangement than the rival monogamous 
patrilinian system favoured by the missionaries, but there was no 
doubt the African wav of life gave little incentive to private capital 


TohnMemal, Sarbah, one of the foonderc of the Aborigines 
Rights Protection Society, in an mtrodticnon he n-rote to an 


nhi'h h ii“thfta“nar°et of this center,', the chiefs of the coastal 
area and die Abilin intellectuals were united in attemptmg to 


Gold Coast Law, described the society 


preserve and develop. 


■The African social system,’ he wrote in .907, 'is communistic and 
has been built up gradually. As a race should grow its own laws jus 
as been bu P - ovvn skeleton, so as to meet its own special 

as an animal must gro customary law grown. The conflict 

requirements, so has nau 



6° REAP THE WHIRLWIND 

between African Communism and European individualism confronts 
the legislative reformer in British West African Colonies, who, when he 
essays to destroy, should either provide an adequate substitute, or give 
the people affected by his new enactments facilities to invent their own 
restraints suitable to their changed condition. It is doubtful whether 
the official mind has yet grasped thoroughly the fact that the under- 
lying principle of the aboriginal social system is the sense of duty to be 
performed, respect to be paid to the aged, and obedience to the man in 
authority, whether head of family, headman of a town, or chief of a 
tri e. To encourage the individual to compete with his neighbour in 
t e performance of work, and to continue to take interest in the pro- 
gress o is community is wise; but to insist on individualism to the 
extent o encouraging selfishness, and destroying what is undoubtedly 
k?? an eneficial in the native’s institutions, is hardly commend- 
a e. n t e African social system the formation of a pauper class is 
un -non n, nor is there antagonism of class against class. Indeed, recog- 
n! I'' y pro ™ tlon t0 oP ‘ ce and public position in the community is 
: j- • a , SU CI , Cnt , 1 j 1Cent ive t0 effort and perseverance. Dealingwith 
native’s* rh Sm ’ S . ° U - n0t ^ t0 cieve '°P all the various sides of the 
nroner nsefh 0ttler Wor< *? aiming at levelling up; divert to 

definitely fr a ? d enthusiasm shown in company fights; and 

Itmed w X , X ab " isi “ 1 «“■*■»*>" is hopelessly 
therefore shot 1 ^a" mextnca % permeated with corruption, and 

SX “e b Xr^ And “ thiS ““ Sh “ U 

Romans no less • ■ t0n 3t 3 certam period seemed to the 

Atticus recomm^TT-" 1181115 ’ ^ f3Ct < “’ cero > writing to his friend 
ea^CareTsn “T “f * Pr ° CUre his sIaves Britain “be- 

they are unfit to form a part of AetoulehoWof ArtcusV ^ 

a “ Uld w *thstand the pressures of 

European ,2. tmZ ? ,he intrusi »" "f large-scale 
intellectuals fought tn nr rear ^y ar( ^ act ion which the chiefs and 
Coast society and added^n^ 6 • * 3 ?^ ted tlle structure of Gold 

Neif Halaby and his friend’ ‘ FuTd T^' ^ SyrianS ’ ° f wh ° m 
typical, filled the gaD in i mm •, ^aymam were m many ways 
social system largely excluded* 1 ^' 6 S °? ety Prom which the African 
: ™" d . th « native-born Gold Coaster and 
n ls n capitalist was debarred by his 



GOING TO GHANA 


6l 


inability to acquire farming land. In the same way as the Jews in 
Europe in the Middle Ages provided a small expert class of traders, 
bankers and moneylenders for which the social system of the time 
provided no native substitute, so the Syrians of West Africa 
performed an essential service and were, like the Jews, a convenient 
scapegoat on which to blame the social evils of a later day. 

These ‘Syrians’ were in fact not from Syria but from the Lebanon 
and many of them were Christians of the earliest of faiths, that of 
the Maronite Church. It is possible in Accra on Sunday still to find 
a crowded congregation listening to the Syriac liturgy Christian 
worship in the shape it took and the language it used when it was 
first formalized. Hard-working, self-made and with intense family 
feeling, a community to themselves, disliked by Africans, patronized, 
tolerated and humiliated in turn by the British, these Syrians formed 
a neutral middle class to whom the Colonial authorities could not 
look for any real support and yet who had no contact with African 
intellectuals. The fact that the petty bourgeoisie was isolated in this 
way in British territories, when in French Colonial territories it was 
closely allied with the Imperial power, explains, in part, why the 
British were forced to yield in their West African territories first and 
why the French attempted to resist to the last. In so far as British 
‘petits blancs’ existed, they were represented by the Colonel 
Cawstons and the Dellers and were treated subconsciously as 
though they were part of the Syrian community. Nobody s kith and 
kin, they were, in their way, as anti-Colonial as the Africans around 
them. The stability of the colonial system depended not on an 
Afro-European middle class, as in the French colonies, but on a 
system of Indirect Rule through the chiefs, now divorced from their 
one-time professional allies. Intellectuals like Albert Heward-Mills 
were outside the system, as indeed were almost all the old Ga 
aristocracy in the capital. 

The Mills, in its two branches, the Rewards and the Huttons, had 
in the past played a great part in colonial politics. By leaving Cape 
Coast the Colonial authorities did not escape from the African 
intellectual and old Thomas Hutton-Mills had been among the 
founders of the Aborigines Rights Protection Society. In Temple 
House, the mansion he built for his family behind the Seaview 
Hotel, constructed like a ship with a kind of promenade deck 
surrounding the inner rooms, were hung the portraits of his 



62 


REAP THE WHIRLWIND 


ancestors, the Mills, the Bruces and the Bannermans, all of African 
matrilineal descent but with, as so often happened in the coastal 
areas of the Gold Coast, the English names of their paternal 
ancestors. Such aristocratic African families had in the nineteenth 
century largely run Accra and its professional class was at least as 
eveloped as that of Cape Coast. The relegation in the twentieth 
century of Africans to the junior ranks of industry and Government 
service was a result, not of the lack of ability or the availability of 
trained men in any of the coastal towns but of a deliberate Colonial 
ce policy which began unofficially in the last quarter of the 
nineteent 1 century and which, at the opening of the twentieth, was 
elevated mto an official doctrine by Joseph Chamberlain. In Temple 
nouse, among the portraits, was a painting of Lieutenant-Governor 
mnnerman, the African appointed to take over Accra after the 
Danish withdrawal in 1850. 

nrS e , X1Ste " c f e . for ove f a century of these great families who had 
time^nm ail f , riCan ?l ass in the past explained why at this 
one Lwv C r 1 SU 11 1 considered they had the right to govern. As 

it ‘Trne l T 1 Cape S° ast ’ Franci . s Awooner-Williams, was to put 
nation mn” 5 ° Cra f^’ ab: f r true religion, is the greatest blessing a 
explained < en l° y ’ ut those of the old school of politics’, he 
princ^ ° f CdUCati0n and ^nce, and ^reliant 

princes working in the mterests of the country.’ 

patible U A m ™ le and democracy were not really com- 

Party which Dr NfP ° a ”f- ocrats joined the Convention People’s 
visit. Others inrl bad founded some six months before my 

with the United C* i!Tr rai ^ ls Awooner-Williams himself, stayed 
Party had split B ° d Coast . Convent ion from which Dr Nkrumah’s 
outSSif ma l° nt}T ’ Kke Albert Heward-Mills, opted 

trated on social pursuits & Ind^? f™™ their P rofessions > concen T 
probably a larver inm ’ ^ dee d) from racing Heward-Mills had 
dieted, it VS ^alw tha \ fr ° m tbe Bar and > ^ the two con- 

National Liberation Wbch WOn his allegiance. When the 

that its members had 1966 tbere was a )oke 

of the Accra Turf ClnK r. , eacb ot her m the Stewards Enclosure 
was certainly from thic '■ 1 * S l ™ e Reward-Mills was dead but it 
Nknirmh 

While the bulk of this arism ° f ItS non ~Pohtical ideology. 

anst °cratic class was, at the time of my first 



GOING TO GHANA 


63 

visit, inactive politically its object remained to put back the old 
ruling families into the position they had occupied in Government 
before they had been dispossessed by Joseph Chamberlain and his 
Colonial Office successors. As Francis Awooner-Williams was to 
put it in 1952: 

‘Apart from one or two members of the Convention Peoples Party, 
their leaders and supporters are the flotsam and jetsam and the pop- 
pinjays of the country, men who had suddenly loomed large into men 
of substance ... It is therefore the bounden duty of every well- 
informed citizen to unite to save the social and political order. . . .’ 

The ruination of the country had come about, he said, through 
‘the unfortunate adoption ... of universal manhood suffrage at the 
threshold of Parliamentary self government in the country’. These 
intellectuals wanted a Legislative Assembly of the British type but 
the House of Commons before 1867 was their model. 

For me the Halaby case was perhaps the best introduction I could 
have had to problems of justice in the Gold Coast. British legal 
thinking applied to criticism of what is happening somewhere else 
in the world is almost entirely procedural. The criterion may be, 
does the accused get a fair trial, but by a fair trial what is meant is, 
were the same formalities gone through as in Britain? Perhaps the 
absence of a jury may be excused but the Judge must at least be 
irremovable irrespective of how he conducts any case which comes 
before him.' What is asked is, were the English rules of evidence 
observed? Was the accused cautioned? Was he allowed a lawyer ? 
Did this lawyer have access to all available information possessed by 
the police? No one in Britain would start from the other end and 
say, ‘ “So and So” is in prison. Is it just or unjust that he should be 
there, irrespective of the legal process by which his imprisonment 
was determined upon?’ The test applied is quite different. If 
British procedure, with perhaps minor modifications, is followed 
and the man is convicted, then he deserves to be in prison. But if he 
has been put in prison as the result of any other process this must be 
wrono- whatever, in fact, he may have done. Students of political 
affairs’in Africa have now come round to the view that the British 
Parliamentary system is not necessarily exportable. The same 
question has not been asked about the judicial system. The Halaby 
case convinced me that, even m Colonial days m the Gold Coast, 



64 REAP the whirlwind 

neither the judicial system nor the police service was capable of 
dealing with ordinary, let alone political crime. Yet looking at what 
happened in this case, what was the substitute? It was one of the 
misfortunes of Ghana that this was never really effectively worked 
out. 

The facts of the Halaby case were these. On the morning of the 
16th June 1949 Rafik Halaby was found shot in his room in the 
Halaby lodgings over their store in Kumasi. Neif Halaby, the dead 
man s brother, in the first place called in, not the police, but as was 
natural in Gold Coast conditions, a representative group of the 
Syrian community. One of these, a certain Mr Azar, moved Rafik’s 
body, a factor which introduced complications into the case, since 
at first he told neither the doctor nor the police he had done so and 
t eir su sequent evidence appeared to have been based on the body 
avm 0 a en in the position into which Mr Azar had moved it. He 
also came mto possession of the dead man’s keys to his safe. ‘Some- 
tmc giTC em to me, he told the Judge, ‘I cannot remember whom.’ 
, , ti e agamst Neif Halaby was that he had quarrelled with his 
brother, and, indeed it was clear he had made a number of wild 

rnnu\ 0nS fi a ° a i n f : t ^ t be ba< i possessed a .22 rifle which 

Dolice 6 1 6 ^ 1< ? t ^ e d Rafik and when asked by the 

surrenfWpH ^ i° ^ murc * er w hat weapons he possessed he 
capable nf P lstc ^ a nd another .22 rifle but not the rifle which was 
that he tried r- e 3ta bube ?' Edition to this it was alleged 
bv Drodnrino- *1 ireCt P°^ ce investigations into wrong channels 
£ S3 etter Sent t0 ^ and which, though written 

intrime°whic-h , ngua S e > possibly threatened Rafik in regard to an 
wS ' Sed ‘ r ha ™ S "' ith » Gold Coast 

assailant having shot him fin & ? g ”” st Nelf depended on Rafiks 
NeR had she opportunity U ‘ ™ S °' 

he had moved theTd g0 ^ ce > avhen it was discovered that 

he said the bodv hid h ’ P ° SC f as tbe cor P se in the position which 
which fcmok > “ T" 1 bef0re he hld m °ved it The position 
door when he was shot’ Th sugge ? Eed that Rafik was facing the 
pictures of Mr Azar m tin-' lhe °® cial Police photographer took 
showing the bodv in tin pos u c an( i these were added to the pictures 
moved it. All this j £ 0 , r Position to which Mr Azar had 
hlS 3dded t0 ^ confusion. It was never clear from 



GOING TO GHANA 


65 

the record, when expert evidence was given based upon the alleged 
position of the body, which alleged position was referred to. In any 
case, Mr Azar’s second posed position did not correspond to the 
position as described by those who first found the body nor was it 
consistent with the blood stains. Mr Azar’s odd activities may well 
have confused the police and genuinely prevented them from draw- 
ing the conclusions which were apparent from the position of the 
body, if it was originally in the position that the other witnesses, 
other than Mr Azar, said it was. What seemed to me much more 
difficult to understand was how the police came to overlook other 
evidence as to where the shot was fired from. 

A railway engine driver, who slept on the veranda of his father s 
cafe across the road from the. Halaby store, was awakened in the 
night by a shot fired close to him and which so alarmed him that he 
went and woke his father, the cafe proprietor The Halaby’s maid, 
who slept next door to Rafik, was also wakened by a shot and to her 
it seemed to come from outside. She heard no one leaving Rafik’s 
room or his door being opened or shut or any movement in the house 
afterwards and she was positive that the sound of the shot had not 
come from inside Rafik’s room. Indeed, it a rifle had been dis- 
charged inside the house it was almost certain that one of the many 
African lodgers on the premises would have heard it as the sound 
would have been accentuated by the confined space. 

The murdered man’s skull was in Court and from time to time 
was passed between Bench and Bar. Colonel Cawston, who sat 
himself beside me at the hearing, had with him a thin brass curtain 
rod and every now and then, to emp ^size argument on the 
angle of the shot, he would piunge this through the bullet holes in 
the skull and put it in my hands, thus suspended. It was clear that 
the bullet had entered through the ri 0 ht mple and had made an 
exit hole in the base of the skuU though it was said not tQ ^ 
penetrated the scalp and to have been fo d by the doctor in the 

It was the prosecution’s case that ^ “j^ge used was a high 
velociiy one and thus stotoj £“ hM , vas that he 

had in his possession. It so an at close range, it 

was strange, to say th " was more consistent ^ 

stopped bv the scalp. The n tei J t . with the use 

of a low velocity propellant an 0 ^ 0 thirty yards. In 


66 


REAP THE WHIRLWIND 


any event, as Colonel Cawston’s juggling with the skull showed, the 
angle of the wound was inconsistent with the murdered man being 
shot from inside the room unless this was done when he was sitting 
on a chair or his bed. This could be ruled out. The body was near 
neither bed nor chair in any version of its position. Therefore the 
only way which the angle of the wound would be explained was that 
afik was looking out of the window when he was shot. This was 
oun open and the curtain which covered its lower frame had been 

T ? 0 | )e ° ack 0ver tbe curta >n rod w'hich was at least consistent with 
Kahk having pulled it aside to look out. 

Opposite the house was a disused parking lot surrounded by a 
ve oot wall and the assailant could have entered this in a car 
wi out attracting notice, taken cover behind the wall, rested his 
e on its top and shot Rafik as he came to the window'. As the light 
as on 'n is room and the curtain rolled back he would be a perfect 
t r ff ' . e ad been sbot from this position it would explain why 
sound j' 1 ” 11 ! 6 , rivC j on tbe ver anda of the nearby cafe the shot 

that rK d S ° T and W ° uId also a '° ree "ith the maid’s recollection 
that the sounil seemed to come from outside the house. 

fired frn^ Tf 0n 0f th r murder depended upon where the shot was 
at least a o- • ^ Ca M C f r ? m " ‘^n the house tltere w-as a case of sorts, 
22 Halaby. He was on the spot. All sorts of 

could have hee e 2 C " cd j nd 116 bad a rifle with which the crime 
from outside ° n 1116 other hand, the shot was fired 

in it Whv shn m, enCe Was stron gly against Neif being concerned 
SiSii t'rifle w £f g ° ° Ut WhEn hE ran the nsk of being seen 
if he had shot his ", atcbman of tbe store or by a passer-by and, 
dispose of the rifle them 1 *d ^ circumstances > why did he not 
fired a shoXfr to ~ , “ No one in his senses, having 

house attCntl0n > would then walk back to his 

Neif was not rive^f t0 S that the police evidence against 
business is conducted g °°i ^ aitE but * n Africa, where almost all 

Party, misunderstandings ofTsonV^ ^ “ “*"1 

can arise. Neif Halahv did ? , " ever . appreciated in England 

the Police Servant 1 S £ eak En S llsh well. It is certain that 

possessed w'ould also 1 ^ asked him about the firearms he 

not fully have aDDreriat P er ectl b r understand it and might easily 
7 appreciated what Neif replied. Neif Halabv’s subse- 



GOING TO GHANA 


67 

quent explanation had been that he did not at first produce the 
second rifle because it was not in working condition. He thought at 
the time, he said, he was being asked for all firearms he was then 
using. This explanation was at least consistent with his later 
producing the rifle when specifically asked whether he had any 
other licensed firearms. What is certain is that when this second 
rifle was produced it was in two halves and the locking device, which 
secured the stock to the barrel, was missing. In fact it could be used 
though it might well be dangerous to do so and the aim was likely 
to be impaired. Halaby admittedly possessed two rifles and if he 
wished to commit a murder with a rifle it is difficult to see why he 
should have chosen the defective one to do it with. In any event, 
the furthest the prosecution expert was prepared to go was that there 
was a general similarity in the bullet found in the skull and the 
bullets he had fired from the second rifle, but there were not suffi- 
cient fire markings positively to identify the bullet from the brainbox 
as having been fired from the second rifle and that this fatal bullet 
could, in fact, have been fired from a rifle other than the second 
rifle. 

These were all issues which, one might say, were soluble by 
British legal methods. Though the police might have failed to 
appreciate the significance of where the shot was fired from, there 
was, perhaps, just sufficient evidence against Neif to put him on 
trial, and his conviction, though wrong, did not show that there was 
something fundamentally the matter with the Gold Coast judicial 
machine. Yet I experienced in this, the first of many cases I took 
part in in the Gold Coast, a feeling that no one, not even the police, 
were telling the whole truth as they knew it. Legal machinery whose 
efficiency I had taken for granted in England, seemed clogged and 
unworkable in the colonial climate. 

It was not only that I was convinced from the record that there 
was no evidence upon which Neif Halaby should have been con- 
victed but there was evidence in that record, so it seemed to me, 
which, if followed up, could have led to the discovery of the real 
murderer. .22 rifles are far commoner in Ghana, where they are 
often used in hunting, than they are in Britain. Nevertheless, 
possessors of such rifles were a limited class and it was somebody 
who owned or who had access to a .22 rifle who had committed the 


crime. 



68 


REAP THE WHIRLWIND 


n , ® op his murder Rafik Halaby had gone out on some 
erran w ic was never explained. He had taken the family car and 
a ca e on some friends but he had left them at io p.m. It was 
not unti n.30 p.m. that he was seen by the watchman of the 
u 3 ^. St0 , I J c ret Y rn > P af k the car and go downstairs to the store 
> • r f , C , ™ s saPe was kept. Was he going to put something in it 
• •, ', he f haC ob f. m f d this night’s visit? Why else should he 
In riv, 6 S ° rC at t HS ate bour,? Where, in any event, had he been? 
easier . " a p Veryone notices car numbers and it would have been 
thin it wm ij ^° r tbe P obce to have traced his movements 

attemnr t,wi lavc . een ln Britain. They appeared to have made no 
before his m° !t°' ^ 6 P obce knew that within a few minutes 

it odd that GG ba d unlocked the store did they not think 

his cb £ or inT’ mCludl , ng thG St0re ke >' s > werc not found with 

tappttrtoi' 5 room; Why did thcy nM ^ taa 

diamond smugglmg TW "£!!“ “V ” d bccn e ” 6aE ' d 

with inter- Svri an ° r • e ,'I aS a su ggestion that he was concerned 

H ' bd ? n °' d a PI»™% » »" “ Ea "i- 

in Syria. Certainlv stm °r CC ^ K ^incorporation of the Lebanon 
and there was evidenced lngs existed on this issue at the time 
Syrian oommnn^had £ S a ™"»>“ * * 

by the prosecution’s expert? ^ Were n ° nC ° f these examined 

fro^ a Se y rerord. h In th^r w ? teial k was difficu lt to discover 
never a shorthand report As usi°T G in Ghana there W3S 
was the longhand notes mirl t ? a ’ T therefore, all we had to go on 
General I tried to have r ^ the Judge. When I became Attorney 

CU«f Jnsdce ,„ At A Sr,‘r 0rthand educed. 

High Court Judges werebl C ° Urt ) VOuld have hked it but the 
have greatly restricted their freldn” 1 3 change which WOuld 
control of their conduct in court Tt 3nd made Possible a stronger 
ever, not through the onnncM ’ c , ^ ed0rm was prevented, how- 
Civil Service system It was an^ll° ^ -J udges ’ hut by the Ghanaian 
tp come acros^ The Es ab ™ * 3tl0n of a Principle I was often 
the employment of shorthan^ 111 ? ecretar y’s office did not forbid 
declared they must be paid at th m the Courts > it merely 
Government office. Experience ” te as C( W typists in a 

th Parliamentary reporting had 



GOING TO GHANA 


69 

shown there were many Ghanaians capable of taking verbatim 
notes but when clerical staff was at a premium such skilled workers 
were hardly likely to consider the terms offered for Court reporting 
by the Establishment Office. 

This absence of an impartial record of what took place in court 
had a number of side effects, by no means all of them undesirable. 
Judges could, as indeed one Judge always did, conduct the criminal 
proceedings themselves with only the most nominal reference to the 
lawyers appearing for the prosecution and defence. The Judge I 
have in mind, who was the most consistent exponent of this system, 
had reduced it to so fine an art that the counsel prosecuting had to 
be very adroit if he was to succeed in asking the witness his name. 
Usually before he could say anything, and indeed before the witness 
had got into the box, the Judge would start a dialogue which went 
something like this : 

'Judge (as the witness enters Court) What are you doing here ? 

Witness Sir, I was asked to give evidence. 

Judge By whom ? 

Witness The police, my lord. 

Judge Then why don’t you take the oath ? Give your evidence and 
get it over with. What’s your name ? 

1 Witness Opoku Ware, my lord. 

Judge Oh, you come from Ashanti, do you ? 

Witness No, my lord, from Accra. 

Judge Why are you called Opoku Ware then, it’s an Ashanti name. 

Witness My family, my lord. . . . 

Judge The police didn’t ask you to come here to tell me about your 
family. They have told you the evidence they want you to 
give, haven’t they ? Well then, take the oath and get on 
with it.’ 

While at first sight this system of examination may not fit the 
theoretical pattern of British justice it had much to commend it in 
Ghana. English criminal procedure is a kind of legal cricket with the 
judge as umpire. It is not his duty to discover the truth, it is merely 
his task to see that the prosecution establishes its case in accordance 
with the illogical and archaic rules of evidence which we have 
inherited from a past where it was assumed all juries were illiterate. 
In a developing country like Ghana where lawyers were few and 



7 ° REAP THE WHIRLWIND 

eommanded high fees a prisoner was not necessarily certain to be 

e ective y defended. Where all prosecutions were undertaken 

lre ^ 7 y the Attorney General’s Office the uncompetitive 

stan ar sa ary paid by the State to the lawyers it employed was not 

1 'e y to produce the most able prosecutors. Therefore when a 

Ju D e con ucted the trial himself, as he would in, say, a French 

Tn ’ 1 . e , re f Ut m 'Sht well be fairer. To be just to this particular 

,” C ’ " ' C ie determined to allow' no criminal to escape, once 

VaS conv mced of the innocence of the man in the dock, no one 

nrnsppi ™ oren S° rous cross-examiner of the witnesses for the 
prosecution than he. 

slimv^i'n 1 Ver , batim re P°tt of the proceedings w'ould have 

EmrlinH tli’ U KK conducted himself in a manner of w’hich in 
disapproval^ Appeal has often expressed its 

obliged to foil ° T ( “ 0urts ' n Ghana would have felt 

obtained Sin/T ^ lsb rubn g and to set aside verdicts so 
proceedings li C 10 " e . ver tbe J u dge also made the official note of the 
was seldZ if p V p°T ed “ S ° th3t dan S cr did not arise and it 
fairer than if the r, i 1 "u S UpSet ° n a PP eab The result was probably 
Enriish pattern 6 Tl* S* C ° nduCted followed the more orthodox 

carSorLlis^Lr f3Ct that Pr ° Ceedi ^ S “ Uld bC 

Neif Halaby’s case did a PP ear . ed before him, the Judge in 

judge must form an onini C ave , in thi s fashion. Nevertheless, any 
wffiich he thinks it imnnrt °? as . tb ? case proceeds and the matters 
he thinks it desirable to n^t- t0 mc . ude ‘ n his note and tliose which 
this opinion. For this reason v mUSt be subconsciously influenced by 
view in Neif Halaby’s case *tvl S dlfficult to come to any final 
the last one and a half hour* tv P? sslW y happened was that, in 
personal or business assignation S ‘ f \ Rafik Hala by either made a 
this account followed him hn • °, me h°dy, probably a Syrian, on 
lot and W'aited for him to ren ^ m J? ls ca r, turned into the parking 
more to do with it than ever Ppear ‘ ^haps the Druse question had 
the other hand that Rafik wnc . PPeared ln t h e evidence. It may be on 
matter or someone with whom ?fPf ctm S some °ne on some business 
with whom he hoped to have a personal meeting. 



GOING TO GHANA 


71 

Whatever it was, it would seem he went to the window of his room 
to look out. Maybe the murderer called to him. What seems almost 
certain, from such medical evidence as there was, is that he was 
shot as he was looking out of the window. 

This reconstruction, as can be seen, is something more than mere 
speculation. In a general examination of Gold Coast conditions of 
those days what is of interest is that it appears never to have been 
seriously investigated by the police. Whether this particular 
reconstruction would have been substantiated by evidence is of 
course another matter but it is clear, at least, that Neif Halaby 
should never have been convicted on the evidence produced and 
this was only possible because there was no thorough investigation 
of the alternatives suggested by the facts. Police are one of the most 
important of all the elements of society. Yet their role is the most 
difficult to assess scientifically. All our approaches tend to be 
emotional and personal and those who have the most experience of 
the police, from the very nature of things, are the least objective. 
The week before I had dismissed Colonel Cawston’s strictures on 
them as the prejudice of an amusing eccentric. With the Halaby 
case I began to wonder and in all my time in Ghana with my many 
opportunities of getting at the facts, I never came to a positive 
conclusion, but it is certainly one of the fallacies about Ghana to 
suppose that the Colonial legacy included a completely efficient or a 
completely incorrupt police force. 

That Halaby should in fact have been convicted explains what is, 
I think, often unclear to those who study African affairs from afar. 
Procedurally the trial followed all the normal British rules, except 
of course that there was no jury. The Judge sat with Assessors, 
only one of whom was in favour of conviction, the other two being 
for acquittal, but he was not bound in law by their views and the 
verdict was his own. How did he come to it? 

Even in the rarified atmosphere of the Appeal Court one could 
almost sense the universal and irrational feeling that Neif Halaby 
was guilty. It was illogical — nevertheless it was all-prevailing. At 
the Assizes it must have been the dominating impression. All that in 
fact the trial did was to give judicial form to an almost universally 
held belief. It was my first example of a principle with which later, 
as Attorney General, I had to contend. English justice, when 
transplanted into countries at a very different stage of development, 


y2 REAP the whirlwind 

^ Un , Ct * 0n as . **• does ^ England and the existence of a 

rerlnp fn™ 00 ma y guarantee a just result at home is no 

into i rlnii> e f Unn ^ • 2 S3me resub abroad. It can easily degenerate 

viction hv ° r t ^ ie stam P °f legahty to what is in fact con- 
viction by rumour. 

mv^ioh t [v!c Started ° n tke I ^ tla January 1950. Technically 
African Conn r°f le c ° m P^ ex * t J r as I had to convince the West 
regard to the °,i ppea jhat the verdict was unreasonable having 
a ?anv I;? * tWs " 3 f0rm of ! VPeal which in England^ 
even- possible^r/ ° m succ ^ eds - I wanted to make sure that I put 

three days addressing 'tfr* 111 in conscquence 1 took nearl f 
the iqth that thev ° 1 ^ " as not until the afternoon of 

was quashed Hoi ^ C 1 j Clr decision. Neif Halaby’s conviction 
Plan? ” U E o" ta S?" 11 ‘ h!ld “ ««* 1 * evening's 
car to go to the airoo’rt T Ep P Uttmg m >' baggage into Deller’s 
re-arrested and was about f^k ^ my Unfortunalc cIient had been 
remained in the Gold C ° ^ deported on tbe grounds that if he 
Indeed this latter tuid 2UC ™ ptS on his Iife would be made, 
from the LehSn Z ^ ^ . T " ice he "as sent poisoned food 
which exploded ^rS “ * * lrd occasion . a bomb in a parcel 
it- The police at S , 1 ‘Tl 1116 poIi ™ was checking 

my duty to my client w-id^ und crestimate the Druse tradition but 
time tlic argument was ov ° . matter reconsidered and by the 
Wt end, >■> s “y .he plane tad 

Accra. not > I had to spend one more night in 

It was almost the fiml i;„i- . , 

the event occurred vhich t'* 1 dlC cka ‘ n °f chance. That evening 

determined my subsequent ’careeHiJGhana 0 ^ anythi " g C ' SC ’ 



CHAPTER THREE 


THE COLONIAL COLLAPSE 


With no one to talk to and nothing more to do I sat in my bedroom 
at the Avenida thinking about the coming General Election and 
trying to draft my Address to my electors. Then almost an hour 
before curfew, I heard the sound of gravel being thrown up against 
my window. I looked out and there was a group of four or five 
Africans standing below, beckoning me down. I went outside to greet 
them and their leader introduced himself to me as the man I had 
met in London and with whom I had spoken about the Aborigines 
Rights Protection Society delegation. With Kwame Nkrumah were 
a number of other then leading members of his Party. They would 
like, they said, to have a talk with me. They were all expecting 
arrest and wanted first at least to put their case before a British 
Labour Member of Parliament. 

I was afraid that if we went upstairs to my bedroom it would call 
attention to them and suggested it might be better if we walked 
boldly into the bar and sat down at a table among the Syrian Special 
Constables. At this time of night it was their custom to have a few 
drinks before setting out on their patrols and, sure enough, my 
friend Fuad Taymani was there swinging his baton, arm-banded 
and ready, but he had at least, he said, time to entertain my friends. 
Fortunately among Dr Nkrumah s party was a relative of Albert 
Heward-Mills, the lawyer Thomas Hutton-Mills, the son of old 
Thomas Hutton-Mills who had helped to found the Aborigines 
Rights Protection Society, and I was able to pass off the party as his 
clients who had come to consult me. We sat down, outside, we 
thought, of the earshot of the special constables. Nevertheless, now 
and then one would catch a burst of their conversation and hear 
Nkrumah’s name. Any moment, they were saying, they would pull 
him in. Kwame Nkrumah’s appearance was distinctive and his high 
forehead already well known. The African staff serving us must have 
recognized him but nobody said a word. He talked freely, not 
bothering even to lower his voice. 

73 



74 


REAP THE WHIRLWIND 


. i vv niftLYVHNU 

So it was in the Avenida Hotel bar, surrounded by the Syrian 
special constables, I had my first serious discussion on politics in 
rica. he immediate issue was the joint ‘Positive Action’ cam- 
paign by Nkrumah’s Convention People’s Party and the Trade 
nion ongress which had resulted in the general strike and in the 
ec aration o the State of Emergency. Their object was to force the 
o oma a ministration into calling a Constitutional Convention 
o reconsi er the recommendations of the Coussey Committee on 
onstitution eform. A. remarkable document, a political and 
erary ac nevement the like of which has never before come out of 
R prf'nt i" aS r i ? °® c ‘ a ^. British description of the Committee’s 
merely t] Ut 1*° * 10S r t0 me b was ‘fraudulent and bogus’— 

1C atCSt ', ie many Pa ? a des behind which the reality of 
British power was to be concealed. 

classic a , S .,°^ v * 0us ^ iat Nkrumah’s Party had been caught in the 
constitution -!!^ 1 h a T n ( on ~ revo ' ut i°nary organization which has no 
the Govcrnn ° U T ln tbe P ast , the Party merely bombarded 
S«retary of State for the Colonics with 

tutional frrounrfth ^ 5 ! es ® could be ignored on the good consti- 
nizcd body The GPP 'ifco wT fr ° m any official 0r recog_ 

genuinely Representative Its n M n °F pr ° Ved that h WaS 

posed of VnnH u s opponents had said that it was com- 
absele ofS: n ceS e and ^ ™P- d agitators’. In the 
claim they were entitled the Colonial authorities could 

other hand the CPP l ^ ^ Wci S ht t0 thi s view. If, on the 
they could call workers out on'Tr Strength b >' showing that 
stration then they were nrti and P ara lyse the civil admini- 

Colonial Government w^ ' !f S i? y ' 0nce they had done this the 
demands, however reasonable deb: ! rrcd from considering their 
be compelled to yield to unm' ^ grounds tha t they could not 
had been thus transforme i r nS pressures. The argument 

CPP was asking f or was reas !?™!!^-^'^ 011 ° f whet her w'hat the 
- n g for the question ° f whether 

a , foretastc ° f thc 

raised and which I believe rskrumah s subsequent policies 
to sohe the wider issue the mi ? s . e answered before it is possible 
Poor. Can it only be ended , polarizatIon of the world into rich and 
' dcd by a root a ud branch destruction of the 



THE COLONIAL COLLAPSE 75 

existing international and national structures springing from an 
inevitable armed conflict between ‘the have’s’ and ‘the have nots’, 
with men divided by the pigments of their skins, or is constructive 
cooperation between the wealthy and impoverished nations just 
round the corner, prevented only by a failure on both sides to devise 
the appropriate machinery? Is there in fact a definable peaceful 
solution ? In Ghana these alternatives, as in the world at large, were 
to appear, time and time again, in different guises. The value of 
studying in detail what happened in this small African country is 
that it may be thus possible to separate local mistakes, deviations 
and betrayals from the theory intended to be followed and then to 
assemble those facts which enable a general answer to be given. Is 
co-existence possible? 

In the forefront of his pamphlet Towards Colonial Freedom which 
he had written three years before, Kwame Nkrumah had set a 
quotation from the founder of German Social Democracy, Wilhelm 
Liebknecht: 

‘To negotiate with forces that are hostile on matters of principle 
means to sacrifice principle itself. Principle is indivisible. It is either 
wholly kept or wholly sacrificed.’ 

But what if the principle is compromise ? If the aim is co-existence 
can principle be sacrificed for principle? 

Co-existence involves two presumptions. First there must be 
sufficient mutual trust for negotiation to be possible and secondly 
a convention must be accepted that when one side or the other has 
shown its strength this must be treated as the reality without putting 
it to the proof of action. Here, at the start, in the last days of the 
colonial Gold Coast, co-existence had already broken down. The 
CPP slogan had been ‘Self Government Now’ but in practice they 
were prepared to compromise on self government in a defined 
period of time. The Party’s quarrel with the Coussey proposals and 
the Colonial Office response to them was, basically, not that they 
did not give ‘self government now’ but that they were, by design or 
accident, so contrived that they would perpetuate colonial rule 
using, as before, the chiefs. Thus in practice the dispute arose not 
over the idea of a transitional government as such, but over the 
details of its constitution. Either the Coussey plan had been drafted 
with the deliberate intent of preventing further progress, in which 



7^ REAP THE WHIRLWIND 

case there was no basis for cooperation, or else the Colonial authori- 
ties genuinely desired progress to self rule but had been misled into 
acce P^S P ro P°sals which could not achieve it. By ‘Positive Action’ 
, e lad P rove d, according to the rules of co-existence, that 
t lej must be reckoned with. Were the colonial authorities prepared 
to iscuss modifications in detail to the Coussey proposals which 
wou , in t e CPP s opinion, transform the Committee’s scheme 
into a genuine step towards self rule? 

„ ,T be . CP1 ’ in conjunction with the Trade Union Congress had 
nf H . t0 ^ Ct 1Cr a Ghana Representative Assembly’, a mass gathering 
6 e f atCS r ° m fift y organizations including trade unions, 
- 1V f S0C3etles > farmers’ organizations; educational, cultural 
mef>fi'n° C1 n a ° j CS ’ j nd women and youth organizations. This 
Constioitiri CI i ° rSed , a Memorandum outlining, not an alternative 
Coussev p 11 ’ Ut "' hat were ) essentially, modifications to the 
DroDosak ° mmittee s recommendations. Looking back on these 

A SeeonTri, 0116 , “ hy ** extreme Oration, 
on the Cnnc T ” lad becn recommended by a majority of one 
GovtnSen ‘Tr ^ , “ ee -i Ut had bcen Reeled by the British 
Secretary kerin T" a’ Said -Mthur Creech Jones, the Colonial 

Legislature by iso'btinffln^a cT efficienc y of the Central 
limited funrn'nnc S n a Chamber, exercising comparatively 

in the Legislative Assembly ’ H* W ?\ 0Se services arc needed 
Office still beliVvpH ^ ere was evi hence that the Colonial 

ments, die chiefs and the fTu ^ ap P ro P riate . electoral arrange- 
The CPP nronnc:al intellectuals could be installed in power. 

Tl,ey - back f ,he 

public life to those who had , h be , r in ord er to give a place in 
dominate Gold Coast politick At St,U ’ Up dI1 I95I > t0 

of opinion about the need for a , sta g e there was no difference 
the government The Hk associ3tlia g the intellectual elite with 
though, ,h” by s „tt„ PUK r ar0 v. bccaus ' *' Colonial ttuthorities 
aitc L StSf C°»U ge, enough of ,hc 
othcnvise. Legislative Assembly. The CPP knew 

Secondly the CPP ouerieH „ . . 

proposal for cx-officio Minkrerc . ConstltutI0naI grounds, the 
Assembly. There was nnrl ’ n0t responsible to the Legislative 
suggesting this It harl P 3r ticularly revolutionary about 

S s. It had already been done by Dr Danquah and seven 



THE COLONIAL COLLAPSE 77 


other UGCC supporters on the Coussey Committee who had 
submitted a minority report outlining exactly the difficulties which 
subsequently arose with this system and making alternative pro- 
posals more extreme than those put forward by the CPP. The 
CPP had already agreed to, at least, an ex-officio Minister of 
Defence while Dr Danquah and his associates would only accept 
that there should be a ‘Defence Adviser’. Here, at least, was a 
matter for discussion. The existing proposals were that Foreign 
Affairs, Defence, Internal Order, Justice and Finance should be 
administered directly by the Governor or by ex-officio Ministers 
not responsible to the elected representatives. It could be argued 
that in an interim Constitution, external affairs, defence and perhaps 
internal security were matters which any Colonial power, however 
graciously retiring, had, from pure prestige, to retain but finance 
was in a different category. The intermediate stage had to be a 
genuine preparation for self government. If finance was withdrawn 
from African control how could there even be tentative experiments 

with economic planning ? 

Thirdly the CPP asked for a directly elected Legislative 
Assembly in place of the largely indirectly elected and nominated 
one proposed. Since elections on the basis of one man one vote’ 
proved practical and simple to organize four years later there could 
have been no technical objection, at least, to entering into discussions 
as to how far the proposals of the Coussey Committee might be 
modified in the direction of democracy. 

Fourthly the CPP proposed that civil service promotions and 
control should rest not with the Governor but with a Civil Service 
Commission. Again, this is what the Coussey Committee had 
recommended and was in line with a re orm to be carried out a few 


years later. 

Finally, so far as Local Government was concerned, the CPP 
proposals, broadly speaking, supported the recommendation of the 
Coussey Committee. Their Memoran um merely objected to 
the idea that the detailed provision for it should be decided prior to the 
election of the new Legislative Assem y an y the old unrepresen- 
tative Legislative Council which, it was apparent from the Dispatch 
of the Secretary of State, was what was now intended. 

The CPP had never even argued that their proposals, where 
they differed from those of e oussey Committee, should 



R£ AP THE WHIRLWIND 

necessarily be accepted. All they were asking was that they should 

Constitutional'convention! ‘ h ' C °“ SSCy Committec ' s R 'P“ rI b) ' 1 

to m.' tT t * me ’ 3S V ’n c h scussed things in the Avenida bar, it seemed 
hid i nr/ Se " Gre a n ®S°tiable matters. Indeed, by chance I felt I 
for the p'm ' 0 °PP ortuni | t y- I could be the honest broker. I was still, 
davs to mn K1I a t lU t ,° wb ' c ^ ^ had been elected had yet in law a few 
mv denirti! ** k™ er o ^ t ' le House of Commons. I would postpone 
Tminfom T day and the «*• On the aircraft 

Colonial Ad ‘ & 12 bed Wldl a British official in the Gold Coast 
was either the lnl ^ tratlon > a Mr Sydney MacDonald-Smith, who 
Ihe time I hidL 3ntlVe ° r acdng Secr etary for Native Affairs at 
reasonable he CCn * m P r j' ssed > not only by how well informed and 
K r t0 ab0Ut Gold Coast affair* hut also by 

somebody with whom Twuldtdt aSpirati ° nS ‘ Here W3S 

had only spent a C nmn I H IS ^° I u^ POrt bad been writ ten by men who 
facts and figures all thea, ^ C ^ lony yet the y had challenged, with 
where had they derived ., CCC P tcd P rem ises of Colonial Rule. From 
seemed to be the clue Th F '"/^OOne sentence in their Report 
Colonial officials Svhn ^ lad ’ t ley sa * d > found many British 
perienceh " th I p P re P ared to write off the past as ex- 

which, they said thev ‘hTd T !? ad <3n ex P ositi °n of liberal ideas’ 
mendations’. Here then , ^ hesitated to adapt to their recom- 

stood what was needed ^Oh t SeC ^ et ' Tbe man °n the spot under- 
Colonial Office in LondMOn ^? 011 ^ pro S ress came from the 
would be able to argue out rlT * WaS f ° rtlfied b y local support I 

^t ^ Creech Jones 

morning to talk things ”''' arrant ^ optimism that I set out the next 
if all went well at the interview ^ • ^ ydn ^y MacDonald-Smith and, 
prepared my points on the h ’• Wlt ’ J hoped, the Governor. I had 
their findings could be shown *' 15 f * 16 ^ atson Report. Many of 
if the CPP were right in thT ? faCt , t0 su PP ort the CPP case and 
them there seemed everythin^ lng ^ey^ had the country behind 
Constitution at the earliest tL,° / gained b y getting an agreed 
elaborate arguments. ‘The Wm- 6 ’ ~ CVer even launched on my 
Donald-Smith, ‘why that’s wh?° n C ° mmissio V said Mr Mac- 
y. that s what started all this.’ Thus it was that I 



THE COLONIAL COLLAPSE 


79 

came stumbling towards what I believe now to be the real secret. 
The existing order, the progressive Colonial Civil Servant con- 
demned, but the sodden bulk of past policies blocked every road 
forward. There had been no steady march towards self government. 
All was a patchwork of opportunism. Democracy might, in far 
away Britain, seem desirable, but subconsciously the experienced 
Civil Servant knew there was no machine available in the Colony to 
administer a modern Government. Law and order depended upon 
preserving the old methods of rule, illogical and outmoded as they 
were, for there was nothing prepared to go in their place. When I 
talked with Sydney MacDonald-Smith that morning, though I did 
not fully realize it at the time, there was a wall of a hundred years of 
history which came between us. 

Though the British had been established on the West African 
coast since the early seventeenth century, the Gold Coast had only 
recently attained its 1950 extent of colonial organization. The early 
British merchants dealt in slaves and gold and did not seek to 
provide government outside the area of the Forts, which they, the 
Danes and the Dutch, and before them, the Portuguese, the 
Prussians and the Swedes, maintained along the coast. It was not 
until 1844 that the first formal instrument of Government was 
executed, the famous ‘Bond’ of that year which, like Magna Carta, 
though conceived for very different purposes, provided historical 
justification, on the one hand, for subsequent Colonial regimes and, 
on the other, for the claim of independence. It had been drafted by 
George Maclean, no longer Governor but ‘judicial assessor’ to the 
Chiefs, in fact a kind of early type of Political Resident. The ‘Bond’ 
was typical of other African early nineteenth-century agreements 
and was designed to regularize commerce and justice between the 
coastal Chiefly states and the British administration in the trading 
posts and castles. In language perhaps deliberately vague, the 
independence of these little states was acknowledged and their 
‘Kings’ recognized. British sovereignty was nevertheless asserted. 
Not unnaturally, ever after, anyone on any side of any political 
controversy alleged he was acting in conformity with the ‘Bond of 

i 844 ’- ‘ ’ ' 

In 1871 the Chiefs of these small tribal kingdoms, inspired by the 
growing class of African intellectuals, came together under a 
remarkable leader, King Ghartey IV of Winneba to form a united 



So 


KUAP till. Will HI, WIN'D 

state, the I* anti Confederation. There is no evidence that these 
c tie s or t lcir African professional class supporters w ere inlluenced 
} t ie\er} similar movement which tool, place in Japan at around the 
same c ate, but those w ho overthrew the shoguiiatc in Japan and those 
who founded the Fanti Confederation in the Gold Giast liad 
man} i eas m common. In both cases there was an attempt, 
succ<^sfu m Japan and unsuccessful in the Gold Coast, by a section 
build' I," I ^ CI10U . S ru m g class to overthrow the old feudal order and 
federal T?®" 1 upon W,ater « Hues. Though the Con- 
territories u'h? f ? r "p ■ * n , part t0 °PP oi *c the Dutch who exchanged 
the powerful A ? nd t0 P rov j dc a military alliance against 

liberal in tin- n’!* I," 1 * m S dom °[ dlc interior, it was reformist and 
provided m I1C C ? IU 1 '5f ,Uu D European tradition. I tsconstitution 
dent’ There w S ^ f ° r a ^ under a ‘King-l>resi- 
powcrTfcxerrir- 3 ^ prcs ® ntaliv « Assembly’ which was given the 
Li of tLation R th * funct, . ons ofa legislative body’, including 
aristocracy— -‘men f aS | t0 a PP 0mt a Cabinet from the intellectual 

and P 0iilio "\ as the Constitution 
head of WrCSidcM " h ° “> ^ the executive 

tution, have Cte cv°cm t tod COnfCdi:ratl0n ’ aS Iaid down in its ccmst ‘- 
among others were to ‘devi ? cunt ? u ^>' modem ring. Its purposes 
and other r^ sJu ^ ces of tt ^" d faC,1 “ atC lhc WOrkil * ofnM 
stantial roads .R^nnectimr virlrf^ ' - l0 ™ k ‘ good and sub- 
another and with the sea coaci pr0V,nccs or dlstnc ts with one 
industrial pursuits and m nnrt' ' ' ' t0 ,P r °motc agricultural and 

- ^b’^r/".try;;sr such n " ph r 

country ... to eren u ° P rollta ble commerce to the 

cation of all children within^' Conf^ 1 ' 51 ' SCh °° 1S f ° r tllC cdu " 
service of efficient schoolmasters 1 ^, fcdcrat . 10n and to obtain the 
sufficiently established ‘H ip d 1 ^ here missionary schools were 

eight and Lrte “ as 5'^ of all children between 

The Confederate “ J r ” ^1™- 
provisions of the Bond w ^® Penly 1 an “““-British move. The 
of Africans or Europeans m ? Scr . u P ulousl y observed. The right 
decisions of the Chiefly nn ^P ea , . t( ? tkc British Courts against 
was made a constitutions? n’ v’ ^ lch dlC Bond had stipulated, 
Colonial authorities rightly reco^R N £ verthelcss > t!le British 
g ‘y reco S ni zed the Confederation as a 



THE COLONIAL COLLAPSE 01 

challenge to any expansion of Colonial control. This dangerous 
conspiracy must be destroyed for good or the country will become 
altogether unmanageable,’ the then Administrator of the Go oast, 
Spencer Salmon, told the British Government. The Ministers of 
the Confederation Government were arrested and the Confeder- 
ation declared an unlawful organization. Then in 1874, to ma 'e t e 
British legal position plain, the coastal area was formally constituted 
into a separate British Crown Colony. Any further attempt by the 
Chiefs to combine was sternly resisted. Whether the Confederation 
could ever have provided the foundation of a modern state is 
arguable but the avenue towards self government that it opened up 

was blocked and never could be reopened. T 

The Gold Coast Aborigines Rights Protection Society, which! 
had encountered in 1935, was created to revive the union origina y 
established at the time of the Confederation between the tra ltiona 
chiefly rulers and the African professional and intellectual classes 
but in a form acceptable to the Colonial authorities of the ay. o 
long as these two groups could hold together, which they di or a 
quarter of a century, they could to a large extent influence an 
control the colonial administration of the so-called Colony , t at is 
to say, the coastal area which was formally annexed as Bntis sett e 
territory in 1874. The Gold Coast Colony had, from an international 
point of view, however, become in this period a much larger entity 
and the forces which could effect policy on the coast were not 
powerful enough to extend their influence through the rest 0 t e 
territory. 

Ashanti had, from the early eighteenth century onwards, been a 
powerful military state, built up through the control of gold sa es 
and by the slave trade. The African climate is no worse, from a 
European point of view, than that of Central and South America 
and it was the strength of the African states rather than their 
malaria and yellow fever that saved them, until almost the opening 
of the present century, from that type of European rule which was 
imposed on Central and South America from the sixteenth century 
onwards. It was not until after a series of Ashanti wars that finally 
its territory was subjugated and annexed in 1902. Unlike in the so- 
called ‘Colony’, no pretence was made of introducing English justice 
which had been the publicized reason for the conclusion of the 
‘Bond’ fifty-six years before the annexation of Ashanti. 



82 


REAP THE WHIRLWIND 

influence of the coastal intellectuals was now deliberately 
f XC u p J. a"jcrs, who were regarded as the most dangerous mem- 
ners ot this class, were prohibited by law. The Ashanti Adminis- 
ra l( ? n . r 1 i 1a ” ce I 9 02 provided that ‘in no cause or matter, 
°^r? 1 ' 1 1 sba * tbc employment of a barrister or solicitor be 
‘ 1 ; C - ■ ,' 1S , awlc . ss type of law might have continued to be 

1 • * S crcc "tflehnitcly in Ashanti had not an English medical 

• * i • 10ne r r> a r Knowles, been charged and convicted of murder- 
.. c ’, es P lte the fact that Airs Knowles, who did not die 

whom ^ ta V S a f tCr sbu " as s h°t, had told everyone with 
accidental ° ' ? at tbc revolver which shot her, had gone off 
from rim, l' ^ mCC U ,\ Vas a ° rcccl that she used to fire this weapon 
bv him n r° !, mc and had 011 one previous occasion, being annoyed 
reasoX nn V - 0t “ hcr husba " d . this appeared at least to be a 
Judicial Comm'tf 1 '''V? lbc cnd > * n 1 93°» the case came before the 
in SnSr r° f ^ Prh T Council. This Court of last resort 

lack of qualificttio^ofthcT 11 ! 101 " '’T thc abSC11CC ofa i u ^> the 
lawyer was ar tlc .J ud S c or the absence of any defence 

asiZe however fnr?| d f ° r f “ mg asidc the conviction. They did set it 
rejected the dvinn- T 7° ' mCa * rcason that thc Acting Judge, having 
kSJ T idS' and ° thcr siniilar statements by Mrs 

manslaughter Still Hie 7 W ? etllc t an y"’ay it might only have been 
secured X no i'H.i . ' ° r Knowlcs ’ case made * Britain 
achieve and lawyers ° n ' 7° ^°* d ^ oast Bar had been able to 
Ashanti. ‘ 3 e subs cquently allowed to practice in 

was no questioZ^f CS H° n ^ Prb ‘ sb standards stood alone. There 
Ashanti to the Lerrislarlv^ 11115 ,? ven nominated members from 
the Gold CoLt con t nn H nCI ' DoWn t0 j 946 the Governor of 
which law was made bv his rt° ™ 6 ,7 aS a C0nc iucred province in 
the Asantehene ks IGn, At the “me of the Ashanti wars, 

in Britain as the nrotorvn’r^'f u? sub °rdinate chiefs were regarded 
they were exiled to the 9 ° , arbltrar y “nd brutal African rulers and 
"Stored to become £ fnT "" Isl “ ds ; W35 they tad been 
bntUy progress Inwards deJornn* ° f Bnt ‘ Sh = 1,v< -' rnn " ;l,t - l! « 
At the same time that Act, 

established over the NnrtU ^ W ? s annexe d, a Protectorate was 
treaties with local chiefs ,17“ territories of the Gold Coast. The 
chiefs under which this was done were negotiated 



THE COLONIAL COLLAPSE 


83 


on behalf of the Colonial Government by one of its most able 
African civil servants, George Ekem Ferguson, whose forebears 
had been among the intellectuals who had supported the anti 
Confederation. Despite the fact that it was a member of this African 
coastal intellectual class who organized the take-over in the 1 ort i, 
the convenient colonial theory was later established that t c 
Northerners were antipathetic to Africans from the Souttanc 
therefore must be protected from them. The Africans of the i ort 
were not allowed to come South or those from Ashanti or rom t le 
old Colony to go to the North. The illiterate and poor Northern 
Territories were administered as a separate province and, even un er 
the 1946 Constitution, which admitted representatives 0 l aan 1 
the Legislative Council, the North continued to be exc u e • 

Finally, after 1920, there was administratively adde to t e 
Coast one half of the former German Colony of Togoland. Uurig 
the first world war this Colony had been occupied by troops 

the Gold Coast and indeed the first Commonwealth soldier ever 

fire a shot in the 1914-18 world war was an African e ‘ 
fighting in this campaign. From 1914 to 1919 Togo an ' r 

as part of the Gold Coast but in the peace settlements, in re 
concessions by France in Samoa, it was partitione an , , The 

the former German Colony was handed over to ae Deop i cs 

Ewe people who lived in its southern part and the ‘ p ^ 

who lived in its northern areas global strategy 

as those inhabiting the pre-war Gold Coast 0 5 

of the time took no account of their h 0 f a u other 

Indeed all frontiers of the Gold Coast hke those ^ 

African Colonies, partitioned to suit a P tidcation and their 
had neither geographic, economic no theory 0 f rule. For 

illogical boundaries refuted the m frontiers w hich divided 
international reasons Britain ha P had the same historic 

peoples who spoke the same o S’ chief Ye t within the 
traditions and even acknowle ge ^ entity was considered 

territory thus artificially crez Rule As a resu l t of these 

sacrosanct and formed the bas t codes of kw existe d. One 

conflicting considerations whic h had a Legislative 

system was appl'ed *nEheoMCo|o^y^ ^ ^ 

Council that enacted t d which Britain administered, 

Another system applied to togoi 



^ Kl-AI* 7 HI WJIIHl.V. |Nt> 

first, under a League of Nations Mandate ami, later, ns Trusteeship 
erriton under the Lnited Nations, though, in practice, it was sub* 
divided, one area bcinu treated as part «.V the old Colony and the 
ot ter as part of the Northern Territories and it was thus further 
r isintegratei . i he Northern Territories, like Ashanti, were 
gen erne directly by the Governor hut laws which applied in 

Vn' 1 "'! • U - IUlt ncccvur ‘l> ->pply in the North and often in practice 
i > kred tn important respects from the law in the old G.luny. 

• C ' L 7 l K tsS ’ I ,° ^ 1C Gold Gust as a whole one overriding 
ronr ‘ P C "f. a ITl'cd~th.u of ‘Indirect Rule’. So far as Africa was 
Lmnrd ll 1 '| 1S r/ SU ', IU ) lu *. * K y" "orbed out and perfected by l.urd 
Nigeria m'? j U \ f * ,C - K Ti»ning of the century conquered Northern 
years as C v "c Go \ crnor lm,il After a break of five 
both North tTnUr ? ,{ UU ' U ^ W11 K he- returned, first as Governor of 
io jq “ d Nigeria and then, from , 9M until 

Indirect Rui * °' tTnur *Generai of the united Gilonv. Originally 
S r 1 ’ 011 Lu >'- lrii «l« exigencies of the 

the status of * u '. lounJ . ,1 ' [ nscli, but he was later to raise it to 
supporting the i )r , lnci !’J c - 1 " Northern Nigeria this meant 
3 2 om ‘ I ' Ub,,i c ! licfs V- ho were the heirs of rulers 
conquered the Ilausa 'inM' |1UnUn r Isbmic . people and who had 
rulers in the eirlv ' • 113 ’ u ' lnts l *’e region and deposed their 

made ™‘';“ “a Z“;r 1 “"T: i 1 ' 1 '- '••ubni Mrs » OT 

system of taxation t i • • L to ! on,a * government. 'I he same 

conquest was maintained' V ' lllcI . 1 cx,stcti before the British 
British authorities took 1C °" *•' t!lf]crcllCc being that now the 
taxes and exercised a Proportion of the yield front fines and 
criminal cases. S ° mt surt supervision over individual 

Gold CoLl° There' haT h n . ladC ‘° cnforec ‘ Indir cct Rule’ in the 
chiefs to trust them T' t0 ,° ! n ? n -’ " ars against the Ashanti 
been too long established * 1 T a ^" Hn ' stral ion and the British had 
•0 0U Colon . v f » dlcrc be any need 

until Sir Gordon Gnocisbcn. !k; Sttm . dld 1101 bc b'iii lo bo applied 
Coast in 1915. Like Lord T ^ | S a PP 0,IUc< I Governor of the Gold 
was not a Civil Servant w,10rn ile modelled himself, he 

career as a Government a , s °ldier who had made a successful 
‘political officer’ as the C ? n ®! nccr without having ever been a 
the Colonial administrators were then called. 



THE COLONIAL COLLAPSE 


The son of Swiss Jewish immigrants to Canada, he managed to 
obtain a commission in the Royal Engineers and to be seconded to 
the Gold Coast Public Works Department. Transferred from there 
to Nigeria he worked for Lugard as his Director of Public Works 
and acquired a belief in the principles of Indirect Rule. He had 
married Decima Moore, a famous actress in Victorian times and a 
member of the original Gilbert and Sullivan cast. Her circle of 
friends included Lord Curzon and Lord Milner. Guggisberg had 
distinguished himself in the field in the first world war and had 
become a Brigadier. He met and somehow convinced these two 
staid figures of the Establishment of the practicability of his plans 
for African development. Milner was then Colonial Secretary and 
appointed him Governor of the Gold Coast. 

He proved himself to be the greatest of all of them. He was the 
first of the Gold Coast Colonial rulers clearly to see that given 
communications, education and health services the Colony could 
become one of the most prosperous of British territories in Africa. 
To his initiative was due the first real road system. He pressed ahead 
with railway construction and built Takoradi harbour, the first deep 
sea port in the Colony. He understood the importance of an edu- 
cational system geared to the needs of the country. Achimota 
School, near Accra, which he founded and where afterwards Kwame 
Nkrumah trained as a teacher, had a curriculum which included the 
study of African languages and customs. Its first Vice-Pri nc j pa j was 
Dr Aggrey, a leading Cape Coast intellectual whose father had been 
one of the imprisoned Cabinet Ministers of the Confederation He 
started a state hospital system. Indeed the subsequent develonment 
of the country under Dr Nkrumah s Governments adopted manv 
projects of Guggisberg, which his orthodox successors had aban- 
doned. Thus, in no sense, was he a traditional colonialist. He was 
anti-racial and he not only believed in the Africanization of the Civil 
Service but worked out a detailed plan to achieve it which T 
followed up by his successors would have provided independent 
Ghana with all the African technical and administrative personnel it 
needed. It was only when it »=CZtWs 

limitations were apparent. He P , q te Uncriti ca Il v the 
doctrines of Lugard and, with his grea a 1 les, set ab 0ut t j^ eV e 
them without sufficiendy realizing that the chief i n the 
was very different from the chief m Nigeria. Cold Co 



86 REAP THE WHIRLWIND 

In the first place in the Gold Coast there was no uniformity of 
chiefly practice and nowhere had chiefs been absolute rulers as they 
had been in Northern Nigeria. Even those of the Northern Terri- 
tories who superficially resembled the Fulani rulers were, in essence, 
different. Only a few were Moslem and none came from a dominant 
race, as did the Fulanis. Among the Ewes of the former German 
o ony of Togo and of the Eastern part of the old Colony, chiefs 
were very often no more than heads of an extended family and the 
population of their individual states could be counted in hundreds 
rather than thousands. Among the Gas, while theoretically the Ga 
Manche exercised supremacy in Accra, his power was essentially 

rC ? nd been eroded in the centuries of British, Danish 
and Dutch rule. 

The Akans, who included the Fantis of the coast and the Ashantis 
o t le interior, had by far the most developed chiefly system broadly 
,,°f P°P u ^ ar consu ltation. The chief himself was elected to the 
j ro ™ a Wlde circle of ‘royals’ and could be, and often was, 
n ° SC l° r i e ' St l °° led his policies were unsuccessful or if he did 
mnrlp H, lee e°i e t1 Y lew ? his Council. His official statements were 
coulrl J 1UBuist ’’ ? hold of embryo Prime Minister, who 
was nmrr a ? < i i OI IY movcd what he proposed in the chief’s name 
were hn e ^ a ° *e sub-chiefs who composed the chief’s Council 
who in tw, COnSU ! t their own Councils of lesser chiefs 
called ‘vnmX Um ’,T SUlted " hh their Councils of elders. The so- 
had their nl-f men l’ •* 3t IS to say t h° se who were not ‘elders’, even 
companies ami th th Jf. " ization - They were combined in ‘Asafo’ 
it is uue even in Y chlef had to take their views into account. While 
people particin-n democrat ic phase only a minority of the 

ago political nmv ^ an chl ? fly government, a hundred years 
among the British m ° re dlspersed among them than it was 
the ? that date ’ even into account 

Reform Bill of 1867 ranc 6 lse secured in England by the second 

democratic P orSzatL^ U Arth S SyStCm - destroyed this P rimi “Y. e 

from the intellectuals The Same tlme 11 divorced the chiefs 
who could take over "the „ ° Pportunit y °f creating an African elite 

Colonies, was for ever lost k did . Iater in the Fren . ch 

more foresight w,. „ ' 1 ne oritish administration could, with 

° ’ a ' econstr u cted in the Gold Coast the model neo- 



THE COLONIAL COLLAPSE 


8 ? 


colonialist state. A form of government in which Britain ultimately 
controlled foreign affairs and defence and then kept, in practice, 
the management of banking and economic policy, would have suited 
the Aborigines Rights Protection Society. Their aim was never for 
anything more than the type of Home Rule that Parnell had deman- 
ded for Ireland and which Gladstone had been prepared to grant. It 
was Joseph Chamberlain who played a leading part in preventing 
the creation of Gladstone’s neo-colonial Ireland. It was he who 
began the policy of eroding the influence of the African intellectual. 
It is not a coincidence. Chamberlain believed, perhaps right y, t at 
there was no halfway house. Resigning over the Irish Home Rule 
Bifl, he had written in 1886, ‘It is certain any scheme of the kind 
attributed to Mr Gladstone will lead in the long run to the absolute 
national independence of Ireland.’ When he became Secretary of 
State for the Colonies eight years later, he set his face against a class 
of Africans who talked even in terms of limited self rule. 

In Northern Nigeria the conquered Emirs still remained a power 
with which to reckon and without a considerable addition to his 
military forces, Lugard would not have been able to have ruled 
except through them. On the other hand, as a consequence 0 t e 
Ashanti wars and the banishment of the ruling families of Ashanti, 
it would have been possible for the British administration to govern 
through an African elite in Ashanti as well as on e coast. r | can 
intellectuals like Ferguson and H. Yroom, the senior of the African 
civil servants at the time, could have administered the North and 
indeed had proved their capacity to do so by the treaties and 
arrangements which they had concluded wi its ru ers.^ n ir ^ 
Rule— governing through the illiterate chief— was the inevitable 

corollary of ‘distrusting the educated native . 

The problem of Guggisberg and his successors was that unlike 
Nigeria, there were few outstanding chiefs and they therefore had 
in a fashion, to be invented. Indeed only one such chief came easdy 
to hand. In the rural area behind Accra were a S r0U P ? f , 
chiefly domains. The largest of these, Akim Abuakna with then a 
population of around 100,000 was ruled by an educated and 
ambitious man, Nana Ofori Atta I. He and Guggisberg entered into 
an informal partnership against the intellectuals which was con- 
tinued by his successors. A Governor who followed him recruited 
another chief from a small and insignificant state, who had o 



88 REAP THE WHIRLWIND 

been a junior civil servant. These two, knighted, feted and decor- 
ated, Nana Sir Ofori Atta I and Nana Sir Tsibu Darku IX, had 
become, by the time of the second World War, die managers for the 
colonial administration of the African apparatus of government, at 
least within the old Colony. 

For Ashanti somediing different was required and Guggisberg 
egan the process by bringing back, after a quarter of a century of 
exile Kwaku Dua III, the last of its independent Kings, and 
installing him as Prempeh I, the ruler of its capital, Kumasi. His 
successors continued the process and the office of Asantehene was 
re-established with Prempeh’s successor, another knight, Otumfuo 
r A Sy em an Prempeh II, at its head. The Ashanu Confederation 
was revive and with it, the old antagonisms of the Brongs who, 

n! <1° pre-B ” tlsh days, had been included in it by force. In 
ac n irect ule in the Gold Coast was crippled from the start 
‘ ln ’ ler contradictions and doomed to failure. Yet only 
les^ 1SCrC ltC COasta ^ intellectuals saw this and they were power- 

e X N,S 4 ? Ugh Tho , maS) then Chief Secretary for Native Affairs, 
<Experience ^ other parts of the Empire 
be carrierl m Te SS are -necessary for salvation if indirect rule is to 

punish mnet k 6 trat lt: ional power of the chief to control and 
necessarv fun/ prcserve ] < ^ an d Bie native authority must have the 
entrusted to S / ltS d ls POsal.’ But such powers could not be 
assum/L ril CtCd “ ^ Government was forced to 
they were to bp i/* 1 pr , actlce t0 appoint and dismiss the chiefs if 
‘De-stoolimr’ o/ ° WC 1 ° ^ xerc * se these powers over their subjects. 
reconcUed with h “T 1 ° f \ chief * his Ejects «uld hardly be 
vain that Georce ij/ mg ^ j be a S ent °f the Government. It was in 
heard i SiST Bu ™ in 1944 what I had 
the chiefs but in ffirneol n / d i! n I935 ' ‘Sovereignty is not in 
sovereignty from o'm^ ■ 9 an d the people have exercised tliat 
deposing chiefs accord lmmem °rial in electing, installing and 
said of Governor BuriW t0 natlV ^ Iaw and custom. If this Bill,’ he 
powers of the chiefs Sc pr0p ° S3bi P° r further strengthening the 

that sovereignty of the neon? Sed ’ that inherent ri S ht , that power, 

made no impression Rv P 6 t0 th . e Governor.’ His argument 
to believe that the ib/ n ° W Colonial administration had come 
the absolute chief, whom they had invented as a 



THE COLONIAL COLLAPSE 


89 


convenient political fiction twenty-five years before, really existed. 
To give one example: 

In 1945 a delegation of cocoa farmers which included some 
individuals who were later to be prominent in forming the Con- 
vention People’s Party came to London to protest against the cocoa 
price which was then £23 a ton. They argued that this bore no 
relation to what was the potential world price. The delegation 
members, Arthur Creech Jones told the House of Commons, had 
been deceived by an American cocoa broker who had made certain 
lavish promises about the price levels and what could happen if the 
controls were to be removed’. When in fact the controls were 
removed the price rocketed and by 1954 had touched £562 ior. a ton. 
But Creech Jones did not base the reasons for the Colonial Office 
refusal to receive the delegation on any economic argument as to 
what might be the right price for cocoa. It was sufficient for him 
that ‘the delegation had been gravely discredited by a clash which 
they had had with chiefs on the Joint Provincial Council of Lhiels 
... The chiefs in the Gold Coast refused to give them the authority 
which they sought.’ They were turned down, like the Aborigines 
Rights Protection Society ten years before, simply ecause t ey 1 
not possess the chiefs’ approval. But the approva o t . e c e s was 
given or withheld as a result of pressure by the Colonial authorities 
on the spot. The Labour Government of the day had, no more than 
its predecessors, any means of knowing what was opmion on e 
Gold Coast. . . , a r ■ • u a 

The Government’s system of determining die African view had 
degenerated into a system of consulting itself without xejhangit 
and Indirect Rule had become a circle of self deception The chiefs 
believed what they said because the Colonial administration had 
told them to say it and therefore it must be true. The Coloma 
administration believed what the chiefs said because it was a cardinal 
principle of Indirect Rule to accept that the chiefs were always right 
The British Government believed what was said because both 
chiefs and the Colonial administration each said the same thing. 
Even in the conditions before the second world war such a jstem 
could not have long endured. It was hopelessly inadequate for 
dealing with the economic position which arose out of that war. 

The Gold Coast economy depended upon one cash crop m 
world demand, cocoa. During the war, when Britain was starved of 



9° REAP THE WHIRLWIND 

hard currency, the idea was conceived of purchasing cocoa for 
sterling at a low controlled price and selling it for dollars at as high 
a price as it would reach. This was done through a Gold Coast 
overnment Board, controlled by the Colonial authorities, who 
an e the profits with Britain under an ill-defined obligation to 
repay at least part of these at some future date. After the war there 

" "a a IT’ r c egarded as ‘socialist’, by which cocoa was both bought 
and sold at fixed prices below its real market value. Yet while the 
price at \\ nch the principal Gold Coast export product was bought 
v as strict y controlled, no similar restrictions were put on the price 
imports piece of cotton print which had sold before the war for 
, JL' e S V mSS C0St n ' net > r shillings by 1945. In addition, absolute 
0 ,™P or A ^ ^ ed t0 black marketeering. In terms of purchasing 
C - , AfnCan pound was weI1 below its pre-war value but 
did nothin^ overnmen t, assured by the chiefs that all was well, 

The nr!!* 1 / Sltuat ‘ 0n new' political forces were bound to emerge, 
the nlare 1 ”,? ng * nadng a new r political organization to take 

K prolr e S c tlUexisdng . but almost moribund, Aborigines 
otScs h a d Tl So ? et >’ " s a timb " from Arim whose 

WGmm oS ,hose ° f “>»»■ George A. Gran, or 

African business mm 'a 1 '"°"'"’ VP'ral of that class of 
of the (Treat mm • °- r ! ad b ecn squeezed out by the competition 
Indirect Rule an , pan , Ies ' Twenty years before he had supported 
had organis'd a b„™ ?l A1 T 

allowed himself to he n • ^ ^ ecUons m protest against it he had 
tivc of Sekondi m 1 • ominated by the Governor as the representa- 
despite the fact that th^rm'r t0Wn t b en being built at Takoradi, 
did not live there and C lieP P ro£es tcd to the Governor, that Grant 
were very different and ^i.? thc area knew him. But now things 
misfortunes Hie t, n 1C b' ame d on the chiefs his subsequent 
summed up in L S”*” pol , itical Philosophy can be best 
mission: CVldcnce " hich he gave to the Watson Com- 

* Wc ^ 

the import of goods a r ' g bt, we were not getting thc licences for 
Protection Society vhn " 1 ° nC t .' me " c h at l the Aborigines Rights 
the> were pushed'out and' tal ‘ lng C3re of th c country. Later on, 
out and there was the Provincial Council of Chiefs.’ 



THE COLONIAL COLLAPSE 9 1 

According to ‘Pa’ Grant this was the source of all the trouble. 

‘The chiefs go to the Council and approve loans without submitting 
them to the merchants and tradesmen in the country. There y 


keep on losing.’ 

He wanted therefore an organization which would maintain the 
Colonial relationship but substitute the African mere ant an 
professional man for the chief as the Governor’s partner m rule. P or 
this reason he took the lead in setting up the Unite o oas 
Convention of which he became the President. 

Those who associated with him in this scheme were r ^ n ^ IS 
Awooner-Williams, the lawyer advocate of the restoration of the 
mythical age of the African merchant prince, R. S. ay, a awyer 
friend of Awooner-Williams with only slightly ess reactionary 
views and Dr J. B. Danquah who was by far the most experienced 
politician in the group and one of the most interesting an C0 ™P _ 
of West African politicians. I was to get to know him well. Wh 
after independence, Dr Nkrumah appointed a group o 
personalities to found the Ghana Academy o c TTrfp . . 
were among them. To him conspiracy was the breath of life and he 

had an eighteenth-century disregard of the staid . 
proprieties of a later age. The Watson Commtsston disused hun 
as an opportunist. Admitting he was the creator and the drtv g 
force of organized political opposition until the arrival of Dr 
Nkrumah, they went on to say: 

*P. r Danquah ndgh, be 

r -1 J W foe flip accident of birth might have been a most 
Coimcd and bu intelligence but suffers from a 

notable chief. He is a man of very F ^ ^ ^ and recognized 
disease not unknown to politicians , S 
by the generic name of expediency. 

rp, . , • , r : There was much more to Dr Danquah 

The judgement is unfair. ihe ofNana sir 0 f or i Atta I and 

than this. It is true he wa gateway but he was a genuine 

entered pubhchfe through th TS J Like John Mensah 

intellectual of the Ab °, r | g '" instituti o n s an d on African Law and 

cti it - he who popuIarized 



9 2 REAP THE WHIRLWIND 

the idea that the people of the Gold Coast were an offshoot of the 
great Southern Sudan Kingdom of Ghana which flourished in early 
medieval times and it was he who first proposed that when the Gold 
Coast became independent it should take the name of this ancient 
state. 

No subject of public concern was outside his province. Later 
when he was to be detained in prison by Dr Nkrumah’s Govern- 
ment he still continued a vigorous and outspoken correspondence 
Wi e President s office in furtherance of his campaign against a 
regu at ion that taxi-cabs should have yellow mudguards. In so far 
as re a ered to any fixed beliefs on colonialism and nationalism 
ey were those expounded by Edmund Burke, not as regards the 
American colonies but as regards India. Like Burke he believed that 
ancient institutions restored in their proper shape and redesigned to 
sui new wor d conditions would be the engine by which those 
ncans estined by nature to rule could reassert their position. He 
^ f G p C ore OHginally supported the chiefs against the Aborigines 
Ynntti r ™ ectl0n Soctety and in 1930 reorganized the Gold Coast 
the drip ercnce as . a bod y designed to enlist young intellectuals on 
Borne’ rv, , C tr . a d ltl0 ’ la l rulers. He enthusiastically welcomed the 
an Afrinn" S Uut l 0n . 0 ^ z 94 b which provided, for the first time, for 
of increneln^^i 0111 ^ m tke . Legislative Council but only on the basis 
over thnen rfn proportlon oP members nominated by the chiefs 
the chieflv e , ecte d- So closely did he then seem allied to 

appointed hv ? v ° ne ° f Ae *"> ^-chiefly members 

his close faiily ties^vith the^f C ,° UnciL Possibl y because of 

ritual murder rd i 1 ™ e ® Porz ^ tta S and his concern over the 

intellectual motives^threTin' h^ bly > I , think ’ for more 
and business men from the old fl 0t 3 Sr ° Up ° f Pf of “ s ‘ ona l 
the chiefs to nlnv . Colony who repudiated the right of 

c™, td 0 , P polite. 'The chiefs’, declared Ta' 

Imperial power, neithc/ coTn" a ”*”“ ous collaborators with the 
swim with the’nennle uld make up their minds whether to 

Danquah’s tragedy that he ™ Im P e f iali ^m.’ It was Dr 

either. u d not make up his mind on this issue 

one thing he saw '\ 3S °/ tCn conPuse d and vacillating but 

of the slump iTtSt? ,h “ * B - As a result 

' imcr-wa, years and the rationalization of business 



THE COLONIAL COLLAPSE 93 

under war time government control, the six great Companies (in 
eluding the Commonwealth Trust of which I have written ear ier) 
had come to dominate the commercial life of the Colony. oug 
their organization, the Association of West African A ere an ^, ey 
not only fixed prices but controlled the allocation of imports. o 
sale and retail trade was now in the hands of an expatriate oigopo y 
and there was no longer a place for African merchants o e c 
from which he came. He realized that this situation cou n ^ v< ! 
come about but for the political ineptitude of the c le s an 
that their views were in practice dictated by the co onia au 
He wanted to remove them from the Government entire y an _ m 
consequence on the 20th September 1947 at the rst ° . , 
executive, or ‘Working Committee’ as it was ca e , 0 
Gold Coast Convention, the organization reso ve 

‘That the Convention is of the opinion that the contact of chiefs jnd 
government is unconstitutional, and that in consequence their pos 
tion on the Legislative Council is anomalous. 

Dr Danquah certainly, and, possibly, at least two other me 

the Working Committee with Ofori Am eonnecnons Eno Atato 

Addo, the old chiefs mSr - 5 

could never accept such a policy, i n y . • r t dmv 

Gran, to defeat governor Burns adM >n ««« ' ££* 
wanted to do it in alhance with the chiefs. y rem0V al 

balance those in the UGCC whose prmcip ec0 ,. r tbe or g a niza- 

of the chief from politics they needed a new policy for the orgamza 

tion, and allies from the outside to bac 1,; - ,r 

The Convention in its constitution pledged itself 

‘To ensure that by all ^^^^toXTatSof the people and 
and control of government should pass uuu 

their chiefs in the shortest possible time. . 

If this particular aim could t L chiefs since the 

then there could be no 9 u ? stl h f independence if this was 
chief was an essential ally m ^ but in order to 

to be achieved ‘within the s> P object its membership 

force the UGCC to make “ w J e p rin cipal_ concern 

had to be broadened by attrac » h called in Dr Nkrumah 
was ‘self government now . L* 



94 REAP THE WHIRLWIND 

becau se he believed that through nationalism he could save the 
tti 'Virrr 1 Nkrumah accepted because he believed he could use 
, e G not onl y t0 secure self government for the Gold Coast 
pUt t0 carry out the dream of Samuel Wood, my Aborigines Rights 
Protection Society friend of 1935 and of many other African 
ea ers o t e inter-war years, and secure the union and indepen- 
dence 01 the then colonial territories of all of British and French 
West Africa. 

The alliance between J. B. Danquah and Kwame Nkrumah which 
A C P n y a ew months, from Dr Nkrumah’s return to the Gold 
fn tri r m ..® ce f n ^“ t 947 to the riots of 1948, largely determined 
rpp P ,° 1 . Uca I adiances - The policy issues which divided the 
in nln n c u and die subsequent various parties formed 

thl“° f ? U(aCC > hemmed from the fact that Dr Danquah, 
intellectual lv!,i h * shot ' gun wedding between chief and 

snatched V 1 Kl t le wea P on which he had held to their heads, 
unhannv * * ^ Neverthele ss thereafter the parties to this 

which neifhp 1 ™^ j Und t ^ lemse ^ ves bound together in a union 
political death Y d ® sl ^ ed but which could only be ended by the 
the Ghana ? ° nC ° D them ' A11 the subsequent opposition parties, 
Nati onal Liherr S L Party which ^ht the 1954 election, the 

United Party wS^foSIT^ 1 ?? 1 f ° Ught that ° f I95<3, ^ ^ 
were never nnhV 11 .°™ ed t le Opposition after Independence 

with the intellect i yV1 ! b C beC3USe the y tried t0 reconcile the chiefs 

At the timi u prof b ss ‘°nal classes. 

Danquah and'his'^ 61 ’ ^" wame Nkrumah must have seemed to Dr 
In Gdd Coai^dT 0 ^ b the UGCC what they wanted, 
who had come from WaS n ° b a ndicap to be a self-made man 

quah’s poSt of vkw family and k was > from Dr Dan ' 

from a chiefly famil V* tkat k>r Nkrumah also was descended 
biography had twJ and ’ as he ^ter pointed out in his auto- 
stools of two small fi * ngbt t0 cons idered for election to the 
Gold Coast whTchetra 7 the ext ™ South-west of the 

Samuel Wood and man Axim >. t be home town of ‘Pa’ Grant, 
men. Above all Dr Nt ^ 0t ^, er 0 d 'V m e merchants and professional 
and a scholar with at least ° r Danc l uah > an intellectual 

growing reputation He V, a Atro ~ Am erican academic circles, a 
University the arguments nf A aupported successfully at Howard 

African cultural survivals in the New 



THE COLONIAL COLLAPSE 


95 


World, then being advanced by M. J. Herzkovits a non- egro 
anthropologist, against the conventional views champione at 
Howard by its leading Negro sociologist, Professor Fraser, an e 
had been voted in 1945 by the student body of Lincoln University, 
where he lectured on Negro history, ‘the most outstanding pro- 
fessor of the year’. . . 

He had come to England in 1945 and was nominally stu ymg aw. 
He was in fact almost entirely engaged in African as oppose to 
Gold Coast politics. Indeed he first became politically known as one 
of the organizing secretaries of the Pan African Congress e m 
Manchester in 1945. This Conference, it is significant to note, even 
when the trend in the British Labour Party was stall or cose 
co-operation with the Soviet Union, adopted a firm po 1C > ° I \ on 
alignment. Dr Nkrumah, like many other f utu te rican ea “ 
then in London, was influenced by the writings of eorge a ^ m , 
an Afro-American from the West Indies who, m < ^ I 93 ° s - 
been a prominent Communist but had broken wi t e arty, 
the time of the Congress and for many years to come he was str g I y 
anti-Communist. His views were reflected at 1 anc es e . 
subsequently wrote of the Conference : 

‘After hearing reports on conditions in the Colonies the Conference 
rejected both capitalist and communist solutions to t e rl 
lem. The delegates endorsed the doctrines of Pan-Afncan SoaaUm 
based upon Gandhian tactics of non-violent non-coopemuon The 
Conference also endorsed the principles enunciated m the Umvers 1 
Declaration of Human Rights and advised Africans and peopL of 
African descent to organize themselves into political ^ parues 
unions, co-operative societies, farmers associations in support of their 
struggle for political freedom and economic betterment. 

B„ t for African 

thcy could fight ,hcir 

battles divorced from ‘raid war issues^ ^ importancc t0 them 
Communist analysis vas n conncction with an ti- 

particularly when those nQtc that the nv0 British 
colonial agitation and « for praisc in Dr Nkrumah’s 

Communist theoreticians sm^ d and P Emilc Burns. Both had 

autobiography are Rajam raim 



96 


REAP THE WHIRLWIND 


backgrounds of Colonial experience. Mr Palme Dutt, though born 
^ri v U ? at . e ^ * n England, came from a distinguished Indian family 
an is atherUpendra Krishna Dutt had, as his son has recorded, 
aiij, it im the beginnings of political understanding — to love the 
n tan people and all peoples struggling for freedom’. Mr Emile 

flu S n , r been James Burns, a progressive Colonial Treasurer 

ot the Brmsh West Indian Presidency of St Christopher and Nevis, 

• ' S t r0t j Cr ^,' r ^ an Burns > wa s during the period Dr Nkrumah 
was in London the Governor of the Gold Coast. 

T I95 J Ur Nkrumah was to invite both brothers to Ghana for the 
resemiT cncL ' C(de brations. Not realizing how close was their facial 
sullv t anCC l WaS P uzz Ld to hear one British civil servant say 
v n ° m aS EmiIe Burns walked past, ‘Don’t you think 
ment Hn 5 W °h d been better if he had been sitting in Govern- 

which it was asked St it'T rS ? ' DeS ? ke the . : misapprehension under 
answered ’ s a question which still remains to be 

CommunUr f SUSplcI0n ofDr Nkrumah’s part in some world-wide 
^ frica > held by the Gold Coast 

from his assorinri by . tbe Colonial Office at the time, did not arise 
having been the* 011 l lC Iate Gove mor’s brother but from his 

° fficer of the West African National 
ideas canvassed in rhe essentla d) r . merely a revival of the old 

as Joseph Casclv Hnvf T"^ y c ears by SUch GoId Coast P oliticians 
staicesof posS 5-- and Samuel Wood, but in the circum- 

munist’, not because^ tlmidl ? C U T- * WaS rcgarded as <com ' 
it attacked a supposedly su PP orters > hut becausc 

Stability, the disnn;,, !r Ar d mental instrument of European 
degree of African unin • nC3 ' *^ ttem P ts even to achieve a limited 
Soviet Union as a mn^ assume d to have been inspired by the 
bne of reasoning stands^ e power politics of the ‘cold war’. .This 
Report. Dr Nkrumah they sa’d ‘ n tbe Watson Commission 

have become imbufd'wiU, t0 bave lla d Communist affiliations and to 
expediency has blurred It ^ ™ mun ‘ st ideology which only political 
the West African Nath 'l c,° ndon j le ' vas identified particularly with 
jects the union of all U' 02 , , C . rctadat , a body which had for its ob- 
West Afncan Colonies and which still exists. It 



THE COLONIAL COLLAPSE 


97 

appears to be the precursor of a Union of West African Soviet Socialist 
Republics.’ 

It is only necessary to examine the personalities concerned with 
the movement in question to appreciate the absurdity of the final 
deduction. The premises of the Secretariat were in the London 
offices of Koi Larbi, a typical conservative Ghanaian lawyer who 
was later to appear on behalf of the opposition in a number of 
important political trials and the three other Ghanaians concerned 
were of equally uncommunistic type. Awooner Renner was a 
believer in Islamic, rather than African unity, and was later to be 
a founder of the Moslem Association Party and was to oppose the 
CPP on a tribal and religious basis. Ashie Nikoe, after a short 
period in the leadership of the CPP threw in his lot with the Ga 
Shifimo Kpee, a tribal organization. Kojo Botsio, though he 
remained throughout with the CPP was, of all those in its leader- 
ship, the one who most closely followed the teachings of the British 
Fabian Society and the conceptions of the British Labour Party. 

The French side represented a similar political spectrum. The 
African Deputies in the French Parliament who supported it an 
were, by implication, charged by the Watson Commission with the 
intention of setting up a Soviet regime in West Africa were Leopold 
Senghor, Lamine Gueye, Sourou Apithy and Houphouet-Boigny. 

Leopold Sedar Senghor, now President of the Republic of 
Senegal, was already known by the time of the a ^°t* ? m ™ s ^ 
for his careful middle-of-the-road attitude. a o ic 
predominantly Moslem country he had spent mos o 
France and was at the time of the Commission s sitting, still 
officially a member of the French Socialist Party ^ ™ 

soon to break away from it to form anindependentSenegaleseparty, 
having refused i/1946 to join Houphouet-Boi^^ 

ayor of Dakar, stoo vearshad seized as a colonial official and 

lawyer who an the m ^French Parliament owing ,0 hit 
y 1951 was to los p renc h politics. Sourou-Migan Apithy, 

over-close associa ion sma ll state of Dahomey, which lies 

W ’xZ'an dSA - — ° f ‘ h n 

other Two fn that he was prepared at first ,0 cooperate w,th 



9 S kkaj'ihj uim;i.wiNi> 

Houphouet-Hoigny’s RDA but he too, shortly after the Watson 

Keport was issued, lull broken away. Felix Hiiupltmicl-Ikiign), 

10 *!• ,^ su!c !" ul 'I 11 ' ^"ty Oust, Ghana's immediate neighbour 

to t ie cst, m lyqS might has e been described as someone with 

Uinniunist leanings in that up until October 1950 his party, the 

, n . 13inUu ^' d a » alliance with the French Gunmunisi i'artv, 

Utougn m 1951 1 louphouct-lloigny was to declare, 'We arc not and 

we neser ia\e been Gumminist.s . . . first because Guwmmism is 

{ • , U i. pu 0 lbc and .secondly, because the class struggle 

■ C * , lv ? at 1 lc . Ui ‘ s of Oinimunism has no basis in our classless 

nm G V ' . ‘ r i* S "t hc - s ’ lil1 at ‘ h «' »«»«, ‘c« make Africa the 

Hi-fnr .‘Y'!' *■ | 3IU l , le lnosl b >yal territory in the h’rcnch Union’. 

F nnr. lc mH '05° s he had come to believe that his place v.as in 

COM ni” m ’I* 1 1C J ' St *"■ - su PI K ' r *cd the maintenance of the Colonial 

of,],., i,- Y I o Uas a ,nci »bcr of almost all the later governments 

hundi?, f epU >I,C a,Hl "* ls in «he Cibinct of Guv Mullet which 
launched the Sue/, invasion. 

anticirmlYY" . < '' <J,niULVSU ’ n can not, of course, be blamed for not 
supported di U \V Ull ! r 5 : .‘ Jcc * arat ' uns of policy bv tliose who then 

N:Ui0na! but c\cn on the 

it should it 1 VY C ,n , JU,,C "* len l * lcv " r(,[ e their Report, 
unity 0 was'insmh T bwn ^ ,hat "««cn«nl for African 
Which « ^ 3 .W ^f diverse political forces all of 
to outside political' Y " Uim •^ r ' ca itself and that it owed little 
TKa£??l;‘ fl “ , ? Ce * at lcast d* Soviet bloc. 
Nkrunuh’s decision 'toYem " JS ’ l ! H "^ vcr * t0 t,lis dc b' rcc ri t ,|lt - Dr 
interest in African unitv 7i' !° *. * C Gu,d G,ast arose out . of ,us 
prospects of ‘IV r a . t t lt 7 1 ,an from hi.s concern with the 
Original view V'”^ G ° Id G ’ a “ Convention. His 

quite useless for him tS Yssoci Y 'r auio . bio S ra phy, "as that it was 
almost entirely ^ h, ™ icl ‘ " lll > ‘a movement bached 

ants> . It was orSy after .TY’ ^ ^ alld n - ch “ 

National Secretariat rlnf i “ ,scu ^»ion with the West African 

bc r 1947, he arrived in the Gold C h ‘ S "'"Y' S ° k " aS > in Dcccn, “ 
leadership of the Cnnv, ,• ° d Coast and took up his post. The 

PotentiaYmembeYsWr;" ^ IT ^ b ut itS 

Danquah, he set out to orcraniY. anU Ulese * " ith the licl P of Dr 

The United Gold Coast fnm' 

st Convention was by no means the only 


THE COLONIAL COLLAPSE 99 

organization that the economic and political situation of the day 
brought into being. There were various ‘Youth’ organizations, not 
necessarily composed of young men but ‘youths’ in the sense that 
they were opposed to the traditional ‘elders’ and there was an Ex- 
Servicemen’s Union, the militant organization of the returned 
soldiers. However, it was a reversal of the traditional chiefly system 
that occasioned the explosion which proved how easily the Colonial 
structure could be blown apart. 

Fate appeared in the person of a self-made businessman, Kwam- 
ina Taylor. His father had come from Sierra Leone as a customs 
officer and had married, if his son’s autobiography is to be believed, 
‘Awula Minna, daughter of the late Governor and Aunt of the late 
honourable barrister T. Hutton Mills of Temple House’. In the 
social conditions of the time it was not impossible. His son Kwamina 
obtained only the most elementary education but, as a steward boy 
to European merchants, he somehow picked up the intricacies of 
West African trading. He set up as a contractor and then boldly 
adventured into Britain, Germany, Italy and Japan in the Import 
and Export business. By the end of the second world war he was a 
wealthy man living in a huge house, ‘Rolyat Castle’ — Taylor spelt 
backwards — and he decided to enter the chiefly business. He 
secured election to the Stool of the Alata quarter of Osu, the town 
built around Christiansborg Castle and which had originally been 
the Danish capital but now was merely a suburb of Accra. There 
was some dispute in chiefly circles as to his right to the title of 
‘Manche’ or Chief in the Ga reckoning, but Kwamina Taylor, by 
a remarkable piece of genealogical research, found that he was 
descended also from the dispersed Brong people whose capital 
Bolo-Mansu, a hundred miles north of Kumasi, had been established 
in a.d. 1295 an< I had been a great and literate cultural centre before 
its destruction by the Ashantis in 1742. Mr Taylor secured appoint- 
ment to one of its surviving Stools and thus began his career as a 
chief twice over, once as Nii Kwabena Bonne III of Osu and again 
as Nana Owusu Akenten III, Oyokohene of Techiman in Ashanti. 
Since the Asantehene himself recognized the latter title, the Ga 
Chiefs had to give way in regard to the lesser office. Nevertheless it 
is as Nii Bonne that he is known to history. 

No sooner was he enstooled than he began reorganizing the 
chiefs. He saw, which they did not, that the traditional rulers must 



100 REAP THE WHIRLWIND 

come out dramatically on the popular side if they were to retain any 
influence and he set to work to challenge the great trading com- 
panies, the United Africa Company, the Swiss Union Trading Co- 
pany an die other great oligopolists who were organized into the 
Association of West African Merchants. An admirer of his, in a 
memorandum to the Watson Commission, thus described his 

terhnimip* 


,. 11 onne stepped into the scene with his Anti-Inflation campaign 
T 1C ,. e P ersona!1 y financed and waged to a successful conclusion, 
US q C | 1CVln ^ tbe mass °f common people from economic distress 
' V, 6 m6tbocl a d°pted by Nii Bonne was very simple . . , The 
orn resistance of the firms did not deter him. He successfully 
a PP ie our venerable Native Law and Custom which out-manoeuvred 

1 tt C i atl ° 1 ^ English Law. Nii Bonne needed no special legis- 
lation to do this.’ 


to use rbp C M f 1-1 0 r nnC dld was t0 turn Indirect Rule on its head and 
had endmverWiT 6 " ltb wb ' cb the Colonial administration 

take Dart in b' nc s \ t0 . prosecute and fine those who would not 
to the Com v adm her Aus continued his explanation 

average c ™r° n Y h ° W Nii Bonne addre ^ sed <the 


four shilliruj 5 ^ WaX b ' ock P r ‘ nt ] sold by the whiteman at eighty r - 
ple cot S rb Per , P ‘ eCe ^ S ° Id at the black ™rket for six pounds per 
d ays if u- hlteman ab0Ut fort >' shillings landed here in these 

tuning taking away your moneyTr nSin™' * ^ Whlteman ^ 

1 he people will renlv “v PQ , . . , 

- .he oath JZfZZZZZr?-? “ bUy ' If th ' ) ' 
Swear the oath of tli? Dm. i 

forbidden words and rW 11116116 on them’— speak, that is, the 
brought before the Chief 1 en ^ a ® ec ^ hi conversation must be 
broken. Thanks to the rA t0 ex P^ a ^ n why the taboo had been 
Power to imprison and^°fi 0nia vernment > the Chiefs’ Court had 
Pnson and fine and the Administration’s carefully 



THE COLONIAL COLLAPSE IOI 

created tribunals were thus legally equipped to punish the cus- 
tomers who visited a British shop. Here indeed was the writing on 
the wall. The chiefly leader was no longer the dignified illiterate of 
the past. He had become the agent of a business man turned sub- 
chief. What else could be expected ? 

In a book written shortly afterwards Nii Bonne described how he 
manipulated his chiefly superiors. First he ‘complied with the 
constitutional process’, that is to say he worked through the Native 
Authority which the British administration had installed for the 
purpose of the Indirect Rule of Accra. Fortified by their support he 
then secured the approval of the higher body, the Joint Provincial 
Council of Chiefs, the so-called ‘natural rulers’ of the old Colony. 
With this backing, on New Year’s Day 1948, he addressed an 
inflammatory message to his fellow chiefs calling upon them ‘to 
fight and die for the liberty and freedom of your country’. 
‘Strangers,’ he said, ‘had come to the Gold Coast not for love of its 
people but only to take away the riches of the country by all possible 
means.’ Had such a statement been made by one of the leaders of 
the popular parties the speaker would have been prosecuted for 
sedition. But such was the fascination which chiefly office still held 
for the Colonial administration that even statements such as this 
from a sub-chief as unorthodox as Nii Bonne went unchecked. 

The boycott, called for the 26th January 1948, worked well since 
the chiefs had a legal machine at their disposal to enforce it. Once 
however it started, neither Nii Bonne’s organization nor the chiefs 
were capable of controlling it. They negotiated with the Govern- 
ment and with the merchants. A reduction in prices was agreed on 
and was to come into effect on the 28th February and the boycott 
was to be called off. On the same day an unarmed deputation from 
the Ex-Servicemen’s Union going to Christiansborg Castle, the 
Governor’s official residence, to present a petition were fired on by 
the police. A former army Sergeant was killed and other demon- 
strators wounded. The price decrease was not operated or super- 
vised efficiently and the crowds of shoppers who had anticipated a 
much larger reduction, exasperated by the news of the shooting, 
took first to looting and then to the burning of the shops of the 
European companies and the Syrian merchants. 

No doubt Nii Bonne and the chiefs were genuinely horrified at 
what had happened but they were powerless to stop what they had 



102 


REAP THE WHIRLWIND 


started. The rioting spread to other towns and the Colony was in 
e ands of the mob ; £2 million worth of property was destroyed 
3I ! 'fF HUed. A State of Emergency was declared and Sir 
an urns successor, Governor Sir Gerald Creasey, announced in 
a roa cast that a Communist conspiracy had occurred but that the 
Government had arrested the leading Communists. 

, T? e c mt . e Coast Convention had little connection with 

Irn m ? en ’ S Union or with Anti-Inflation Committee 
u r e - ^ ttle dl<1 ^ anticipate riots that at the time at which 
ej ro e out Dr Danquah and Dr Nkrumah were at a meeting in 
P-r 3 ,?™ some sixt y ^les from Accra. It is the measure of 
rtnf i] aC ()1 1111 ^standing of African political development 

v .• C , ° in !!’ U , n !p s a f rest ed by the Governor were the Con- 
William 5 a f^ a ’ P 1 ] J - danquah, Eric Akufo Addo, 

Nkr 1 ? n , tta ’ Ab ° Adjei, Obetsebi Lamptey and Kwame 
names \ t C ° me ol tlle i r arrest die only two of the six whose 

Danouah a C n ? L™ the Gold Coast were probably Dr J. B. 

conspicuous , " ame , Nkrumah but the odier four were to play 
Obetsebi To 1 Vane partS * n Ghana’s subsequent histor) r . 
a Ga arisrnrrar-PI^K ''P self-made man though he had the air of 
the outskirts of A° "“u lghts wh ose house were a landmark on 
provincial and r -jTi™’- ^ Was a P rom i n ent lawyer but essentially 
d noun?J ’ al T m ° Utl00k - A later he was publicly to 

oSA°L N tTlT a — from *> 

meeting in the' r 9 a ’, bad no n ght even to address a public 

Ale “"t" °i Acm - T » P I0ve ^ Point” with 

three vears later t u mon S ^ SLX as his running mate, he was 
,0 i. Dr **"»”»<■ »t the polls in Accra, 

Aon, Sis , *4S d L b :,“" >»' the W, obtaining only 
Nkrumah’s 20 780! Bur ,1„ , t ? ra ' c , ; '^ 3 ° votes against Kwame 
decisively defeated bv .t. a " ' ^ ls m bs!is(ic appeal was thus to be 
was to spend the rest of his ]; r na ° Cratlc P rocess > Obetsebi Lamptey 
He was to join three orW t ? ng t0 pr0mote k other mcanS ’ 
Akufo Addo and William AforiAtta to T* ^ ^ Da ? q - Uah ’ EnC 

sition party to the CPP rt, <rv, cta t0 torn t a new coalition oppo- 
Busia as its leader but Con S ress Part y’ with Dr K. A. 

Ga tribal association whirl, t, ° Spllt Wltb 1116111 a l so and to form a 
based Party the Natinnni t u!. aS t0 mer S e l ater tilth an Ashanti- 
tNattonal Liberation Movement and again, a 



THE COLONIAL COLLAPSE I0 3 

year later, he was to become with Dr Danquah a member of the 
executive of the United Party in which all opposition groups were 
to be combined. In 1961 he was to go to Lome to organize the 
violent overthrow of the Republic, was to return to Ghana clandes- 
tinely, already wasted from the cancer from which he was to die. He 
was to be arrested, released as being too ill to be jailed and later, 
when conclusive evidence brought to light his involvement in 
terrorist activities, again to be detained and to die in a prison 
hospital. His undoubted part in conspiracy was, from 1962 onwards, 
to involve, in one way or another, three of the Big Six , Dr Dan- 
quah, Ako Adjei and William Afori Atta and his career as a con- 
spirator was, by the suspicion it cast on others, to have a crucial 

effect on Ghanaian politics. . . 

Ako Adjei, though Ga, was nevertheless of very different ongms 
and character to Obetsebi Lamptey, his running mate in the 1951 
elections. He and Dr Nkrumah had been fellow students at Lincoln 
University in the United States and afterwards at the London 
School of Economics and he had been President of the West African 
Students Union in Britain. In 1947 a thirty-one-year-old lawyer, 
young by the Gold Coast standards of the time for qualification m 
the profession, he was offered the paid secretaryship of the United 
Gold Coast Convention but he had declined and it was he who had 
suggested to Dr Danquah Kwame Nirumah’s name. Nevertheless 
for a period he was to become most hostile to him and was to found 
an opposition newspaper The African National Times, of which a 
leading contributor was to be a young Ga civil servant and militant 
opponent of the CPP, Tawia Adamafio by name. In his ‘Jotting’s by 
the Wayside’ in another opposition journal for which he wrote and 
made famous, The Daily Echo, Adamafio described the CPP as the 
party of ‘fooling and thieving’ and called for the country ‘to be saved 
from a one party evil, the evil of dictatorship . . 

Yet by the time of the 1954 election Ako Adjei was, with his friend 
Tawia Adamafio, to have changed sides, to have been elected in 
Accra with the biggest majority in the country and to have become 
immediately a CPP Minister while The African National Times, like 
The Daily Echo, were to have disappeared through lack of support. 
Thereafter until he was to be arrested for treason m 1962 he was to 
remain in the Cabinet, for long serving as Foreign Minister. He was 
not to owe his position to his talents. His most notable quality, it 



104 REAP THK WHllU.WINO 

•ilwajs seemed to me, was iiis ability to concentrate upon the 
unessential to the exclusion of everythin- else. He was to hold his 
post ion iccause he belonged to a class under-represented in the 
, ,' c tra ' c ed intellectual. It was to be his destiny to be 
f. riled as a link and a magnet to bind and pull to the CPP that 

fvniKw 1011 . 3 - midd!c ' cl:lss dement Which it lacked. His very 
. 5 ! 1 *, . 0r 1 us purpose was tu involve him in a web of suspicion, 

mn.il? 1,ls . ass « c «t ,un with .Obetsebi I.ampley in the past and his 
AdannfirH' 11 S 11P , "“!* b ‘ s * c *low -Minister and convert, Tawia 
acain tn l C " JS U> tncd Por trcaM,n i to be acquitted, to be tried 
and to dcalh ’ 10 bc reprieved by Dr Nkrumah 

and to fid ’ CaiC i rUn - 1 P rison b y the National Liberation Gnincil 
Eric Mu O A ?? CUn l aS a magistrate in Cape Gust, 

iudees who • t 0 " ,IS Pourtc en years later to be one of the three 
ing his icauitil i\ 31 ^ ‘° Atl i c ‘’ s first trial and to join in support- 
Aua I ifi ' n , ,arncd t() a daughter of Nana -Sir Olbri 
Atta’s son Willi lUS I c ‘ at . cd 10 1)r Danquah and to Nana Sir Olbri 
i At,J ’ ,hc ,asl ‘ )f l! ‘ c ^ He was certainly 
able advocate in th Hi 'r* ainons lllcm and P«sJ»ibIv the most 

and-NkS ' "ctS" ” "" ' i '“- 1 k '» - » 

Elections It wis i ' i 1 t lC ‘ 95 1 * ‘954 and 19^6 General 
S h ° USC that ’ in Dr E)anquah’s words, 

Conv^nd? 1 o? t ?t th f C M°- U . nS Con ’ mittcc of the United Gold Coast 
was burning and the im, "^r ° f d ' C a8th I?cbr uaiy i94 b "hen Accra 
Ghana, sat together on 1 agcms had s P i,t ‘he blood of men of 
‘hat day’s JSll, VC ? ndah ‘ ‘ P> 3 » to take advantage of 

for the liberation of Ghana" th3t advan,a S c 3S 3 fulcrum or lever 

of the Legislati\?AsscmWv'u-c ycars latcr > the opposition members 
the debate on Independent . C £ ° , SU ^otber to plan to boycott 
it. After Independence Akufn A t ° abstain from 1 voting in favour of 
involvement in politics Ac '^1° " as . t0 "‘tbdraw from open 
with the pre-indenendenr P3ft 3 P°h c y of healing the breach 
Korsah, L Chief Justice, Sir Arku 

as Attorney General and rh‘ rUlna 1 ‘hat he should succeed me 
sidered. Instead he was tn t, 1S J? ro P osrd "’as to be seriously con- 
Court of Last Resort 'the 9 ° fferCd a J ud Bcship in the Republic’s 
t> the Supreme Court, which he was to accept. 



THE COLONIAL COLLAPSE 


I0 5 


It was in this capacity that he was to take part in Ako Adjci’s trial 
and pronounce a judgement condemning the activities of Obetscbi 
Lamptey. He was subsequently to be removed from the Bench in 
the purge of Judges which followed the amendment of the Constitu- 
tion m 1964. After the coup he was to be appointed the new Chief 
Justice by the military regime. This lawyer believed that his country 
should be ruled by an elite controlled by lawyers and when after the 
coup d’etat, he was appointed Chairman of a Commission to draw up 
a new constitution he was roundly to declare, AVe do not subscribe 
to the sovereignty of Parliament. We subscribe to the sovereignty 
• of law. Yet he was to watch without protest the new regime to 
which he was to lend his prestige and authority, dismiss judges 
wholesale and transfer to courts-martial the trial of all ' 
charged with ‘subversion’, ‘treason’ or anv other „„iv ^ , 5 1V1 I3nS 
William Ofori Atta was the antithesis of his b rX ? , 

Addo the careful and circumspect lawyer. 
were the only members among the ‘Bix Six’ he 1 * j 3nc l ua h 
UGCC ticket at the 1951 election and he, like Dr ^ 

also to be defeated in 1954 when elections were t, P i ] V ^ 

suffrage basis, but unlike Dr Danquah, he was a radi ^ a ° u C 
would have supposed would have been far more W " om 


one 


»» uuiu uavL ~ more at . _ 

CPP. Indeed he was in terms of European politics °T C w- c 
his brother, Kofi Asante Ofori Atta, the CPP Ministpr 1. j °* 
Dr Danquah, uncle to them both, in the ig?, e j 0 defeated 
autobiography Dr Nkrumah confesses that it was th IOnS * 

William Ofori Atta on the Working Committee of the Tjpp SCnce . 
was one of the factors which led him to accept the no t cc W ^' C ^ 
General. William Ofori Atta was to make his nal 7 mtary ' 
speaker and one of the ablest Members of the jq- S j e ^ttiest 
Assembly. He was then to go to London to study if 1 ^ e ^ s ^ a d ve 
return to Ghana, to resist all efforts to persuade h‘ 3nC ? Y ,as t0 
CPP, to be detained for a period of time and i n 1 ? t0 i oin the 
appointed after the military revolt in 1966, Chairm an e f en ^ t0 
Marketing Board, the post previously held by that n -i, e C ° coz 
establishment, Nana Sir Tsibu Darku IX. ar of chiefly 

Such were Sir Gerald Creasy’s Communists and st 
the Governor’s Communist theory was at first acc e n n ° e f° sa} 
question by the Labour Ministers and the Colonial Ogj e< ^ without 
question of the disturbances was raised in the Hon Se . C r'^ en 

ot Common^? 



io6 


REAP THE WHIRLWIND 


Lord Ogmorc, then Parliamentary Under-Secretary, was convinced 
that the riots had originated from a Communist plot. Willie Gal- 
lagher, Communist Member for West Fife, had asked whether he 
"° u . cons >_der sending ‘a deputation of responsible trade union 
° eta s to investigate’. ‘We will not send such a deputation,’ 
rep ie tie Minister. ‘A full investigation will be carried out— a 
lormal inquiry by the Government— and then the facts will come 
to light and I will guarantee that when they come to light Mr Gal- 
agieriM not like them.’ Indeed he appeared almost to be endorsing 
e suppositions of Lord Wintcrton, by this time the sole survivor 
m C 1C a ° USC tbosc Conservative Members who had been 
re urnc as supporters of Joseph Chamberlain’s tariff reform and 
? P ‘ r< ; development. ‘Arc we to understand,’ Earl Winterton had 
6 ’ , at 'V len 3 kub . investigation has been made into the political 
iscs, ie Minister will place a statement in the Library so that we 

Th i rrl 0 t"(- " 1Ct - Cr ? r ” ot ' s duc to the Communist dupes of the 

countrv V ^ rn ^ tl ° na i> including the Communist Party of this 

commnnief 1 16 ^| nist< ^ r replied, ‘There was almost certainly 

Libra rv wli lnc . ltem ? nt m this case. I will place a full statement in the 

and was nl n '• ,^ len ultimately the full statement arrived 

filled and if T m * C jl ^ rar 3’ Lord Ogmore’s guarantee was unful- 

m ent who ZZ but the Colonial Office establish- 

mem who did not like the findings. 

after its Cb ai '' U i u ' r ^ Promised, known as the Watson Commission 
memt fn’ * Z Andrew Aiken Watson, K.C., had two 
Oxford collet t • C1 f 1 Alurra >’ as ke was then, Rector of my old 

officer Ai r f the late Andrcw Dalgleish, an 

General Workers tZ » ad been > of . the Transport and 

liantly written anrl u ° T beir Report, detailed, compact, bril- 

of colonialism not onEffi the gS outstandin S anaI >'f 
cation, in the whole of BritS r °t C ,T but ’ by necessaiy im P h ' 
equated Commnnic Sb Colonial Africa. Its defect was that it 

.o p.iS™ u sr “ ideob6i “ i » p° ia “ tot 

munistic the attemDt hv Af • CommissI °ners considered as com- 
ations modelled, not on thnlZZ Z Up P olitical P art y organiz- 
but on the accented ™ e °f a European Communist party, 
facing the issue ^ Th “ Britain ' Thus ^ey avoided 

necessary. Thev if y ? aw cLarly a new social system W'as 

y ney avoided, by their preoccupation with organizational 



THE COLONIAL COLLAPSE 107 

politics, any consideration of the philosophy by which it could be 
achieved. Dr Nkrumah accepted the Marxist interpretation of 
Colonialism. His pamphlet Towards Colonial Freedom written two 
years before was evidence of it. On this basis they could have 
argued that he was inspired by Communist ideology. Instead they 
sought to prove it from documents and organizational instructions, 
which, if anything, proved the opposite. 

For example, their Report spoke of Dr Nkrumah’s ‘avowed aims 
for a Union of West African Soviet Socialist Republics’ and to 
substantiate this they printed, in an appendix, the constitution of a 
propaganda organization called ‘The Circle’ though they admitted 
‘there is no evidence it ever became a live body’. In the document 
that they reprint the word ‘Soviet’ never occurs. Its inclusion in the 
body of the Report is a physiological slip significant of their attitude 
of mind. From this document it is clear that what was being advo- 
cated, in theory, by Dr Nkrumah was not ‘A Union of West 
African Soviet Socialist Republics’ but a ‘Union of West African 
Socialist Republics’. 

India, already independent, was on the way to becoming a 
Republic so there was nothing particularly ‘Communistic’ in 
advocating that independent African States should follow her 
example. That the proposed republic should be ‘Socialist’ could 
hardly be objected to by a Commission appointed by a Labour 
Government which had described its intention to develop the 
African Colonies in accordance with ‘Socialist principles’. Even Sir 
Gerald Creasey could not condemn the idea of African Unity, for, 
immediately prior to his becoming Governor, he had been Chief 
Secretary to the West African Council whose official object was to 
develop the unity of West African Colonies. Nevertheless the Com- 
mission found it ‘significant’ that the United Gold Coast Con- 
vention ‘has so far taken no steps to dissociate themselves from’ 
Kwame Nkrumah because he stood for a final goal, according to the 
‘Circle’ of a United African Republic in West Africa based on 
Socialism and to be obtained by non-violent means. 

If this example of ‘Communism’ had stood alone it might have 
been attributed to a mis-reading by the Commission of Nkrumah’s 
proposals for the ‘Circle’. The Commission however goes on to say, 
‘In a working programme circulated just before the disturbances 
we have been inquiring into, Mr Nkrumah boldly proposes a 



I0 ^ REA P the whirlwind 

programme which is all too familiar to those who have studied the 
ec ique o , countries which have fallen the victims of Communist 
ens av ement . Once again to prove their point they print two 

1S r °i m tb ' S wor ^' n B programme’. The first of these is a 
a ement, a most word for word, of the plan proposed by Earl 

e v len ie first became Leader of the Labour Opposition in 
the inter-war years and it read : 

he formation of a Shadow Cabinet should engage the serious 
• . n , ° n ° 1 e " or hing committee as early as possible. Membership 
■ C c ™ n P 0St; d of individuals selected ad hoc to study the jobs of the 
cnnnfr!. ’ nistnes t ^ lat would be decided upon in advance for the 
stall " Cn " C ac ' 1 * eve our independence. This Cabinet will fore- 
ment h' Un i lrc i )arci i Ilcss on our part in the exigency of self Govern- 
ment being thrust upon us before the expected time.’ 

menTar t vmm 0rd f/'' 0rk i n f committee ’ there is substituted ‘Parlia- 
government’ th ^ an ^/°F words ‘our independence’ and ‘self 
what the then TV? * S ™ bstltuted the word ‘office’ this was exactly 
in me ,1Illstc r of Britain had urged upon his part}' 

too familiar'to ^^^Ph of E)r Nkrumah’s suggestions cited as ‘all 
well have come fro?? 10 ? ave studied’ Communist technique might 
Fyfe Report on r noth< : r contem porary document, the Maxwell 
proposals to the Party 0r S™on. Dr Nkrumah’s 

Commission, dealt with* ‘The? 11116 "- 1111 - 5 h f d> aS quoted by ^ 

the platform nf n or S amz ational work of implementing 
ordination™. S' Convention ’: This involved, he said, ‘Co- 
and women’s va F 10us political, social, educational, farmers’ 

Unions, “ "" U , 3S S„cierii 

affiliate to the Conv P v C > et !^ S ' * • who ‘should be asked to 
Working Committee that°‘r ° r ? krumah had advocated to the 
each town and village tf, m ° nven tion branches should be set up in 
Territories and Togoland^T??-? 6 C ° lony ’ Ashanti > the Northern 
be said to be even to the ’ u° ? 1S be added a proposal which might 
thought. The Consent? £ p contem P°rary British Conservative 
against, as undemocratic arty .^ ad pronounced themselves 

local association to the’ c 6 automa tic offer of the Presidency of a 
inhibition. ‘The Chief r, rwri lre but Nkrumah had no such 
Chief or Odikro of each town or village should be 



THE COLONIAL COLLAPSE IO9 

persuaded to become the Patron of the Branch’. Then Dr Nkrumah 
had gone on to suggest ‘The opening of vigorous Convention 
Week-end schools for the political mass education of the country for 
Self-government’. There should be, he had suggested, ‘constant 
demonstrations throughout the country to test our organizational 
strength — making use and taking advantage of political crises’. 
These activities in the final period should, he had proposed, 
culminate in: 

‘(a) The convening of a Constitutional Assembly of the Gold Coast 
people to draw up the Constitution for Self-government or 
National Independence. 

(b) Organized demonstration, boycott and strike — our only weapons 
to support our pressures for Self-government.’ 

Except for the activities listed under his sub-paragraph (b) there 
was nothing in what Dr Nkrumah was proposing which was not a 
commonplace activity of all British political parties of the day. 

The departure in paragraph (b) from British political methods 
merely arose from the absence of any constitutional alternative. The 
Burns Constitution had been so drawn as to give the Legislative 
Council no control over the Executive and to limit the number of 
elected members to five out of a total membership of thirty-one. 
There was thus no Parliamentary method open to a reforming party 
and their only weapons were in fact ‘demonstration, boycott and 
strike’. The Watson Commission might well have been answered by 
the words addressed by Joseph Chamberlain in 1884 to the voteless 
agricultural labourers of Britain : 

‘If you were turbulent they would say you were unfit for liberty, and 

as you are orderly and peaceful, they dare to say you do not want it.’ 

Why should the type of activity Dr Nkrumah was proposing be 
labelled in this way as ‘Communistic’ ? It can only be explained if it 
is assumed that even the progressive Watson Commission accepted 
that the only persons entitled to prepare a colony for self-govern- 
ment were the colonialists. If the inhabitants themselves organized, 
whatever the type of organization, this was ‘Communism’ and, as 
such, had to be suppressed. Dr Nkrumah is not attacked for his 
Marxist analysis of Imperialism. Towards Colonial Freedom is not 
even referred to in the Commission’s Report. He is a ‘Communist’ 



no 


REAP Tut; WHIRLWIND 

be adorned ? C *'° catcd , t * lat a Western type political machine should 
orientated 'r ' IUtcd Goast Convention, a conservatively 

orientated nationalist organization. 

Commission f n ! vc Cold Coast colonialism. The Watson 

formulated anV-" 3 ' 1 - 1 ^ tbat tbe r °forms required should be 
might nrofF c,lrrict *. out by the Colonial Government. Africans 
support . SUB “T SU ° n , S . bul if ‘ h «y attempted to rally mass 
the system w^ Lin ’ i t | K 'i 1 * ,,S " as Conununisin. The bankruptcy of 
not the abili'tv r” °r ^ rcVca * ct '- The Colonial administration had 
Service mi d rcform * P' Progressive wing of the Colonial 
nothing to ofleHn'thei^plac^ Cfr ° rS and t)m >ssions but tliey had 

Burns Coimku t bn 0 ” 11 ' ^ ti' t,lrou gh the sham of the current 

birth . . .’ This wnc ,i.‘ ' ... ? 94b. Constitution was outmoded at 
ment to realize i llV UC -’ < ' C ,- V ‘ m plied, to ‘a failure of the Govern- 
litcracy and a r | n c! '' Ul *hc spread of liberal ideas, increasing 
parts of the world tl COntacc ' v ‘th political developments in other 
wane’. They found . c star .°‘ rule through the chiefs was on the 
the chiefs arc being us'^l f . ! an lnimcnsc intense suspicion that 
die delay if not for rU . C ^ 1 . Government as an instrument for 
people’. L suppression of the political aspirations of the 

Bhc inefficiency of die Tr .1 • 1 , . . 

equally plain to them ‘Tl °, . . ^illustrative machine was 
the purposes of modern ^ a .’mistrativc machine was weak for 
co-ordination between i CCOnonilc planning.’ They noted ‘a lack of 
There was ‘an almost f .„ r ^ ) '! nrn 1 cnts c °ncerned witlt development’, 
successful administration nf^ 3Cb °^ tbc statistics . . . essential to 
yiew many of the then Vm 3 COm P' cx soc iaI organization’. In their 
if more statistical data It,!i°I! 1IC ° lsor dcrs could have been avoided 
ability of the Colonial autim v**” ava 'lable’ but they doubted the 
bad the tools. Speaking of M"r» t0 uncierta ke anything even if they 
unable to absolve the Govr^' B ° nne s b °y c °tt they said, ‘We are 

strongest criticism ffir thC G ° ld Coast • • • hom the 

mam support. ‘The great ™ ° n .‘ ‘^‘culture was the Gold Coast’s 
noted, ‘are dependent, directlv^ °0- tS P eo Pl e .’ the Commission 
uction for day to day food fr ' i° r ln< h re ctly on agricultural pro- 
revenue which has to provid T le . ^ Payment of imports and for the 
Yet there was ‘ample evidence’^if^l 1 SCrvices as the >' enjoy.’ 

show how it was neglected and 



THE COLONIAL COLLAPSE 


III 


they quote from the Report of the Director of Agriculture in which 
‘this neglect is eloquently reflected’. There was too small expenditure 
on agriculture relative to the revenue derived from it and the value 
of agricultural exports. They noted ‘the almost complete disregard 
of agriculture’ in education and ‘the lack of interest in technical 
problems shown by many members of the administration’. The 
Colony had never been ‘provided with the machinery in the form of 
staff, buildings and experimental stations to provide for the basic 
needs of its agriculture’. Housing was neglected, education was 
inefficient, law reform was needed. The whole system of supplies, 
prices and distribution required overhaul. The checking of the 
dread disease of cocoa, ‘swollen shoot’, on which the survival of the 
Colony depended, had been mishandled. 

Their catalogue of Colonial shortcomings was without end. Yet 
they failed to understand the basic problem — the Colonial machine 
lacked the will, the ability or the means to reform its shortcomings. 
The Colonial authorities’ only way out was to deny the central 
premise of the Commission’s argument. Their case was that, far 
from chiefly rule being on the wane, the Watson Commission 
Report was a travesty of truth because the Commissioners had not 
troubled to go to the chiefs and learn the facts. 

In a tart comment on the Commission’s recommendations, the 
Labour Government said in a published commentary issued simul- 
taneously with their Report : 

‘In the very short time available to them in the Gold Coast the 
Commission were not, it is understood, able to travel extensively in the 
rural areas, and they can therefore have had less opportunity of hearing 
evidence from representatives of the rural communities which form the 
great bulk of the population of the Gold Coast. His Majesty’s Govern- 
ment therefore feel it necessary clearly to state that, while they attach 
the greatest importance to modernizing the Native Authorities and 
making them fully representative of the people, they regard the Chiefs 
as having an essential part to play. In general the Chiefs of the Gold 
Coast are the traditional leaders of the people. Their functions in 
regard to local administration are based on popular support; and the 
transfer or delegation of any of their functions would require popular 
sanction, since the position of the Chiefs affects the whole system of 
relationships on which community life is traditionally based. Increasing 



1 12 


heap the whirlwind 

numbers of Chiefs recognize tlie need for modernizing their insti- 
utions an in this every encouragement is given to them by the Gold 
ast overnment and their administrative ofiicers.* 

rI!!,;“ n ' ment ,i S al ! the morc remarkable in that as the Watson 
rinn; In n° n 1U f ^ poimcd out the boycott which precipitated the 
cstahlich! LCn i 1C l * lc use of chiefly ntachincty of justice for 

this rim/a a Cg ?’ r 3S ' S ^ 0r aiu ''o 0V ernment agitation. In fact at 
their insfir/f"^ C UC ^ S "* 10 rcco ? n ' zc d the need for ‘modernizing 
those IaterTr. 5 "' C ™ a,rcad >* sillin S with the CP1> and, among 
most ' . C ini P nsoncd with Kwame Nkrumah was one of the 
IV a vnmi'lT representatives of this class, Nana Kobina Nketsia 
University £ . Ut dl stmguishcd anthropologist to whom Oxford 
begun iiMirisn fC ^rtvards to award a Doctorate for his work, 
ous religion Fv’ 0I i 1 1C mducncc °f Christianity on African indigen- 
had been getting- ?”r tllc a PP caran ce of the CPP the people 
the Government T ° ° UC [ S " dl ° ad ' cd themselves too openly with 
reported that d ” ^t 2 t lC dlcn Governor, Sir Alan Burns, had 

chiefs had been A ! 9 ° ony> no ,css titan twenty-two of their 
in order “"if rfl ““ * f “'"“r tad abdicated 

seven stools were vacant f At thc 11 mc ,llc Governor wrote, 
Paramount Chief has a f? lly StatCS,> hc con "nentcd, ‘no 
stool for more than a very sh^ ti™ ^ ^ ^ 

Aij-r Creech Jones’ reply to the 
the only people whn m 1,1 fC ! ad t0 re f°rms then the chiefs were 
was to re-establish tbf>; U t } lcm - All that was necessary to do 

Sir Gordon dCStr ° ycd b) ' 

‘required detailed eraml CC ° nim i endal i ons ’ > cont ' nu ed his statement, 

the existing constitution and of rt/ rVv° ba ” nS prccise knovvlcdsc of 
mic conditions of the rK- e dlffercnt cultural, social and econo- 

Majesty’s Govern ntnZTTl G ° ld Coast ' I» the view of His 

mission’s proposals must first G ° ld Coast Government, the Com- 
public in the Gold Coast its If COnsidered by representatives of the 
that, subject to the agreement^ ^ th '. S P ur P 0Se ic is suggested 
sentative committee should be cet ° , Cg ' slative Council, a fufly repre- 

up locally as soon as may be possible 



THE COLONIAL COLLAPSE 


113 

to examine the proposals ... of the Report and to consider the 
extent to which they can be accepted and the manner in which they 
should be implemented.’ 

‘Fully representative’ meant, of course, fully representative of the 
chiefs and intellectuals. The Coussey Committee, so named 
because it was under the Chairmanship of Sir Henley Coussey, an 
African Judge who had held himself aloof from politics, consisted 
of forty members chosen by the Governor and the three Regional 
Chiefly bodies. Eight of its members were actual chiefs and it 
included others, like Dr Nanka-Bruce, who had always sided with 
them but the old leaders of the Aborigines Rights Protection 
Society were also fully represented and so, in theory, was the United 
Gold Coast Convention. In fact it had already split into two wings. 
The ‘Youth’ organizations, which Dr Nkrumah had enrolled, were 
thoroughgoing opponents of the existing social system. Unlike their 
intellectual leadership, who wanted only to replace the British strata 
at the top, they aimed to reform society from the bottom up. They 
were concerned, not with high politics, but with day to day con- 
ditions on the cocoa farm, in the village and in the working-class 
districts of the towns. This section of the United Gold Coast 
Convention was not represented in the Coussey Committee nor were 
the Trade Unions and the ex-service men. All suspected radicals 
such as William Ofori Atta and Ako Adjei were excluded, as well as, 
of course, Dr Nkrumah. 

After die 1948 riots mutual fear of popular forces brought the 
chiefs, the merchants and the professional men once again together. 
Dr Danquah’s policy of cooperation of intellectual and traditional 
ruler was vindicated and the presence of a mass radical membership 
of anu-chief rank and file within the Convention became an em- 
barrassment. The executive attempted to rid themselves of Dr 
Nkrumah. They did not succeed. At their Conference in August 
1949, just prior to the issue of the Coussey Committee s Report, the 
Convention broke into two groups. Dr Nkrumah formed a new 
Party, the Convention People’s Party, asserting by the use of the 
tide ‘Convention’ that his party was the rightful heir of the old 
organization. The other five members of the Big Six stayed with 
the old organization but the majority of its branches adhered to the 
CPP. 



REAP THE WHIRLWIND 

. Coussey Committee, not unnaturally in view of its compo- 
1 I ™’ ca . me t0 the rescue of the Colonial administration. ‘Contrary 
e V1C 'J cx P res sed in the Watson Report,’ they said in their 
in mmen atI ° ns j we believe that there is still a place for the Chief 
new constitutional set up.’ Nevertheless they were too realistic 
4 ; ^ St 1 lat ! he chie % nominees should remain in their former 
that in' 1 P os ition and the furthest they would go was to suggest 
should ni ^ n C " e f ls ^ at ’ ve Assembly which they proposed, they 

should choose one-third of its members. 

BritislTr C ^° rt ’ ^ ub Ii sbed in October 1949, was accepted by the 
its recnm Vcn ™f nt - ^his however did not prevent them distorting 
tution ““ end , atl0ns beyond recognition. When the final Consti- 
members ’ instead the chiefs choosing one-third of the 
five memVip ^ '1 616 now t0 e ^ ect thirty-seven as compared to the 
thirtv-thrpp u' 10 WCre t0 be c hosen by direct election and the 
colleges In nddV WCrC , t0 be c h° sen indirectly through electoral 
to be two vnt" * '°r t0 t lC mem hers chosen by the chiefs there were 

ecu d speak Tut Lf r ° P f n members ^ vith four subs “ wh ° 
the Chamber V ° te) re P resent ing the Chamber of Mines and 
appointed bv tb ™ merce an d the three ex-officio British officials 

C o„V„f theT” 0 ;- Th r.' ev “ if a P»P“'” P-J- 10 

would not command ^ ! ndlrectl y elected seat3 , they still 
chiefs, the Euroneanc a J° nt y m the Legislature provided the 
CPP denounced Jw and ***? ° ffidals voted together. When the 
accused of trvimr t ^ ro P osa s as ‘fraudulent and bogus’ they were 
experiment’. In such rlrn? ° tage * car ® fu Uy planned democratic 
CPP to implement ttm mst ances nothing remained except for the 
to the United Gold rr f r °f^ amme which Dr Nkrumah had proposed 
and which had been rT vention’s Executive in February 1948 
programme wffichTaflT 1 ^ ^ 1116 Watson Commission as ‘a 

technique of countries u- an J' lar to those who have studied the 

enslavement’ to organ - ' ^ m ' e fallen victims to Communist 

when all else failed m ° n , a . mass basis, to demonstrate and, 

„ Such w the sitSoS " rA* b t 3 S ” fe ' 

Avemda Hotel. I was stri t- u ta bed that night in the bar of the 
was fortified with the ve ° ’h Z’ 3nd ' C was an impression which 
the need of continuitv Nn Nkruma h’s preoccupation with 

nature of chieftaincv but t, ° nC . new better than he the reactionary 
3 bUt he Wls hed to reform it and not to destroy 



THE COLONIAL COLLAPSE 115 

it. The aloof intellectuals of the Aborigines Rights Protection 
Society were needed to provide professional and technical skill and 
he must therefore win them over. He deeply distrusted the economic 
conceptions of the British Civil Servants but he had come to realize 
that it would be impossible immediately to replace them. He must 
devise a policy under which they and the CPP could work together. 
Above all he wanted to begin the struggle for independence from 
the basis of a Constitution which was agreed by all groups of the 
existing Gold Coast society. To him law and order ultimately 
depended, not on the control of the military or police forces, but 
upon the existence of the system of Government which was freely 
accepted. 

If the chiefs and intellectuals had had any understanding of the 
extent of popular support in the country for the CPP they would at 
this time have negotiated with Dr Nkrumah a compromise which 
could have been favourable to them. As it was, they overplayed their 
hand and the division between a great section of the intellectual 
class and the popular movement was widened into a gulf never 
subsequently to be bridged. The Aborigines Rights Protection 
Society, which for over twenty-five years had fought against 
Indirect Rule, would have nothing to do with the CPP type of 
agitation against it. Sir Tsibu Darku denounced Dr Nkrumah at the 
Joint Provincial Council of Chiefs and Dr Danquah who, two years 
before, had been imprisoned as a ‘communist’, came out in favour 
of the Colonial authorities. ‘It is my opinion,’ he said, ‘that those 
who go against constitutional authority must expect to pay for it 
with their neck.’ It was at this stage that Dr Nkrumah made his 
famous speech about the chiefs in which he said that if they did not 
co-operate with the people the day would come when they ‘will run 
away and leave their sandals behind them’. This graphic phrase was 
to be quoted again and again by the opponents of the CPP. In fact, 
the chiefs had long before he spoke run away ‘leaving their sandals’ 
— the traditional mark of their status — behind them. They had done 
so when they abandoned the ideals of the Fanti Confederation and 
sided with the Colonial power. 

At this time, on my first visit, I certainly did not understand 
either the implications of Gold Coast history of the past or what 
would be their likely reflection in the future. Had I done so, I might 
have put up a much more convincing argument to Mr MacDonald- 



Il6 R EAP THE WHIRLWIND 

Smith. He too might have listened more sympathetically, if he could 
ave oreseen the future. When I met him again he was one of the 
most senior of Civil Servants— the Chief Regional Officer of the 
or tern crritories. He was then working for the last of Dr 
■ uma s pre-mdependcnce Governments and I was Consti- 
lona user and had travelled to Tamale, the Northern capital, 
aS , t0 consu t; Tactfully, I tried to lead the conversation 
Tntn • ? ° Ur P revi ° us meeting which had so influenced my views on 
Thp ^ rs j ^ was not that he did not want to talk about it. 

The mcident had completely passed from his mind. 

Cnnrr , ,u° m , eet dle la ')? cr Thomas Hutton-Mills at the Supreme 
Mr Miln ^ rC u ''? s .'y aitin S to take any message I might have from 
wi„ j 0na ^Smtth to Dr Nkrumah. He told me he would be in 
from nnr° Wn 1C ^ W ° U ^ bc ’ ke was firmly convinced, a protection 
concern n ! T ^ !° ng 25 he wore them. It was in this great 
of its nerinH' C l aSS n a b “! ld!n B> typical of the Colonial architecture 
trousers bewia° ? d Ga aristocrat in black coat and striped 
mission ' Tli uPi a » d gowned, that I explained the failure of my 
S h K d ? “?'«'<! it- The last I saw of him was in the 
sanctuarv to o S . V Iscar ^ his protective clothing and quitted his 
•nd 

Gold Coast fbr’jf atL ! rda ^ the 2Ist January, I left. I had been in the 
very wrong but I had 611 dayS ' By now 1 knew that something was 
dteVoiau'S “ Ti C “ !?“ 0f !“"' “ r« h than 
police truck Dulled w ' V s * Was beln B driven to the airport, a 

Something diverted thTLr^ 3 P risoner was taken out ofit ' 

It was Kwame of hls *** a *d ^ waved to me. 

to begin with a sentence of thrf ^ ^ “ C(>existence wa s about 
nee ot three years’ imprisonment. 



CHAPTER FOUR 


INTERREGNUM OF LOST OPPORTUNITY 


By chance again, some five months after my first visit, I found 
myself once more in Accra with time to spare. In 1950 I had been 
appointed King’s Counsel and it happened that a large commercial 
concern had some legal business in the Colony capital. Their 
solicitors were instructed to find a KC who was also a member of 
the Gold Coast Bar to discuss it with their local lawyers. At the 
time, I was one of the few KCs in practice who was so qualified, but 
again, it was a lucky chance since all one had to do to become 
enrolled as a legal practitioner in the Colony was to present a 
Certificate of Call to the English Bar and pay £30. Had this been 
more widely realized it is probable that someone with better 
experience for the particular job would have been chosen. However 
this may be, this lucky assignment gave me the chance to spend the 
whole of the 1950 Parliamentary Whitsun recess in West Africa 
and, since the work involved only took a day or so, it gave me time 
to visit the Gold Coast generally and talk with a cross-section of 
officials, politicians and chiefs. It was then I seriously got down to 
studying West African politics and began, I thought, to understand 
something of the situation. 

Among the odds and ends which survived from this trip is an 
envelope on the back of which I see I have scribbled CPP compare 
with Jacobins’, ‘Asantehene— Freemasonry and Anthropology’, 
‘The Royal Labour Party’ and ‘Lugard— The Ulster Volunteers’. 
Perhaps they were notes for an article which I never wrote but I can, 
from them, I think, reconstruct what I must have thought at the 
time. 

Dr Nkrumah was in prison, as were most of the others who had 
visited me at the Avenida on my previous stay. At the Accra head- 
quarters of the CPP I found only Archie Casely-Hayford, one of its 
few leaders then out of jail. It was this meeting with him that first 
gave me the idea of making the Jacobin comparison. Up till then I 
had looked upon the CPP as a kind of Labour Party and ‘Positive 

117 



ii8 


REAP THE WHIRLWIND 


Action as if it had been the General Strike of 1926. After talking 
with him I saw it differently and, looking back on events, perhaps, 
in a sense, correctly. One could make a comparison between Dr 
Nkrumah and, say, Harold Laski. Both had come to politics from 
an academic background. Both were Marxists. In general however 
the CPP leadership had been thrown up by social pressures 
entirely different from those which had produced the Labour Part}’. 
1 heir leadership consequently had an attitude to politics to which 
it was not possible to find a British Labour parallel. The British 
General Strike had been an attempt to use industrial action for a 
limited political purpose, to force the Government of the day to 
reorganize the coal mining industry. Superficially Positive Action 
uas a similar attempt to gain by a non-violent disruption of civil 
life an equally limited objective, the calling of a fully representative 
Constitutional Conference. Neither had attained its purpose. There 
^ as t us t us similarity, but the carefully organized British General 
, " ? ", as ’ 111 reaIit y. otherwise entirely dissimilar. Its leadership 
a ou ts as to its constitutional propriety and its failure to secure 

rnnrrTcf ani * .^'spirited the Party. Positive Action, in 

Cnlnn' S v 3 - a ^' sor S an ‘ ze d but a violent protest against 

immam i h3t 11 did n0t sccure its ^mediate object was 

Cpp'v i ' S on £~ term effect was to create the conditions for the 
cantm-p nf C M, Ct0ra . victor )'- The better comparison was the 

which nrule lT* ?' lkar ' lly no importance but a gesture 
strath w^?.l de3r t0 the ruii "S class that a new force, of a 

order in dissoluZ * 1 Cy . I ? ust rec ^ on , had entered politics. The old 
El ^dc^: S nC "' CCmrC ° f P— anS * ^ gravitated 

Kwame Nkrmml ^ asc b'~Ha} ford was the antithesis of 

mXionan Z n i C aristocrat >’« a man born to be a 

grandfather had if * lc ® ad b' an d reluctantly iicccpted his role. His 

members "of the *£ ^ H ^ ° f thc 

authorities had arr,.ct t i 1 ^ t ' ratl0n Cabinet whom the Colonial 
founder of the West Africa' 5 s/ ^ r ’ f°! 5 ph Casely-Hayford, was the 

wrote George Pad mor oTh u 1131 ‘ In man >' rcs P ccts ’’ 

preparing the ? or ! hc * as a *°« of John the Baptist, 
terms of his sociafbacl-T " atlonall st leaders ... Judged in 

worked Caselv-Havforf r0Un an ^t lc P er *°d in which he lived and 
uas undoubtedly the greatest national 



INTERREGNUM OF LOST OPPORTUNE 

poHdcal leader and social Se' To prepare 

Educated in an English public sc . j aw an d economics 

Clate College, Cambridge, taking **«» “_7, Cambridge MA 
and— typical touch of the F ^ clmvn payment without 

procurable, as those from Oxfor yj d, [ ie returned to public 
examination. Called to the Engl.* as j senior magistrate, 

service in the Gold Coast and by >947 ' “ ” sen 
Nevertheless the family tradition wa Ho su J. he 

When die United Gold ^‘^“ganiaation split he had 
resigned his office to join it an t 00 res p e ctable a 

no hesitation in throwing in ta lot the Led. 1 V 
figure of the African establishment . to be ^ J thth e working 
authorities he nevertheless me ° i J for Vi , hnm he rushed from 
class and peasant rank and he without fee when they were 

place to place in the Colony to defend ™*°f moment of Indepe „- 
charged with political offences. Krobo Edusei addressed the 

deuce, Dr Nkrumah, Ko,o Ilotsm and Kmbo t p <, _,p rlson 

jubilant crowds wearing prison caps beside the m, 

Graduate’-Archie with the 

wearing a kind of Boys’, 

initials D. V. B.-‘Defender of the V the belief of the 

Yet he was revolutionary 1 c nc ; a h s t nor had he any clear idea 
necessity of revolution. He was n order. About one thing 

of what should be substituted for^ ^ ^ and must b e 

only he was certain, die sacrifice prestige, position and 

destroyed and he would, sensitive and too considerate, 

fortune to achieve it- Altogether t ^ advent of the first Nkrumah 

though always in the Cabinet, f never seemed to be 

Government until after held. In the end there was 

successful in any of the ^ 1 ., reputa tion to cling to office. Once 
no question of his using his tamiy ^ he quietly resigned and 

he was convinced that he ' q^e harsh reality of events after 

returned to practice m the L-oU m reyolutionary dreams and 

Independence destroyed h s ro oyerthrew President Nkru- 

when the National Libera of wors hippers to the Anglican 

mah he headed the P r Qod for tbe deliverance. The parallel 
Cathedral who came to than 



121 


INTERREGNUM OF LOST OPPORTUNITY 

nection would otherwise have given «"> ‘"M" ^"i n Sc^ 

Archie Casely-Hayford, he '' a ^°^" CC t i ona i an d constitutional 
dence could never be won by the con 

methods which had been attempted and F ”^ d . JJ 1 . P f ^ 0 i d 
Asm.. Ofori Ana had no faith in the ability ° : ■«< 

style chiefs. National independence to him cotdd^only As 

removing them from any real p , , ^ dence he was able to 
Minister of Local Government af P fc • c had done in t h e 

manipulate chiefs as adroitly as th hinftoo, there was no 

past but with much greater effect. For him too, 

parallel in the British Labour Party. ^ ^1. Halm, then the 

Typical of another section of theCJ^^ ^ ^ United States 

Party Treasurer and afterwards of Ghana . He had started life 
and ultimately Governor of the he branched out on 

as a storekeeper for a European fir a CTen eral merchant. He 

his own account as ^^ f °G tanatan (rate who felt dm. his 
was an example of that class u of expatriate tradmg 

business was being strangled f aw yers and intellectuals 

monopolies and he had no confid riaht. He had been 

of the United Gold Coast Convention ^ >P*^ sn | when the split 
treasurer of die Accra Branch of die UGCC ^ ^ ^ 

Simet rftt- ^ *“* ' >i,h 

Kwamc Nkrumah. als0 in prison at the time of my 

Krobo Edusei on the other hand a ^ cu]!otte of the 

second visit to the Gold Coast, ^ ° ^ntr-dass origin and in his 
eighteenth-century mould bot in ^anti, he had existed on 

opposition to sociahsm. A P°° a ovi ncial newspaper and 

the verge of povertyasa deb ^ drugs . He had been m i 9+7 

as an itinerant pedlar or anu Youth Organization aimed at 

one of the founders of the ^Ashanti Confederacy; and during 
opposing the feudal power o ^ ^ ad set U p his own Courts to 
Nii Bonne’s boycott campaign ■ pjjs supporters were essential 

enforce it in opposition to f. f 00t hig in Ashanti. They' were 
to the CPP if they “ obtam l‘ lm g ,0 the class of ‘Elders’ or 
drawn from all those nho r hiefs and sub-chiefs were chos< 



122 


K LAI 1 Till. WJUKt.V, INI) 


and the Noting men in tiuir As.ifu companies had nude and unmade 
the chiefs ol Ashanti. I lis ambition was t<> destroy the feudal system 
nl the Gold Gust and to suhstitutc a regime in which careers were 
open to all the talents. In eighteenth-century h'rance he would have 
done well out ol the Directory, lie had no particular heliei in 
Parliamentary democracy and no rooted objection to the use of 
force hut lie was a sincere egalitarian, and liberty, equality and 
fraternity summed up his political philosuphv. Hut the equality he 
supported was an equality ol opportunity and not of income, lhs 
wiles Golden lied’ was the retort of the former under-privileged 
Ashanti to the mystic cover fur feudal exploitation which the 
Golden Stool had come to symbolize. 

1 odas 1 would qualify considerably my Jacobin comparison. In 
essence the Jacobins were a Party with a nineteenth-century liberal 
ideology, supported In a city population of workers and small 
tradesmen. I he GPP was, in its final analysis, a peasant party, 
.u ropean experience always leads us to suppose that peasants 
everywhere are conservative hut this was not so in the Gold Gust 
lor reasons which apply in other parts of Africa also. In the first 
p ace, there was no land problem as such, in that there still existed 
areas of unoccupied and unused soil, though this could only be 
brought into cultivation by coninum.il ctfort in clearing and planting 
u. In the second plate the peasants had evolved their own com- 
munal organizations which sought to inlluencc politically the central 
ac ministration and the local authorities to provide them with feeder 
roads, water and the other amenities nccevurv to develop their 

l.irnic - 4 


1 lie Gold Giast peasant did not look upon the Government as a 
potential enemy but as an organ he must be able to influence if he 
t *•? P r(3 o rcss * mure important, there was not in Ghana any 
; . 1 10 ! ia l - * lc farming which, from its unchanging nature, 
turc ;« n a t C ° nSC |-' al,V - e oul * HO ' ; - 1'bc history of Ghanaian agricul- 
oftemft S °r' ° < i ont,nuc<1 adaptation of new plants and cash crops 
more nrofunfl^n S r-' C l 'T c °/ cultivation for another that proved 
included n C • - 1C , Coastuution °f the Fanti Confederation had 
plants ns US ^ ,,ccts 1 * >C endeavour ‘to introduce such new 

the coiintrJ ,a 'Vi' C . rCa i tCr ^ LCOn . lc sourccs of profitable commerce to 
the ni-nriiml • 1C i* U scc l ucnt introduction of cocoa is an example of 
"or ln S out the policy' they had advocated. It was 



INTERREGNUM OF LOST OPPORTUNITY 123 

brought to Ghana by an African h’ack-smi'h 
shie, as recently (from an agricultural point of % m ) _ / 9 

than thirty vears it had overtaken rubber of wh I 
Gold Coast was the largest British cobmal prodt » • • 

rash cop; . reliable feu wta *£ taring 

Tcttch Quarshic s first beans seven \ • 

"His innovation, in ,he ft* 

revolutionized farming in Ghana. In 9 ^ fitnirc was 33 . 2 pcr 

3.2 per cent of Gold Coast exports. \ 9 ^ ^ aU cxports an d the 
cent. By 1920 it had risen to 8- P £ worfd * s requirements. 

Colony was supplying over onc-th most 0 f t h cm illiterate, 

This was achieved by an unaided pe. . ■ - > ant j on 0 f a crop 

who had to learn the handling, g ra mg • t Indies had been 

whose expansion in South America an . j opposition of 

slow and uncertain and this they aoh.'vcd aptnst t ^ IP ^ ^ 
the Colonial administration of the a >- tQ discourage further 
Colonial Director of Agriculture was - ^ dangers of over pro- 
planting and could say in his Repor , m y department for 
duction ... which has been pt cac C > \\'hat he considered over- 
years ... had dawned upon the far ™ er ’ hc crop which ultimately 
production amounted to only a 9 uar e r mo mcnt the farmers, 
Ghana was to produce. Indeed at , erte d to his restrictionist 

whom the Director assumed he ia ut ec0 nomic policy of 

policy, were embarking on a ° 

planned expansion. . «. frnc nt as there is an interval of 

Cocoa farming is a long-term invest ^ ^ theIr bearing. No 
many years between the planting 0 Q>p came to power in 

reliable statistics were kept unti a at x q6o prices, the value of 
1951 but it is possible to estimate > ^ ^ time 0 f this second 
the capital investment in cocoa 1 |\.j Pon or 0V er one-quarter of the 
visit of mine, was at least £225 s later the figure was £361 

total capital stock of the country. to t a l capital stock of Ghana, 
million or nearly one-thir ° undertake such an investment 
Farmers who had the foresign ervat i ve supporters of existing 
with a new cash crop were n ° j ia d organized themselves politi— 
society. Even before the war xny a i oW cocoa price, they 

cally to the extent that, m P , e crop from the market. In fact 
were able to withhold almos 


ill. A l* Till. V. JUKI. WIND 


farmers were better organized for coliectiv c action ami more ready 
for it than were the industrial, minim; ami transport w others who, 
in any case, formed only a small proportion of the population. 
Politics in the Gold Gust and in Ghana alter Independence v.as a 
struggle lor the allegiance of th.c peasant. 

\et to speal. ol ‘peasants’ is to beg the question. There were large 
and small cocoa farmers. Among their ranis were absentee landlords 
and tanners who employed numerous hired labourers. There were 
many peasants in debt to money-lenders but then there were almost 
as many larniers who were money-lenders to their less turtunatc 
neighbours. Nevertheless, despite the fact that the cocoa farmers 
were in no sense a heterogeneous class they all considered them- 
selves oppressed by the Colonial machine, it neither provided the 
technical education nor the scientific services thev required. It 
asserted the political right to control the price of their produce and 
yet refused on political grounds to control the prices they were 
charged for goods they bought. It maintained and acted through a 
system ol chiefs and sub-chiefs, the old democratic control over 
which it had deliberately destroyed, and who now made use of their 
absolute rule to exploit and milch the farmer. In pre-war years, 
when cocoa beans were bought for around ten shillings a ‘load’ of 
r° lbs, chiefs were imposing levies of up to ys. qd. a load. 

t .v . ? f rmcl ^ Ruih C0,,1L ' to challenge all tile old values. They 
)c icve t lemselves, on the basis ol the experience of what they had 
achieved, capable ol self government. It was thev, not the British, 
who had created the cocoa industry. Vet it was the British who now 
tried to take the profits. Gdonial administration gave them nothing 
culturally, economically or politically. A continuation of a similar 
system under African rule with the chiefs still in power, which was 
Si i USS ?’ r Con V n,,tcc Rc P«« proposed, was to them 
thereto ? ,1 lbcir as P‘ ral ' ons - It was by no mere chance 

one ml!, • , r Mrumah should be the unchallenged leader of the 
release fro " ' C °. U 1 coninia, ul mass support. When, after his 

•* sq < m ^ ni ? n m *95 Nkrumah proclaimed himself once 
i.„ 3S o n , on , cno j , ]inational Christian and a scientific Marxist’ 
abou lei ‘ d M Wh, . ch thc T "-anted. Thev might not know much 

tsc~ Marx f m ’ but at k>ast toy knew from colonial 

munists vver^tG^ 111 ^ tbat ,Mar -\ istJ >’. socialists and com- 
>e enemies of the chief and opposed colonial rule. 



INTERREGNUM OF LOST OPPORTUNITY 125 

This was for them sufficient credentials. As for non denominate 
Christianity’ this did have a revolutionary 1111^ European 

Christianity as a religion of revolt t lsS ° r e C s unnoticed. Yet it was 

conception that its impact on Africa g the Marxists who 

the non-denominational Christians an ti-Colonialism of the 

had provided much of the ideology ig that 0 f an oppressed 

previous generation. The stoiy of soc i e ties, had a past history 

people who, like so many African ilderness an d who found a 

of migration and wandering in tn i east spiritually, over 

moral code rvhich m the end L jk the 

Rome, the greatest of the Impena p a j ea der within their 

Israelites, were the Africans not destine would lead them to 

own ranks who, under supernatura gu | 0( j where the chiefs 
the promised land? In the au th Q rity the language of 

symbolized both spiritual and s wonder the language of 

politics and of religion were the sa ® e " .1 at pj r Nkrumah should, 
CPP propaganda had its biblica ec 0 j u tionaries, have used a 

like the seventeenth-century European The important 

scriptural phrase to give point to nQt wb ether this direct 
question from the historical aspe , ern nee ds was offensive to 
relating of religious phraseology 0 conveyed was politically 

Western ears but whether the thought tn 

viable. . Dr Nkrumah had said, 

Visiting Northern Ghana m political Kingdom and all 

‘Wherefore my advice is “seek ye nrs ^ a mistaken order of 

things will be added unto you ' , - ns being repeated. Had the 

priorities? Was the error of the jae over i 00 ked by paying too 
danger of the ‘whiff of grapestiot r ofthe word so above 

much heed to a faith which P a Nkrumah be still m office if 

that ofthe sword? Would m taci 1 denominational Christianity 

he had forgotten the part . abo t Alternative ly, should he have 
nek to scientific Marns • concen trated on building a 

given up any idea of socialism ^ ^ of non-denominatic ' 


and stuck ro suenu** . .. n( j concent — — — - — — .. 6 a. 

given up any idea of sociahsin ^ of ^denominational 

community inspired by th NeW England Colonies of the 
Christianity as had inspired 1 ies- So to pose the question 
seventeenth and eighteenth cen & subconsC ious attempt to lay 
underestimates the pr° bk f d one without appreciation of the 
down what should have bem that Ghana, complete with the CPP 
objective situation. It is assu 



INTERREGNUM OF LOST OPPORTUNITY 127 

Indirect Rule. In the Gold Coast its adherents numbered perhaps 
ten per cent of the population but they were mainly ' “A 

North and to .he working-class quarters 

lived in tvhat were almost ghettoes. the so-called Moslem Zongos 
Christiantty was a Colonial importation but it ha l« “ 
provide that Colonialist ideology which m the P® l« f ^ 
occupation of Africa and the assumption y the religious 

burden. In the Gold Coast of : 1950 theAngh. can^ a ■ 

°h^“dhS ^ f a tota, population “3 

five an/ six million. ^ a 'l^^j^^^/]rreiml/coloniannfluence 
in the previous century Catholicism a • Uganda 

went hand in hand. There had even "//"nd'thus 

in which Lugard had f ™ g ’ t 0 " T1 . Gald Coast Catholic clergy 

secured the territory for Br®.m ^ ^ ^ only 30 we[e 

were largely European. Of IB 24S : ( ' Qnada and France were 

African but its missionaries from ’ ■ • , Colonial rule than 

not necessarily more mdu J e ^°^ s0 a l s0 of the Methodists and 
those they sought to converu Th ^ largdy African- 

the Presbyterians whose church rnncernec l they went back to 
run. So far as the Presbyterians w brought to the Gold 

the Basel mission which had 0^^^^ from Switzer land and 
Coast by the Danish Cotaa ' 0 f Colonial thinking. From the 

they had never accepted the pr African languages. They used 

firs, .hey had taught and 1 ^,^ as as .857. L « 
scriptures translated into an P for those alrea dy associated to 
true the other churches only nce j n that their services and 

some degree with the ^ lish (except for, of course, the 

teaching were almost entire Y , f the Methodists worked m the 
Catholics’ Latin liturgy) hu , & anti _ colon ; a i. The greatest of 

colonial tongue, their orl S) n - es was a ma n of mixed African 
their nineteenth-century mis ^ believed that a European name 
descent, Francis Birch Freeman. com memorated, if in nothing 

was an ingredient of salvation a n0 English blood but who 

else, by the numerous fami . surnam e. Yet he too was no 
have adopted a British or 

enthusiast for white rule. ^ad at j eas t their British counter- 

Outside these churches, wn u d c Zion i st ’ an d ‘Ethiopian’ 

parts, there were a number of the so 



128 


REAP THE WHIRLWIND 


communities which had in Central and East Africa in the inter-war 
years been the centres of anti-colonial agitation and open rebellion. 
In 1952 in the Belgian Congo there were 3,818 members of these 
sects in jail on account of their political activities. The Kitawale — 
the name is an Africanization of the ‘Watchtower Movement’, the 


missionary arm of Jehovah’s Witnesses — was officially banned in 
Nyasaland, Northern Rhodesia and Katanga, and their leader 
Mwana Lesa (meaning ‘Son of God’) was hanged in Southern 
Rhodesia in 1926. John Chilembwe, who led the Shires Highland 
Rising in Nyasaland in 1915, had belonged to this same group of 
churches. In Ghana they w’ere not so important either numerically 
or politically, yet the Musama Disco Christo Church which accepted 
polygamy and equated its head to a Chief had a membership of 
almost half that of the Anglicans. 

The importance of Christianity was not its numerical strength. Its 
nominal adherents were not greatly in excess of the Moslems and 
nowhere numbered more than one in five in the population. In the 
Gold Coast, unlike other parts of Africa, it had no record of militant 
anti-colonialism. Its value was as a coherent alternative to the con- 
use mass of animist faiths w'hose basis had been shattered by 
Indirect Rule. Originally the chief had been the religious leader of 
is people and he enforced secular law by spiritual sanctions. 
Colonial officials accepted without question Islamic belief in the 
same way as they acknowledged other Christian faiths to which they 
emse ves did not subscribe, but the practice of animism, in many 
ways more ethical than Christianity, they dismissed as barbarism, 
is sacre ro e m the community, the chief w'as told, was best 
e ega e to the background if not abandoned altogether. His 
!w St ^ P 05 ’ ltl0n > a ^ rea dy thus undermined by his masters, w r as 
1 r °y e a t pS et: e r when he was forced, by the close connection 
.f 11 f r , lt r ai \ customary law and religious belief, to use the 

had E f 115 faitla t0 enforce Colonial dictates. African religion 
nad therefore to seek new outlets. 

a ^ al \ ce f° r African private enterprise. In the inter-war 
sionallv ^ S ° so_ c a ^ e< i ‘new shrines’ were established, occa- 
a Dersnrnl n endeavour, but generally by individuals on 

of these n!T 7 ma ^ n o basis. During and after the war the number 
grew tn ^ nanc fd spiritual and temporal advice bureaus 

° gigantic proportions in response to a need the old chiefly 



interregnum of lost opportunity 129 

religion could no longer fulfil and sS^o^pV 

sionary churches lacked the sympathy or^ersten rf ^ 

Later the Government attempte ^ practitioners of native 

owners by making them register as ‘private “ qot of these 
medicine’.. By the time of Independence ’ and Ashanti 

practitioners had been licensed m e 5 . tors 0 f ‘ ne w shrines’ 

alone. Not all of them would have been p , f P ld be Contempor- 

but it might be fair to say that ‘mcWTj ^ on l y 407 
aneously in all the Christian faiths 

ordained clergy. . , , p t0 see k advice on the 

To these ‘new shrines’ pilgrims wou j n trans ition. They 

many problems which must arise m a would be granted 

would ask for protection and b & ' n steal commit adultery, 

conditionally on the suppliant agreeing Above all, he had to 

bear false witness, or curse, anot er P magic against others 

agree not to possess bad talismans, m provide sustenance for 

nor engage in witchcraft. Fina Y> ® ^ - n or ru m. The ancient 

the deity, usually a sheep and a sneaking, unexceptional;. but 

virtues, thus enjoined, were, genera y .Jems 0 f t he new society, 
they were not expanded to cope wi , - est recounted by Dr 

as one short success story of a ‘new stone rf rural Ghana, 

Margaret Field in her ethno-psych of which sh e made a 

Search for Security, shows. servant who, despite his goo 

field study had as a client, a “ s 0 f life: 
salary, felt he was not making 

“T can see no prosperity for you in your 
‘The possessed priest said, fortune for you only if Y<> u Re- 
present work; there seems to be go to , g ^ of the lowliest 

come a palm-wine tapper. . No , P .. P comc -down for a scholar 
and least lucrative occupations-^^ However on the way home 

—and the suppliant went away tools an d on arrival gave in 1 

he reluctantly bought palm-tapP Less than a year later he 

resignation and started the nev wld his tale, as follows, 

appeared again at the shrine amto* by a snake He ran 

One day when at work m the Just as he reached it the 

at random, towards a nearby^ momC nt a lorry sp«* fast. Out of 
snake gave up the chase an^that r> fc „ a large suitcase 

the back of the lorry, « nnot ‘ CC j J thousan ds of pounds-worth. 
crammed full of treasury notes 



130 


REAP THE WHIRLWIND 


When later a dispute arose between the police and the army over 
the investigation of the first bomb attack on President Nkrumah, I 
was called in as a sort of impartial arbitrator and came across a 
similar case. A Sergeant-Major Tettch in charge of the central army 
ammunition depot was suspected of providing the grenades for the 
attack. When he was being questioned at the Central Police Head- 
quarters he fell from a fourth-floor window and was killed. The 
Army were, in private, accusing the police of having murdered him 
to cover up their own complicity and it was essential to get some 
urther evidence about the character of Sergeant-Major Tetteh in 
general. In consequence, it was decided to search the files at a ‘new 

S n'T w ^ ere went f° r advice. We found the Priest’s case notes 
which set down his problem and the advice given him. They did not 
help us over the grenades but they did show that Tetteh had been 
systematically stealing from Government stores. The Priest’s case 
oo s owed that Tetteh had come to ask the deity to ‘protect’ his 
accomplices, who included a senior officer, and ‘catch hold’ of those 
on ns trail It was the close association of the army with shrines of 
is s °rt which facilitated the organization of the mutiny. Suitably 
rewarded priests pronounced mutiny to be a duty and warned those 
who would not take part that the god ‘would catch them’, 
tin on T cllllon among the new shrine proprietors led to the inven- 
0 oiore an c more powerful deities who would condemn an 

nrnpp« n ti! °f! a cut rate ^ ee - Dr Field has thus described the 

infliipnnp ft °r S oc ^ s who had been ousted through the 

with nnsit? n ir£ - Ct ^ e \ s ^ e points out, ‘were concerned mainly 
beintr’ essm 2 s ra ' n : health, fertility, tribal peace and well 

other ritec Wr P n< ~ sts practice was to offer ‘dignified prayer and 
on behalf of 1 ; 0 °? behalf of the tribes’ annual festivals but also 

these Driest*; e Ua ^ sou ght help in sickness or trouble’, but 

approachinsr vi r ,^ le ^ notes , by the time independence was 
approaching, considered inadequate for modern needs’. 

summed^sTp n bytyinr<Vf Ul ° gi2inS **“ deity Mframa ’ 

because Mframa can kill” Tbf™™ than the ° W ° n f S ’ 

whose estahlict, r " name chosen for another new deity 

“ 1 ***** “Kofi the Lion tvho Kills 
a name calculated to attract flocks of customers.’ 

t was against this background that the CPP’s expressed adulation 



interregnum of lost opportunity 131 

of their leader, tvhich Western sympathies ° c 5engi 

must be judged. ‘Nkrumah will never ess j t W as a declar- 

to the ‘new shrine’ proprietor s pre en P . t h e p ar ty had 
ation, in language understandable to his daMg; 
a Leader who was impervious to magic shrines’, the 

Nevertheless, however much nee ds 

old national religions were a pa fai i e( j t0 meet. At their 

which mission-taught Christianity not an 

best they presented a world philosophy p ™^ hrough it of his 
individual but the servant of his ami 7 0 -y e j^Ian could only 
community. Personal salvation was impossible. 

logy and the superstitions of the ne T[ lyes f or converts to tackle 
were too busy competing among . eenera l 0 f Christianity 

the greater problem of the reconci shrines ’ which won. 

and African belief. In the end revolt my wife saw carried 

When I was in prison, after the military effi( \ es y of Dr Nkrumah 

through the streets of Accra S r ° displayed, being taken to 

dressed in European clothes an From the Methodists alone 

mock burials in the Christian cen J e . r t hi s a dvertised surrender 
came any really forceful denunciation 0 styl e witch- 

b, the missionary churches to the 

craft. _ f on my envelope referred to my 

The next two pencilled comm -p| ic first of these ‘Asante- 

assessment of the opposition to , ose f remember, from a 

hene-Freemasonry and An tfe Chief Justice at the 
cocktail party given by Sir 1 , j n his vouth, had served m the 

time. He had been a brilliant scho ^ bccn an international 

Flying Corps in the first wo * who tried Halaby’s case, 
rugby player and belonge , 1 ; n the British Colonial Civi 

to an important and distincti ? ion _ Hc had been an under- 

Service, the Irish P^f^bUn during the Sinn Fein struggle for 
graduate at Trinity Colleg treatv negotiations between the 

independence and the ^^“'d it /l got the strong impression 
British and the rebels whic t0 scc t hc same thing happen 

that he had not come to the Oom 



REAP THE WHIRLWIND 


there. It was at his home that I first met Otumfuo Sir Osei Agyeman 
Prempeh II, Asantehene and a direct matrilineal descendant of the 
family of Osei Tutu who founded the Ashanti Empire in the early 
eighteenth century and to whom that famous Priest and patriot, 
Okomfu Anokye, had delivered the Golden Stool which contained 
the spirit of the whole Ashanti nation. The Asantehene was in a 
dinner jacket and very much at home. He had come to the capital to 
attend the Lodge meeting of Accra’s Freemasons. Why not? 
Perhaps in this white man’s ‘new shrine’ he would find among its 
European juju the synthesis of culture and superstition which he 
sought. 

The Asantehene had been born in 1892 when the old Ashanti 
Confederacy was still in existence as an independent state but in the 
last stages of its dissolution. As a child of four he lived through the 
last of the Ashanti wars, the invasion of his capital and the des- 
truction of its sacred groves and the capture, imprisonment and exile 
of his predecessor in office, his uncle Nana Kwaku Dua III and 
other members of the Prempeh ruling family to which he belonged. 
As a child walking through the streets of Kumasi he must have seen 
t e piles of human bones that still littered the Ashanti execution 
ground and photographs of which, to emphasize die superiority of 
British rule hung at the time of this visit of mine in the office of the 
0 oma hief Regional Officer. When he was eight years old he 
witnesse the last attempt by the Ashanti people to dirow off 
rms ru e, a revolt led by an old and frail woman, Yaa Asantewa, 

r° cr . °| tke sma H Ashanti state of Ejisu, whose grandson, 
its chiet had been deposed with the Prempeh’s. Her troops 
esiege t e overnor of the Gold Coast for two months in the 

anc i for nearl f a y ear > Ashanti reasserted its indepen- 
1C , antehene had seen the subsequent annexation of his 

aristocracy ^ rem ° Va ^ P ° Wer of dle remainder of the Ashanti 

andlll™ t0 ''V recentl y opened Wesleyan School in Kumasi 
elementm-v^H St0I ! eke ®P er ' Denied anything but the most limited 
federation^ i? < n ^ ^ gasped the secret of the Fanti Con- 
Chief anri i t n 6n ^ ^°D n ial domination, the partnership of 
Asallo nT TT tUaL In ^ l6 he Was °»e of the founders of the 
object was ° nominall y a hterary society, but whose real 

) campaigning against the then Colonial opposition to 



INTERREGNUM OF LOST OPPORTUNITY 133 

traditional role in ^hanti- When .01925, “ Rvata 

Seychelles and was once again “ of town of 
position, as Prempeh I, Kumasmenc, 

Kumasi, it was, in ^anTwars were too recent to allow the im- 
The memories of e Ashant i Confederacy; but gradually, 

mediate restoration of tration re-created in the interests 

piece by piece, the British adminis demolished a 

of Indirect Rule the old feudal structure they had 

quarter of a century before. Whenin ^ 3 * domship of Kumasi who 
was made for a candidate for t ^ of j n di rect Rule than 

would fit more appropriately int ^ M{ Qn hig 

did the exiled warrior mg. as Inc lirect Rule developed, 

storekeeper nephew. Four year , j Con f e deration and 

the British Government restored ^ ^ ^ he 

Osei Agyeman Prempeh becam were revived in make-belief, 
was knighted. All the old milita Y hosts was re - C reated. 

The old order of battle of tbe Jf ba ^J mand er of the advance 
There was the Abontenbe p nC Comman der of the ring wing, and so 
guard, the Bechunhene—the Ashanti the symbol of 

forth. The ‘Golden Stool’ rit soleuudy m ite ^ 

unity and the Asantehene could one ^ D ^ onstituted ^ chiefg ^ 

his council of war, cons 3 ™® Executioner was revived if only 
Kumasi. Even the office of the Asan tehene could no 

m a nominal capacity. L ? n ^ KiUs Thousands’. Still, all 
longer compete with ^ on “ . , were t he troops and perhaps even 
that was lacking m make-b ^ Asantehene was ap po i nted 

this was put right m *94 Comman der of the Home Guard. 
Lieut.-Colonel and made tj. by rhe slightest indication 

He kept hsoivn r ’* e saw tough man, of ,heabsu rd " 

that one could see that, may ’ Rule . In 1942, Governor Sir Alan 

ties and contradictions 01 11 h ; s Executive Council The 

Burns wished to appom ^ ^ Governor Burns said ‘‘I can 
Asantehene refused tor r ,^ whatever they were, they have 

well appreciate and und * ukely that the Asantehene made 
never been pubtahri « o ««^ ditioI ,al office of Chiefg 

c * nial sovera eh he had a 



*34 


HEAP THE WHIRLWIND 

strong understanding of his traditional role he had an equally strong 
sense of history and believed it to be his duty and his destiny to 
bring his people free and independent into the twentieth century. 

ut how? The ready-made aristocracy with which he had been 
provided were a shabby lot of absentee landlords, money-lenders 
an speculative builders. Dr K. A. Busia, afterwards to lead the 
opposition to the CPP and himself in theory a strong supporter of 
c le y rule, in a book published in 1951, has thus described them: 

The most noticeable thing that struck me when I began my 
inquiries in Kumasi in 1942 was the considerable intrigue that went 
on regarding constitutional disputes that came before the Con- 
e cracy Council. Bribes were given and received in all such cases. It 

" as so common that everybody knew about it, and everybody talked 
about it. 


A J hC ,^ ante , hcne had suc ceeded, not to the grandeur of the old 
*- n ^ 1™ j Ut mere *y t0 * ts squalor and oppression. Politi- 
S-.L C f cd and turned t0 fi nd a way out and, among his fellow 
1 ' T ? S an . 011 1 e B°lf course, sought guidance as to what he should 
lie tnicTV 3 i?° ! , IU )t dlat ^ rom ma ny of the British officials whom 
cnl! ii C ., a VICC Was t0 resist with all the authority at his 
the wei i he t4- Va c CC of f adlcalism and the CPP, and for this he had 
destoolmcnr r' S n ^uuncd could control the enstoolment and 
chiefs contrnll, A .1 su fi° rd ‘ nate chiefs in Ashanti and since these 
power When p • C °a a . courts “ was a position of considerable 
ubliciv denn, P0S1 l l - C o CUOn Was ann °unced by Dr Nkrumah he 
he was caught * t " deucefonvard until well after Independence 
Kumasi State C m °.^ 0Sl tl0n movements and the machinery of the 

Independence 1,, U f who darcd to support the CPP. After 
the CPP as he h ar °und and became as open a supporter of 

pcriS, ^ t’tw'S ° d f ° PP f n K ntS k dlc pre-independence 
liimself, the Ashantchene i ^ } °. f thls advance his objective? In 

a S<--. A Christian Methodist b!° T™ - 11 ^ contradict 'o ns of his 
head of an ancient an' • r u Pfi nn S'ng, he found himself the 
tools to ffis hand r m ' n , f f V Ic " as a Conner and yet the only 
The bearer of a tradi?" 'i . r . 0 ^ cn f^'cs of discredited feudalism. 

denceand resistance to'ff 13 - Ut ° stood fot national indepen- 
resistancc ,0 foreign rule, he had been raised to power and 



interregnum of LOST OPPORTUNITY 135 

maintained there by those who had looted his capital, destroyed rts 

sacred places and exiled his pre ecessor. visited him in 

A few days after the Chief Justice’s . place 

his capital. I wanted to talk the tradrnonal nder an ^ ^ ^ 

in the new society but he would ^ talked about anthro- 

think back on it, how could he. - whose books on the 

pology. He had worked with Eva 0 y 0rigin are 

Sacred State of tne Man and an ctudies 0 f West African 

among the most scholarly of all Eu p Town Clerk 

culture. He spoke now of a young man soop . tt be , the ^ 

of Kumasi who would thereafter, he ope , ^j stor y. The truth 
over the scientific study of Ashanti c ^ s 0 ,,, Q f tbe past. Some- 

must lie somewhere if one could read the nddle ot the p 

where must he the secret of the uture. g onne ’ s _ He 

‘The Royal Labour Party ^ 1S ? V3 1 tebene and convinced he 

was as concerned for the future as j^nte ^ Nu Bonne whose 
had as big a part to play m it as e. n ’ of £Vents that led to the 
boycott had set in motion the a certain, know who to 

new constitution. The people wou , ^ tbem the right pro- 

return to power if only he cou the British Labour Party but 
gramme. His plan was for a La ty of the c hief was acknow- 

with a constitution in which tn p chieflv connection it must 

ledged and entrenched. To en JP ha “ p rtv ’ Would I help him to 
therefore be called ‘The Royal Labour Party - 

draft it? his autobiography and from its 

At this time he was also tmsy ^ has the impre ssion that at 
preface, written by Dr K ‘ A ‘ ctuals despairing of the old style 
this time the opposition intel q{ . a new kind of traditional 

chief, were hoping for the emer = ^ Bonne,’ wrote Dr Busia, ‘juts 
ruler. ‘The strong personality^ ^ < an intrepid adventurer with 
out like an impregnable tower- ^ ga jd Dr Busia, as he read Nii 
acute business imagination . ^^ded of ‘Ulysses’ band of brave 
Bonne’s narrative, he was re ^ ^ first c i ear . It was true in his 
mariners’. Why he should o dismisses his matrimonial adven- 
story Nii Bonne introduces a^ ^ hcr o of the Odyssey but this is 
tures with a finality w° rtn > , rcco mmended him to Dr Busia, a 
hardly a quality which cd 0 f Churches. His enthusiasm was 

lay adviser to the M ° rW , subconscious desire for a chiefly 
more likely an expression o 



x 36 reap the whirlwind 

society without chiefs which so many of the intellectual opposition 
were to feel. The Afro-American writer Richard Wright, who 
visited Ghana in the pre-independence period, talked with Dr Busia 
about oath-taking and the pouring of libation, and recorded: 

I had the feeling that he was speaking sincerely, that he could not 
conceivably touch such methods, that he regarded them with loathing, 
and that he did not even relish thinking that anyone else would.’ 

Though the Royal Labour Party came to nothing the Joint 
Provincial Council of Chiefs nominated Nii Bonne as one of their 
representatives in the 1951 Legislative Assembly. He delighted the 
lembers by his ability to illustrate his argument with the thought 
ot Rabelais expressed in the language of Mrs Malaprop. His sayings 
have become legend. One of them, from which unfortunately the 
rst e ernent is absent, has been officially recorded. Complaining 
itter y m the Assembly of the conflicting nature of his chiefly 
duties, he protested : 

?JPf aker ^ Bonne here — Nii Bonne there. How can I division 
myself into twice ?’ 


It was the fitting epitaph for Indirect Rule. 

fiv T ~^'r U l Ster ^°l unt eers’ was my attempt to establish 
C /' E - P°* nt .° re ^ re nce against which to evaluate the existing 
inT/f mi, 3 rr } lmStra , tl0n ' incident I had in mind occurred in 
M,- • Cn , ,. u ? ar ’ ^ en Governor of Northern and Southern 

Northern Ireln C JTT Cnd °^ Sed th . C P ro POsed armed revolt of the 
Home Riii t n • , n . 10nists against the Liberal Government’s Irish 

Volunteer,l LeS V S a u tIOn - Sp ° ke t0 the rebcl force > the Ulster 
the Overseas 1 ^ ^ ^ lnc ‘ denta Hy among them — ‘in the name of 
irmed and aSSUred them ^ their projected 

r ^ g ****& the Em pire from end to end’ 
cation^ifhow I* ^ rTT tbem ^ od s speed’. It was an excellent indi- 
He was an inden^i^^ regarded the office of Colonial Governor, 
sedffious views’ ^ Entitled t0 -press, as in this case, even 
employed him. He PP ° Slt . 10n to thc Government which nominally 
chose to appoint him ’ 1X l/ acC ’ a Politician. If the Government 

accept his policy and h! & G ° Vem ° r oP a Colony then they had to 
was entitled to intrigue behind their back 



interregnum of lost opportunity 137 

with the Opposition or the back mildly 

in order to get that policy throug . h ’ ad nQ hes i tat ion m 

considering, for his Ulster speec > ° with tbe Secretary of 

sending the whole confidential coreep ^ 4J ^ care f u l/ Lugard 
State to Captain Craig, the rebel or „ , rp be f urt h e st he had 

explained to him, ‘not to retract a wor • ^ < ap 0 i 0 gi ze for the 

gone, he pointed out, was, m a pn ’ 

breach of Colonial regulations . discover how far this 

I thought I would begin by attemp j on t h a t the Watson 

Lugard tradition persisted, follow up my (Colonial authorities 

recommendations had been inspire y | s had been so 

locally and try to determine how, 1 > o tate for the Colonies, 

contemptuously treated by the Secremj of Statt alI ^ 

The answer I came to then, and =h ™s to ColonM 

advice I subsequently gave, was t a ■ bad been found. Up 

Governor was gone for ever but no s on t h e S p 0 t’ dictated 

till the second world war perhaps constitutional theory, the 

policy. Now, correctly m accordance . Qn but f ro m there they 

local official looked to Whitehall ford* ^ ^ neithe r then nor 
received no coherent response. ’ was n0 longer defended 

later any thought out policy. ! f J Tr x : st i ns Colonial methods of 
on principle but merely out 0 a • t bey had been tested by 
administration were supported, no ex isted and nothing 

any scientific examination but e nt . In so far as there were 
better could be thought of for the tQ be t0 resist communist 
principles laid down, they a PP® . and rabble rousers an to 

infiltration, to keep in check the a D ua . 

stamp out corruption. orn nired a new meaning. Resisting 

These, in a Colonial context, q n prohibiting any serious 
communist infiltration was takei J working in practice. For example, 
discussion of how colonialism ' : ourne y Africa— Britain s Tur 

I had brought out to read ^ J noted for his anti-com- 

Empire by George Padmore 1, at 4 e t critical 0 f economic 

munist line. While this k °° sa me time a plea for co-operation and 
Colonial policy it was at the 

its concluding passage ran . ■ 

, much to share to their mutual 
‘Both Britons and A fri cans » ^ common pe0 ple of Britain 

advantage. No Colonial can 



REAP THE WHIRLWIND 


without admiring their sterling qualities ... a high degree of self- 
imposed civic discipline: integrity and civility among public servants 
and a sense of fair-play, justice and tolerance, found among no other 
imperial race . . . while Colonials might be anti-imperialists; they 
are never anti-British. Once the present system of Colonialism dis- 
appears, nothing will stand in the way of genuine friendship and soli- 
darity’ between Africa and Britain.’ 

Yet Sir Charles Arden-Clarke’s administration, supposedly’ dedi- 
cated to preparing the Gold Coast for independence, declared 
Padmore s views ‘communist’. The book was proscribed as seditious 
and anyone, including myself, possessing a copy was liable to a long 
term of imprisonment. ‘Agitators and rabble rousers’ were taken to 
mean anyone who sought popular, as opposed to chiefly, support 
or their policies. Thus democracy, while in theory' encouraged, was 
in reality frowned upon. ‘The fight against corruption’ in the end 
01 \ j™ t0 a sa ^ t i’ first policy against entrusting power to any 
new ands in the belief that it must, of necessity', be abused. In the 
na resort, the colonial administrator’s attitude of mind was that of 
jV 1C -iii' 1 ' ] ^ cnsa h Sabah had complained over forty years before, 
we still had not abandoned the idea that ‘aboriginal administra- 
°£: • • was mextricably permeated with corruption’. 

, 1 ’ owe ' er aU might be, in the last resort responsibility’ for 
a went w rong in the Gold Coast and elsewhere in die Colonies in 
other '' aS r ? 1 dlat dle Colonial officials but of myself and 
Colonial v ,aans 1 C T ^.'T as we who had inherited power over a 
it in the n m ^' r r’ 'l ® 1 t ? c l Civil Servants who were paid to administer 

the nowerT * 6 ° =l i m ' S 1 Government which we, and not they, had 
tne power to control. 

Northern . 5 KW l ° ^ Coast I had stopped over in Kano in 
export the ne N C T Cntre of S roun dnut collection, on whose 

detected n oS P ° f N ° T rthem Ni S eria ^pend. At the time I 
and efficient \v" ? Vr0n ®‘ ^ n deed, I was impressed by the detailed 

officiate ^f ChtnV^T 6111 b£ing d ° ne * ** C ° l0nial 
P. T. Bauer whn h a ^ was on ^ r Y ears afterwards when 

myself publisher! IV “l^ ort: ^ e rn Nigeria at the same time as 

really been mine- on\ ^African Trade that I discovered what had 

stayed in Kano eronnH ° Ur ^ aclcs ’ tile particular year that I 
’ groun dnuts were being purchased at the controlled 



interregnum of LOST OPPORTUNITY 139 

price of £21 4s. a ton. In theory, the ftytvS 

Lid price of £,t a ton was •“^*^^„Sted by 
by the Nigerian Government and P t f ac t as Mr 

the Nigerian Ground Nut Mar et * n S , a ton> a l m ost as 
Bauer’s calculations subsequently s 0 > n dnuts, went as a 

much as was paid to the farmer w o gre’v , ^ output at 

profit to the Ministry of Food m Britain which bought 

a controlled price of £53 a ton ’ , no t s top there. Not 

The ramifications of the matter, howev ™ Xt amounted to a 
only was Britain m practice taking m J the official tax of the 

tax of £18 a ton on Nigerian groundnut ^ J ^ surpluses 0 f the 
Nigerian Government was on y A 3 • . on eac h ton of 

Marketing Board in that year, equiva Nigeria and was lent 

groundnuts, was invested in Britain and nom The net 

to the British Government at a very , ^ ^ j n Nigeria, the 

result was that for every ton 0 St navnient made to their own 
Nigerians had, by way of export tax a P bsolute ty or by the way of 
growers, £24 ros., while Britain, ^ ^ this a ll. The pressure to 

low interest loans, took £30 • unpr0C essed groundnuts for 

secure the maximum 4 ua ^. , ta q me nt of local processing. 

British manufacture resulted m ^ s 0 f groundnut oil, 

At one time, Mr Bauer foun f e ?> s staple foods, was four times 
one of the most important 0 o be Ministry of Food, 
that paid in London for simI ar . 0 ' . T^ an0 they had no more idea 
When I talked with the official dmlt purchase worked out in 
than I that this was how the gr ^ that there were not 

practice. They were c0 ] nc f rne i ment but it never crossed their 
sufficient funds for local ev ® , hut had been spirited away by 
minds or mine that the money - su h se quently sometimes been 
the British Government. deliberate scheme by the British 

suggested that this was par t h e burden of austerity rom 

Labour Government to shi peasant and that it was kept 

the British worker to the Mr There is no evidence of 

secret so as not to arouse ° boo b ; which exposed the working 

this. On the contrary, Mr Ba ^ Colonia i office when Arthur 

of the system, was commission^ ) ^ Mf Bauer was only ab le to 
Creech Jones was Secretary ^ the Labour and the succeeding 
produce his facts bcca ”L administration allowed him access to 
Conservative Colonial Office 



M° iu.ap tiu. win m. wind 

their confidential files. Gilonial exploitation, one might think, was 
done almost in absence t>f mind. 

^ el what happened with Nigerian groundnuts in 1950 was no 
isolated incident. It was, as Mr Hauer prosed, part of a general and 
consistent policy applied to all British African Colonial cash crops 
and 1950 was not a particularly notorious scar in this regard. In 
' 9-1 y ~-\h f°r example, tin - Nigerian producers sscrc onlv paid £16 a 
ton for their crop while the British Ministry of Food compulsorily 
purchased it at £31 181. below the market price. In other words the 
British Government, for doing nothing, was making almost twice 
as much out of groundnuts as was the Nigerian grower who actually 
prot ucet them. 1 his was permitted despite the fact that the grower’s 
income in terms of what he could bus with his money, was well 
below what he was earning before the war. In this scar,' out of this 
one crop done from one Gdony, Britain made a profit of £11 
million. I he responsibility must lie with the casual wav those of us 
pohtKs allowed Colonial Affairs to be neglected in Parliament. No 

, n ImU rr" ! ' Uch as ,l,cw? «»«Scd from the Colonial debate in 
the 1 louse of Commons to which 1 returned. 

traditional for the Opposition to delate one of its Parlia- 
short isf-i 3 ^' S - t0 3 > lbCU!,s ‘ on °f tadnni.1l Affairs— -the only occasion 
atrreed rh-ir^?^ !' tbt - '\ crc discussed. It had long been tacitly 
about these '?' UaS n , cvc , r t«> be any sufficient Party dispute 
to fix this* ColniiG*" k! C ' U '- Ul 3 ‘ b ' b, ‘ un - Thus it had become usual 
which Meml UIUa r c . ),llc lor ,bc Tiy of the Roval Garden Party to 
SS “ f ,c " ere insited. Though this did not 
of Members bei! Cln ,ar , r ''ssment, it resulted in onlv a handful 
,n 1 t ,C I C1,3mb(;r * ^ Mrs Phene White 

our Colonial friends’ ' Th* l J". forlun3tc ™P«ssion among some of 
second visit of mine to the Gold T l ° ,' s h , ,ch 1 returned after this 
on a previous 1 , ^° ast R'd, as a result of her protest 

Speaker’s Rccention'f to an alternative date— that of the 

to her previous con 1^ AIc .™ b , crs, » uhi( -'h, as Mrs White returning 

Royal Command’. l?om K icT* n ? Jrd aS bcing ncxt only t0 3 
colleagues agreed with h ltcntianci; it was clear that most of her 
more Member^ 1, resell, t*!, ’ N ? vmkte . there meet have been 
know this because I tried u! ' ' U ’” 10 ' vtrc nailed to speak. 1 

The most I achieved «~k int0 tbc debate myself and failed. 

o interrupt Sir Anthony Eden to make a 



INTERREGNUM OF LOST OPPORTUNITY W 

defence of my progressive Colonial official friends in Northern 

^ Thcuiontrast between the House of Conunons aiuitheGoM BritUh 
where everyone was waiting for a pronounce ^ democracy 

Parliament, was startling. The future shape o mralysed by a 

over which six months before the 

general strike and through which D of impor tance or 

were at that moment in prison, w single sentence by 

interest at Westminster. It was disnussc as Colonial 

Jim Griffiths, the successor of Arthur ^ee J , he toW the 
Secretary. ‘The Report of the Coussey Com . wiggj it is 

House, ‘has already becom ^ f a D f^^h but he was alone and his 
true, argued for the release of Dr N for ^ Minister 0 f State, 

plea was considered too unimport g tQ it in his rep ly to the 

John Dugdale, to make a passing become 

debate. It was left to Alan L=nnrfoyd, lid pend.nce, to put 
Colonial Secretary at the time of Ghanaian 
what was in reality the Government s ca . 

'i1 ‘attacked the whole conception 

‘The Watson Commission, he saw, ion that the African 

of Chieftainship in Africa. It n icu neW CO nstimtional forms. 

Chiefs had a useful function to “ a ver y good thing that it 

It was left, strangely enoug — u \- ss j on composed entirely of 
should happen this way to a c . ca j] e( j in the House of 

Africans . in a Report that was ^ # considerable 

Lords a declaration of faith, to aftr Coast and a big 

,o.e for the best queries * ^^L***.- 
part for the chiefs » Play ^ self . decei)tioE 

Whatever else might have chan^ » s0 when the Watson 

remained intact. The chiefs were Committee of Chiefs and their 
Commission attacked chiefly ™ termine whether this was justified, 
supporters was appointed to e un just it only remained for the 
Once they had pronounce t e ver dict. 

British Parliament to endorse again unt il the beginning of 

I did not go back t0 . the , d chan cred. Colonel Cawston had run 
1952. By then everything na °. g bcence t0 practice law in the 

foul of the Supreme Court, na ^ Ddler had quarrelled over the 
Colony and had left. Tayma ^ Taymani a nd in consequence 
cinema which Deller was to mana a 





KLA1* TIM. WHIRLWIND 


the unfortunate Deller had been prosecuted and deported. The 
cinema itself had burnt down and poor Tavmani, being a Sjrian, 
was accused of Inning done it on purpose. Now his law hooks were 
for sale and he too was no lonuer in Accra. 

In the same way as the riots ol iij^S had come as a complete 
surprise to the Colonial administration so apparentlv did the result 
of the General l.lection. The Ixoumniit's Special Correspondent 
reflected the official view when he had written a dav or so before the 
poll, 1 he CPP should win all the Urban constituencies and a 
proportion of the rural seats . . . they are unlikely to achieve much 
success in the 1 erritorial Councils and the Northern Territory will 
vote solidly against them. It may be assumed that they will com- 
mand about a third of the Assembly. . . Indeed, it was universally 
anticipated that the indirect system of election for the rural 
constituencies under which the electors merely chose an electoral 
co ege must, of necessity, be biased towards a conservative result. 

V c niarb of dl e unanimity of popular feeling that even Nana 
t'.r. M | >U Jr . landing in his own traditional area, was 
, c catc ’ 011 - H ain, ng in his electoral college thirteen votes against 
T ^ i' l - onc cast l°r lus CPI* engine driver trade union opponent, 
n the former territory of the late Sir Nana Ofori Atta 1 chiefly 
influence was still sufficient to secure the return of his brother, Dr 

snvdlicr r Ua - " S b0n William 0fori Atta, though only bv the 
, ° m , a,0 i r ! 11 ?' But in Asl,ami > "»‘«c Dr llusia stood for the 
Convemio, 1 1 t. hl , S .- br o hCr rull;d as ^icf, he was defeated. The 
the dirorrl C °i' V * . an ' " crc cveryw here successful in winning 
confu on I 3 ^ \ nd l rCC,ly dtcl ‘ d ^ais. The disarray and 
tainine a minn”?/ 'r rm) S rcsi, hcd even in their nominees con- 
contained onlv7- °. • u su PP ortcrs - In a Legislative body which 
two nominated llrt ^~ c ‘Sht elected members as compared to fortv- 
Scteen ° nCS ’ U ‘ C CPP fouild themselves in a majority of 

been assumertl^thrclL'sev 5 ’? 1 Pan ? t '°" had bccn niadc ‘ h had 
continuance of Indirect R, ,e ?T lUU ° n W ° uld l ,r0vidc f ° r ,ht ; 
Government Business’ the t’tl ^. 0tler mcans a »d the ‘Leader of 
tive Council in chaS of tie J ^ *° dlC mcmbcr E ^ cu “ 
British official the A^ttn L business in the Assembly, would be a 
was thouX I a r 63, Hc would havc thc support, it 

8 ’ 3 COalUl0n of ch,efl y nominees, European business 



INTERREGNUM OF LOST OPPORTUNITY *43 

representatives and right-wing '^l^^^amount to a vocal 
constituencies. The CPP, it was suppo > ^ be disregarded, 

minority and would form an Opposi ion a fi enthusiasm 

Once this calculation proved to have beat er oneous al ^ ^ 1 
for the Coussey Constitution evaporated overn g j J agreed in 
came to Accra again the British Governm efsal a( jult suffrage, 
principle to new elections on the asis m( j er -which there was 
The issue was now to secure a constitu 1 0 f Government, 

effective democratic control over t e ; m was effectively 

This, in fact, neither before nor after n Nkrumah and 

secured and in the end this failure was fatal for Ur 

his party. , ter 0 f competing franchises 

I had come out on a complica ba d time and oppor- 

for United States soft drinks and once d tQ help them on 

tunity to talk with the CPP leaders. anc j financial brains 

working out a plan to recruit an eco ards t0 London, I was 

trust and, as I was going backwar s : dua i s who might agree to 
given the job of sounding out the t ^ t ] iat there could be no 

act. At this time it was clear to r i unle$s there was also a 
genuine preparation for ^dependence ^ ^ immediately 

machine constructed which co Colonial Office rests • 

on independence being secure - , > stated bluntly that e 

The Watson Commission had a ^ purposes of modern 
administrative machine was , ou t, quite rightly, t rat any 

economic planning’- They ha P nius t depend upon increas 

improvement in Gold Coast con effective economic P annl =>• 

national productivity' whic rc< l proposed that there s ou 
In order to achieve this they had It might h e 

appointed an Economic - j would, at least, . 

been thought that such a P^f Labo ur Government. On 
svmpaihetically considered ^ o * nt \ tuc k. ‘It is not consul ed 

contran- it was sub ect to ' . Dispa tch to Sir Charles 

S’® Arthur C*«ch Adviser in addition 

Arden-Clarkc in reply, ‘to apP^ jn Government on 

to the officers already respon d he explained, « th the 

economic matters.’! he pt-^r m i 9 4$ "«no« m 

original development pr^ram \ ^ bccn in preparation sme 

acts\ c process of r— » * $ 0 f day until live years later, dcsp.te 

1945 and was not to seetU 



J 44 REAP THE WHIRLWIND 

continual demands for its publication, even from the old Legislative 
Council. At last, in 1950, it was presented to the moribund Council 
on tire eve of its dissolution. It turned out to be an eloquent defence 
of the principles of laissez-faire and its operative paragraph ran: 

, Development is not the exclusive concern of government, and great 
importance is attached to development by commercial and private 
enterprise and by the masses of the people acting in their own in- 
terests. . . . The most important part of development cannot, in a 
emocracy, be directed by the Government. The most which the 
O' f ; rnment can do outside the sphere of government departmental 
actiMtj is to attempt to stimulate initiative, enthusiasm and 
endeavour.’ 


fortunately, m an unexpected way, an opportunity arose to 
TlfT?* t0 re ^P en t ^ e d°° r slammed by Creech Jones’ Dispatch. 

e 3 tson Commission had found that the total building activity 
n £ 3 . 0 Africans \ n Accra during the year previous to their 
P , ’ ?' as 1 lc conversion of thirty temporary houses into perman- 
rnn m ! C .w SS an .f, ^ construction of one hundred and eight single 
that qin" 1 t anci ar i’ buildings. They had commented on the fact 
had Lp CC ^ anua D’ J 945 only three hundred and thirty-one houses 
matelv nn C T, eCt j 1 , n r the T ca P‘ ta l f° r Africans as against approxi- 
anv nnliriral ^ ^ ^°r Ruro P ean occupation. In order to forestall 
Dro°Tammi> S" ltlclsm ( or not embarking on an increased housing 
authorized ’ ^ °“ tg01n S Colonial administration had, in 1950, 

l a b t0 determine Aether ‘^e launching of a 

millions of n r ^ nS Pr0Sramme involving the expenditure of 
due to material 11 a Tv?' a ^° ravate the existing inflationary tendency 

h^the hands'ofdre public’^Th 3 ^ ant ^ '” CTCasct ^ purchasing power 
this investio-arion n P m C f.^ le ec °nomists appointed to earn' out 
of Overseas Devel ° ^ ? cers ’ * ater a high official of the Ministry 
at Oxford and C ^ u 5 3 lecturer ‘ n economic statistics 

ford pobtednm a a fell °"' of Hertford College, Ox- 

undertakino- a full scale^ ^ COuld not be made w i thout 

in the end°the tr ^ of 1116 Gold Coast economy and 
physical problems of , COmiTUSSIOnec i to examine the financial and 
Report, £ 2 “ i0 “»»>■ eenerally. Their 

appointment of an economic admer”' Str0nEly ” faV °“ r ° f 



INTERREGNUM OF LOST OPPORTUNITY 45^ 

Among the few documents which have ? ^diest drafts which I 
my papers after the coup d'etat \s one o d t0 t b e employ- 

prepared, an outline for a Cabinet pape ^ wort h quoting in 
ment of the type of experts we had in • r 0 lonial adminis- 

full to illustrate the status of expert re j ec e y uma h was then 

tration and to indicate the type o e P 
trying to enlist: 

‘i. The Report on Financial and Accra, July 

Gold Coast (Office of the Government ^ twQ Econo _ 

1952) has been accepted by the s an d C. R. Ross— were 
mists making the Report— Du ey ^ ^ suggest ion of the 
appointed by the Minister of 

Colonial Office. n i. A07 page 168) u For all 

2. Their Reportrecommends(parag p ^ d ]^_ ter m plan and 

decisions — the annual programme, government needs an 
the long-run economic strategy ^ 

economist competent to advise it. e j-yi) “We do not 

The Report says further (pa^jfj^d usurp the functions of 
want to suggest that the econorni . 0 f economic policy 
government The decisions on the baknce^ ^ f ust be 

for a year, for a planning peno bine t The economic adviser s 
political decisions taken by the Ca imply, how much 

job is to show what various deasio^ ^ would bring-m 
they would cost, and how 

real, as well as financial te PJ\y rsW i c k of the Oxford ns u 

S as this 

calibre required could only be 

on contract. A , Worswick has been sugges e • 

4. The reasons why ^M ^ were appointed in agreem h 

(a) Since Mr Seers and ^ Colonial Office they would be diefirst 
and at the suggestion oft* ^ is at pre sent employed m UNO 
choice as Advisers but Mr an econom ist m the offices ot 

in New York and Mr Ross ck ^ the close associate of these 
the British Cabinet. Mr W^ of StatlstlC s and therefore, 

mo gentlemen in the u. 



REAP THE WHIRLWIND 


146 

if neither Mr Seers nor Mr Ross are available, he is a natural 
choice in their place. 

(b) Mr Worswick was appointed by Mr Gaitskell, Labour Chancel- 
lor of the Exchequer, as a member of the Douglas Committee on 
Purchase Tax and utility goods and by Mr Butler, Conservative 
Chancellor of the Exchequer, as a member of the Hutton Com- 
mittee on Tax Paid Stocks. He is thus an economist whose 
abilities have been recognized by both political parties in England. 

(c) Outside his strictly economic experience on these Committees, 
he has had general experience on rehabilitation of industry as a 
member of the Board of Trade Working Party on the Lace 
Industry. 

(d) In 1951 he was invited by the Government of Burma to head a 
team of five experts who visited Burma and advised the Govern- 
ment on the problems of economic development. 

(e) He was recently offered (and refused owing to his having been 
previously approached from the Gold Coast) by the Common- 
wealth Relations Office, membership of the Tax Commission for 
Ceylon to be set up under the Colombo Plan. 

( ) In his published works and in his teaching and research at 
Oxford, he has shown great interest in and knowledge of the 
problems of under-developed areas. 

5. It is therefore proposed that Mr David Worswick should be 

o ere an engagement as an Adviser on the following conditions 
and terms . . .’ 


This document, of course, did not stand alone. I myself drafted a 
mi ar a *^ et P a per with the object of securing the part-time 
r\ ices 0 r Thomas Balogh whom we wanted to assist in the 
W< ? r k sett ‘ n S up a National Bank and advising 
1 • t 0r l. 6 ^'P e exchange control and other financial 
after 1*°^ " * j U ° 3d de neces sary to pass before or immediately 
ffieon ?n PC1 1 ™ ny 03565 the Executive Council, in 

write tn ! ;r C , P r Elkrumah was authorized actually to 
From mv n 6 lvidu p s concerned offering them appointment. 
Balogh nnrl w°" ed °, C * ^now this happened in the cases of Dr 
had to be r' V1C u L However ) the actual appointment, which 

No indivirtn "t C 4, rou Sh the Colonial Office, was never finalized. 

a, whatever his background, was satisfactory to the 



interregnum of LOST OPPORTUNITY 147 

Office and S o finally no outside “ ^d'Sbe 
except as recommended by the Co oma p b c h an ce, I was 

employed in the pre-independence peri ’ prevented 

myself appointed It 'vas f ‘ ^“1° ndenee period 

experts visiting the Gold Coast P g and ;! eports ma de by 

there were numerous commissio , q being established 

experts of every sort. The ban was upon anyone be g ^ 

permanently in the Colony, having day o y t h an to the 

Ministers and having a staff responsi e ^ Itg were produced. 

administration. In this period many exc g 0 j t was Ghana 

All that was lacking was their imp ei ™y Colonial machine which 

found itself at Independence with t* e s a- • nt by the Watson 

had been condemned as altoget er in not the fault of 

Commission eight years before. This, at least, w 

the African Ministers. :^rf»cnnnsibility and lack of 

Nothing could better i^trate^^e Govemment ap proached the 
understanding with which the independence than this 

problem of preparing the G °“ Sdvta tt be appointed. The 
refusal to allow an outside economic bHshed the previous 

first paragraph of the Seers-Ross Report p 

year had read : • wnr d 

the Gold Coast economy in one tvora, 

‘If we were forced to sum p “fragile”-’ 

the word we would choose would be S 

As the y P ut it: . , . e the Gold Coast economy “over- 

‘Considered as an economic mac ’id easily get out of control . . 
responds” to any acceleration, a that the earnings of foreign 

The second main weakness is, commodity — cocoa ... Its price m 
exchange depend mainly on on tQ changes in the prosperity of a 

the world’s market is highly sensit . . _ Even the other exports 
few highly industrialized c ° hich are similarly limited and 

minerafs and timber, bive j ^ ^ they te nd to share the 

subject to much the » fl ® t 0I j y foreign exchange, .but also , the 

fortunes of the cocoa indus . tr J' the country, depends mainly on these 

level of purchasing power msid 

commodities.’ Qne - n the Colonial Office ques- 

If what they said was true n ^ sential was, as they recommended, 

tioned their views, then th 



REAP THE WHIRLWIND 


148 

the provision of technical economic and financial advice which 
was, at that time, not available through the Colonial Office. 

So far as internal expansion of the economy was concerned the 
problem, as the Seers-Ross Report made plain, was in large part a 
monetary and financial issue. West African currency was controlled, 
not by any Central State Bank, but by the West African Currency 
Board which issued the money used throughout the British West 
African Colonies and which operated under a system known as the 
Sterling Exchange Standard’. By applying this Standard the Board 
was required to maintain a hundred per cent cover of their currency 
liabilities. When the two private banks operating in the Gold Coast, 
the British Bank of West Africa and Barclay Bank DCO presented 
sterling in London, the Board issued West African currency against 
it. When these banks wished to reduce their sterling holding the 
Board was under an obligation to redeem West African currency to 
t le extent of the reduction. The whole Colonial economy was 
t us geared to maintaining a healthy balance of payments by a 
mechanism almost identical with that of the Gold Standard as it was 
operated before 1914. The result was to produce a monetary 
situation admirable, no doubt, for the promotion of foreign trade 
but m no way adaptable to transforming the Gold Coast economy so 
at it cou become more self-supporting and less dependent upon 
imports an exports. In all political statements of policy the 
successive about and Conservative Governments in Britain 
1 leir ( ; sire t0 see the diversification of agriculture and 
A frJ VC rT ent °a lndustr y * n the Gold Coast and indeed in all 
” 0 0 . mcs ' , . t 1 ldie same time they consistently pursued this 
itself a ^ P ‘° 1C f W ^ 1C - 1 ** P art icularly difficult in that it was in 

locillv 1 , aC j° r ln Siting the working capital available for 

nion!i^ n! 1 Pr °, UCtlVC COncerns - If the Colony had had expert 
un the teeh ' 1C ? ^ a -954 W0ldd ^ ave been possible to have built 
so that at ?i, Ca Sta rec l uired an d made the necessary preparation 
Standard could | n0me k nt of lnd epcndence the Sterling Exchange 
made nossible k een . ^P^ced by a system which would have 

“btLXrivalitS high “ l"' 1 ° f ”•”*>' " b ° th ,hC 

prenarations «•<. . ofthe : national economy. Since however no 

April 1061 that r< | P oss 'b} e unt il after independence it was not until 
Outside evnerr C , s ! cr in S exc hange standard finally disappeared. 

P a \ ice was equally necessary in the creation of a 



INTERREGNUM OF LOST OPPORTUNITY !49 

central state owned bank and the controlling of the activities o 
private banks. They did not lend locally. From 1950 to *95 , • 

small proportion of the increase in their deposits were em P 
the Gold Coast and in this nine-year period there was on y 
increase in bank lending locally of £800,000. ... , < • 

Equally serious to the economy was the absence 0 s 1 e 
on the management of the Gold Coast portfolio 0 ex r oas t 

ments. Prior to the CPP coming to power m * 95 * Ae Gold 
external reserves were £113.3 million. I 955 t e y z , - « 
£208.2 million. At the date of independence they were ar 
million. By the beginning of 1963 they had fallen to £7 d*. 

It was in fact at a figure slightly larger than this at w along, 

have probably been desirable to have maintame 
This figure of £71.5 million was e q ui ^ le nt “ 43 ayerage 

average annual value of imports over 195° o • . , tjca a nd 

(excluding the two countries with reserve currencies, aroun d 

Britain, and the Socialist bloc) was contemporary t b at 

46 per cent. The figure suggested in the Seer- *oss ep - e 

considered as reasonable and safe by the meri annual 

Financial Mission of 1947, a 50 per cent ayerage 
imports bill. In other words a reserve of between £ » £» s 
million would have been quite sufficient for G ana s e was 

The reason why reserves were so much in access o Office 

first that the Ministry of Finance, which was : nvest ing in 

controlled until 1954, pursued a deli J erat ^?vthat there did not 
Britain and not in the Gold Coast and seco y , . L ac v- 0 f 
east the planning machinery to organize the ploughs 
capital saved abroad into productive use in t e 0 0 W as 

The ill-effect of maintaining these excessive ster 1 o ‘ ss j on 

three-fold. First by their very existence they gave th mp ^ 
that Ghana was not likely in the future to ave k ere f orc not 
payments problem when the reverse was the ca s • . cy n ce this 

until much later was machinery devised to ea ' brought i nt0 
machinery was then hastily improvised and su e ^ t b e yi s it 

full operation, its inefficiency in many ways aggr ^ own 0 f t hc 

Was designed to cure. Secondly the perfectly P ro P e , ment could 
excessive sterling balances in order to finance ® t hc huge 

, » an d was, represented as an approach to an ’ ’ f t h 0U crh 

balance of previous years being contrasted with the 



REAP THE WHIRLWIND 


150 


in fact sufficient, balances of a later period. Thus in a centre page, 
two-column article on the 13th June, 1961, on the Ghana economy 
the London Times Commonwealth correspondent prophesied the 
country’s economic collapse by the end of that year owing to its 
policy of spending its overseas reserves. In fact at the end of 1961 
those stood at £73.1 million, or in relation to imports, at about the 
world average and were, for a year at least, stabilized at around that 
figure, only dropping by £1.6 million by the end of 1962. 

In so far as Ghana was ultimately short of foreign exchange it was 
due in large part to the unskilled management of the investment 
portfolio in London and this was only the fault of the Ghana 
Government in that it allowed this portfolio, even after indepen- 
dence, to be invested through the old colonial machinery. In 1961 
when a leading British expert, who today holds a high position in 
t e Treasury, visited Ghana he calculated that £ 60 million had been 
ost to Ghana through the capital depreciation of the stocks in which 
the reserves had been invested. This sum, of course, far exceeds 
anything anyone has even suggested Ghana lost in foreign exchange 
t rough corruption or extravagance. Yet, though the figure was 
quote y the President to Parliament, the Western press scarcely 
mentione what was, on any showing, a sensational allegation against 
ntis , tec mical competence in the financial management of other 
peop e s money. The London Times, whose article on Ghanaian 
an uptcy t e President quoted when explaining the question of 
° j mi f ! on oss ’ ‘Snored his speech entirely, not reporting a single 


PR 6 Se . rl0lls difficulties over the balance of payments which 
SU scc l uen dy suffered arose through a number of causes the 
nerinH 111 f° rtant ° " was the variation in the cocoa price. In the 
1 ° r? the spot New York price for cocoa had an 
averase Uctuat ‘ on °f plus or minus 25.2 per cent and an 

annual fli.rt ln ~. season fluctuation of plus or minus 40 per cent. The 
that for T* ° Ve - r l ^ C P er ‘°d were substantially greater than 
rubber wffirR v, C j ma ^ or Primary exports, with the exception of 
per cent No & an avera § e fluctuation of plus or minus 28.8 
to the evrenr' 0 '^!? ’? 01 ' CVen Ma!a Y sia > was dependent on rubber 
L thiS ; f ^ Ch the Gold Coast wa * ™ “4 which provided 

This on T mry S f0rei S n exchange. 

actor alone made the Gold Coast economy one of the 



INTERREGNUM OF LOST OPPORTUNITY I5 1 

most vulnerable in the world. Nevertheless the world , 

cocoa prices which reached its climax in 1965 nee n0 
fatal if a sound system of planning and economic con 
instituted early enough. What was lacking was ear y pr P ^ 

effective fiscal and prohibitory means of restricting ^ 

consumer goods and semi-durable products so as 0 a . , £ or 

continued uninterrupted inflow of the capita goo s f or 

development, even at a time when the foreign exc ange , s 

purchases abroad fell through circumstances eyon • y e 

control. Secondly the economy was unlikely to e u p or 

unless, as early as possible, long-term pl ans a ® ^ tQ m j n i_ 
increasing internal production, particularly o 00 , hean 

« talons. Almost one-third of f ***** ^ 

exports had to be spent on imported food, bu D , sQ -| 

Ghanaian soil under tropical conditions, there- 

surveys, irrigation schemes, a scientific use o e i office 

fore an educational campaign among farmer . exoerts for 

could produce no planners of experience nor ,, ^ Gold 

anything but cash crops for export. They refused to 
Coast to hire, out of its own resources, expert interested in 

Mr Worswick who had international reputations, we already 

just these problems and had, in Dr Balogh’s ease “rtaudy^^ y 
farm up detailed plans as to how the techmcrans and 

required could be obtained. _ , , T have been 

What was the reason for this obstinate refusa . n ^ area . 

that the Gold Coast was a great earner of dollars for the stern „ 

It was British policy to prevent any correspon o em pl 0 y 
dollars by the Gold Coast. In 1953, the year we attempted^ 
economic and financial advisers from outsi e currency 

allocation from its own dollar earnings for pure ase ^ percentage 
markets was 21 cents for every dollar earned, n 193 „ n j s R 0 bert- 

allocation was reduced to 16 cents per dollar, s 1 

son put it in his book Britain and the World hconoi j - 

‘It meant that each country as a country agreed to han ^ t0 

dollar earnings to Mother in exchange for ster i little black 

Mother when it -wanted extra dollars to spen • • >_ed on the 

children who were often the best earners cou dollars, while the 
head if they showed too great a propensity to spen 



J 5 2 


REAP THE WHIRLWIND 


grown-up white daughters, who were often pretty extravagant, could 
only be quietly reasoned with.’ 


With a Balogh or a Worswick to advise, the little black child might 
have put up as cogent a claim as the pampered white daughter, and 
that would never do. On the other hand it is more likely the Colonial 
Office had no such Machiavellian reason in mind. The answer is 
probably that on principle no outsider should be permitted to 
intrude into their preserves. Certainly the agitation for a financial 
adviser had had one positive result. A Colonial civil servant of the 
old regime, the permanent head of the Ministry under the 1951 
constitution, was given the job. He was still there when I was 
appointed Constitutional Adviser and washing to consult him I 
inquired for his office. It turned out that he had none and he 
conducted his labours from his bungalow. Nevertheless, irrespective 
of his positive contribution, by his presence he blocked the appoint- 
ment of every other expert. 


In any case, w hatever the reason, in this supposedly first prepara- 
tory period for independence from 1951 to 1954 the CPP w r ere 
prevented from building up that financial or economic civil service 
machine which was essential if the Party’ was to tackle effectively 
the problems w hich w ere bound to arise over balance of payments 
and the management of the monetary’ system. When in 1954 the ex 
officio Minister of Finance w'as replaced by a CPP nominee his 
successor was left with the same staff whose shortcomings and 
allures had been so severely criticized by the Watson Commission 
six years before. Dr Nkrumah’s choice for Minister of Finance, in 
™ ar / j ^ 1C P ost * n the pre-independence Cabinet, was 
. A. Gbcdcmah an Ewe who had been born in Nigeria. He had run 
t ic arty when Dr Iskrumah was in prison and had proved himself 
a irst c ass organizer. He spoke most Ghanian languages perfectly 
and was a polished and suave negotiator in English. He had been a 
sane an stone merchant, a science master in a secondary’ school and 
\ a ... rn ^ na k c , [ . lc Part y newspapers. There was no question of his 
unity utin is approach to financial and budgetary’ matters he was 
on 10 o\ in t ic extreme and in practice he followed almost the same 
po icy as t at o us ex-officio British predecessor. This was to prove 
a continual source of dispute between Dr Nkrumah and him and to 
lead to his remoxal from the Ministry six years later. 



INTERREGNUM OF LOST OPPORTUNITY 153 

It would be wrong to blame Gbedemah personally for all the 
subsequent economic ills which befell Ghana but certainly the 
failure of his Ministry to introduce effective exchange control legis- 
lation or to do away with the sterling exchange system earlier and 
its monetary and taxation policy generally were, on the Ghanaian 
side, the main reasons for the financial difficulties which later arose. 
After 1961 Gbedemah was to leave Ghana, settle in Federal Ger- 
many and from Hamburg to conduct, in association with Dr Busia, 
a sustained propaganda campaign against the policies pursued after 
1961 by the Ghanaian Government. In the arguments he then 
advanced he was to show himself highly conservative financially. 

At this time the CPP were divided as to whether to press for 
immediate independence to which they were pledged by their 
slogan ‘self government now’ or to wait until there were more 
African civil servants trained and the Government reorganized in a 
form suitable for an independent country. When asked my opinion I 
had originally believed it better to wait but the sabotage by the 
Colonial Office of all attempts to get the type of financial and 
economic advice necessary to reorganize for independence, brought 
me round to the view that perhaps the ‘Independence Now’ 
section of the Party was right. In consequence I came to know the 
leader of this group within the Party, a Fanti lawyer from Cape 
Coast, Dr Kurankyi Taylor, but who practised in Kumasi. Through 
him I met his lawyer friend from Ashanti, Victor Owusu, who was 
ultimately to become the first Attorney General of the National 
Liberation Council. Kurankyi Taylor had been expelled from the 
Party in 1952 but his reinstatement then seemed only a question of 
time particularly as Victor Owusu who remained in the Party had 
agreed not to go forward in a constituency where a left-winger ,J. E. 
Jantuah, who had supported Kurankyi Taylor, was now being 
pushed by the Party. Ultimately however after standing with the 
CPP throughout the 1954 elections, Kurankyi Taylor, Victor 
Owusu and two other prominent Ashanti CPP members, Joe 
Appiah, whose father was secretary to the chiefs’ main organization, 
the Kumasi State Council, and R. R. Amponsah who had been on 
the Executive of the CPP United Farmers Council, all went into 
open opposition. 

Later, at Kurankyi Taylor’s request, I appeared in two political 
cases which it seemed to me it was the duty of any lawyer practising 



154 HEAP THE WHIRLWIND 

in the Gold Coast to undertake. The first was an appeal against death 
sentences passed on a number of supporters of the Chief of Wenchi, 
Dr Busia’s brother and election backer. Their village had been 
invaded by pro-CPP supporters of another chief and they had 
defended themselves, killing in the process a number of the intruders. 
In such circumstances their prosecution for murder, by the Colonial 
authorities, seemed to me to be unjustified and I was proved right in 
that, in the end, all but one was acquitted and in his case his 
conviction of murder was reduced to one of manslaughter by the 
West African Court of Appeal. The other case was a much more 
difficult matter. Krobo Edusei’s sister had been brutally murdered 
in the course of what was clearly a campaign of terrorism against Dr 
Nkrumah’s party organized by anti-CPP chiefs. In almost all other 
cases the police had been unable to collect sufficient evidence to 
prosecute but in this case they believed they could bring the crime 
home to two leading opposition politicians, the one, a wealthy farmer, 
the other, a Kumasi chief, who was the propaganda secretary of the 
Opposition party. At the trial the chief was acquitted but the farmer 
was convicted. I could not persuade the West African Court of 
Appeal to quash or vary the sentence and he was executed. I was, 
and still am, uncertain whether the evidence was anything like 
sufficient to prove the crime and I did what I could to secure his 
reprieve. It is interesting to note that these, I should have thought 
perfectly proper legal activities, have been converted by an American 
Professor into a proof of my political double-dealing. In his book The 
Rise and Fall of Kwame Nkrumah Professor Henry L. Bretton remarks : 

‘In a category all by himself was Geoffrey Bing, former British MP, 
QC, who, it should be noted for the record, had come to Nkrumah 
after having enjoyed the confidence of Nkrumah’s opposition.’ 

In view of the trial, a matter which he does not mention, it is 
ironic that he a little later goes on to link my name with that of 
Krobo Edusei, the murdered girl’s brother: 

Attached to the pugnacious Minister for general guidance and to 
piovide the legal rationale for personal rule in a form most palatable to 
public opinion, especially in Britain, was a barrister, Geoffrey Bing, 
onetime legal adviser to the opposition groups; groups he now was 
called upon to “legislate” out of existence.’ 



INTERREGNUM OF LOST OPPORTUNITY 


155 

I do not know what judgement on me Professor Bretton would 
have passed if I had refused to defend those accused of Krobo 
Edusei’s sister’s murder on the grounds that I was at the same time 
advising Dr Nkrumah upon what technical and specialist aid it 
might be possible to obtain from Britain. 

In 1954 there was another General Election, this time on the basis 
of universal adult suffrage. Since 1951 there had been considerable 
changes in political alignment. Of the five of the ‘Big Six’ who had 
remained with the United Gold Coast Convention only Ako 
Adjei came over to the CPP. The remaining four joined with 
representatives of the intellectual aristocracy, among them a 
number of leading lawyers, such as N. A. Ollennu and K. A. Boss- 
man, afterwards to be appointed to the High Court Bench. With 
them was Dr K. A. Busia, who up till now had been an Independent, 
the chiefs having nominated him as a Member of the Legislative 
Assembly after the electorate had rejected him in 1951. They 
formed a new Party, the Ghana Congress Party, to include some 
former CPP supporters and as a national political party of a Western 
type. Had the Parliamentary system developed in the Western way 
this Party should have emerged as the Opposition. However, at the 
General Election its only Member returned was Dr Busia. J. B. 
Danquah and William Ofori Atta lost their seats. 

It was thus by chance that Kofi Busia almost overnight became the 
Parliamentary leader of the Opposition in the immediate pre- and 
post-independence periods. He had been chosen to lead the Ghana 
Congress Party because he had stood aloof from the struggle within 
the United Gold Coast Convention but his education, birth and 
previous career had already cast him in the opposition mould. He 
was of the Royal House of Wenchi of which his brother was chief 
and as such had supported the Ashanti Confederacy though his 
people, who were Brongs, were traditionally opposed to Ashanti 
domination. It was for this reason that in 1951 Busia had been de- 
feated by a CPP candidate in the Wenchi electoral college and yet 
had been then chosen for the Assembly as a representative of the 
Asanteman Council. Despite the fact he was always thereafter to be 
supported by chiefly influences he was in no sense an enthusiast for 
traditional rule. His doctrinal thesis at Oxford, later published in 
195 1 as The Position of the Chief in the Modern Political System of the 
Ashanti was a shrewdly critical study of the system. In 1942 he had 



REAP THE WHIRLWIND 


156 

been chosen as one of the wo Africans to be given ‘European’ posts 
in the Civil Service and had become an Assistant District Commis- 
sioner. He had resigned to continue his academic career and in 1951 
he had been the first African to be appointed to a Chair at the newly 
established University College of the Gold Coast where he was 
Professor of Sociology. His real involvement in politics in Ghana 
only lasted for five years from 1954 to 1959. In that year he was to go 
abroad and not to return until after the coup d’etat. 

Nevertheless in the Western world he was later to be regarded as 
the personification of the opposition to Dr Nkrumah. The reason, it 
has always seemed to me, was that, having rejected traditional 
religions he was subconsciously converted to a more dangerous 
form of sympathetic magic and came to believe that it was only 
necessary to copy every British political institution in order to enjoy 
automatically all the material achievements of Britain. Anyone with 
faith of this nature was not unnaturally popular in the West. Indeed 
it seemed to me that his political philosophy was to advance a stage 
further and to become based upon the theory that so long as a 
country remained friendly with Britain it became as it were, a 
democracy by association. After the coup d’etat, a young major from 
Ashanti, one of the minor participants in it, was rewarded for his 
assistance by being made a Brigadier and Commissioner of Finance. 
He wrote a book to justify the revolt to which I shall refer later, 
since it often reflects the reasons why the chiefs and tire professional 
classes opposed Dr Nkrumah and because it seems to me to sum- 
marize what appears to have been Dr Busia’s policy. In the same 
way as Kofi Busia had earlier written a preface to Nii Bonne’s 
autobiography so later he was to write an introduction to Brigadier 
Afrifa’s The Ghana Coup. To him this rebel seemed to be: 

‘a citizen with an impassioned faith in the value of democracy, and in 
the Commonwealth. He has the courage, rare in these days of flaming 
African nationalism, to express his gratitude for the training he re- 
ceived at Sandhurst, and his admiration for the democratic institutions 
of Britain . . . Afrifa’s book is a challenging defence of democracy.’ 

As will be seen from the extracts later quoted this is in no way 
an accurate description of Afrifa's political philosophy but that 
Busia should have so written is a revealing explanation of what he 
understood b) democracy’. All this, however, was only to become 



INTERREGNUM OF LOST OPPORTUNITY 157 

plain in the future. At the time of the 1954 election the situation was 
apparently very different. 

While the intellectuals had no popular support the Chiefs of the 
North were able to organize a Party of a sort to safeguard their 
interests and their nominees won twelve of the twenty-one seats in 
the Northern Territories. They, therefore, and not the intellectuals, 
became the official Opposition and according to the British model 
their leader was officially installed as the salaried ‘Leader of the 
Opposition’. What he and his colleagues were, in fact, was a pressure 
group formed in the belief that the North had not had a fair deal in 
the past and would not get one in the future unless it had its 
distinct representation. This Northern People’s Party had no 
objection to the CPP policy as such, except in so far as it affected the 
privileges of Northern Chiefs. On the contrary, what they wanted 
was its application in their area as a priority. The same regional and 
tribal opposition appeared elsewhere. The Togoland Congress was 
another such regional party based on Ewe reunification, even if this 
involved partition of the Gold Coast. Other members of the 
opposition represented sectional and regional interests of this 
sort. 

Though I think none of us saw. it then, the British political 
system, when applied in the Gold Coast, muffled instead of stimu- 
lated criticism of policy. After 1954 there was a strong opposition 
case to be put but Parliament was a barrier to its discussion. With 
the defeat of the attempt to build up a modern civil service machine, 
the CPP with little or no expertise within its own ranks was unable 
to judge the effects of various proposals put up by the Colonial 
administration. The professional intellectual class, however, had, to 
some degree, this ability but they were unrepresented in the Legis- 
lative Assembly. John Tsiboe, the editor of the Ashanti Pioneer , the 
opposition newspaper, told Richard Wright ‘the British are using 
the CPP in the same manner as they once used the chiefs’. There 
was considerable truth in the criticism. 

The opposition to CPP policy was however divided. Above all, 
the professional classes in Accra and Kumasi were interested in 
making money and the key to money-making, either by providing 
professional services or through money-lending lay in a higher cocoa 
price. Fundamentally these professional men distrusted the bulk of 
the people and did not wish to be dependent for election upon them. 



158 REAP THE WHIRLWIND 

Cobina Kessie, who belonged to the younger generation of Ashanti 
intellectuals and had served on the Coussey Committee and was to 
be elected as the Kumasi candidate of the Moslem Association Party 
in the 1956 Assembly, had no more regard for democracy than the 
old lawyer from Cape Coast, Francis Awooner-Williams. 

‘When the masses act on their own,’ he said in January 1955, ‘they 
do so only in one way, for they have no other: they lynch. It is not alto- 
gether by chance that Mr Nkrumah himself preached “direct action” 
or “positive action” against a previous government. For lynch law 
comes from America, the paradise of the masses, and Nkrumah was 
educated in America.’ 

What this educated elite feared was not communism, a far-off and 
distant danger, but the rough and ready democracy of the United 
States which they saw about to be thrust down their throats by the 
British administration. The only alternative open to them was to 
resurrect chiefly power as a support for their party but for this they 
had to purchase the support of the chiefs. 

They began by founding ‘The Committee for Higher Cocoa 
Prices’. The cocoa price in the world market had soared but the 
Government still paid the farmer a predetermined fixed price which 
did not vary with the world market. The use to which the surplus, 
thus accumulated, was put was a matter on which the Government 
could legitimately be attacked. It was invested in Britain, that is, in 
practice, lent to the British Government, but this aspect of the 
matter, so as not to offend the Colonial authorities, the opposition 
did not raise. What they demanded was a higher price to the farmer, 
politically attractive but certain in the condition of the Ghanaian 
economy to produce disastrous internal inflation. In addition, they 
attacked the Government and the Marketing Board’s policy 
generally. The CPP had used the resources of the Board to give low 
interest loans to farmers. The larger farmers and many of the 
chiefs had for long run a profitable business by lending to the 
poorer farmers and the CPP’s policy thus split the previously united 
farmers front. The poorer farmers and those looking for Govern- 
ment development to open up more land for farms sided with the 
CPP. The wealthy farmers lined up with the chiefs and to give the 
‘Committee for Higher Cocoa Prices’ a more ethical look, it was 
transformed into the ‘National Liberation Movement’. The chiefs 



INTERREGNUM OF LOST OPPORTUNITY 159 

would not allow this new organization to be called a ‘Party’. Party 
politics were contrary to the tenets of traditional rule and as a price 
for their support they insisted it should embrace feudalism also and 
thus propose the re-division of the country into its old provinces 
which had existed as almost separate entities in the heyday of 
Indirect Rule. 

On the 14th September 1954 amid the firing of muskets and the 
singing of Ashante war songs in Kumasi, the traditional centre of 
chiefly power, Bafuor Osie Akoto, Senior Linguist to the Ashante- 
hene, made a ritual slaughter of a sheep in order to inaugurate ‘The 
Movement’. Perhaps as a gesture towards the Colonial authorities, 
the ceremony took place in the Prince of Wales Park. Yet this can 
have been small consolation to the fastidious Westernized intel- 
lectuals who had, like Dr K. A. Busia, exposed and ridiculed tribal 
superstition. Attempting to escape from popular pressures these 
intellectuals had surrendered to their old opponents, the illiterate 
chiefs, and Bafour Akoto became the Movement’s Chairman. The 
Asantehene’s Confederacy Council was employed to destool all 
chiefs who had supported the CPP. The wheel had gone the full 
circle. Writing in 1951 Dr K. A. Busia had said of the Confederacy’s 
Council’s activities : 

‘It is not only the literate commoners who feel the Council is not 
sufficiently representative. An illiterate cocoa-farmer, sixty miles from 
Kumasi, put what is a general criticism most clearly when he said, “All 
I know of the Confederacy Council is that whenever the chief comes 
back from Kumasi he brings a new law. We must not hold funeral 
celebrations. We must not plant cocoa. We must pay a levy. When you 
ask why, they say, “The Council says so , or the Asantehene ruled 
it”.’ 

Now five years later he was to find himself opposing in the Legis- 
lative Assembly a Government measure, the State Council Bill, 
aimed at curbing the powers of this same Confederacy Council. 

Such was the situation as I saw it, when in February 1955 I paid 
my last visit to the Gold Coast as a British Member of Parliament. 



CHAPTER FIVE 


CONSTITUTIONAL ADVISER 


In may 1955 I was defeated in Hornchurch at tiie General Election. 
It was no surprise. At the two previous elections' I had only been 
narrowly returned on a minority vote and it had been long clear that 
with any further national swing against Labour I should be out. 
Nevertheless, I was still a member of the Labour Party’s Conference 
Arrangements Committee. No doubt 1 should have the chance to 
come back to the House within the next year or so. It was all for the 
best. Hornchurch had been a difficult Constituency to represent 
with its huge electorate and narrow majority. Perhaps, thanks to 
this temporary misfortune, I might now find myself some safe scat 
where I could concentrate on Parliamentary work without always 
looking over my shoulder at my floating voter. In my case, I was 
tired. I need not now spend night alter night in the House of 
Commons. Those of us who had been supporters of the policies of 
Aneurin Bevan were always in trouble of some sort, always having 
to make decisions which in retrospect seem trivial, but on which 
at the time one felt everything depended. It was pleasant only to 
have one job to do and to take all the legal work which came along 
without worrying whether it would conflict with a debate in which 
one should speak or with a division which one had to attend if only 
ostentatiously to abstain. I sat back and waited for a by-election. 

At the October Labour Party Conference that year I was voted 
off the Conference Arrangements Committee. I had been short- 
listed for two by-elections for safe seats but not ultimately chosen 
for either and then there came up, what had become an annual 
event for me, a complicated currency case in Nigeria. It was a 
matter in which I w r as convinced the law was on my client’s side 
but, for reasons which I could never adequately explain to him, he 
never seemed to win when it came to Court. Fortunately' his faith in 
me remained undiminished though he had already' lost in three 
previous hearings. Now the matter was coming up again, this time 
before the Federal Appeal Court in Lagos. I thought I would take 

160 



CONSTITUTIONAL ADVISER 


the opportunity of this case to visit the Gold Coast where there 
were some small legal matters in which I was also engaged. I could 
thus have a holiday at little expense since I had a small house 
waiting and ready for me. 

About eighteen months before, tired of the social life of the 
‘Seaview’ and needing some headquarters where I could store my 
papers and keep my belongings, I thought I would rent, if such a 
thing were obtainable, a small cottage which I could use as an 
office and living quarters. Talking over this idea with some friends, 
one of them, at that time a Major in the army, J. A. Ankrah, 
suggested I might like to rent a small property belonging to his 
family. It had been built originally as the servants’ quarters to a 
larger house and was not too expensive to lease, being in a somewhat 
unfashionable district and some distance away from what was still 
called the ‘European residential area’. Working the whole thing out, 
it seemed to me cheaper to take this little house and employ a 
steward the whole year round to caretake it than it was to pay hotel 
bills during the time I was likely to be in Accra. It was a simple 
place, consisting of four rooms, absolutely square, twelve feet by 
twelve feet by twelve feet, in front of which ran a six-foot wide 
veranda. The windows had no glass in them but this was no incon- 
venience in Gold Coast weather and, once I had installed a bath and 
a lavatory in one of the rooms, the place was ideal. Subsequently 
when my wife came out we rebuilt the interior with the agreement 
and to the delight of the Ankrah family. Small as it was, we could 
have comfortably lived there indefinitely but when I became 
Attorney General I had to move to an official bungalow traditionally 
occupied by that official, but I kept on my lease for the little house 
renting it out occasionally to friends and intending to go [ 3ac { c t }j er( ! 
when my job came to an end. Then, when it seemed I might stav 
in Government service longer than I had first thought, I surrendered 
my lease. As is traditional with legal instruments to which a lawyer 
is a party, it appeared that the terms of this document were impre- 
cisely drawn. I was in continual correspondence with my landlord 
now General Ankrah, as to who should pay for restoring it tn its 
original condition. Oddly enough, a week before the com I had a 
letter from him on the subject. I suspect he would not have troVd Med 
to write if he had known that m seven days-ti me hg 
proclaimed as head of a revolutionary Governn,^ 

6 



in: a i* tih. win iti.w i xi) 


162 

ill-informed I may have been as to what was comini:, I do not think 
the future Chairman of the National Liberation Council had any 
better knowledge. 

Anyway, in February 1956, 1 set off again for Africa. Whatever 
happened, 1 was free to spend a month’s holiday in my little house 
in Accra. 1 knew the Gold Coast well by this lime but l had never 
had a chance to stay in it, free front legal or political commitment. 
So long as 1 was a Member of Parliament, and indeed holding 
myself out as an expert on West Africa, I could not have refused to 
talk politics. 1 would have had to call on the Goxcrnor and meet with 
Ministers and officials. Now 1 had no responsibilities and little 
desire to be mixed again in local allairs. The complete failure of the 
scheme, on which Dr Nkrumah and I had worked for two years, to 
secure a cadre of Civil Service specialists from abroad was a justifi- 
cation for not attempting to meddle where practice had shown 1 was 
of little help. In any event, 1 had other plans. Like the traditional 
rejected suitor of Edwardian times, I could spend my period of 
African exile and then return decently to woo some other British 
constituency. Further, I was marrying again, though the girl, who 
in her spare time was a Rally driver, had first to compete in some 
international events if she was to maintain her status for the next 
Monte Carlo competition. A holiday on the Gold Coast would fill 
the gap. From October to April the weather in Accra is superb with 
scarcely any rain. It was the season for surfing, swimming, picnics 
and sightseeing. 

Ghana has been for so long in the public eye as a political country 
that its non-political fascination is often forgotten. But the Gold 
Coast then was, as 1 suppose Ghana still is today, one of the most 
exciting and yet sobering places in the world. Over it broods a sense 
of five hundred years of international history. Elsewhere on the 
Guinea Coast the broad estuaries of the great rivers had provided 
anchorage for the traders and slavers but the shore of the Gold 
Coast was one long line of surf, huge lazy waves which broke 
continually on the sandy beaches and washed the roots of the 
coconut groves that fringed them. The early European invaders had 
to establish their bases on shore and their castles and forts still 
stood every- twenty miles or so along the coast. Here still intact, as at 
Cape Coast, were the great underground slave dungeons with no 
light except that which came through little ports facing inwards so 



CONSTITUTIONAL ADVISER 


163 

that the guards from outside could fire under cover to quell any 
slave revolt. Here from these underground cellars one could still 
walk along the dank, oozing, stone-faced passage through the great 
mud walls of the castle’s foundations that led to the sea gate down 
which, direct from the prison chamber, the slaves were forced into 
the waiting canoes below. 

At Elmina, ten miles further to the west, the Portuguese had 
constructed the first European building south of the Sahara. In 
1482, ten years before Columbus reached the West Indies, its stones 
had been transported from Europe, each marked and numbered, so 
that a prefabricated castle could be hastily erected before the 
expected counter-attack of the inhabitants. When, in the seventeenth 
century, Maurice of Nassau conquered Brazil, the Dutch, in order 
to safeguard their slave supply, attacked and captured Elmina and 
over its drawbridge still stood an elegant stone in which was carved 
the Latin inscription recording the exploits of this ‘high, mighty and 
illustrious prince’. Elmina had remained in Dutch hands until 1872. 
In its little museum was the flag of the ‘Free Burghers’, the ruling 
community of mixed Afro-Dutch descent whose ruined houses still 
bore their crests and coats of arms. The Dutch had enlarged and 
strengthened the castle but one could still see in position some of the 
numbered Portuguese stones. The ancient shrines of the district 
still preserved among their sacred objects chips of stone which had 
come from the Portuguese statue of their patron Saint Anthony. 
Here many strands of history had met. There was a room in the 
castle still structurally the same, where de Ruyter, who sailed up the 
Thames in 1667 and destroyed the British fleet at its moorings at 
Chatham, had had his commemorative portrait painted. Here Major 
Robert Baden-Powell had come two hundred years later, wearing 
almost for the first time his broad brimmed scouting hat which he 
had designed for campaigning in the Gold Coast, to meet Nana 
Kweku Andoh, Chief of Elmina. Together they had worked out the 
organization of African scouts for the Ashanti war. The signs used 
by these scouts — Krobos’ from former Danish territories — for their 
tribal purposes have become the symbols of the Boy Scout Move- 
ment of today. At Elmina one could still see the room on the battle- 
ments where Prempeh I, then known as King Kwaku Dua III 
of Ashanti, and his Chiefs had been imprisoned to await their 
transportation to the Seychelles; the last of the long line of African 



164 REAP THE WHIRLWIND 

political prisoners who had been lodged as captives in the castle’s 
slave cells and dungeons. On its walls were iron plaques com- 
memorating the expeditions which the Dutch had dispatched from 
this African base. Every year they had sent a contingent of their 
Gold Coast troops to the East Indies. The ‘cloth’ which became the 
normal dress, and when made up for women is known as ‘Mamma’, 
bore Indonesian designs exactly copied from those brought back by 
these returning soldiers. 

Yet to me even more interesting than the castles was the progress 
of collection of the traditions and origins of the African people of 
the Colony. A. W. Lawrence, the brother of Lawrence of Arabia 
and formerly Professor of Classical Archaeology at Cambridge, had 
been appointed the year after Dr Nkrumah came to power as 
Secretary and Conservator of the Gold Coast Monuments and 
Relics Commission and was engaged in organizing a National 
Museum. Here one could see traced out the tenuous connection 
between the African peoples and the- civilization of Upper Egypt. 
The lotus flower is unknown in Ghana but the staves of office of 
the Chiefs’ linguists had almost invariably beneath the emblem 
they bore, a stylized lotus leaf. Here was an opening from which one 
might begin the exploration of a fascinating but practically unknown 
section of history, the long connection of the civilization of the Nile 
valley with Africa south of the Sahara, including the almost 
forgotten link between the Christianity’ of Nubia which resisted the 
Islamic drive south and the early Christian Kingdom of Ghana. 

Approaching Independence stimulated everywhere an interest in 
the past. Treasures long hidden away for fear they would be carried 
off by Colonial Governments were coming to light again. The Gold 
Coast had been supposed to have had no indigenous written history. 
Now even in the North documents written in Arabic script, but in 
African languages, were being brought out again, recording local 
history of as early as the sixteenth century. 

Everything at the time made the country fascinating. Its ways of 
life were sufficiently mixed with European culture to be under- 
standable to a stranger like myself and yet they were entirely 
different. It was odd, for example, to find oneself living under 
modern conditions in one of the last surviving Gold cultures of the 
world. Then, as now, everyone aimed to have at least one gold 
ornament and craftsmen abounded who would individually design 



CONSTITUTIONAL ADVISER 


165 

them. Even in a small village there would be at least one sign saying 
‘Licensed Goldsmith’. I ultimately settled on one from Dodowa, a 
village twenty miles from Accra which has given its name to the 
battle which decided the fate of the Gold Coast. Here on the 7th 
August 1828 an army of the coastal people, supported by an English 
contingent, defeated the Ashanti forces which two years before had 
routed the British and killed the Governor, who was leading them 
in person. At Dodowa this defeat was avenged and the British hold 
on the Colony was retained. Now over the historic battlefield my 
goldsmith would go in search of scarab beetles. With a technique 
perhaps handed down from Egyptian practice of four thousand 
years before, he would cure them in camphor and mount them in 
gold as jewels for earrings and brooches. 

I had been introduced to him, first, on a previous visit, coming 
back from a picnic at Tema, then a little thatched fishing v illa ge 
round a lagoon. We were all of us sitting eating on an upturned boat 
when a green mamba, a particularly poisonous snake, came out 
from beneath it. An African girl in the party chased it barefoot and 
killed it with a stone. I was horrified at the risk she had run but she 
explained it would never attack her as it was the totem of her clan 
How then, I asked, could she possibly kill it. ‘Oh, didn’t you know ’ 
she said, ‘I am a Christian.’ At this time the CPP Government were 
trying to use the Colonial Film Unit, which they had inherited for a 
propaganda drive against superstition, and this girl was one of their 
stars. We went together to see a film designed to expose the ‘n 
shrines’. It included an extraordinary sequence revealing th'' 
ceremonies of a fetish priest which had been shot by a Euro ° 
cameraman. I asked in view of the difficulties even Dr Mar^^ 
Field had in discovering what took place in a shrine, how thic 0 ^ 6 
possible. ‘Oh, I arranged it,’ said the girl, ‘with the fetish n ’ 
son. He doesn’t believe in that sort of thing any more. H • S 
Catholic and anyway he needed the money. His wife is s ; c t, C !V a 
wants to make enough to take her to Lourdes.’ ‘* ncl " c 

As it turned out, once I was settled in my little house T f A 
myself fully employed in legal work both in the Gold Cm oun , 
Nigeria, where at last I won my currency case. The time we h A G^A 
to marry had come round, so instead of going back to Enof A 
future wife came out and on the 7th July 1956 we w ere b ai ? 
Elmina Castle. The short civil ceremony took pla ce ; n th ™™ ve 



x 66 reap the whirlwind 

market which had been the original Portuguese chapel which the 
Dutch had desecrated on account of its heretical past. It was said to 
have been the last place on African soil where St Francis Xavier 
had celebrated Mass, before sailing for India. 

At our little house we had one regular visitor, a small boy from a 
neighbouring African household. When we moved to the official 
Attorney General’s residence his mother came to see us saying that 
he was fretting and missing us and we arranged with her that he 
would live with us and we would bring him up. We sent him to the 
International school, a remarkable Ghanaian institution at which at 
one time children of over thirty nationalities attended, and here he 
had to learn English from the start. When later on as Attorney 
General I organized a scheme of general law review, one of the new 
laws introduced was for adoption. We took advantage of it ourselves 
and adopted him under it. However, despite all theories of the 
common citizenship of the Commonwealth, this did not make him 
British. His name could be put on my passport but with the foot- 
note inserted by the High Commission, ‘This child is not a citizen 
of the United Kingdom and Colonies.’ At the time of my arrest in 
1966 he was at Achimota, the co-educational boarding school which 
Sir Gordon Guggisberg had founded and to which our son had won 
a scholarship exactly live years after starting school. Then, when 
my wife was expelled, he came with her and since he was not a 
British subject we had to adopt him all over again. It was a peculiar 
position because to determine his status the English Court had to 
look at Ghanaian law and under that we were his parents. However, 
we surmounted this last hurdle and the adoption went through. He 
is now both a British subject and a Ghanaian citizen and it therefore 
seems fitting that I should dedicate this book to him. 

A week after we were married there was another General Election 
in Ghana, called on the insistence of the British Government. 

‘I have made my view clear to the Prime Minister of the Gold Coast,’ 
Alan Lennox-Boyd, then Secretary of State for Colonial Affairs, told 
the House of Commons, ‘that because of the failure to resolve the 
constitutional dispute w c can only achieve our common aim of the early 
independence of that country' within the Commonwealth in one way 
and one way alone; that is to demonstrate to the world that the peoples 
of the Gold Coast have had a full and free opportunity to consider 



CONSTITUTIONAL ADVISER 167 

their constitution and to express their views on it in a General 
Election.’ 

Why should an election, on the basis of ‘one man one vote’, to 
determine the constitution to be adopted at Independence have been 
a pre-requisite for Ghana and yet considered subsequently to be out 
of the question for Southern Rhodesia? The question is of import- 
ance. It raises the issue whether there ever has been, in the first place, 
a consistent British policy of preparing colonies for Independence, 
and secondly whether, if so, it was part of that plan to endow them 
from the start with a democracy of the British model. The British 
Cabinet which reached this democratic decision in regard to 
Ghana was Sir Anthony Eden’s Suez Government which would be 
generally accepted as to the right of Air Harold Wilson’s Adminis- 
tration which ruled out a General Election on a universal franchise 
in Southern Rhodesia’s case. Therefore, to find a logical answer 
which fits a consistent policy is difficult. Cynically it might be said 
that British post-war policy has been to accept that all Africans 
must be treated as equal unless the number of Europeans living 
amongst them exceeds five per cent of the total population. This 
formula would explain why, prior to Independence, Africans living 
immediately north of the Zambesi were allowed this privilege of 
universal suffrage, while those living south of the river, in Southern 
Rhodesia, were denied the right though they had the same edu- 
cational and cultural background to their fellow countrymen north 
of the river. The European content of the Zambian population was 
3.1 per cent, while the European content of the Southern Rhodesian 
population was 5.9 per cent. 

However, this possible racial limitation apart, official British 
belief has always been that every British Government, irrespective 
of its political complexion, had been working, at least from the end 
of the first world war, in accordance with a long-term plan towards 
Colonial independence and Western European style democracy. 
This was certainly the sincere belief of the senior Colonial officials 
in Ghana prior to independence. Addressing the Ghanaian Parlia- 
ment at Independence, after being sworn in before its Members as 
the newly independent State’s first Governor-General, Sir Charles 
Arden-Clarke said, with a simplicity and sincerity impressive 
certainly to those British who like myself attended the ceremony: 



x 68 reap the whirlwind 

‘The Colonial policy of Her Majesty’s Government in the United 
Kingdom, so far as the man serving in the Colonies is concerned, has 
not only been constant through the years: it has been quite simple and 
straightforward. These were the instructions I received when 1 arrived 
in Northern Nigeria as a young Administrative Officer: 

“Your job is to teach the people committed to your care to stand 

on their own feet and to run their own show within the rule of 

law 

He had always, I knew from talking with him, felt this deeply and 
no doubt these were the instructions he received when, a young 
army Captain twenty-two years old, he left the British Military 
Mission with General Denikin in the Crimea to join the African 
Colonial Service in which he was to spend almost the w hole of his 
official life. But when he arrived in Northern Nigeria the year after 
Lugard had retired from his Governor-Generalship, what did these 
instructions mean? Could they have had any connection with what 
they must have seemed to mean to the Western representatives at 
the Ghana Independence celebrations thirty-seven years later? 

‘The Rule of Law'’ in Northern Nigeria meant the union of 
executive and judicial power under die control of the chief. As 
Miss Perham has said in her life of Lord Lugard, ‘throughout 
tropical Africa the judicial side of tribal life is generally the most 
advanced aspect and has been that most successfully retained and 
developed under British guidance. This w'as especially true of the 
law and courts of the Nigerian emirates.’ It was as a ‘Political Resi- 
dent’ among these Northern emirates that Sir Charles Arden-Clarke 
spent the first thirteen years of his Colonial service. Lord Lugard 
himself has thus described the ‘Rule of Law’ as applied through the 
machinery of indirect rule by these Residents. ‘The Residents,’ he 
wrote, ‘men without legal training as a rule, administer Justice in 
the Provincial Courts.’ Their findings Lugard used to examine in 
the light of the recommendations of his Attorney General, the only 
lawyer concerned in the process. ‘Then,’ continued Lugard, ‘I 
review every single case ... I am not hampered by legal techni- 
calities, but I bring to bear a long African experience and a know'- 
ledge of native custom ... I above all endeavour to bring to bear 
a strong ‘common sense’ point of view. Frequently I set aside the 
Attorney General’s recommendations ... I think that for sub- 



CONSTITUTIONAL ADVISER 169 

stantial justice it would be hard to beat this system.’ Maybe, but it 
was a system which had no relation to the ‘Rule of Law’ as under- 
stood in Western terms. When in 1920 Sir Charles Arden-Clarke 
had received these instructions, what was intended — a development 
of the Lugard system or its replacement ? 

The evidence from Ghana is that until the elections of 1951, 
development towards Independence was conceived in terms of 
creating the kind of chiefly state that was thought still to exist in 
Nigeria and which certainly existed around the Arabian Gulf. It 
may be, of course, that around this time the British Government 
changed its views and accepted a general belief in Colonial demo- 
cracy. Perhaps in that case, this declaration was the first example of 
it but the subsequent history of other British African territories 
suggests otherwise and that ‘one man one vote’ was still regarded as 
the last ditch position, only to be accepted if fancy franchises of 
various types failed to produce an African Government of sufficient 
stability. The sudden enthusiasm for an election in Ghana may not 
have been, as was thought by the Gold Coast Ministers at the time, 
a trick by the British Government to delay Independence. On the 
contrary, it may have been an effort to set the CPP firmly in the 
saddle, in the belief, mistaken as it turned out, that the CPP would 
more readily follow a British lead in economic and international affairs 
than would a Government compounded of the chiefs and intellectuals. 

At any rate, whatever the British Government motives, a new 
election was desirable. The National Liberation Movement had 
won a by-election in Ashanti by a decisive majority and, for all that 
anyone on the outside could tell, they might have had massive 
popular support behind them. In fact this was not so. The policy 
which the intellectuals had been forced to accept was primarily one 
of preserving for the chiefs the absolute power they had obtained as 
agents of indirect rule and, at the same time, absolving them from 
the limitations of governmental control which were an essential 
ingredient of that system. The intellectuals had been compelled to 
boycott the innumerable conferences and committees designed to 
devise an agreed independent constitution. Their chiefly allies would 
not sit down with the Government so long as the Government 
insisted on amending the law so as to restore to the Governor the 
powers he had previously had of reviewing the decisions of the 
chiefly councils. 



I 7° REAP THE WHIRLWIND 

The new elections cut through this sterile dispute. The CPP were 
returned with a two-thirds majority, seventy-two seats out of one 
hundred and four, five fewer than they had had in the previous 
Parliament. On the other hand, their share of the popular vote went 
up by two per cent from fifty-five to fifty-seven per cent. Considering 
derisive** 6 * nUmbcr ° f uno PPosed returns, the CPP victory was 

However, I was unconcerned in these events. At the time of the 

E rVtl" 1 Y Cre ‘ n Ni S eria "'here a series of cases had 
™ r f G , han “ throu g b out that July and early August. We 

for m Tn i r f f\ dayS °S y When > onc gening, I found waiting 

Cabinet C Chapman, the Secretary to the 

with the r p Um f ie ?, aid > "’anted my advice in connection 
*ith the Cocoa Purchasing Company's affairs. 

R \ 1S 0rgam f tI0n was a subsidiary of the Cocoa Marketing 
genml Go . vcrnmen t and CPP control. It was on! 

largfst Sidnfl UyinB L a8CnC1C r 0f thC Board and had beConlc tbc 

of its integrity had 1 ^ c ° coa from the farmers. Suspicion 

dbccn S rowin S for some time. In io« the Chair- 

Zed ifregularide« g B ° ard hadmade a ^port to his Directors on 
matter had been r CSm subaicbar y Company. In consequence the 
t0 ? NklUmah aS Prime Miniver. He in 
the Board’s nolicv A° t, 1C C large ® to tbe Minister responsible for 
independent ^ ntitv m L° wev ® r tb e Board had been set up as an 
the Minister claimed L ? m ° d f , of St ? te Corporations in Britain, 
putting things ri<ffir an L- nab e t0 glvc an f precise directions for 
then h°ad the mes sent T f ° r 3 >’ ear ’ Dr Nkrumah 

General’s office which - 6 P °! lce ’ k le y consulted the Attorney 
the control of the Gold r S Y' 1 autonom ous body outside 
General’sdepartrnem^en^T^ A PP a ™tly the Attorney 

evidence upon which 'iml? t , 1 , at , tbere dld not exist sufficient 
prosecutions ™ 

at least a Commission nf p ’• , b ' kruma h then insisted that 

Company’s affairs and determine ho^F ^ UP t0 g ° int ° the 

gations against it were justified. h ° W far ^ widespread alle- 

partiality a Judge^omNigeria^Ir^u^ T? “ y SUggestion of 

" CWnra ”- He hjd » of assssffjs 



CONSTITUTIONAL ADVISER I7I 

sort, nor had either of the other two members of his Commission. 
The Attorney General’s office, which, according to precedent, 
should have provided the investigating staff, informed the Govern- 
ment that they were too busy drafting the new constitution for 
Independence to be able to spare counsel to assist the Commission. 
The Chairman regarded the Commission’s hearings as a civil action 
in which the Opposition were suing the Government for fraud and 
at which the Defendant had refused to appear. Anyone claiming the 
slightest connection with cocoa was heard without much regard to 
the relevance of his evidence and, in short, what was alleged by the 
many lawyers who addressed the Commission was that since the 
CPP controlled the Cocoa Marketing Board and thus the Company, 
the Government Party were therefore personally responsible for 
any irregularities which had taken place. The Commission’s Report, 
which the Commissioners were on the point of handing in, was 
hardly likely in such circumstances to be favourable to the Govern- 
ment but, Daniel Chapman told me, Dr Nkrumah was determined 
to publish it. He wanted, however, to accompany it with a Govern- 
ment White Paper, analysing its findings and incidentally setting 
out the action which the Government would propose to take 
in the light of its conclusions. Daniel Chapman had come to 
ask me whether I would help with this. It was a limited assignment 
but if I accepted I would have a Government office, an official 
secretary and access to records. I was to be asked to serve for three 
months as a maximum and would be entitled ‘Constitutional 
Adviser to the Prime Minister’, not because I was to advise on 
constitutional matters generally but because Dr Nkrumah had, in 
order to facilitate the appointment of an ex-Indian Governor as a 
constitutional conciliator, been given power to appoint on his own 
initiative a constitutional adviser without going through the Public 
Service Commission. The previous occupant of the post, Sir 
Frederick Bourne, had left Ghana, the Opposition having refused 
to meet him, and the job was vacant. I accepted, never for a moment 
thinking that as a result I should spend the next ten years in Ghana 
Government Service. 

Without even turning to the Report of the Commission it was 
clear once I settled into the work that in many ways the Cocoa 
Purchasing Company were guilty of a number of the allegations 
which had been made. There was clearly sufficient evidence against 



172 


REAP THE WHIRLWIND 


man) of it:s employees for prosecutions to have been successfully 
ln Britain : h was onl i' afterwards I was to 
would h * S f 1 . n “ ncccssariI y mea n that such prosecutions 
found - m G lana - Again therc "as not much fault to be 

menr in ( ! f le C ° mm,ssi0ns recommendations and the Govern- 

monos.l f r?^ S L ab r C ° a!lbutone - This "as a purely political 
t [ f C C ° coa Purchasing Company should be'reconsti- 

nomlated m Sf n “ ° f Dircctors Purposed of three members 
Seuti -S Opposition, tliree nominated by the Government 

pronocals' ^l r 1 ? appQlntcd b >’ the Governor. All their other 
to the CPP indTl I*" ' vcre a,mcd at checking abuses discreditable 
Yet the Hbo^r y “ Und< T nC the pur P ose *e Company. 

" s - disl ; poimin s ”> ■■ 

SoSt r;r m ° f the c^/l « 

their monied sunn > coc °a-farming upon which they and 
if it was true as P 1? “ me more and morc to depend. Even 
refused to lend to L?™" 1 ?’ 011 Suggcsted > that the Company 
dominated Smted Farmed S° members ** CPP 

loans had long been an acknoutT’/^ S ! V ‘j S ° r "' uhhoId ' n S of 
porters of tlie chiefs In ti, , C , dged me thod bv which the sup- 
most the Compam^was^doin^n ^ br0Ught .P“^e to bear. At the 
the old bad practices Und° ne "’> lt "' as merely continuing 

charged private co' r ? gentS of ^ Company had 
this was, the amount of inre^ ^ ? btain ‘ n S loans. Criminal though 
and through these illeo-a] e - Paid b J tbe Parmer both legitimately 
if the latter 9fT^ s agents, even 

charged by the chiefly lenders Whatw^f f ^ “““i 681 normall >' 
overall question of enrm r hat "as left unexannned was the 

some mir^tal to tr 6 ^ mdebtedn ^. To deal with it by 
studied scientifically on f t l C °"° my : ^ 0nl >' had « never been 
past with a deg^e of “ had been deaIt in the 

So far as curing indebtednes^ * ^ tbat Was a * most unbelievable, 
as barren of ideas 7s the CnT T n° nCerned the Commission were 
Pledging of cocoa farS ?' 1 admmistrad °n of the past, 
creditor either took over the farnTfo^ fi but “ general the 
recouped himself from its nr n™ ^ f feed penod of J' ears and 
the profit (usually four-ninths’! a 2 - S 0r e se be took a proportion of 
} ninths) against repayment of the principle and 



CONSTITUTIONAL ADVISER 173 

a proportion (usually two-ninths) in way of interest on the sum. 
Normally under African law, ownership did not pass to the creditor 
even though there was default in the repayment in that the farm 
failed to produce sufficient cocoa to pay off the debt. Cases were 
recorded in the Gold Coast Law Reports where, after eighty and 
ninety years, the descendants of the original debtors had recovered 
pledged farms. Generally speaking, too, creditors were not a pro- 
fessional class of moneylender but other cocoa farmers. Nevertheless, 
there were some professional moneylenders and there were forms of 
pledging which did lead to the sale of cocoa farms and altogether 
farmers’ indebtedness in general resulted in much injustice and 
hardship. In addition, it was economically disastrous. In the post- 
war years the Gold Coast cocoa farms were attacked by ‘swollen 
shoot’, a disease which is spread from tree to tree by the mealy bug. 
Unless infected trees are at once cut out they infect others and the 
whole farm is doomed. But, though an infected tree ultimately dies, 
it goes on bearing for a considerable time. 

While a farmer might have a long-term interest in his farm and be 
willing to destroy diseased trees though they were still bearing, this 
did not apply to the creditor who would, within four or five years, 
have to surrender the farm to its owner. Unless, however, ‘swollen 
shoot’ was cured or at least controlled and confined, it was only a 
matter of time before the cocoa industry would be destroyed. Any 
infected farm was a danger to its neighbours and any farm pledged 
was likely to be infected. The relief of indebtedness was therefore 
vital to checking the disease. 

The problems caused by indebtedness had long been known to 
the Colonial authorities. The West African Lands Committee had 
considered it. They had sat intermittently from 19x2 to 1914 and 
submitted a draft Report as early as 1917. This was unfortunately 
for official use only and was not generally released until after the 
second world war when it was out of date. It was clear, however, 
from subsequent investigations that indebtedness naturally varied 
with the overall price obtained by farmers for their crop; but once 
debts were incurred in a period of low prices they were not after- 
wards discharged owing to interest accumulation when the price 
again rose. In the 1926-27 cocoa season, for example, world prices 
had reached their inter-war peak and farmers received £10.9 million 
for the 238,000 tons of cocoa which they produced in that season. In 



' >4 


REAP THE WHIRLWIND 


' 933 ~o 4 'hough they produced nearly the same amount, 220,000 
tons, they only received £2.4 million. Naturally their indebtedness 
rose in J 933-34 and the price had never risen sufficiently for them 
subsequently to have any chance of discharging these debts con- 
tracted in bad years such as this. 

I he Colonial authorities of the time were concerned by the 
dangers inherent in indebtedness and they conducted a thorough 
investigation. It was the only general survey ever made in colonial 
tunes into the prevalence of, and the motives behind, the pledging 

, a>cru I 31 ’ 111 '’ - 1} - v tllc ‘* mc 1 cunc to investigate this question" all 
tile materia! collected for this survey had been lost. Like those who 
v.uukl reconstruct the early writings against Christianity, I and 
those helping me had to search through the books and papers of 
those who had commented upon or refuted the Colonial authorities’ 
f° n . c Lbll J n: > lor quotations or even oblique indications of what they 
Ut VU V 1 1 u-|r Report. In the end it proved impossible to construct 
an> c V r ! Sto,c,u 3CC0 “ m of 'heir findings. Nevertheless, from such 
Ty ' SUmVcd ‘' U3S clcar 'hat almost yearly the Colonial 

S r, " Cf r '- arna thc lhrcat t0 C0C03 through the growing 

' ue > tedness ul tarmers. In 1936 Professor C. Y. Shepherd in an 
i.v.al Kc;,rt on the Economics of Pcjsant Agriculture in the CoU 
ca h-d attention to it. In the following year Sir Prank Stock- 

n ?! di • f 14 <,n ° f ,I,C 0)101,131 found that ‘the 

ncre l. • cro P s f( >r advances received has been 

mueir" r ,h r - Ce r!-- VC3rS a " d nu - v be accc P‘«l ^ a basic cause for 
r - ‘ t u 3,tCnUon " hid > * given to the farms 

tu P rc P J ration of the crop’. Yet in face of all this 
i>'>univz >Us u<inc. 

V ' 1 ;! ; i • ■ u 1 ! ' !"• - 1 * 1 , C as 3 fmal protest against 

a:.,v:! tr hvtiin ’ "if r ?3m . ll,c < ~ />1<,nial Office instituted 

attentmu i, ,i.Vf , ‘T’? v.ltich once again called 

a«.!i .n i.a\i-i ’ b ?{ '. ud bwrn bo °f ,cn no 'vd without any 
Kean.e \ un ”? ‘he second world war the issue 

L.; the C..! \ ,**. 1 V ' l c c 1!cb * v,trc forced to protest and at 

.. ’ ' 1 >vC.unc sufficiently alarmed to at least 

hC0rt ' ncJ ,hc , Gumcil in 1945 

.. , / JnU -nnoun^cd with a flourish that it was 


l"*' 

i: 


to -.as up a (a«mmL.;o, 


, ' n to consider method-, of supplying 
t:cu:!s !u c ' Ku - f-tnncis, and to studv at 



CONSTITUTIONAL ADVISER 
least the possibility of relieving them of even their past indebted- 


n 


ness. 


In consequence a Cocoa Farmers’ Credit Committee was csrib 
lished and met in January 1946 under the Chairmanshin „r , 
Financial Secretary of the Colonial Government. More than h If ' r 
its members were Africans connected with the cocoa tm i ] f ° 
the first time it looked as if there might be a thorough ini* • • r 

followed by action. Various sub-committees were set un 
three months a plan of work was established. Then r °i 
April 1946 the Committee was adjourned by its Chairm” 1 « - 
and it never sat again. The reason given was that the nrnM ^ 
be taken care of by the British Government’s Whit p™ "° U ^^ 
Cocoa Marketing which was due shortly to be published T a P cr on 
when this document appeared it merely p ut f bnv * , vcvcr » 
proposals contained in an earlier war-time White Pap Cr ^ = cncra l 
It proposed stabilization of prices which, it said \\ 0 j > ^ °^J 944 - 
achieving the fundamental object of any reorganization" r j* ssist > n 
industry, namely, ‘the progressive abolition of indebtc ” IC C0CO3 
producers’. By itself, of course, stabilization of n r : ness among 
nothing to abolish indebtedness. This only could be ( j 0 ^ C ? f cou ^ 
accumulated through stabilization were used to pay 0 jr- Cl , funds 
which could then be funded through some Cocoa Balk tC . dncss 
organization. 0r similar 


This was what the Watson Commission prop 0se . 
ging of an industrial crop,’ they said, has ahvay s lc 


gaging 


mort- 


business for farmers in all countries, in a society Cen a s °rry 
constituted in the Gold Coast it presents the \ Vo s at present 
usury.’ They proposed the establishment of a (y, ea tUres of 
Bank or Discount House. The Colonial Office wou|(j farmers’ 
Plans, the Secretary of State explained in his official ^ 110712 of it. 
their Report, were already taking definite shape ip te mcnt on 
and included provisions for the setting up of an Agrj„ > °ld Coast 
There was a draft scheme already in existence and ,f ral Bank’, 
sufficient to deal with the situation. s "'as quite 

After an interval of time this draft scheme emerge ■ 
a draft Bill to be submitted to Gold Coast Legi S i ativ a the f 0rm 0 f 
plan it proposed was, however, obvious y quite , ^ricil. The 
Bill was never even introduced into the Legislative q e an d the 
an Ordinance was passed setting up, ms ea of a[) • Instea‘j 

%icultur- 


REAP THE WHIRLWIND 

Bank, an Agricultural Loans Board. This Board invited farmers to 
submit requests for loans and in all it received some 73,000 of these. 
In order to evaluate the requests, it then produced an eight-page 
form which had to be filled in with meticulous detail. Nevertheless, 

mill?n^ 0 f 00 fa ^, CrS c ° m P leted h and applied for a total of £50 
r> , . ln T 0ans ‘ ' le . n t lc ^coming CPP Ministers suspended the 
been a ** I* 1 ? 5 11 " aS d ' scovc rcd that, in all, two loans had 

fin eJ, H t0 - a11 ^ ^ I ’ 32 ° and of one was to a farmer 
CoS nm an,maI . husbandry’. After forty years of continuous 

bdebtedrSf ‘ Z eXammatl0 f of the Problem of the cocoa farmers’ 
cocoa ? arm r WR net f SUkwaS ° ne loan of £(>00 to one 
nanv are ev ^ acUvi . ties of the Cocoa Purchasing Com- 

indeed remarEble. agmnSt ^ background > what ic achieved is 

namelv^o ^ evl? \ d ’ d wbat skoidd have been done from the start, 
S&SST- d,e -? U8e8 ° f famers ’ indebtedness. Only upon 
relieving mdelm-d^™' c e ^ an n n ation be made of the social value of 
devised The ren nCSS S • u . rtber act i° n to prevent it recurring be 
rW V lh S f ° r lnde btedness as unearthed bv the Pur- 

another buToS £*? ^ ***■ 008 ^ ^cS^to 
under the heading causes listed appeared in every area 

farm was SS mdebted Undc ’ In other words, the 

expenses or for the d ° r , 1 e P ur P oses of advances against living 
suLr„^o™ rt'ST ° f but because of 

From this it was at mv r °T tbe exten ded family system, 

cocoa farmers involved™™ C r r tbat tb f cunn g of indebtedness of 

existing debts. It was only a part San ^ fUnding ° f their 

social system of the country P f essary reorganization of the 
, Fven from the start the CPP i 

issues which were evaded in r 1 • \ l eaSt ’ ex P osed for discussion 
Purchasing t l Not 0nly did the Cocoa 

For the first time ever in Gold r 1SC0V £ r tbe cause of indebtedness, 
to relieve it. Loans to farm blstor y they took practical steps 

Purchasing Company in their firstSe^ f^ 011 - Were made by the 
at an increasing tempo - ear °P operation and continued 

all the problemsTvhich ° ^ 0mpan y affair > in miniature reproduced 
had to fie p, Nkrumah’s Goientment 
overriding issue at the time „as the decline in cocoa 


CONSTITUTIONAL ADVISER 177 

production. If cocoa failed the whole economy would collapse and 
independence would become meaningless. Before the second world 
war a crop of over 300,000 tons had been obtained. In 1951, when 
the CPP entered the Government, production was only 230,000 
tons and in the next year it fell to 212,000 tons. For forty years the 
Colonial administration, backed by experts employed by the Colonial 
Office, had attributed the ills of the industry to farmers’ indebted- 
ness. Yet no action had been taken. All that the CPP did was to 
implement the policy advocated in theory by the Colonial adminis- 
tration but which in practice they had not applied. Krobo Edusei 
said proudly in the Legislative Assembly in 1954: 

‘The Cocoa Purchasing Company is the product of a master brain, 
Dr. Kwame Nkrumah, and it is the atomic bomb of the Convention 
People’s Party. As honourable members are aware, the Prime Minister 
in his statements to the CPP told his party members that organiza- 
tion decided everything and the Cocoa Purchasing Company is part 
of the organization of the Convention People’s Party.’ 

The Jibowu Commission quoted this statement of his as proof that 
the Company was a CPP political conspiracy. Even such a balanced 
and sympathetic left-wing Journal of opinion as the United States 
Monthly Review in its special issue on Ghana of July 1966, repeated 
the quotation as showing that the CPP Government was only a kind 
of ‘pork barrel’ administration of the familiar United States type and 
of course some of the shortcomings of the Cocoa Purchasing 
Company can be cited to support this view. Yet unless Party and 
Government worked together to combat ‘swollen shoot the industry 
was doomed. The loans scheme of the Cocoa Purchasing Company 
was the first positive action taken for forty years to deal with a 
problem which every previous Administration had acknowledged 
but which it had not had the courage to tackle. 

Since nothing had been attempted before, it had meant setting up 
an organization for which the skilled personnel did not exist and 
which was therefore almost certain to become, to some extent, 
corrupt and to be manipulated, at least on a local level, for political 
purposes. If there were no Chartered Accountants in England how 
many public companies would be conducted with absolute honesty? 
If there were no large class of trained book-keepers in Britain what 
British Board of Directors could answer for the integrity of their 



i?8 


REAP THE WHIRLWIND 


business? No doubt it was the fear that if they did anything in 
Colonial ^ T' £ ° ™ rrUption a,ul scandal that persuaded the 

aboZ sSrstr t0 r r, ihing - The pian « th* 

S ' V 1 > ptoudcd that the chiefs’ judicial system, the 
wol h^ I Sh , 0uld d f al ,' vith Redness. This, if applied, 
much nior CCr , ai . n 'I resuUx * n far greater corruption and 
£e med of $ ‘ P ? SSU ? ^ ^ chkk anyone eyer 
dou bt !hi, l , ,? ng agams : lhc Cocoa Purchasing Company. No 

proceeded St™ " &«* ~ 

ac£wd mi? f h indcbtcd " css " hidl Cocoa Purchasing Company 

StS "lr nt l d a T S . thC i,np ° rtant factors i" ** revival 
Int the cj In 19651 ,hc last >’««■ of Nkrumah Govern- 

more t an doirrl ° f G1 “ na had reachcd -19-1,°°° tons, or 
EsS" S t “ SW before, CPP 
began their ’"'Colonial Government and had 

Compa I, °Z 5 0n,b 1” ")■ "'i* the Cocoa Purchasing 

1-acoS and ““ -.-7 

resigned itself to the n ’ ” 1 - 9 ’ 1 ^ tbc Colonial regime had almost 
prodnctiorotinemLr?'" ° r Ghanaian coco, 

ness. The Watson CommissionTad'Sid" i,y_1,r0d " e ‘ ofindebted- 

estimated *a ““,1“ " ni°" “r“ in Coast and i, is 

perem auttriS ilTf Z ° b e™ “ “ <>m- 

■5 million a „ , vj" „ | ,b r Tf* of s I’ raJ is ab »“‘ 
have practically disappeared i„ Tr "“'“'p 

not a sectional, nor merely a farmer’, I’m ‘ C ° C ° a pr ° blcm 15 
lem since the economic life 0 f the C ? 6 6m: lC ls a natlonal prob- 
Shoot issue is reallv the n • °l°ny is at stake. The Swollen 

shoulder political responsibility ^ ° f ^ ab,l,ty of African leaders to 

‘prime test’. * S at ° m ‘ C b ° mb> was thc decisive response to tliis 

power to enable thenwTrive 011 S R -e P ° rt ’ the Government took 
'tarketing Board and through Cm So? ^rch^sing 



CONSTITUTIONAL ADVISER 


179 


Company. Mr A. Y. K. Djin, the General Manager of the Company 
whose conduct the Commission had censured, was informe t at 
unless he resigned a specific instruction would be issued to t e 
Board to dismiss him. Such drastic action was justifie . e 
Commission had found he continued to manage his persona 
business while full-time Manager of the Company, w ic was 
contrary to his terms of employment. Yet in reality, who 1 t emore 
harm to Ghana economy-the officials of the Agricultural Loans 
Board who scrupulously refrained from outside business activities 
and yet never examined the problem which confronted them and m 
consequence could never make up their minds to grant any oans, 
or Mr Djin who was responsible for setting up an organization 

which tackled the problem? . , 

I was appointed ‘Constitutional Adviser to the rime 1 inl ^ e r 
solely for the purpose of helping in the preparation 0 p ans w ic 
would cure the ills disclosed by the Jibowu Commission and, with 
the publication of the Government’s White Paper on its epor , my 
duties should have come to an end. By then however ano er cri 
had arisen and, as my three months period a not expire , 
asked to deal with it. The Cabinet had become increasingly alarmed 
by the method in which the British Government was going about in 

preparing the constitution for independence. . 

Britain had a long tradition of such constitution-making Up to 

the end of the second world war a P 3 ^ 11 ’ e = un 'Y 1 , adhered 

America Acts of a century before had been scrupulously adher 
to. All Commonwealth countries on becoming independent had 
started off with a Constitution contained m a Bnnsh Act of Pari 
ment. The practice had much to commend it. 

British Parhament might be alleged to be in other matters no one 
could contend that it w°as not to be trusted inrepdtot he workings 
of its own svstem. When introduced as a Parliamentary Bill, the 
own sysre Commonwealth country attaining 

fndepe’ntnce wild at least receive the scrutiny of Members of the 
maepenaence w British system should work. 

M»sh Parliament came to be 

prevented from camming the constitutions of Impend terntor.es 

^ So forSfp'Ssm'n »d Burma were concerned this could be 
properly justified on the ground that the alternauve plan of semng 



lb ’° f'j ai* i lit unm.v. ini> 

up a Constitutional Convention within the umntrv contented was 
prckrable to the drafting bv the British 1'arliamcnt of their new 
Constitutions. Unit Ccjh.n, itowever, a new pJjii was introduced 
and tins was later to he applied to ever;, other liritish Territory 
subsequently obtaining independence. Tiic liritish Parliament’s 
hmction was restricted to the passim; of a Genera! Act of Indepen- 
dence from which prac.icillv ail mention of the proposed GiU- 
utton to he adopted after Independence was omitted. The Act 
instead I authorized the liritish Government to enact it bv Ordcr-in- 
Uunct! which in practice meant that it was drafted bv the Colonial 
UI bee her sv stem appeared to be to tale the evhiim; Gdnnial 

" ! Ti-f lhc lusls ,ur ,!ut independence. AH that their 

^ 

file example of Cev Ion should have been a warning. Its Gmsti- 

wi h n domeMi V Umbk '° f principles juxtaposed 

JrjT C ' c » u , U . l,Un . S i0r ' hc »f idmdal public 

was not ev •« • “■ aarctl,J “ 1,1 > c -rs. The Cevlon Gmstitution 

Colonial G u, ! uaUK ' d 1,1 3 separate document. It consisted of the 
mS L “ '’P ,hcr " it!l »"«»•<* Order-in-Gmnei! 
provisions’ remit “' g oro, l K ™‘ sc chanctmu it so that, theoretically, 
obvious absunlir” 1111 ! mdc I";’ ndtnt status were removed, The 

J,Ut il of this 

draft a Sn” . ituti m f Pt? jl °‘ ^ l “ a ‘ l “”P‘ in the first place to 
documcm ^ " ould bc «««aincd in a simtlc 

bc^scofwhafrt dy .. lUS , ljU ^ blc inj^n brolc dovw, 
the sanctity of tlu* C t"' C • l ° bc 1 ,c nccd * l)r safeguarding, with 
which it had been aurJed'”! '" 'l '■'? tcr,ns ol Compensation 
British Colonial Gvif Sere * 1° U *1 b ° P '” J Ul ,!lc 5*9 pensionable 

^ Uit “ ,hC 

General itTaTekarUm* 1 a( . tcr ". ardsi ’ JW " hen I became Attorney 
Civil Servants had Jot t o Zr?’ \ ant sure, of the British 
Constitution to which even tr as lIll; ,,rimc l )ur P°« oh the 

file on cons, itutionalprwiossCwere’r s ! ou ^ l l| ,c subordinate, in the 

circulated, as I sunnose L copies of letters whicli had been 

General’s office, bj^members of"th < - I p° r ° Uti , nC ’ tu ** 
with the duty of examining A ^ G . (ncrnor s Committee charged 
3 LXaniImn S the Colonial Office drafts of the Const!- 



CONSTITUTIONAL ADVISER 


181 


tution. These letters, it was stated in them, should on no account 
be shown to Daniel Chapman who was Ghanaian and who, as 
Secretary to the Cabinet, was the official Secretary of the Committee 
in question. The reason given by the writers was that he would 
‘leak them’ to the Cabinet. 

The documents they had sent for the information of the Attorney 
General’s office contained re-drafts of the compensation clauses of 
the Constitution which the writers had privately put to the Colonial 
Office in London as suitable for inclusion in it. As these letters 
pointed out, if the Colonial Office in London accepted their pro- 
posals, they, the writers, would be in an invidious situation. The 
offices which they held made it necessary for them to advise the 
Ministers concerned as to whether or not the compensation terms, 
as finally set out in the proposed Constitution, should be accepted. 
If, as was pointed out in the letters, it was known that the drafts 
upon which they were asked to advise had in fact originated from 
them they might be placed in an embarrassing position. Hence the 
instruction that under no circumstances should they be shown to 
Daniel Chapman. Yet it would be wrong to accuse the officials who 
wrote these letters of greed. Their alternative proposals would have 
benefited their colleagues, not themselves. Nor could they be 
accused of conspiracy. On the contrary, the letters all bore fi e 
numbers showing that they formed part of the normal records o 


their departments. 

It is true that when Robert Gardiner, now of the United Nations 
but then Establishment Secretary, and I subsequently searched for 
the files in question we found that, prior to Independence, they had 
apparently been abstracted from the records which were to be left 
in Ghana. While this prevented us obtaining the full story there was 
nothing necessarily wrong in it. After all, the other files had been 
destroyed or taken to Britain without any sinister motives. Those 
who removed them would not have been the officers concerned and 
it may have been thought that they were of no particular historical 
value or significance for Ghana since the Colonial Office did not m 
fact re-draft the compensation terms m the form m which the 
officials in question had suggested. It was this preoccupation with 
compensation, not the impropriety of anything done m regard toit, 
which was fatal to the drafting of adequate Constitutional Instru- 
ments In fact if the officers concerned had only shown their 



182 REAP THE WHIRLWIND 

proposals to Daniel Chapman there was every likelihood that the 
Government would have proved more sympathetic to them than the 
Colonial Office. 

The compensation issue, in itself, is an excellent example of how 
preparation for Independence took place in practice. A Colonial 
1 erntory becoming independent and wishing to be rid of former 
Colonial officials whose policy did not suit the new Government 
might in reason be required to agree in advance to compensate 
those whom it dismisses, but the compensation terms, so laboriously 
F rr? [ he . ( f 1 ^ na i Cons t'tution, went much further than this, 
i. C 0 onia Civil Servant whom the Government wanted to 
keep w as not only entitled to resign in the normal way and retain 

sum P o?V° n ng 2““ had ’ in “Edition, to pav him a lump 

00 stron P L n r n0 , n o Th,S pr0vision for Gibing-, he word is not 
the rr theCml Scn : ant t0 leavc his employ was enshrined in 
be bes 5 t 4 H C °fr H tUtl ° n T d the argumcnt ranged over how it could 
penSence 6 ^ tllC pr °' CCtcd ncw Constitution for Inde- 

service^n Sv any , Brkis J Colonial official who had ten years’ 
between ai anH ° ^ uc " as m 1954 in Ghana and was 
would rec ive /W arS ** noUcc of retirement and 

pension If he rS ^ C r° mpenSa r 0n in addition t0 his normal 
proportionally less^The nl^ ^ ^ 3gC ° f 4 '/4 2 he received 

official who min-hf ha P ’ T Sh ° rt> enc °uragcd the technician or 
officer to leave at the^ St ^ e ° n aBcr independence as a senior 
theory preparations f ery moment "hen, according to the official 
Whil^arampemate/ f S ° V f J nmCnt ' vcre in thcir cr ucial stage, 
another Colonial Government h^ ^ 3 P ensionable P ost with 
and thus Ghana fnnnrl \ if 6 C0U d acce pt contract employment 
of office who often without COmpe " sa , tln S Colonial officials for loss 

Servants owing to a similar J WaS e T lal Lv short of Civil 
even occurred where official ■ bemg In operation there. Cases 
agreed with each other tn * 'h ' 6 enl Pi°- v in Ghana and Nigeria 
sation and pension from the^n ?° StS ’ drawin S their compen- 
the other ol cont« a £mpl ° yed by 
cent above their pensionable pay h H fiXed 3t twen ty-five per 

was surprised how philosophically the Gold Coast Ministers 



CONSTITUTIONAL ADVISER 


i8 3 


accepted the situation. The sum involved, after all, ran into millions. 
‘Even England,’ said Archie Casely-Hayford, ‘had once to secure 
her independence by paying “danegeld”.’ ‘It was natural, said 
Krobo Edusei, ‘that if the British are going, they should demand a 
“customary gift”.’ Nevertheless, the Government decided that if 
bribes had to be offered it was best to give a bigger bribe to persuade 
key officers to stay. So in 1955 the CPP Cabinet decided to offer a 
counter-bribe. Any British officer could stay if he wished until 
July 1959 and would receive the same compensation as he would 
have received if he had retired when his compensation figure was at 
the maximum. Alas, the lure of £8,000 tax free together with a 
pension and the chance of taking up a new career at the age 0 41 was 
too strong for most of the officials, and the number of pensiona e 
officers continued to decline. There were insufficient Ghanaians 
trained to replace them. Apparently when the compensation sc erne 
was thought up no consideration was given to the spee mg up o 
African training. In fact, African substitutes could only have been 
found by accepting temporarily some planned owering 0 qua 1 
cation coupled with a new system of training ivi ervice recrui s. 
This was what had been proposed in the final Report o e or in„ 
Party to review the Africanization Programme. The members of 
this Committee were responsible officials, A. . u, now epu y 
Secretary-General of the Commonwealth Secretariat Michael 
Dei-Anang, the Ghanaian poet and at that time the senior Ass s ant 
Secretary in the Ministry of Education, an avi g erv ’ ants 

of the most experienced and progressive 0 « 1 Colonial 

Nevertheless, their recommendations were rejected by 

aU W 0 hen ie i became Constitutional Adviser in 1956 the position had 
become so bad that one-quarter of all the senior 

Service were vacant On the day of Independence, the 7th March 
service were vacant. nens j ona ble officers remained and on the 

t957, as predicted only 519 P enS10 , _ nf thece ->Hr , 

same date a vear later the total was down to 400. Ot these 285 were 

“he piofess"n,l and technical grades agncnlturahsts, ardntects, 

citdl engineers and so on who could not by 

Ghanaians The only course open to the Ghana Government was to 

offer an eien bigger 

“letter ab™ what they had previously received. The, 



184 


REAP THE WHIRLWIND 


were offered their compensation immediately, before even they had 
ieit the Service and, in the case of those officers who had not 
reached the maximum entitlement, they were promised, in addition, 
ic en 0 their contract service the extra compensation thev 
Office! VC rC lf thcy had continucd 10 serve as pensionable 

Yet, despite all this the battle of the Constitution was over how to 
for ! M n| r U i f ° r - n l °o f ' VOrds t0 safc Buard the 519 officials. Provision 
tution Th C ° ° nia ' nS1Stcd > must bc incIudcd the Consti- 

the oriJ! 1 T Cant tlm *T hmV thc *954 Constitution containing 
Colonial Dffi ® Uarantee bad t0 . be kept alive. To secure this the 

Constiturin r 1 ?, 311 . ed tiat ‘ n tbc forefront of the Independence 
Constitution die following complicated form of words must appear: 

bvThe r° u C r “ (C ° nslitution ) Order-in-Council 1954, as amended 
Tlfe C , ST (C r titU ' i0n) Amendment) Order-in-Council 
Council in« institution) (Amendment No. 2) Order-in- 
in-Council 5 , ‘ t? . hc G ° ld G*® (Constitution) (Amendment) Ordcr- 
of Part t of the f T ' Hc CXIcnt sct out in thc sccond column 

anything lawfully clone" thereunder!’ 15 ° rdCr ’ ^ " ilh ° Ut PrCjUdiCC “ 

compensation Fovfsio^ofth! il™ T °" ly ‘° kCCP alivC thc 
include, possiblv hv mict 1 1 Constitution but also to 

only rcmoTLlrf k .V ^ of esttaneons manor 

the provisions whkh .-n! T* “V?*”* 0 "- For example, one of 
Constitution was this ,, 1 ?''" ’ T US 10 K ' “‘nludcoi in the Independence 

independent goveSimSt ‘AT H" ,h ' » f 

‘construed’: ana bad ’ amon g other things, to be 

visions/ltt ! C 40 On a nD] Of , SeCt - 0n 1 ° f the lndla ( Con sequential Pro- 
applies to laws in force on rh° H ^ ? 3me ' Vay 3S that subsection 
(b) as if subsection (2) of ° ate mentioned in that subsection; and 

(« i..e n , re J;“^“ 1 3 0 ? f,h ' B ' i “ Ac .94*, 

and subsection (2) of c,w r ^ sectIon 3 of the Ireland Act 1949 
- .hose s«bs^ r :^”o ,°.ws' n I f nd A “ 'ft* ” 

mencement of those Acte respectively - ° “ ** ^ ° f the C ° m ' 



CONSTITUTIONAL ADVISER 


185 


As the proposed Constitution was drafted, it needed an affirmative 
vote of two-thirds of the total membership of the Ghanaian Parlia- 
ment to alter a single word in any of this. 

It was not only that such provisions were not immediately 
comprehensible even to the Judges and lawyers of Ghana. Their 
inclusion raised an issue of policy. The CPP Cabinet wanted a 
Constitution which the people could understand, which, as r 
Nkrumah said, ‘could be taught even in the schools’, around which 
loyalty could grow and which could thus become an accepted 
institution. For any of this, it had, at least, to be intelligible to the 
educated lay reader. As it was, the over-concern with the question 0 
compensation resulted in a great many of its pages being e v ote to 
setting out the methods of calculating the exact sums due to ntis 
officials while fundamental rights were only dealt wit in two su 
clauses. Of these, the first had been designed to dea with the I amil 
minority problem of Ceylon and was copied ver atim rom e 
Ceylon Constitution. The second was an abbreviated version of a 
provision of the Government of Ireland Act 1920, w ic a e 
drafted to prevent laws being passed in Northern Ireland that migh 
prejudice the position of Roman Catholics, i eit er seeme p 

^ s T abcri V 6 i:a^ t 

,0 attend at a Cabinet meeting. Somewhat naturally the Cabrnet 
could not follow the ramifications oftheOJoni jOIficc draftth 

r 4.1, t r,Mc oclrpH whether I could, within 3 . month, 
was now before them. 1 “ ™ tion a form that the Cabinet 

produce an entirely new dratt consuuui t 

could discuss. They were Jte dear;h« Sen, Ini 

Constitution should be based on L°mmon we f 

should reproduce where possible the ac a ^ s j mp j e 

Commomvealdi Cousmudons but ^ ^ ^ R must 

SfaS' Sights audS addition all the points upon which 1, 

had’been decided to meet t ^j^^^a < scheme b^ whlch'^lclurts 
further asked whether I cou ^ ;1 for Parliament to do and what 
could rule on what was consti^^ Jf ^ had been enacted they 

was not, but m such challenge. Above all, the new draft 

would no longer be subject hi tQ the average 

had to be in simple languag 

CPP supporter. 



^ REAP the whirlwind 

I managed to produce a draft in the time limit. Looking back on 
m} wor now it bears every trace of haste but it was something at 
eas or t le a met to consider. Their meeting for this purpose, at 
which I was present, sat on and on-so far as I can remember from 
mne o clock in the morning until almost six in the evening without 

wi/rr' Mod ! ficat !° T ns of Poetically every Article I had drafted 
iscusse an ^ was sent awa ) r t0 make the changes and to 
amphfy my notes on them, explaining where each Article had been 

ouesdfn A 1 ^ WHy ^ G 1 ° Vernment rec °mmended the wording in 
alte Zn, another long Cabinet meeting, at which again 

s nt to T o T" 6 m l de> “ final draft was agreed. It was printed and 

basis for , r Wlth aformaI rec l uest ^at it should be taken as the 
basis for the Constitution at Independence. 

accented^Tr t0 if Us at . t ^ e l ' me that it would not be 

view than rb ' r* Urt ^ meet ' n g the Opposition’s point of 
Election Ld K p C °f St,t f U ° T naI Proposals upon which the General 
the Opposition ^ SCt ° U . t dle fundamental Rights which 

Government want 1 v” d ?™ andin & and it was what the Ghana 

tW0 « ^ree days of us arrival in 

reply ‘that the* evfi* - ran ^ ^ ecretar y of State’s Dispatch in 
replaced bv 7 tnstruments should all be revoked and 

features not in the 1 ^^™! ^inst' 7 C ° nstltuti ° n em hodying many 
fundamental rights and rn ™ ent , s such as codification of 
always been mv C ° nstItutIonaI . conventions ... It has 

achieved in the following m mg ^ lnde P e ndence would be 
Gold Coast would be srnnt ^ lrstdy ’ t h e Parliament of the 

Act of the United Kinp-H 6 p^V^ 6 Westminster powers by an 
Ceylon Independence Act °s!>r ^l™*^ ° n the Precedent of the 
necessitate issue of an amendin °n n’ passage of this Act would 
cedent of Ceylon final “ rd ? r-ln ~Council again on the pre- 
in-Council made f ° r . the te ™s of an Order- 

of necessity rest with U 't Gnited Kingdom Ministers must 

impendence Uold Coast 

mU>ghTpSe r t u !d™»i°Tr " ,mpon,,T hitch ' vhidi 

legislation which had to be ena^L' There , was a hu S e mass of 

so as to implement the Ghana 



CONSTITUTIONAL ADVISER *^7 

draft. We were hoping for the loan of a British Parliamentary 
Counsel who would now have time to finalize this. The new oust 1 
tution could be introduced shortly after Independence. The Co onia 
Office draft provided that their Constitution could be amende y a 
two-thirds vote of Parliament which the CPP controlled. Our p an 
was shortly after Independence to repeal in toto the Coloma ce 
Order-in-Council and to substitute the Ghana draft for it. t was 
annoying that at the Independence Celebrations the specia y oun 
and gilded Instrument of Government which would be ceremom 
ously handed over by the Queen’s representative shou contain so 
many schedules about the exact sums which shou e pai m 
compensation to the remaining 519 British Civil Servants an s ° 
paragraphs about the Fundamental Rights of t e six mi 
Ghanaian inhabitants. However, as Dr Nkrumah pointed out to me 
all that anyone who attended the ceremony wou see wou ... . 
fine binding of the book. It was immaterial w at was 1 
Within a month of Independence we would introduce our o 

My wife, "who had taken part in the last two Monte CadoRaffies, 
had gone back to England to compete in that year s e » ^ 

the end never took place — one of the now or S° 

Suez. Thus, three days before Christmas I found: in 
up in bed at home with one of those fevers to 7 • t0 saY that 

the tropics are traditionally subject. My stewr t0 see me. 

the Prime Minister was at the door and wanted g y B , 
It appeared another Dispatch h ^ c °™ e £ r ° Nkruma h wanted my 

Before he circulated * g b * eir authority on the British 

reaction. I was after all, he said , decided t0 take an 

Parliament which apparently ^ Secretary’s message was 

interest in Ghanaian affairs. Th< n . British Government were 
a blunt announcement that, me upon the basis upon 

no longer prepared to enact u el d themselves out as willing to do. 
which they had, up till now, _ lained) been disturbed by the 
The Colonial Secretary had, ^ of P Commons on the Ghana Inde- 
tone of the debate m the Ho tQ var ; ous speeches made by 

pendence Bill and he referre p arty . It was necessary that he 

back bench Members of his o Govemment further constitutional 
discussed with the Goia ^ {d Coast Government was 

guarantees. He proposed, 1 



^ REAP THE WHIRLWIND 

holiday ^ ^ sIl0uld v ’ sit Accra immediately after his Christmas 

Dr Nkrumah, sitting in the bedroom of my little house, took the 
matter ar more philosophically than I did. He had never expected, 
e sai , t at t e ntish Government would agree to Ghana having a 
democratic constitution. All he was concerned with was that the 

[r ft, 0 ! 1 HJf !t P| a j n tbat ** was Britain who refused to enact 
n a at a times his Government had been willing to accept 

" r t C ° nStlt TT t0 ? at of the 0] der Dominions. He had, he 
would r 'f S !i° r u T P re mise that the British Government 
araniimr u 1 ^ S ^^ L ° W °f independence in order to avoid 
this oliieri SU "fr- ^ 1S ’ n0 d°nbt, was a last effort to achieve 
M h£ Wanted from me was an appreciation of the 
£ ™° nS Wh ‘ Gh COuld be made and which would still 
the countrv in^i Con !X and,n S a substantial majority of the votes in 
constitution wlii fr° S ’ t0n ln wblcb they could, if necessary', alter the 
a condition of intpemdence° P0Sed ’ ° bvi ° Usly ’ t0 force on Ghana as 

civilized in^cmiouV' ^ v * W3S abvays t0 find him, much more 
and Colonial Civil 0 5 sop ^ lstl . c ? te ‘l w ay than the British politicians 
me t viST imnl ' T T* ' ,hom hc “"tending. He left 

= “zr ^ iib ' ss 

aceom^Xa °M, C g G d EZ d T 

of State at the Colonial (W then an Assistant Secretary 

agricultural matters at th^’r^ E .X n ™ od bad been in charge of 
Commission’s proposals for r° ““p Gfbce when tlle Watson 
but it was not on this account rwT Bank ^ ad bcen turned down, 
couple of years befnrp n- • at ^ remembered him. I had, only a 

of Commons on his behatf *At Uk? Dlvi ® io , n lobbies of dle Housc 
Commons debate he had left th °, f tbls particular House of 

nent Commissioner of Cro l n t ^ mal ° ffice 5° bec «nte Perma- 
been involved in a mm™, ands ar *d m this capacity he had 
Dorset. His Minister Si ° Ver ^ and at Crichel Down in 
independent investigator Ifn ° m ^ Dugdale, had appointed an 
into .he manerSKid ° f mine, to go 

and of other Civil Servant T 1 ! a ®fP ort criti cal of Mr Eastwood 
leagues, thought his Rennrr K’ j ’ . e man y of my Labour col- 
S Report biased against Civil Servants in general 



CONSTITUTIONAL ADVISER ^9 

and Mr Eastwood in particular, and I had voted against what I 

considered his unjust condemnation. . , , 

The point of view taken by the Labour Party in the e ate a 
been that Ministers were solely responsible for the conduct o t eir 
departments and that it was unnecessary to call in outsi e inves 1 
gators. If a senior civil servant was to be removed from s pos ’ 
which is what had been proposed in Mr Eastwood s case, t is s ou 
be done by the Minister responsible on his own initiative. In 
replying for the Government, in which Alan Lennox- oy w ^ s 
that time a member, Lord Kilmuir, then the Home ecr f a ’ 
conceded the point. ‘The position of the Civil Servant, e sa 1 » 
that he is wholly and directly responsible to his Minister. * s . , 

stating again he holds his office “at pleasure an can e 
at any time by the Minister and that power is none e 
because it is seldom used.’ It now became apparent a „ 

purpose of Mr Eastwood’s visit to argue that t s t eory was 

mistaken and should not be accepted, at any rate, so ar 

C °Onc" e Alan Lctmox-Boyd and Mr Eastwood got downto^ 
cussion it was clear that their main objection o tatement 0 f 
which we had drafted was not that * 

Fundamental Rights or went be y ond ^ ^tional conventions that 
case of Ceylon, but that, among the co Servants 

it set ou. was dte principle 

as agreed by both ®"“ h t Sn e ° plan. as explained 

Crichel Down Debate. The Gold . Gvil Service should be 

to the British Government, was * * be a p ublic or 

organized as it is m Britain than y would be res tricted to those 

Civil Service Commission but its d Commonwealth 

which it performs in Britain and in the 

countries. . . -..-gd a Public Service Act 

The Ghana draft Constitution^enw until it was passed our 
which should spell out th“ e pr ™ s execut ; ve powers relating to 
draft Constitution P rov ^ ice generally shall be vested in the 

public officers and the public adv i C e of the Cabinet’. This 

Governor-General acting °" s ; m ilar provisions in the consti- 
provision had been c °? ied ™ ltb countries but it was totally 
tutions of the older Comm ran counter to their new 

unacceptable to the Colonial Office sm 



r 9° REAP THE WHIRLWIND 

principle of Civil Service control first introduced in the Ceylon 
(institution. Under that Constitution Ministers were deprived of 
all control over their Civil Servants who were only responsible to an 
independent Public Sen-ice Commission which was not responsible 
ar lament. Similar provisions had been inserted into the 1954 

Tn , C( ? St Coastltutlon but now the Colonial Office draft of the 
Independence Constitution went even further in limiting Ministers’ 

anno^nrm T the ‘ r ^ The °P erative words were now ‘The 
dismiss-d Cn i P ro . m ° tIon > transfer, termination of appointment, 
in rhn C 311 1S r^ mai 7 Contrcd °f public officers is hereby vested 
C(.'nnmW n0r ener aCt ' ng ° n the advice ° f the Public Service 

limited 6 .G oas t. Constitution a transfer was, at least, 

limitation on rl raRS Cr 1 r V l ° lv . ing an * ncrease d salary’. Even this 
removed T lc P°" cr °P tbe irresponsible Commissioners was now 

SLr neTZ ,l WaS r ? dcfined aS mea ™S ‘The conferment, 
that to which thp 0 ffl ° r 0t ie ^ v ise, of some public office other than 

intention was m r, these proposals, and presumably their 

the Civil'Servicc lnister ‘ a ^ or Parliamentary control over 

condemned b Sir T S innovation had been strongly 

AdS a ,L Ur J ”"!"S S "ho been ConsttatioLl 

d "™ B th * 1-dependence 
democratic system but on f uun d atlon °f -be British Parliamentary 
be flexible" on li " haKV ' r »>“ Secretary of State might 

In hc ""old not concede an inch, 

the Governor’s official • / e summ oned to Christiansborg Castle, 
Secretary of State a draft r^’ and lwd put before them by thc 
either to accent or reinct* mu onstl i tutlon which they w-ere invited 
was proposed, cither indent* °l lmpicat ' on was if they rejected what 
some other even worse rn ”■ Cn ? C w° u ld be delayed or alternatively 
The new British pronosak'^^H^ 011 -^ bc ^ orced 011 them, 
being alterable bv a von- r " CrC > - lat ’ i nstea d of the Constitution 
Parliament, some* thirteen tv,0 ~ t nrds _ the total membership of 
sections setting up the Publics ? S .-° f 'Z inclutiin B of course those 
thc Judicial Service Cnm„ • • ervice Commission and its parallel 
Ghana ttas t0 C: di vS dT’T’ “ bc s P^ a % entrenched, 
have a Regional Assemble m°l UC P fS‘ ons - Each of these was to 
mbl } and any alteration of these entrenched 



CONSTITUTIONAL ADVISER 


191 


clauses had to be approved by two-thirds of these Regional Assem- 
blies. The drafting concealed the reality. The Assemblies were 
limited to five and two-thirds of five is four. 

At the last General Election the CPP had only an overall majority 
in three out of the five Regions so this provision would make it now 
impossible to introduce the Ghana draft. In any event, no alterations 
to the entrenched clauses could take place until the Regional 
Assemblies had been set up by a complicated machinery, which, too, 
was laid down in the Constitution and which meant, even if every- 
thing was done at maximum speed, it would be still impossible to 
enact a Constitutional change at least for eighteen months. These 
alterations, it was implied, had been made by the Colonial Secretary 
in the interests of the Opposition. In fact they made their position 
impossible if they were to obtain their objectives bydemocraticmeans. 

On the basis of how voting had gone in the past it was 1 e y t at 
the Government would gain a majority in the Northern Region 
one of the two Regions where the CPP were m a minority, an 
might thus be able to alter the Constitution. What was .mposstble 
was that. on any e '-i st ' n S caleulat'on, the OpposuKJn^co u ^^^^ arn^a 
majority m four out of the five Regions tn . , , , 

election in the two Regions in which the ol ? f , 

divided, they had not won a single seat. The pposi 1 

JeGe^Heedon^the^si^-^^ 

Federal Constitution Ostensibly in 1 their pp^ ^ ^ & 

had now been altered in such a way t organization they 

whole voted decisively ^ ^e fcd U-p^ k sQ kng * 

advocated, it would have been ™P 0 members in the two coastal 

Regions in which they rhen held every ar i singa co j_ 
The British Government .had CiviI 

tution which was intended to P had, how 

Servants behind which, in every othe^ 

done so at the cost of produci complicated to the point 

way, was quite unworkable J S designed as to make inevit- 

of incomprehension. Further ^ one smaU example, any m 

able conflicts widi the Courts^ ^ ^ of a chlef) ^ ^ ^ 

affecting the tradmonal fun ^ Constltutl0n had ^ 

any obligation to consider the chiefs’ 



192 


REAP THE WHIRLWIND 


views but it was not entitled to proceed with any such Bill until 
three months had elapsed from the time of referring it to the chiefs. 
But what was a Bill affecting the traditional functions or privileges of 
a chief? Was it, for example, a Bill which provided for the safe 
custody of the regalia of a chief in a traditional area where, owing to 
a disputed election, there was in fact no chief. 

The Speaker ruled that a Bill to provide for the safe custody of 
regalia pending the election of a chief was not one which affected the 
tra ltional function or privileges of any chief since it only arose in a 
situation where there was no chief and the Bill was enacted without 
re erring it to the Houses of Chiefs. The Courts, however, decided 
ot enuse. They held that the Act should have been so referred and 
t at, since it had not been, it was unconstitutional and they gave 
amages against those who had enforced its provisions. 

1 n en ll . tmiatcl y elections for the Regional Assemblies were held, 

, C PPnsition refused to nominate candidates on the grounds that 
i? S b ? d *! ot b een S rant ed the powers to which the 
so T T* 1 1 ° 1 U “ C t lc T were entitled. In consequence, though 
Wo n'’™. 11 ,' 5 - V ° n SCatS > the CPP had a majority in every 
seems nrS n n he u baS1 u ° f previous local Government elections it 
Oonnshi™ w that the S fT result . would have occurred even if the 
their lad- nf & cont< r sted election and it may have been in fact 
from the P SUCC ? SS m t lese e ^ ect '°ns which led them to withdraw 
iqS ffi 1 T T te f H ° wever this was > by the end of October 

19 {*tZZ T S dCar f ° r alteHn S Constitution. 

Council in Svi t0 try t0 amend the Colonial Office Order-in- 
constitutional fn ' ’ T a£c .°t dance with the various complicated 
f't ' Vari£d from Section to Section. An 
tution cvcrv restr! ^ tC ’ ''h'ch merely removed from the Consti- 
ordinarv Act of P-iV 0 " ° n 1 ^,.b e ‘ n S ame nded othenvise than as an 
each House of Chiefs? ent. \\ ith due solemnity this was referred to 
Re-donal Sscm W , the ‘ r V,ews > and afterwards to each of the 
retired ^o-thffds^^t "' aS “1“^ P assed by them and by the 
was die one^and^onl bSO UtC . ma ^ or ty °f Members of Parliament. It 
tutional provisions to whic^tTV? 0 " ? Vhlch the elab °rate consti- 
labour and time were ever applS? 0 ™ ° ffiCC Had deV ° ted S ° mUCh 


y. ^ wvu applied. 

months. The ^Cons tl tutiem ni^ 011 laS , ted in P ract ice just twenty-one 
institution (Removal of Restrictions) Act of x 8th 


CONSTITUTIONAL ADVISER 


193 


December 1958 set aside those sections of it which hampered 
constitutional amendment and thereafter it was changed by the 
same process as any other Act of the Ghana Parliament. I he 
paragraph in a schedule to the Ghana Independence Act, passed by 
the British Parliament, which had given the British Crown the power 
to impose these clogs on constitutional change and which forbade 
their removal was also repealed. In this connection it is interesting to 
note than when the British House of Commons passed the para- 
graph in question, its Members were under the impression that the 
restriction on amending the Constitution would amount on y to t ae 
necessity for obtaining a majority of two-thirds of the i lem ers ip 
in the Ghana Parliament. Alan lennox-Boyd’s subsequent further 
restrictions had therefore no Parliamentary sanction an were on y 

imposed by the use of the Royal Prerogative. 

During the debate the Secretary' of State never disclosed that he 
had been officially asked bv the Ghana Government, through the 
Governor, Sir Charles Arden-Clarkc, to consider a Constitution 
based on drat of the older Dominions. In order not to emb™ the 
United Kingdom Government, Dr Nkrumah's Government never 
disclosed that thev had prepared an alternative ra a • ■ 
ment has never be'en published. Hastily drawn .hough it ^vas , is of 
i- - ■ . r , „ Mpirlv what were the Lrr views on 

historic interest as it shows very cieariy • j 

reason I have 

had about the whole oft is r su w ho had studied in great 

of the proposed Parliament . — Com ’ monS) had been spending 
detail the procedure 0 working out with Parliamentary 

some three months in on cerem ony for the independent 
officials an impressive fa die ease of Ceylon and 

Ghana Parliament based U P°“ . g the sovereignty of Parliament 
deliberately designed to emp 

and the new constitutional re atl ^ th be f ore these ceremonies were 
Suddenly, less than, I thm > ^ quite casual l y t0 Dr Nkrumah 
due to take place, the o ; t would be more appropriate 

that the Colonial Office ha dent set at the independence of 

to base the ceremony on ^ stud ied what had taken place 
Australia. None of us had, of cours , y 



194 

» Australia „ vcr ^ 

f*. ' m much “Wine 

ODenin £l ?n tely We discovered that the , Australian precedent 
E g °? n arliai «ent or Speech £ f £ ad been *> ^mal 

the , Throne - Instead, the 

sune-'Ri i C 1 p n . ce ^nseum and accomn n ? u tlJOUS Iy t0 die recently 
£ rvule Britannia 5 >, acc °mpanied bv rm« r-n^Vr. 


=2 Science """^usfyto 

to choint, had 

^2[ 0ac ‘ A “L Mi “ 

?,H? 0 ' d nfStacL'M^'V 1 Kensi "P”“ 

at BuckinvL f ^anaian Parliament who was t0 attend 
that St 1 Palace > since we™ m t half of the Qpeen- 
Colonial Offi ^ Wh ° dealt with these ° d t Kensin gton Palace 
Finally w^v t0 Which we were Pf ot °«>I~and at the 

wiiosetecret 15 - t0 See Lord Kilmufr rt t Buckin S ha m Palace. 

received us w ith Were toId the oririnaJ 6 ° rd C ! lanccUor > from 
staff had ever S C ° wtes Y but some surn^™^ 1 had come - He 
last moment th £n con sulted on the ino f f nS ^r Neither he nor his 
11 wafpelt *? Ceylon precedent * Was on,y at the 

level of a th™ £ S ’ tbe most striking e% as finally accepted. 

^„ ght . oot Brit . sh *mg «™pl. , „f .he a J eI , cc „ 

PPmach to Ghanaian Independence 



CHAPTER SIX 


ATTORNEY GENERAL 


It was, in the end, the impreciseness of the Lennox-Boyd Consti- 
tution which led, six months after Independence, to a vacancy 
occurring in the office of Attorney General. The Order-in-Council 
had provided for interim Regional Assemblies composed solely of 
Members of Parliament for each Region and it was a dispute on the 
election to the Chairmanship of the Interim Regional Assembly for 
Ashanti that caused the crisis. 

The 1957 Constitution had continued a provision, contained in 
the earlier 1951 and 1954 Constitutions, under which the Speaker of 
the National Assembly did not have to be a Member of Parliament. 
This was an unusual provision with a British type Parliamentary 
system but there was much to be said for it. 

When the CPP first came to office in 1951 they took advantage of 
it to elect to the post Sir Emmanuel Quist who had been President of 
the old Legislative Council, was a leading figure among the Ga 
aristocracy of Accra, and was typical of that intellectual class of 
African whom the early twentieth-century Colonial policy had 
excluded from public life. He had been, in his youth, an able lawyer, 
had joined in 1914 the Attorney- General’s office but it was made 
clear to him that he would be denied promotion on account of his 
race and within a year he resigned. He had been, before the Second 
World War, active on the conservative side in Accra municipal 
affairs. Politically he was well to the right even of the old United 
Gold Coast Convention. His career had nevertheless exemplified 
the fight in the inter-war years against the exclusion of Africans from 
all positions of authority in the Colonial administration and it was 
therefore appropriate and symbolic that, in his old age, he should be 
chosen for the office of Speaker. Nevertheless this did not prevent 
the Opposition, feeling perhaps by this time he had become too 
identified with the Government, running a candidate against him for 
the Speakership in 1956. They had proposed as an alternative, 


WS 



ig6 


REAP THE WHIRLWIND 


another elderly lawyer from Togoland with a very similar back- 
ground to that of Sir Emmanuel, a Mr B. K. Tamakloe. 

At the first meeting of the Members of the Interim Ashanti 
ssem y over which Sir Emmanuel had, in accordance with the 
Lennox-Eoyd Constitutional provisions to preside, the Opposition 
majority decided to elect as the permanent Chairman his old rival, 
Mr lamakloe, who was neither a Member of Parliament nor 
an 1 y irth. This move was in line with the general Opposition 
policy to elevate the two Regional Assemblies which they controlled 

Parliaments S 31111 and tbe Northern Territories — into subordinate 

th p In w COn , Sti I Ution ? 1 i. discUSsions the Opposition had argued that 
c„: ov „^| IOn: J D ss . eni , ies should have similar powers to those 
thatRe f W Y tl J e A Parh r nt of N o«hern Ireland. The CPP’s view was 
Londnn S r!! a ^ mbll ?, s should have powers similar to those of the 
Govern mp 01 r ,nt ^ .°. uncd and s h°uld be similarly constituted. In the 
should be Hr- 0 P’ mo *i tbe P fesidin S officer of a Regional Assembly 
member o'f w ‘ he Chi "™" the London CouMy Council, a 

administration o7IR2 TI,7 l “ T'Tf 1 ”" A 
tVDicallv rlirl not j egl0n ‘ , he Lennox-Boyd Constitution, 

for a ‘Regional C C °™ e d . 0wn dec ' s ‘ v ely on either side. It provided 

wkhimtln'^mrmth 511 ^ 10 ^ 1 ' 1 C ° mmission ’ which was to be set up 

later than nine m r e P endence and which had to report not 

organization it r ° n • f & lenvards on what Regional powers and 

power S or th LrT ^ ? e * irable - Nothing was said on the 

Assemblies which^ve^'t^be f [ ai " e ' V01 J of the Interim Regional 

considered and acted on the Repmt of theC ^ Parliament had 
All that rhe .• report ot the Commission. 

do was to ‘offer advkeTo^^Xr 1 ^ 6 Interim Asse mblies power to 
Region’ — which the In A’ -a a Minister on any matter affecting a 

could do in any event inth ^ S COmposin S the Interim Assemblies 

and to set up ff thev of Members of Parliament- 

the object of encouLT ^ a , Commi «ee in the Region ‘with 

and the public’. Looking K°°i. re adons between the Police force 

chair these bodies was a cn ^ ,k° n !t ’ tbe fi uest '° n of who should 

n appeared symbolic of the^r" ^ ai ? adernic matter but at the time 

‘Federalists’. Asked by the Cah^ b f WC “ the <Unifiers ’ and the 

wording of the Constitution tf [° r my Vlew 1 said that 1116 
onstitution, though obscure and capable of various 



ATTORNEY GENERAL 197 

meanings did not, I thought on balance, permit the Ashanti Interim 
Assembly to bring in an outside Chairman. On the basis of my 
opinion the Government requested Mr Paterson, the Attorney 
General, to take proceedings in the Courts to obtain a ruling on the 
legality of the Ashanti Interim Assembly’s action. He would not do 
so. He considered my view of the law to be wrong, that the Assembly 
was entitled to appoint Mr Tamakloe and that in any event it was 
not a matter for his department. 

By this time the issue had developed into a legal trial of strength 
between Government and Opposition. Mr Tamakloe, now described 
as the ‘Speaker’ of the Ashanti Assembly, was planning to preside at 
what was, for all intents and purposes, a State opening, copied from 
that of Parliament but with the Asantehene in place of the Governor- 
General. The Chief Regional Officer’s staff in Ashanti, who were 
Civil Servants responsible to the Central Government, accepted Mr 
Tamakloe’s directions and, on his authority, summoned a meeting 
of the Regional Assembly for this purpose. The CPP minority 
group among the Members then took Court proceedings, challenging 
the legality of the whole affair. They were upheld and Mr Tamak- 
loe’s election declared invalid. The decision was in no way a 
criticism of the advice tendered to the Government by the Attorney 
General. So obscure was the wording of the Constitution that the 
case might have gone either way. However, it produced a crisis of 
confidence. Mr Paterson decided to retire from Ghana and to 
accept appointment as Chief Justice of Northern Rhodesia. 

Under the Lennox-Boyd Constitution neither Dr Nkrumah nor 
his Government had any say in the appointment of his successor. 
The Order-in-Council provided that the appointment to the post of 
Permanent Secretary (but not dismissal or transfer from it) should 
be made by the Governor General ‘acting on the advice of the Prime 
Minister, after the Prime Minister had consulted the Public Service 
Commission’. However, from this provision the office of Attorney 
General was specifically excluded though the post was senior to that 
of Permanent Secretary. Dr Nkrumah wanted me to obtain the 
appointment and asked me to apply for it but I was awarded it not 
on any political ground. My ultimate selection was a consequence of 
the operation of the Colonial rules of procedure that the Public 
Service Commission continued to apply in conditions of Inde- 
pendence. The fact that I had been a Labour MP for ten years and 



reap the whirlwind 

Constitutional Adviser to Dr Nkrumah for a year was immaterial — 
neit er were posts within the former Colonial Service. In the end it 
tvas apparent y a question of seniority. I had the requisite honours 
egree, ough not in law but in history. However, it was seniority 
t? C ? j° [ e English Bar and appointment as Queen’s Counsel in 
• ng an t at enabled me to defeat the other candidate, a Judge in 
the British Colonial Service. 

Nn !inli n ° d ; lus j° n , about the difficult i r of the job I had taken on. 
„ n . , f f ln ! V1 ua . could rescue Ghana from the legal confusion 

WhptTip C t'* 11 u SS U bad uiherited from the Colonial regime. 
I rnnlri C °- U S , U , CCCed or wou W fail depended upon what staff 
anything™, ^ u-° W * Cou ^ d or S an >ze tlieir work and not upon 
mv dem t C ° U 30 11CVe una * ded m yself. Yet the appointments to 
Sv&SZ Were r t0 J 6 made n0t by ™ but by the Public 
in mv own A ISS10n " n t b e °ty I could not even transfer an officer 
approval and T epa ’ t ?^ nt pr ° m one job to another without their 
antiquated mi,r am 7 n0t recru ' t on m y own initiative. The 
pre-indeDendenrp 1 ^ " " C1 * inherited, almost unchanged in its 
and immediate 1 ° ! la ,r e ’ W3S ^ ube unsuitable to initiate any reform 
development Tneffi ^ WaS essent >al for any planned economic 

enterprise which haTto bT 316 ** T^a 0Verhead char S e on any 
factor which mntrlt be °P erated under them and the single 

Judged by this criterion "cf t0 . me ® cienc y of ! aw is uncertainty, 
systems where olwm hanaian Law was high on the list of 
component African rei 5 ned supreme. Its most important 
factor. ’ aW ’ was lts most neglected and uncertain 

began its description of Hwt? , the Courts Ordinance still 
„ m force in the country by providing: 

the do C arint e ofequi 0 J thI H 0r t. any 0rdinance > the common law, 
were in force in Eno-T T 1 6 Statutes op general application which 

- * - 

The basis of the law tn a ■ • 

to be what it had been in P mim ^ tere d> thus appeared at first sight 
been born. Unfortunately it 3 and tW ° - ears before my father had 
British Acts of Parliament wl/^ n0t CVen 3S sim P le as that. Not all 

to be applied but only those ofwTf ^ July I§74 were 
y ose ot general application’. Which were of 



ATTORNEY GENERAL 199 

general application and which were not, was extremely doubtful. 
New hotels, for example, were at last being constructed in Accra. 
Did the English Statute Law, as it applied to innkeepers in England 
in 1874 apply to them in Ghana in 1957? The tests applied in the 
past by the Gold Coast Courts had differed. 

One school of thought argued that the right course was to ask 
whether, for example, the law relating to innkeepers in England in 
1874 would have been applicable in the conditions of the Gold 
Coast in that year. This, I think, was the correct test but another 
school considered that while the Act might not have been held to be 
of general application in 1874, ^ might later become of general 
application when, for example, as in this case, the need for inn- 
keepers, and thus of a law regulating their liabilities, had arisen. In 
other Colonies where British law had been applied from a specific 
date these words — ‘if of general application’ — had caused much 
litigation. In the earliest series of Law Reports of New South 
Wales one-third of the reported cases were on this issue alone. 
Fortunately in the past in the Gold Coast it had not troubled the 
Courts to this extent but it remained a danger that might at any 
moment arise. However, the more immediate problem was, now 
that so many years had gone by, to find the books which would tell 
one what English law had been in that far off summer of 1874. For 
example, in 1874 there was little statute law on Partnership in 
England and the relation of partners was largely governed by 
common law. Did the English Partnership Act of 1890 merely 
consolidate the common law previously existing or did it import 
new principles? If the latter was true, these new principles could 
not be part of the Law of Ghana and the Courts would have to 
identify and reject them. If the former was so, then the English Act 
of 1890 set out the Partnership law of Ghana. 

By fixing the date of the reception of English Law at as early a 
date as 1874, Ghana was denied the value of the rationalization of 
English Law undertaken from the last quarter of the nineteenth 
century onwards and inherited the legal debris of seven hundred 
years of legislative history. Conditions in Ghana were too different 
merely to adopt current English Law which in any case was often 
behind that of Commonwealth countries and of the United States. 

The difficulties which we continually faced can be illustrated by 
examining the problems involved in dealing with one minor piece 



200 


REAP THE WHIRLWIND 


“ f h '? slatIOn ’ the ^-drafting, in part, of the Law of Inheritance 
wlipn cc undertook among other low priority tasks in 1961 

thp rpfn* 2 K1 r' C °P ed » re-cast the more important laws. Before 
Af p 1 1, ' C 0UI . 1 th at > apart from the Law of Succession under 
US ? m ’ ^ lc administration of estates of deceased persons 

Ihese Zn “ T b J no less than thirty-six enactments. Of 
modifvin ° nC " Cre ^?“hsh Statutes and five Colonial Ordinances 
the En 2 l! n ^T e part / cu ’ ar or another this British legislation. Of 
2sf Fn rl r S r h ! ch Sti!1 a PP Iicd ^ 1961 the earliest was of 

S Z s eZ 1‘ h I C £ VS C °" CC ™ d daKd ™S". 

Edward TTT° h • * ^ ree more Statutes were from the time of 

jor? p:, * avmg een enacted at various dates between 1330 and 

Sfa mu*"’/" 1 : Tud0r nvo from ,he time 

Elizabeth I Tl "° '■hat °f Edward VI and one in the time of 
in the rei<m ofTh 0t . ler ^ nactments st *ll applying had become law 
more came fro* 11 ™ d one during that of James II. One 
Statute of George III Z.f °f p ,lliam and Mary. There was one 
eight from the p-SJ 11 ’ Geor ° e Iv . two of William IV and 
in all a legislative histrT^ °r 9 peen Victoria’s reign. They embraced 
been enacted q 2 veirs !7 ° . s84 years - The most recent of them had 
before. J previously and the earliest of them 676 years 

applying. The^e wiTthrfeTth! 1 ^ Was J? ot the onl > r ^‘slation 
ance decreed that- t ler sources. First, the Courts Ordin- 

of the Courts shalfbe hf f ° f t0 3]Pply t0 the j urisdiction 

jurisdiction and "“*» ° f ^ ^ 

After Independence it ic t . 

jurisdiction’, which refer ™ a „ ue ’ t n e reference to a limit of ‘local 
Courts, had become meini i° '^subordinate position of Colonial 
local circumstances permit’^ CSS ’ Z ^ wor d s ‘so far only as . . . 
‘Imperial’ law— presumably t0 a ! low the Courts to adapt an 
had been declared to apply rn e r Sa , me . thln S as a British law— which 
local conditions. Once ° ? mes generally in order to meet 

Court the British law was tn Z ada P tat i° n had been made by the 
laws as that of Merchant Qt,' - S e ^ tent amended. Such important 
to these rules. ’PPmg had to be interpreted according 



ATTORNEY GENERAL 


201 


The second additional source of statute law were the various 
items of legislation passed in the Gold Coast by the local Legislative 
Council and afterwards by the Legislative Assembly. These were 
known as Ordinances before Independence, and, when passed by 
the National Assembly after Independence, as Acts of Parliament. 
What had been the local law of the past was often difficult to 
discover. Even the National Archives, though reorganized after 
Independence, were unable to collect a complete set of the various 
editions of Gold Coast Law which had been published. However, 
this was not of great importance since it had become the practice, 
from time to time, to collect all the Ordinances together in a 
consolidated edition and to declare these to be all the local Statute 
Law in force at the time of the consolidation. The last of these 
periodic consolidations had been undertaken in 1951 and contained 
some 272 Ordinances. Unfortunately the five volumes containing 
them were not published until 1954 by which time much of the law 
contained in them had already been amended or repealed. No 
adequate cross index existed. The whole system was one of confusion 
and was made the worse because up until 1936 different laws could 
be, and often were, made for the old Colony, the Northern Terri- 
tories, Ashanti and the Togoland Trust Territories. 

The final and in many ways the most important source of law was 
indigenous customary practise. This African Law was in force, in 
the words of the Courts Ordinance, to the extent that it was not: 

. . repugnant to natural justice, equity and good conscience, nor 
incompatible either directly or by necessary implication with any 
Ordinance for the time being in force.’ 

African law had been regarded by the Colonial Courts as something 
extraneous and, not like the common law, as something which 
always resided in the bosom of the Judge. It had usually therefore 
to be proved by the calling of witnesses but even this was not a 
fixed rule. The Colonial Courts sometimes relied on their own 
knowledge, sometimes they consulted Assessors or referred the 
question to a Local Court and occasionally text books and other 
works of authority were accepted as setting out the position. All in 
all, it was a formidable subject on which to embark upon 3 policy 
of modernization and reform. 

One reason for the decayed state of the law in Ghana at the time 



202 R£ AP THE WHIRLWIND 

need " aS ^ lat tkc Colonial Office never believed in the 

hierarchy of thr a! cxpcrt m tile Colony to draft its laws. In the 
a ‘leaal dnftc * 1 , orney Oencral’s office, it is true, there had been 
distinguish theTY vi 1 !' S ', Vas mcndy tb e convenient title given to 
below°the 9nlirV "r U3 Y* 0 Was ddrd ' n succession, immediately 
c Zlt lfT G , C T\ As so » as a vacancy occurred in that 
mentary driftln^T 6 ■ ^ -' C would bc promoted to it. Parlia- 
Lawyers are no mn °'' CVCr ’ Is one oP tbe most specialized trades, 
have to have the ^ lr j terc!lan gcablc than engineers. They may all 
particular line de aS1C t ™“ 1 ‘ n S but tbc ir ability to follow one 
in it When I s,,^ 0 a j P ° n ^ C ’ r kav ‘ n S bad a i° n g apprenticeship 
staff consisted of a e. '° ^ A «orney Generalship my drafting 
who had been Crown r ™ug and able retired New Zealand official 

African, without UniverT Z" WcStCrn Samoa and a 
London as a barrister Q 7 dc f. rec but "’ho had qualified in 
which to launch law ref UC ' 3 Was an insufficient base from 
reform has a far greater m \ ne ”’ ly indc P cnd cnt state law 

last resort law is the mn ° CanCC t . lan In a developed one. In the 
state and if the social Cxprcs f on op tbe social purpose of the 
change with it. * P r P°se of the state is changing, law must 

exampIe^todecreTtha! 1 ? ° n -' V £* S ° far as k can be enforced. For 
make' Britain 15 , a sociali « state’ does nothing to 
expose the bankruptcy of the 5^ fT’ lf . enacted > would merely 
principle is obvious and d ' ar g e issues, such as this, the 
matters the co-reladon henl “ " 0t , rc( l uire . stating but in small 
ment, though equally vital 6-611 3 " and ks method of enforce- 

rs useless to provide in nrd!f 7° n0t s ? generally appreciated. 
ls properly run that this Y 3t ’ Say> a bm ited liability company 
Such a provision me ns noth' ^ f tUrn must be made annually- 
within the Civil Service S^ U ' 6SStherei - alS0 an organization 

companies should be making wLJnK 110 " 5 ’ roughly s P e aking, which 

the machinery to check wb C return and when, and which has 

S “ ch a «um has in fact been 
with the law is valueless unless dYse^ C ,° mpany is not complying 
ave access to some Court wKp .l 10 cbar g e of law enforcement 
s P e ed and without too erpit- ^ ey can prosecute defaulters with 
expenditure of time and enemv '-r CnS 1 C or t0 ° disproportionate an 

g} ' To chan S e bad law only brings the 



ATTORNEY GENERAL 


203 

legal machine into disrepute unless, at the same time, there is already 
prepared and waiting the machinery to enforce the better law which 
has been prepared to take its place. 

With these problems before me I was at least to this degree 
fortunate. I was better equipped than the Attorney General in 
England to attempt the reform on the scale required. Indeed the 
Office which I had inherited bore little resemblance to that of the 
Attorney Generalship of England. Its affinities were to the post as it 
exists in the older Commonwealth countries and in the United 
States. 

The titles of office-holders in the Commonwealth, the United 
States and in the then British Colonial Territories derived from the 
British political offices of the eighteenth century. In the earliest days 
of Colonialism, a system of official posts corresponding to that then 
existing in England had been established in the American and the 
West Indian Colonies and this was the pattern that was followed in 
the Colonies later to be established. The Foreign Minister of the 
United States — The Secretary of State — derived his title from the 
English Secretary of State of the seventeenth century. His office in 
Britain has been divided into so many Secretaryships of State for 
separate departments that the original significance of the office, 
which was that of the Head of the Royal Secretariat, has been lost. 
The name, in the form of Colonial Secretary or Chief Secretary, 
survived in the Colonies, as did its original purpose. 

The latter day Colonial Governments did not become depart- 
mentalized into Ministries in the way in which the British system 
developed. They still continued to be run through a centralized 
secretariat and the title, Chief Secretary, meant what it implied. In 
the same way the title of colonial financial officers became formalized 
before the conception of a Lord High Treasurer had altogether 
disappeared from English Constitutional theory. In Britain his 
functions have now become divided between the Prime Minister — 
The First Lord of the Treasury — that is to say the Chairman of the 
Commission which took over the Lord Treasurer’s functions, and 
the Chancellor of the Exchequer, originally the Lord Treasurer’s 
Accountant but later the Second Member of the Commission of 
Lords’ Commissioner for the Treasury. In the Colonies, on the 
other hand the Lord Treasurer’s functions remained undivided and 
were carried out by a Colonial Treasurer, a Financial Secretary or, 



204 


Kt A I* 1 in. WHIRLH ISD 


One^offir C °f ^' C V ,i,cd ^ t3,cs ' n Secretary of the Treasury. 
KtoscSZ ; “ lon . c '^ al | Uf ^ Chancellor, the Keeper of the 
the Lev ofiir • • nC i’ n'- ,rJns plamation. Yet in many wavs it was 
theory" and in' 11 * lC - rm , s ^ s - ^ tcII1 > 111 that >t represented, both in 
Under the « P rac ' ICc . the unity of judicial and executive power. 
Cabinet and th^”! - m . ntain . dlc head of the Judiciary sits in the 
magisterial inn 1S ! ' US ma * n,3, " ncd 3 quasi-political "control over 

of the law ^aJnuTpT nf * hC rna " a ' 4cmcnt - rcfon ” 3nd “"duct 
duties belied in * * • iS ,' 1 - U " as ^ ccausc the Lord Chancellor’s 
division of exernp 3 ^*"" ! < j UrrclU ‘-■‘ghteenth centuty belief in the 
ofiice was not est-il'r ?*! i - Ud ! a:d P°wer that in name, at least, the 
American Colon" ^ >C ■” l ! lc Colonies. L is true in some former 
p :S2 r'.T n n ? after United States inde- 
lor’ but he was Z' l'. C “ U a Io judicinI figure known as a ‘Chancel- 

Howevcr, while his" title" wT''''! i , ' lldsC n ° grcat im portancc. 

which his ofiice stood namelv tb ^'l"' eMW ! td ’ lhc P nncl P !c for 
with the judiciarv u/c • - c h>se association of the executive 

Africai lS; P T •' t0G),Unial Government. 

Lugard depended unon ' "r •' , ,C f ° rm *! n ?% perfected by Lord 
performed by the , ,U ‘^ la j an d administrative functions being 
Native Ruler and somfi' C m l ' ldu . a *> though sometimes he was a 
Lugard admitted that at"^ 3 BntlS, ‘ f 0,itlcaI ofI <cer. Yet even Lord 
justices had to be mC S ' agC 1 lc lL ’ sal dcc >sions of these lav 

and that a lavvxer of ^ omc sort of judicial re-examination 

advise on the form of n™ i'" " ai 1 nca ' SS3 n' for this as well as to 
generallv. Thus the f,, a " s 3nd 0,1 die management of justice 

U,d CtacdW K I I" 11 ""f PCrr ‘‘ r '"" 1 E "S' a " d b >' 

in Colonics with Indirect R„i . ~.. carru:d on . t0 some extent even 
other transplanted officials n di 'idcd between the two 

General. ° ltlC,als > lhc Chief justice and the Attorney 

centurj’^the important^Iffi” UntiI thc firs t quarter of this 

Chief Justice, not the Attn ^ 10 thc adm inistration was the 

Justice held his Commiss S' Gc r ncral - Theoretically die Chief 
the individual appointed h->H Ircc ? ^ rom the Crown but in practice 

™ rk in dle Colonial system rL rmTr 11 ? " ho was trained to 
sat in the Legislative 3 Ci ?, Ier Justice of the Gold Coast 

‘spatches of the period are full of comphini ^ 


> of his failure to accept 



ATTORNEY GENERAL 


205 

the Governor’s instructions as to how he should vote. Probably the 
Chief Justice’s office was subconsciously supposed to be akin to that 
of the Lord Chancellor. Prior to the reorganization of the English 
Courts in 1875, a Chief Justice in England was scarcely more than a 
departmental head within the judiciary. A colonial Chief Justice, on 
the contrary, had always been a political figure. 

In this regard it was typical that the first Chief Justice to be 
appointed in Northern Nigeria, the late Sir Henry Gollan, had 
political rather than legal experience. He was a young barrister who 
had been, for the previous two years, Lord Lugard’s private 
secretary. Even he, according to Miss Perham, ‘resented the small 
sphere in which he was allowed to act’. Colonial judges had, as now, 
no security of tenure. He was dispatched to the Bermudas and there 
was substituted for him a Chief Justice whom, as Miss Perham dryly 
remarks, ‘gave no further trouble upon the points at issue’. 

In early Colonial administration it was the Chief Justice who sat 
on the Governor’s Executive Council and who advised on legal 
policy. Though many of his duties w'ere later, through Colonial re- 
organization, to devolve on the Attorney General the Chief Justice 
in all British Colonics still retained to the end many of the quasi 
political functions of the English Lord Chancellor and w T as openly 
treated as the official link between the executive and the judiciary. 
It was typical of the misrepresentation to which Ghanaian affairs 
were generally subject, that when, under the Republican Consti- 
tution, it was provided that the President could decide, at will, which 
Judge of the Supreme Court should exercise, from time to time, the 
functions of Chief Justice, this was described as a deliberate 
departure from the standards of judicial impartiality established in 
Colonial times. In fact, for good or ill, this constitutional provision 
reproduced exactly the principle upon which Colonial justice was 
organized. 

The Chief Justice of a British Colony still today holds office only 
during ‘pleasure’ and if he does not see eye to eye with the Governor 
of the day he can be sent off, like Sir Henry Gollan, to be a judge in 
some other Colony or retired from the Service. The Ghanaian 
constitutional provision in fact only put into precise language the 
British constitutional practice. The Lord Chancellor can be dis- 
missed at will by the Prime Minister but he still remains a Judge of 
the highest Courts and his pension is really a salary to recompense 



206 


reap the whirlwind 


th^TnHirM S r UbSeqUent dut ' cs as a Law Lord and as a member of 
S n 1 Commi “ ce ° f ^ Privy Council. Tire i960 Ghanaian 
TusS wTi rCpr ° d u? Cd th . is arra ngcmcnt exactly. The Chief 
and he wn C m b ‘ s capacity as a Supreme Court Judge 

ceased toT P n t0 COntinue t0 «rvc on the Bench when he 
ceased to be the executive head of the judiciary 

in itseiltlf ° ffiCC ° f Att ° rncy Gcncral Scamc frozen almost 
it never devpln "^ e . ntur ^ mou ^* Unlike other departments of state 
never had °" n s< r cretar ' at an d the Attorney General has 

England the officeofDi^ctr of Pubfi^P Whcn ’. f0r CXamplc ’ , in 

AttorneTGene!r y /,- VaS attachcd t0 the Home Office. The 
have developed into a kindofn '°f C ° Iiea S“ c > the Solicitor General, 
The Law Officers’ mini . Professional Parliamentary spokesman. 
House of Commons rh T T* cuty .bas become to explain to the 
they do not control mtncacics ^legislation whose drafting 

the Government’s beb in, ° U [ tS 1 le >' undertake important cases on 

by a department ^ver'whirb n ° C prCpared or “gated 

former British ColnmV t C V ^ P res ‘de. It was otherwise in all 
in the United States the At MC ° ^ Gomm onwealth countries, as 
Justice and as the Gold r t0 r rney GeneraI became the Minister of 
naturally develoDed in rh; ^ a PP roac bcd independence the office 
the Attorne/G^neralVwni ? England a considerable part of 
appeared in matters which 'V^r Urt ^ m Gha na I occasionally 
importance but none of m, > Obeyed to be of Constitutional 
past. Their duties thev ece , ssors bad done so for many years 

not of an advocate! 0SI ered> Were those of a Minister and 

Attorney GraeSl^oSdbe^ 81 ' U ” dC A ^ Constitu ti°n the 
as such, have an ex-officio seaHntb^T as . ^'nister of Justice and, 
*957 Constitution part of n, tle Legislative Assembly. In the 
uncontrolled by Parliament ; 6 F r °? css op building a bureaucracy 
ment and creating an Atm! 1 '' 0 revers iug this natural develop- 
nothing except his own conscience^Th Wh ° T* res P onsible t0 
Lennox-Boyd Constitution ran thus ^ aCtU3 P rovisIon of the 


(1) The Attorney General ctm v. 

e a P ers °n who is a public officer and 


ATTORNEY GENERAL 


207 

he shall be vested with responsibility for the initiation, conduct and 
discontinuance of prosecutions from criminal offences triable in Courts 
constituted under the provisions of the Courts Ordinance or any Act 
repealing and re-enacting with or without modification, or amending, 
the provisions of that Ordinance. 

(2) The assignment to a Minister of responsibility for the depart- 
ment of the Attorney General shall confer responsibility only for sub- 
mitting to the Cabinet questions referring to that department and 
conducting Government business relating to that department in the 
Assembly, and shall have effect without prejudice to the provisions of 
subsection (1) of this section.’ 

The Section, both in its tautology and its general intent, was 
typical of the Constitution. Judges and the Auditor General might 
he removed on grounds of stated misbehaviour or infirmity of body 
or mind by an address of the National Assembly carried by no less 
than two-thirds of the Members but there was no such provision to 
enable Parliament to remove the Attorney General. However 
eccentric his behaviour, however out of tune the policy he might be 
following was with the Government’s overall plans, he was irre- 
movable by the elected representatives of the people. The only 
authority who could dismiss him was the Public Service Com- 
mission. Whatever my deficiencies in office — and they were a 
frequent subject of comment in the British press — my continuance 
in office was not, under the Lennox-Boyd Constitution, the responsi- 
bility of the Government of Ghana. 

Even if the Attorney General had only been a glorified form of 
Director of Public Prosecutions the constitutional definition of his 
office was impossible of fulfilment. In Britain, as in Ghana at the 
time, most prosecutions under the Courts Ordinance, which of 
course included all those in the Magistrates’ Courts, were taken by 
the police and, at the time the Lennox-Boyd Constitution was 
devised, the Attorney General’s office certainly had not the personnel 
to examine or advise even on a fraction of these cases. Whether, for 
example, the police were sufficiently active when there was a crime 
wave of, say, violence or fraud in some particular locality was a 
matter for which the Minister for the Interior, who was responsible 
for the police, had to answer to Parliament. The section, no doubt, 
was intended to prevent the growth of corruption and thus allow the 



ATTORNEY GENERAL 


209 

maintain sub-stations, as one might call them, of the department in 
every town where there was stationed a Judge of the High Court. 
Secondly, the Attorney General’s department had a function 
inherited from Colonial days, the drafting of all current legislation, 
a task performed in England by the Parliamentary Counsel to the 
Treasury who are thus responsible politically to its First Lord, the 
Prime Minister. The third function of my office, though apparently 
part of this second function was, in reality, of a different nature. It 
consisted of organizing the continued revision of the law, a subject 
which in Britain would be the responsibility of the Lord Chancellor. 
This task was much more urgent and onerous than in England. The 
break-up of the old Colonial pattern of administration meant that 
even Ordinances passed two or three years before were already out of 
date. The Governor in the pre-independence period, Sir Charles 
Arden-Clarke, had had a belief that when political progress seemed 
slow the appearance of movement could be achieved by a change in 
the designation of officials: 

‘We learnt,’ he wrote afterwards of this tactical action of his Colonial 
administration, ‘how r effective the device of changing names could be. 
It is, I suppose, true that “a rose by any other name would smell as 
sweet”, but we learnt that if we changed . . . without in any way 
altering their functions or powers, . . . the name of Chief Com- 
missioner to Regional Officer or District Commissioner to Govern- 
ment Agent, they all seemed to smell much sweeter in the public nose. 
That device certainly helped us to get over some difficult periods.’* 

It may have done so but it rendered the Ghanaian Statute book 
almost unintelligible. After Independence the Government revived 
the offices of Regional Commissioners and District Commissioners 
though without the powers they had possessed in Colonial times. 
Every law where these officials were mentioned had therefore to be 
re-examined and redrafted in the light of their present duties. In 
fact ‘The Laws of the Gold Coast 1951’ were peopled with Colonial 
ghosts — functionaries like the Chief Secretary, the Commissioner 
of Labour and the Director of Medical Services and many others 

• Dr. Nkrumah’s recollection of this incident was somewhat diflcrcnt. Sir 
Charles Arden Clarke, he told me later, had fought to the last to retain these traditional 
colonial designations for ‘political officers in the field’. It was only through the con- 
tinuous pressure of the African members of the 1951-1954 Executive Council that he 
was persuaded reluctantly to accept the change of title. 



210 


R * Al* 1 HI. \\ Hill!, WIND 

ba d been abolished, had changed their titles 

d iffi ; ?'f 1 " .his miph, help So sc, o\cr s on, C 

wh it oflir THX 0 - r , 1 ', C lmilcd I n,r P usc of clarify ing w hat holder of 

was ncassarw LnUt a t0 CUTcisc tI,e P°"ers the law prcscribed.it 
was necessary to rewrite it. 1 

Government ;\ Uornc -' ‘General had charge of the civil side of 
would he 1 it' 1 . )UMncss ' l * lat is ( o say matters which in England 
? "” h by Treason Solicitor or the solicitor’s 
law v ers to nrm'V. ll |- Sl - r ^‘ ” ^ bana there were quite insufficient 
the Attornev p'. C M j, lclt(, . rs t0 , ^ lc 'arious Ministries and therefore 
Ministry with a"' T™ ^ ° 1CC . ud t0 hU PPh such legal service as am 
might rec’mirc h/ | t .' CCptlnns such as the Land’s Department, 
the most exacting! JS 1 " S aS,Ua ° f thc dc P Jrt, »cnt’s work which was 

and still does^ u!' 1 ' 11 ' 0 "^ lt - )rne ' < ^ Lncr ' d there evisted in London— 
known sT, rp 1 * nM ! tu ‘“*" »i«h admirable qualities, originally 
Clarke prindnle Z ^ U on the Arden- 

Govcrnmcnts and A ! rc, . IJnK ' d ^ be Crown Agents for Overseas 

the Secretary of State fa'Tr i*' >I ' C * W ° AgCnts ' appointcd b - v 
financial representatives .! L „ C " lon ‘ cs "ere the business and 
public authorities and hr t ' ??.°, ma Go 'ernments and of all 
issued and m« t fc iS ttUbl ? hed !» Colonial territory. They 
They negotiated the nn r . oans . and the investment of their funds. 

ofcapital goods and plant and S otl! n:>PCCtlOI r ill ‘ , . )pins and i nsurJnce 

Colonies. They were t ' cr TPcs of equipment needed in the 
passages to the Colonies” oftl boo K lng a 6 c,lts for thc air and sea 
Crown Agents w e re in I SC ,n .P ubIic <™ploy. These two 
preparation for self-Pn,.,. * '° rt ’ an ' ,ivj l ua ble institution. Any 

been drought, have invarlv-eTthcgenerU natUrally > it . n . ,i b rbt havc 
of their organization with that offhoP LX . P . anM0 . n and mtegration 
independence. tbc Colonial territory approaching 

However, though this Aeene„v 

was unrivalled, it lacked utf r ex Pertise and food of experience 

taking place in thc Cnlnnl , lcicnt appreciation of the changes then 
have been decentraliS ", f heC ™n Agency could 

Commonwealth organization P ° 1 ! lcady VIt ahzed, a real centralized 
the Crown Agents fave d" S ’ U - havc bcc ” built up. As it was, 
in any wider aspect of the lmprcssion °f being quite uninterested 

ovement towards Self-Government in 


ATTORNEY GENERAL 


21 1 


Africa. They were the British, and thus, for all practical purposes, 
the world agents for the sale of all Ghana’s official publications. They 
would stock them at their Millbank office in London and, it a 
purchaser travelled there, he would no doubt be able to get a copy. 
They never thought of expanding the service. 

When Ghana was most under attack in the early days they never, 
so far as we could discover, advertised, sent for review or otherwise 
tried to promote the sales of the carefully compiled refutations which 
the Government put out, despite the fact that the allegations whic 
the Government were answering affected adversely foreign business 
and investment. There naturally were criticisms of how they had 
invested Gold Coast funds in the past, a particularly sore point 
since these were largely derived from dollar earnings. 

Before Independence, a quarter of all the hard currency from 
Colonial Commonwealth used to support the sterling area syste 
came from Ghana. These earnings had been investe 111 
Government securities and had diminished not only , 
devaluation but also from a general fall ' n v ^ ue 0 } s ?. C ' , r 
they were invested. Gradually a feeling °f dishke m dealing thr mg 
the Crown Agents built up. More and more t e an . 
ment wished to act independently. In all the circumstances there 

was much to be said for so doing if an effective m epen e 

tive could be constructed. The difficulty was in cons uc • 
Attorney General’s office had never been equipped with staff who 
could advise on commercial contracts and there ore 
priority was to get some rudimentary organization o 1 fonser 
Now that Ghana was independent, foreign businessmen no bn er 
solicited for business in London. They came to Accra and waited on 

“oSTrfte defects of the Cro»n Agent system “f 

financial agents of the Government they di no c ° n credentials 
their duty — perhaps it was not to tender a vice o , . wag 

of financiers from Britain who came to Ghana. Yet sue 
essential as a Biblical analogy may show. The 
separating the sheep from the goats is not 
of British animal husbandry. The two creatures are so 
appearance that the expertise assumed in the Bible tobe necessaty 
to put them in their right class appears something ^y° ne c ° 
leam in half an hour. It was not until I went to Africa that I realized 



210 


REAP the whirlwind 

when e vp 0 ^ ' °f^ C ? s bad ^ een Polished, had changed their titles 
jfc" fe " tha ' this rai S ht M P ‘to 8« over some 
what office 0 . r . tbe lmited P ur pose of clarifying what holder of 

Government^ 6 Attor . ne y-General had charge of the civil side of 
would be dealt* 3 ' ^ S !f eSS 1 ’ tbat ls t0 sa . v matters which in England 
SS^U! .T£X* ^e-tt Solidror or the sdilr's 
Iawvers to j D' Chana there were quite insufficient 
the Attornev d ^ S p 1CIt £ rS ^ tbe valaous Ministries and therefore 
Ministry with a S ° Ce ^ ad t0 su PPty such legal service as any 
mightSuhe ' TtI eW f L XCepUOnS SUch as the Land’s Department, 
the most exacting ^ ^ aSpect 0ptbe department’s work which was 

and still docs— - mT 3 '™ 6 A ttorne y General there existed in London- 
known as ‘The Crown t J tutl0n with admirable qualities, originally 
Clarke princfc ^ “ the ^ 

Governments and Admi • d , Crown Agents for Overseas 
■he S«c,e B * “ The ,w„ Agents, appointed by 

financial renresem-in\ e ,, Colonies were the business and 
public authorities and R S °a a Colonial. Governments and of all 
issued and managed thp”] S established in Colonial territory. They 
They negotiated the nurch° 3nS - and 1116 lnvestmcnt of their funds, 
of capital goods and 1 f\ lnSpeCtl0n ’ dipping a " d insurance 
Colonies. They were everTth 01 u* w PCS 0pe( 3 u 'P Inent needed in the 
passages to the ColnniVc r e booking agents for the air and sea 
Crown Agents w e ! re n ^ “ . public em P%- These 
preparation for self-n™, S ° rt ’ 30 i nva luable institution. Any 
been thought, have involvedTh^™ 1 ' 1 ? naturall y> ic might have 
of their organization with that of fhp rl eXp , ansi0 . n and integration 
independence. tile Colonial territory approaching 

was unrivalled, it kicked asfiffi^ S ex P erds . e an d fund of experience 
taking place in the Cnlnr,; 1 Clent a Ppreciation of the changes then 
have been decentralized and poSl If Cr ° Wn AgenCy C ° uld 
Commonwealth orvaniznirm P • ,., y VIt ahzed, a real centralized 
the Crown Agents gave the C -^ aVe bee . n built up. As it was, 
m any wider aspect of the m P ression °f being quite uninterested 

ovement towards self-Government in 



ATTORNEY GENERAL 


21 1 


Africa. They were the British, and thus, for all practical purposes, 
the world agents for the sale of all Ghana’s official publications. They 
would stock them at their Millbank office in London and, if a 
purchaser travelled there, he would no doubt be able to get a copy. 
They never thought of expanding the service. 

When Ghana was most under attack in the early days they never, 
so far as we could discover, advertised, sent for review or otherwise 
tried to promote the sales of the carefully compiled refutations which 
the Government put out, despite the fact that the a egations w ic 
the Government were answering affected adversely foreign business 
and investment. There naturally were criticisms of how they had 
invested Gold Coast funds in the past, a particularly sore point 
since these were largely derived from dollar earnings. 

Before Independence, a quarter of all the hard currency from 
Colonial Commonwealth used to support the sterling area system 
came from Ghana. These earnings had been invested 111 
Government securities and had diminished not oniy throug 
devaluation but also from a general fall in value o t e s oc 
they were invested. Gradually a feeling of dishke mdeahng through 
the Crown Agents built up. More and more the Ghana Gove 
ment wished to act independently. In all the circumstance there 

was much to be said for so doing if an effective in epen e. n 

tive could be constructed. The difficulty was m construe mg . 
Attorney General’s office had never been equippe wi 
could advise on commercial contracts and there ore V? 0 ® ■ 

priority was to get some rudimentary organization o 1S , 

Now that Ghana was independent, foreign businessmen no bnger 
solicited for business in London. They came to Accra and waited on 

OU One 0 of te the defects of the Crown Agent s Y stem ** “ f 

financial agents of the Government they di not con ® rre( ientials 
their duty-perhaps it was not-to tender advice on the credentials 

of financiers from Britain who came to Ghana, e sue ^ 

essential as a Biblical analogy may show. The scrip u terms 

separating the sheep from the goats is not un ers an . 

of British animal husbandry. The two creatures are so ^similar m 
appearance that the expertise assumed m t e 1 e could 

to put them in their right class appears some ng reatized. 

learn in half an hour. It was not until I went to Africa 



212 


REAP THE WHIRLWIND' 

lun', esscutialh similar the two beasts could be in different climatic 
onditions. One could tell with practice, yes, but only by noting the 

cnnS P ° f the r ta j 1 - 0r S ° me ° ther SUch sma11 «gn. The same 
shnnl tT 10n le< ^, ln distinguishing which financiers from abroad 

Cirv nf y 6 C ' 1 , C0Ura S cd , an d which discouraged. No doubt within the 
rmrlp -ir ° n ° n * C characteristics which enable this decision to be 
needed i S ° a PP arent tlat no E reat ability or special organization is 
C tv of A A t0 m ? C th£ Ch0ice ‘ Ic was otherwise in the 
very camS tf" ^ and S oa *> °"e had to look 

financier ^ fC ° ne C0U d attempt to classify the visiting 

founder^ ^f VU p dra ’ wko later became well known in Britain as the 

“m&S? M “ n ; Ins " a '“ c °”^> ™ a 

sortium m Ilf n Ghana m Au gust 1958 to set up a Con- 
by Canto k ° ver *1 mineral n S hts in Ghana and he was backed 
SpKttd had a Vr e . ’ * "T" 8 fina "“ S'oup, which, as might be 
Gold Mininir Co ^ ^ ^ b ^ best credentials. Some of the local 
Sec rSaw,T”' eS c , ' re ™ fi "”cial Acuities “"J. « 
me»?H= wtTctid S “ m ' d f™»mbU to the Govern- 

v.iio believed that nrnfit C ^''eminent, an investor and financier 
Christianity if Africa was only compatible with 

anti-ColZid CWi ! a „ ami_ Colonial basis. He himself was 
he maintained in Ceylon ^ there was his Conv ent which 

businessmen to track S S n d , been - he sa!d > ™» »f the first 
anti-Colonialists heevnln' a p e °. pes ®- e P“hlic of China. Like all 
Indeed, he had' actual! r ’ be lad ka< ^ his brushes with the law. 
Belgium, the oppressor of the" ™ pnsoned b Y 3 Colonial power, 
his confinement bv the ; ^ on ° 0 ’ hut Bad been released from 

Brussels. We had by this ® rcession of the Apostolic Delegate in 

checked up. It all nmwrt if an organization of a sort. I had this 
tt j tL “ u proved to be true 
Under Ghanaian law as it tt,„ 

could register a Commmt m. 60 Stood> anyone with £7 in cash 
The tax paid was Z 2 ^ 5 . «Pi*l of any amount, 

million. L 3,™^!,"““ tb ' spiral was £ 50, 1 or £r 
Limited, invested onlv in i t lat his principals, Camp Bird 
their subsidiary The Ghin^iwr sunas - Gc had therefore registered 
^5° million which should he Z™ e Corporation, with a capital of 
Pany’s immediate needs nZ ^° Ught > be suffi oient for this Com- 
tteeds. Other Ca mp Bird enterprises would be on 



■ ATTORNEY GENERAL 213 

a larger scale. They were. He followed up his original flotation with 
three companies each with the capital of £ 100 million. 

It might seem strange that one of these, the Camp Bird Bank, 
should require an authorized capital much larger than that required 
by any of the ‘Big Five’ in Britain, and that the only amounts 
subscribed in cash towards this £ 100,000,000 capital was £7 but 
there was nothing illegal about it. It was true that even under the 
then antiquated laws of Ghana, a bank could not operate without a 
Government licence, but Dr Savundra, when the point was put to 
him, said, quite correctly, that the Camp Bird Bank was not 
operating — it was only existing — and so long as he could prove he 
was not doing any banking business there was no offence in his 
having a bank with an authorized capital of £ 100 , 000 , 000 . This 
indeed was the law but it seemed to me also the indication we had 
been looking for. Despite all Dr Savundra’s references and the 
report of the high standing of Camp Bird which my office had 
received from the financial enquiry agents in London, it now 
seemed certain that we had a goat on our hands. How then should 
we proceed ? There was no evidence on which to prosecute him and 
to deport him on the ground that he was planning the investment of 
£350,000,000 in Ghana and was therefore a suspicious character 
might well be misrepresented abroad and might indeed discourage 
other investors who were coming with more than £7 in cash. As a 
start, we had the books of the Ghana Minerals Corporation 
examined. Dr Savundra had announced that, as an earnest of good 
faith, even before the agreement with the Government was finalized, 
Camp Bird had already invested £ 2 | million in cash in the Corpora- 
tion. 

Our examination, on the other hand, showed that only £50,000 
of the £ 1 shares in the Company had been issued to Camp Bird for 
cash. The balance of the 2,450,000 £1 shares allegedly issued to 
Camp Bird were credited in the books of its Ghanaian subsidiary to 
‘suspense’. Nevertheless, not only the shares issued for cash but one 
half million of these ‘suspense’ shares had apparently been converted 
into bearer warrants. Fortunately for us the Ghana Companies Law 
was then so old-fashioned that it had never got around to providing 
for bearer warrants. The issue of such shares^ was also contrary to 
the Ghana Exchange Control Law but this, as it was then operatine, 
had also been drafted in Colonial days and was such a direct copy of 



214 RC *P THE whirlwind 

nmmH ^ ^ CSt 4 ^‘ C;ln curr cncv, let alone die new Ghana 

£ “"7 “ever mentioned in it and it was doubtful how far our 

NcveriM*^ U ,'°r U t f , t0 transactions in local money. 

registered 'wi’ "? p 1 , 31 . <:ast justified in sending inspectors to the 

,Sr^^ C 7 ° f , b — ° f Dr tundra’s other three com- 

for nublir • ^ CC S - IC 1 compan - v books as should have been available 

&: t,on , on *»* Payment of a fee of one shilling. As 

evidence for C n ° boobs at ab > at ^ ast vvc had sufficient 

panics at least r '^ 1 " a ™ Rt and Por the prosecution of the com- 
panies, at least, for technical offences. 

Dr Savimdnd/rK^ ^ rcsidt ' n o search certainly substantiated 
was to separate rh'™ t0 ^ CC P'>' religious. Indeed, our problem 
Mother Sunerin C r a f fC ^ rom tbc P r °fanc. Did a letter from the 
.hat the tZ t d ' he Conv r '« “PPOnd in Ceylon stating 

refer to a religious’ or ‘ bl “ k bls ’ un0 P cnc<1 

object with the mm V nan ? la transaction ? Burning a precious 

itS re ' binh in a more satisfactory 
received from a Priest S < pintual ativicc Dr Savundra might have 
his stay in Ghana he h T shrinc ’ and “ was dear that during 
through various intermeSerpTn^'f S ° UBht dlvinC assistancc 
with items of his business we J ' 1 ™ C< i l ° corrcs P°ndencc dealing 
Ceylon asking for sneri-d COpics of cables which he had sent to 
this revealed 1 a 2 “ E“ ” * H »" -«r . none of 

definitely secular nZll any niore than did letters of a 

Parliament how easy it wasT t0 3 Member of the British 
can say of the latter was that it n°° . tbc . Af [ icans - Even now, all one 
be an error of judgement Tr , Pr °. Vcd ’ ! n dle of after events, to 

Savundra was accorded the ' 1S m E f lta ' n ) not in Ghana, that Dr 
big business. opportunity of entering the realms of 

receipts for four packages ° n ^ r significant find in the search were 
Dr Savundra had deposited whtf ^ aigbt . an d measurement which 
these receipts were pencilled U Ghanaian bank. On the back of 
packages contained the missing us to believe that the 

certain formalities to go thrai^ 1 !? P Varrants - A S ain > there were 
search warrant to obtain the 1° bePore we could get another 
a day or two’s delay all wis arrant thebank - Anally, after 
climax of the case I had the f ^ and as tE * s seemed to be the 
had the four packages brought by senior bank 



ATTORNEY GENERAL 


215 


officials to my office where I had assembled a collection of police 
officers and independent witnesses of undoubted respectability. 
When we had all gathered I asked the bank manager to open the 
packages in our presence, and to pass the contents to the head of the 
Fraud Squad who would describe the documents to us before 
handing them round for identification. It appeared Dr Savundra 
had anticipated us. It seemed after the search he had gone to t e 
bank to inspect the packages and thus had an opportunity, unknown 
to the bank, to make a substitution. At any rate, each now turned 
out to have been filled with waste paper to make up the same weight 
as its previous contents. Attached to each of these bundles o torn- 
up magazines and toilet paper was an obscene rhyme about my wi e, 
whom Dr Savundra had never met. They were written on the same 
notepaper as an unposted communication to the Convent. 

From a technical point of view, of course, we were bac to square 
one. An individual commits no offence in England, nor m ana, 1 
he writes indecent poetry. The crime consists m pu is ing 1 o 
someone and Dr Savundra had done the exact opposite. e a 
locked up his poems in a bank vault under con ltions w ic m 
normal circumstances would have guarantee t at t ey were 

returned to him unread by anyone. . , , , 

His subsequent deportation arose out 0 not mg w ic 
himself disclosed but through the over-eagerness o , 

London. Within a few days of his arrival Dr Savundra hadpersuaded 
a junior Minister, in no way connected wit ° ° , • 

letter which stated that the Ghana Government had approved l m 

principle, his proposals. safdTotoglbout this corres- 
ing with the appropriate ministries, sui » _ 

° . . y , 1 1 w n c w to anyone m Ghana that, 

pondence smce it would have been 3 

. . r , . • n : nr Minister in question came to write tne 

Lond ° n ’ 

agreement had been conciuueu 

published the letter ^ - nsuffident evidence t0 prosec ute 

I took the vie' Savundra had done anything illegal, 

or even to establish that ur signature were subsequently 

Most of the shan of Finance. Some were 

delivered anonymously to ting that they had been 

missing but we found a note su^b b 



2l6 

REAP THE WHIRLWIND 

hand ^he^rem^V' 00 P r ° 0 ^ tbat t * 1 ' s was untrue. On the other 
thev had in Pin!- 1 ° \, C rna,or ' t 3’ oP them was positive evidence that 
Company nnk- n0t , ecn lssued > and as with his poems, he or his 

an ^nce if they issued them to the 
thp ^ £SS . bchevcd > erroneously as it turned out. that if 


public . N ev ;L C rTu ' ? an ° ffence if ^ey issued fern to the 
the Government- ^ ur f * leved . erroneously as it turned out, that il 
world opinion * S 1Cd tbe [ acts "hwh we had discovered, 

Ghana was not fn f Upport us ’ n declaring that his presence ii 
deportation which T u P , Ub ! C S Qod an d this was a ground fo: 

iaur„rrirTht,'"' , ' ! r e<i ™ h ,hc » w ^ ^ 

West German finn ' " as done. Dr Savundra and two othei 

suspicion, were deputed "a fuff^ ^ Xnoa ^ had come undei 

Dr Savundra and Canin' R,VH ! t . emen , t , on the facts in regard tc 

spite of all this th r ^ d " as lssued by the Government. In 

a nd Dr Savindm e T;f’ S aCti ° n » "S"* to Camp Bird 

beginning of a general Ghnn^ by thC Bnt ‘ sh press g eneraII y as the 
r- h nerai Ghanaian camnanm 


beginning of a "general' GwT" bJ thC Bnt ‘ sh press generally as tl 
-- " MmSeTh, against foreign inves, 

« d °« 'he '5'hXSbef '' S j p ' cl » ICorr “P»"' J “' i 


M 5 V- 1 I 

ment. For example 1 ne Uatly Teleerabh's^v, 

Acer, reported on the , 5 .h 

Ghana forthwith mCn W f re today ordcred 10 lc3 ' 

he good”. The men > r presence is not conducive to the pul 

deported from Gh-i'n' e ^ rsc batch of foreign investors to l 

independence ’ ^ deportad °n wave following Ghana 

This 11 ( 

figures. From Independence' to^he™ 8 supported by th 

tations, including that of Dr 9 C j end of W58 the total depor 
had amounted in all to Mn ri'f Undra and the other two financiers 
of destitute aliens the return » ls ’figure included the repatriatioi 
found to be of unsound mind ° t l6lr . countr y of origin of person: 
and those aliens who had hr. or convict ed of habitual prostitution 
they had served their term n r e P orted after conviction and aftei 
total was made up of ner?™ Im Pnsonment. In fact the bulk of the 
ordered to be deported in r i" .° , bad been tried, convicted and 
imprisonment did not exnim ° ° ^ r tlmes but whose sentence of 

The t 9 6o census showed SaTof Independ — 

0 b) 7 2 6 , 82 o almost one in ever, • 3 tben tota ' Ghanaian population 
a considerable proportion some'?" 35 of forei g n origin’. Of these 
ihana of foreign parents and h 9 °’.°° 0 ’ Were children born in 
P rents and who might or might not thus have 



ATTORNEY GENERAL 


2V 


Ghanaian nationality. Nevertheless, the alien problem was on a 
entirely different scale to that in Britain where even a proportional!) 
much smaller Commonwealth immigration has led to, at least, 
minor disturbances and, later, to a restrictive polity. In the circum- 
stances of Ghana after Independence it is, in fact, extraordinary 
that the total deportations for all causes should have only umbered 
63 for 1957, 162 for 1958, 75 for 1959 and 54 for i960. This alk 
gation in Britain that action against Dr Savundra was part . 
campaign asainst foreigners generally in G ana was re |^ r , c 
furthcrCvidencc by the CPP leadership that for reasons which were 
not clear to them, there was an organized attempt ‘ . 

deliberately to misrepresent events in Ghana to t c n 1 P ' • 

This belief was later to have political consequences and it 

fore worthwhile examining how it arose. .» r _ 

Even leadint; organs of the British press, The Da, V T'kgȣ fa 
example, had almost immediately after Independence launched 
attacks on Ghana. Not only was Dr Nkntmah accused o f totm 

ship but the British Civil Servants who ha rests 

r.S.ooo compensation were marked out lor P J rn ■ ■ • 

month before my appointment as Attorney General I he D; Ij 

Tekgrjpk had written: 

■if Dr Nkntmah chooses 

oppresstve way, .hat ts hts affatr J ^ ;<nIKC Thclc ate will 
naht to expect, howexe., and ih „ nB Ghana 

many British functionar.es m , m , and to 

G'ia crr.mcnt, compelled to w ' ■ - 

enforce them. . . - the Ghana 

The ludac who e, cashed British; the 

Government from Accra w as PriiUh. 

police effeer who mwty’.cd mem « m «« * - 

Pr sh doufcllfss acted a rrcctl> m .. c c ■ • ^ mtced to 

, > C\i*VC. »- **-*•* . - ■» 

■s. p-us! t'-'.-i the Pep- rf n Act . ! ft;:* 
d" "hi-* ... ,s.,?crcd to m---' J Jc’cn.cVw 
r”cd vuh Pr NlmmahN 


U the >'r't vet 
rioter !v'* jet v 

:*!1 r s • 

, " , „ 1 

.wi'hC-m. cr :VA - - mmMrm k mtyl’rd^ 

! V ff\ : i >' !'• ‘ | - Cj ' ” * " 

* J lV -* . .ye, . ’ o ; Vl .1 d 1 r.W S h t U tfV 


Pr NP-c- 



2T 0 

REAP THE WHIRLWIND 

r Ve dSe *° P'."-’’ TAgntti 

orders aminct Ghana Government had issued deportation 

All. r 'rr; 11 '”:' Ni S™ lh ™ Hving in Kuimsi. One, 
tZ ££1*' b \ h l C, y n,ed “ b= *be Zerikin Zongo of the 
tants! The other Ain *" bl ^°M ts non-Ghanaian Moslem inhabi- 
Chaplain to the Vr ^ ® tbman . Larden Lalemie, claimed to be the 
right to the sniritu Tl^ “ m ™ un ' t y> or > in other words, asserted his 
Northern Nieeria h ead f rshlp of the Hausas whose homeland is in 
over West Mrica A *** "* “ be found a * Moslem traders all 
the Hausa comniunhv^ 111 " ? Vents . ln Nort}lern Nigeria have shown, 

Mosque maintained by Alhajfothma The 

of continual disturb ' T * Ut "man Larden had been the centre 

and was impossible toprovI^haT V^’ righdy ° r n0t ' S 

Ployed in political crimes of vS ltmer . ant Hauses had been em ’ 
When I became Anf "° lence and intimidation. 

Report of a Committee thefe W3S in the office the 

violence in Ashanti T> r “/“W lnt0 “mes of extortion and 

still then of course underBridsh offf^ 3115 SUpplied by the police “ 
prosecution had not been n “ fficers ~49t such incidents where 
for anyone to trv to establi^^ C \* n tbis inflammable situation, 
certainly liable to lead ™ ss : lf , as Ze rikin Zongo was almost 

had been attempted there h.H^ °, n the Iast occasion it 

and loss of life and the Coir. 3 • 1 eCn , ser i° us destruction of property 
the previous claimant on T? aUthorities °fthe day had deported 
therefore that the Ghana Pr. & account - It was not unreasonable 
to follow this precedent m/a 171111611 ? 00 ^ tbe v * ew tb at they ought 
his Chaplain. The ‘uniust n eport . tbe P res ent one, together with 
The Daily Telegraph was no jP™* 3 * 1011 Act of I 957 > referred to by 
ment but merely a consolirW enactment of the Ghana Govern- 
subject, the Aliens Ordinary 100 j tW0 British colonial laws on the 
eport my client Neif HalabvTnd^^ 11 had been Proposed to 


, JiiicilS l Jrrlino*,^ i vwiumai 1a vi 

deport my client Neif Halahv™ f r ' v k* c h & had been pro 
(Deportation) Ordinance mJd ^ * be J mm igrant British Subjects 
poor friend Charles Deller baA !L. W .,r 1Cb ’ aIso . ln colonial days, my 


— viumanrp j . . , o *•***«- uuuicuj 

poor friend Charles Deller had art W ll 1C u 3ls ° in coIonial da ys, my 

of the relevant Section had r ™ f y been de P ort ed. The wording 
U ™s. ained unchanged since early Colonial 

ship law had to be so drafted*^ f ar ° Se ' T'he new Ghanaian citizen- 

,h0M * ^ ** rTZS 



ATTORNEY GENERAL 


219 


that the two men were Nigerian citizens. Indeed, their claim to 
exercise jurisdiction over the Northern Nigerian popu ation m 
Kumasi depended upon their having this nationality but both now 
claimed that they had had Ghanaian mothers an t e tS our 
Judge in Kumasi, Mr Justice Smith, an Englishman and a former 
British Colonial appointee, granted an interim injunction restraining 

the Government from deporting them, until they a anopporuniy 

to establish that they had dual citizenship. I was asked by the 
Attorney General’s department to argue the case. 1 eanw 1 e e 
Opposition newspaper in Kumasi, The Liberator, came ou wi 
what the police regarded as an open incitement or tn a inspire 
attacks to be made on them. The newspaper s whole front P a gc was 
devoted to a speech, supposedly delivered to a arge cr0 ^ 
Opposition Deputy Chief Whip— who, however, subsequently 

^The paper^ alleged^he told this crowd, ‘that the police allowed 
CPP Action Troopers to stone innocent people ^Sts.^ 
court . . . without making any attempt to arre att : tU{ j e a f ter 

therefore warned that if the police showed the same attitude a^r 

court today, no matter what the ruling 0 e c disastrous 

SHOULD eSeCT A RETALIATION WHICH MIGHT BRING DISASTROUS 

consequences. i j in fact been no attack on the 

This was quite untrue. There had, ’ believed t u at . 

two men’s supporters and the police ^efore b^eved Aat the 

statement was intended as a provoca ion , SUPDOr t 0 f 
justification for an already * 

this there was a further passage in 

nearer, rlpnf a large number of people are ex- 
‘According to our cor ' ^ t ’ he Supreme Court today and in- 
pected to throng t e P r and market sta u s are expected to 

vestigations reveal that^ ^ ^ ^ m5ght be of 

remain closed for th ' ;blc c ] as h between rival parties.’ 

merchandise resulting from a possmie 

, .t. threat seriously’. Police were drafted to 
The Government took the r t ^ for this reaS0[1) nQ riot 

Kumasi from all over Gta ^ he force in Ashanti involved a 
occurred but the concentra 

considerable security nsk csew te ^ ^ ^ 

by N^riau Hausl" ibesmen, that Mr Justice Smith heard the case. 


220 

reap the whirlwind 

themselvcsharfm-i ^ ^ n °' V 3 P OS ! t ’ on t0 s ^ ow f ^ at the men 
Nigerian The m 6 pas , s P ort a PPbcations claiming that they were 
evidence' in LTt • not P roduce “7 document or other 
born in Ghana KW ° tbei ^, cka ' m tbat ^eir mothers had been 
and the GovernmenTwere^ ^ J udge dischar ged the injunction 
deportations. The Tnd u ^ US kl ' ee ln ^ aw t0 proceed with the 

matter should not be held tT^ ^ S3y that his i ud S ement in this 
men might take tn nht • P re J u dice any further action which the 

»nd civfl pVoTelt t H ““'““I' “ “ national!., 
their behalf. On the f If- P ur P? s , e had also been instituted on 
Precise instructions whwVd de f cls . I0n . was inevitable and I had 
expected. Speakinp- fro ° ^ t le l ud gement was as we had 
circumstances the Gove m 2 pre P ared . text > I said that in these 
would not deport them r nm u nt - ?° U ' d S' ve no undertaking that they 
»». was ** hand, the Gov J- 

pending deportation so that thS de ?' r f d) t0 hold them m custody 
nationality could be more £ . lr C1V1 actl °n to determine their 
to Accra under arrest andT j V& conducted. They were taken 
Immediately lodged ln . P ri *on. 

might or m i g h t not have Ca b ™ g V , a ™ us new s items appeared which 
Smith s impartiality and 1U t • d as an atta ck on Mr Justice 
Chief Justice, intervened^ o!i tj 1 - 5 ’ 11 * ^“tee-Hun, then Acting 
Ghana the head of the Sim * S II jp truc ti°ns the Chief Registrar, in 
who would correspond in p rei . ne j ° urt Secretariat and the officer 
Hanaper, wrote to Mr t0 tbe d erk to the Crown and 

enclosing one of the allegedlv^ff at j!" son ’ stdl Attorney General, 
toneer newspaper which he said a fticles from the Ashanti 

justice into disrepute’ ‘Tb r'i_ £n ^ S t0 bring the administration 
continued, ‘would be grateful^ ;r Chlef J^ice,’ the Chief Registrar 
question as to whether thp consideration could be given to the 
eeedmgs for contempt P u ication gives grounds for pro- 

i lenient, advised neither on P * aterson , now on the point of 
ecision was left to me in mv p" ^ - n ° r tbc ot ber and the ultimate 
enera , the Commissioner of P P aci T as Counsel for the Attorney 
Interior, Mr Ako AdjeiTconside ? ^ the then Minister of the 

the f° US T nion that Proccedinrt d \ m VIew of the Chief Justice’s 
be fact that Mr Justice SmiKn, °l7 ' ? be taken a "d in view of 
civi action, that we should nr P r °b a bility have to hear 

Proceed against the Ashanti Pioneer 



ATTORNEY GENERAL 


221 


and the London Daily Telegraph whose correspondent Mr Ian 
Colvin, then in Ghana, had made comments somewhat similar to 

those of the Ashanti Pioneer. . 

Meanwhile the violence which did not materialize in Kumasi 
began to take place in Accra. The police were attacked by persons 
alleged to be supporters of the two men. A European member o t e 
Attorney General’s staff who visited my office on an entirely 1 erent 
matter was attacked on leaving and wounded. His assailant a 
Hausa, was caught but neither at his trial nor to the police wou e 
say anything as to why he had made the attack or at w ose msti 
gation. His only admission was that he had mistaken t e town 
Counsel for myself. The police considered that any urt er our 
proceedings would almost certainly precipitate the riots w ic a 
only narrowly been averted at the time of the last hearing m ^umasi. 
In the light of this it was decided at a meeting of i misters, a w 
I was in attendance, to do what the Colonial Government a 
on the previous occasion when there had been trou e ro 
attempt to install a Zerikin Zongo. The Colonial author, es had 
taken special powers to deport him and the 1 inis ers 
follow this precedent and to pass a specia c o 
legalizing the return of the two men to t eir 'T , 
irrespective of the possible nationality of their mo er ' • • asa inst 

time it was decided, in order to show ^^ V ^ e n ° d Ppj rtation S orde r 

« — g.Sn^ which tad been enacted by «he 

Colonial regime and which was still in orce. .. . ■ 

rp ° . vVpstprn Parliamentary tradition it was, no 

To countries with a Western ran nerhans 

doubt, a brutal use > of .^J^Sn^idor times ki England 
which was legal in that it hadb " e " d the modern conV entions estab- 
but which was entirely contrary h did not s£e it in 

lished in the Western world. The f G ment 0 f the type of 
this light. To them it was a normal actoivaov 

which they had personal ah and Mr Ako Adjei, now 

When, nine years before, D been imprisoned by Sir 

the Minister directly resp « ' ^ CoIon}al Gover nment had, by 
Gerald Creasey s admmistra tQ the Courts by way of 

decree, denied them the n h had n0 ied the 

detention bn, they tad po.nted ont that 



222 


reap the whirlwind 


doSen ag " inst , ac " ess . t0 the Courts was going further than was 
Creech L P L ' Var ' time Defence Regulations. Arthur 

identical to tH ^ ’snussed their implied criticisms in words 
Government inrh have been used by Dr Nkrumah’s 

to the Govern n h Cn ^ U f ^ on g°’ s case. In his pubh'shed Dispatch 
^nt^Z7L l eXpl r ed at length why ** Labour GoJern- 
necessary ou ght such action proper, constitutional and 

used as an n f bat ^ eas corpus proceedings might have been 

SiTtSSS or Tt a „ serious breach of the P eace - How 

a case relating tn ‘ ‘ an be ! ^ u strated by the events . . . when 

heard. On that dav^m ^ seizure of goods during the boycott was 
area had to he is 1 ' j 1B j f ° P°P^ ar excitement, the Supreme Court 
cordon of infantry 3 and^ bui,dmg t0 be surrounded by a double 

prevailing In the State e "ent then 

have led foth Zesr^ ?° d ° ub t that court proceedings . . . would 
such potter ' Borden The Commission’s comment that no 

United Kingdom eve! 3SSU ' ne b >' His Majesty’s Government in the 
late ttar appears to overiookTet' Hfe ' and - death stru gS le in tJ,c 
or was likely to be aroused in this countn mternal 
See t u ' * 

been necessary to maheri^-f Cta ^ ec ^ otber occasions on which it had 
Gold Coast denying indiri!! ^^Ltions and laws in the Colonial 
To the Africa^ £ c fsef t0 thC ““*• 

use, in the national interest ;r Government miphed the right to 
government which the C \ ■ Same P owers and methods of 
denial of access to the mu rn- 0 ° ni - juniorities had employed. If 
in J 957? The Labour Govern ™ 1 t m 1948 " hy was k wrong 
stood not only f or enlightened Cnl su PP orted k in J 94 S 

self government. It was nnt vif* 13 ru e but even f° r Colonial 
to justify their action on thf^ * r Nhrumah’s Cabinet was trying 
previously been done bv vinw^° Un tba t what they proposed had 
the past. Thev were onlv r . c j ctlonar }’ a nd oppressive regime of 
Lari Attlee’s Government haTS^ f ypc of power which even 
to emploj. Why then should d nilt [ cd “ " as essential sometimes 
popularly elected Government 1Crc bc f° much criticism when a 
even by the Left wing of the I if ' n ^b 3113 an d no protest, 

S thL Ubour Pa «y, when it had been used 



ATTORNEY GENERAL 22 3 

against Dr Nkrumah and Ako Adjei by a Colonial regime admittedly 
unrepresentative of the people? 

With the deportation of the two men the Contempt proceedings 
against Air Ian Colvin and the Ashanti Pioneer, which had already 
been started, had to be reconsidered. When I had been in their 
favour it was because the main case was part heard. To criticize 
a Judge in the middle of the proceedings was one thing, to criticize 
him now they had been terminated was another. I had just become 
Attorney General and, by an irony of fate, the decision on this lg y 
political matter had, under the Lennox-Boyd Constitution, to e 

made by me on my own responsibility. 

In the end, mistakenly I think now, I decided that the procee mgs 
should continue. I think, on reflection, I probably gave too muc 
weight to the feelings of the British members of the Ju lciary an 
among the civil servants and police who looked to die overnmen 
to defend them against attacks which might preju ice t eir u re 
employment once they had left Ghanaian service. s °u 
realized then that nothing I could do could shie em rom 

venom of their kith and kin. . . c T 

A further complication arose. The Actmg ie Ju ’ 
Justice Quashie-Idun, decided he would be a mem er 
nominated to hear tfe case. This put me m considerable d 

tWs was^e wy thi^gs^ad b^n don^in Colonial 

Justice had asked for die case Jo ^ If hoW ever, I went 

believe that contempt had been ^ aded him not t0 

pnvately to see the Act ^^^ terpret ed, particularly if I could 
sit my action might well benu tQ P alter the compos i t ion 

not explam m public why I hd ^ to amnge for some one from 
of the Court. In die en was to ld that the Actmg Chief 

outside to raise the issue a “ . le matter likely to be discussed 
Justice was only sitting be ^ a “ • t as t0 whether the case should 

was the technical, but importan t t he then archaic judicial 

be heard in Accra 01 argument that the action could only be 
system there was a good legal g 



22 4 REAP the whirlwind 

brought in Kumasi, which incidentally meant that the Judge 
attacked had himself to hear the case. 

The Daily Telegraph and the Ashanti Pioneer had briefed a former 

rrnc^n 2 ° » mi ^ e * n tke ^ ouse °f Commons, Christopher Shaw- 
„ ui„ S ’i ^ Iecn s °unsel, Recorder of Nottingham and an acute and 
rprEm'* 1 "? er ' W T ° j 0t unnaturaII Y seized immediately upon the 

savin 1Ca ^° U ,r' n dev<do P* n g h he widened the front of his attack, 
saying, according to The Daily Telegraph report: 

” ^ enC J a /. ter ™ s c harges that I make, with the fullest sense of 
responabihty, because this aspect of the case may be of the highest 
nstitutional importance, are that Mr Bing, with the assistance of 
scrnnl d ° m 6 re P resents > has, in flagrant defiance of the court, not 
tender" a ? r ? Cur ^ dle perpetration of a monstrous outrage upon the 

svstem f T a ' U reedom oP Ghana and upon the newly established 
system of administration in Ghana of British justice.’ 

promise toteen^l See * 1IS P °' m v ‘ ew - We had indeed given a half 
action was heard A t 'a° me J 1 ’ n cust °dy in Ghana until their civil 
particukr ca e tho”^ ° f Parliam ^ to deal specifically with a 
accord with what U fi common m Colonial practice, was not in 

Shawcross, like myselThad^ 8 ?’ 115161 ' !t is true that Christ 0 P her 
Commons or elsewL ’ ^ m , ade n ° P rotest ln th e House of 
defended the same de^w™ Pa ' 30ur Colonial Secretary had 
But if the practice ° a ? cess t0 the courts in Nkrumah’s case. 

by the fact that we hadTothV" ** fir f. place k was not made ri & ht 
about the whole rhino- t i c fluiesced m it before. I was unhappy 

genuinely intending to beh ^ ^ ^ Ghana Minist ers had set out 
of the previous So , VC “ a dlfferent and better way to that 
the force of circuit reglme - ^ either the y nor I had realized that 
methods. ances might soon compel us to copy those 

Acting Chief^ IustTce al rn tlllS, V‘ d n0t tllink i): was proper for the 
substantive charge. For r , ? IeSlde °. ver f he Court which heard the 
to abandon the High Court '''; aSOn J? W3S my “Mention, in any event, 
on the technical noinr r r . oce ® dln S s once a decision was reached 
do, to a Magistrate. fwaT^f Dg ^ C3Se ’ 3S we discovered we could 
Judges found that'thev hod 3nyt ! lm F therefore, relieved when the 
Ashanti Pioneer were award d” 0 - ,uns d lct ion. Mr Colvin and the 
were awarded costs against the Government. Mr 



ATTORNEY GENERAL 22 5 

Colvin gave a promise to return to face any proceedings contem 
plated in the Magistrates Court and he and Christopher , ay, cross 
then left for Lagos. I myself went off to spend a few days holiday 
with Dr Nkrumah at Half Assini, the western frontier village where 
he had grown up. We were bathing in the surf when the Police 
Superintendent in charge of the Prime Minister s ra 10 in v y' 
Accra waved to us from the beach. There was an important messa B . 
It was from Krobo Edusei who had been appomte , a ay or ® 
before, Minister of the Interior, announcing that he had informed the 
Immigration authorities that he could not approve t e issue 
re-entry permit for Christopher Shawcross. r, r - 

Krobo Edusei had a logical case for his particular point ^ 
His experience of the law had led him to be leve 
merely places where politics were pursued by ot e ^ | ne ' ^ 

night of Independence he had stood beside Dr Nkrumah « he 

addressed for the first time the independent people o^Ghana, 

wearing a prison cap, embroidered ^^ler Colonialism 

Graduate’. To him any criminal convi , be j et 

was the best testimonial obtainable of po itica re . - d by 

no one forget rha, he. like Dr NJ— 

the previous regime. He re S ard ^ c [ ", P or ot henvise, imposed 
tution through which a government, be sa i d 

its policy behind a cloak of the Gold Coast which 

there were incidents in past legal r ) 

could be cited to justify his argument^ ^ ^ duty t0 the ; r clients 
Nevertheless, he accepted Uhl ^ rformed it . Rough though he 
and never complained when P outside it who crossed him, he 
was with those in his hen in pr i va te practice, defended 

never complamed to me “at , of political terrorism, shot 

the two men accused ofhavu g, tQ wh ich I have previously 

down his sister m cold bloo . h ^ Smith . It had resulted 

referred was tried before thi Th; J s hc accep ted. I was then a 

in the acquittal of one ot • Coast but w hen it came to 
lawyer in general P ractlce f “V he outs ide, for the sole purpose of 
the intrusion of someone ded as a purely political affair, 

involving himself m wnai 11 0 different . Ghanaian lawyers were 
then this was to hint altoge bodgs j an Federation and East Africa 
prevented from entering e if they wanted to take part in 

generally by the British Government 



226 

R£ AP THE WHIRLWIND 

Gfi d a? C aIl0W 2 British lawyer t0 intermeddle 

the outside^vn bowever > ^ut I, who was condemned by 

ctiTa five!^ f ° r the ban ‘ The D “"y *9™, fir example, 
CASE of BING V Lng> Tyf ^ art,cle e ntI tled, ‘THE ASTONISHING 

Sefton Delmer and ,V } '° U Ae evidence >’ said its author, Mr 
It certainly wic at r» S Ver - v > ve O’ hard to escape the verdict.’ 
reached the end^ ? dm . e T pronounced k himself before he had 
cSuT^d Ofl?,' “T* ° f his five columns. Despite this 
be written to defp A • ^ pr ° cess which the article purported to 
extreme form r! ' ’- U ! s worth quoting since it exemplifies, in an 
aroS ,kt th0 Nl ™"“ h ^vemnten. 

press attacks as thk h a ^' ^ would be understandable if such 
preventive detention % be .^ un ’ sa J r ’ apter the introduction of 
newspaper the Ashavt' p - ter 1 16 Suppress ' on of the local opposition 
party 3 state. Howet \i‘°T " f Cr the cs tablishment of the one 
took place. I n Sentemh ^ be f an ong bePore an y of these events 
denunciation and The Drill 9 ti Whe ? Mr DeImer Published his 
similar attacks the law in nu ee&ra & 1 and otber newspapers made 

Colonial times.’ Its Vew nnl,V K a WaS CXaCtl >’ what * had been in 

of Britain and there ‘twal institutions were modelled on those 
run the country in am, n*n° lndlcatlon that anyone then wished to 
Nkrumah or anyone eke nl^ n °, r ’ indeed > at the time, had Dr 
appears clearly when \Tr d ° ? 0 ' 9 ne explanation, which 

obviously, and possihlv h, £ r mer S ardcde * s analysed, is that he 
Colonial Government had ? refore odl ? rs also, had no idea of how 
fhe Commonwealth. Perh and ’ ^ ndeed > still was being run in 
independent that he and th*^ lt: , was ord y when Ghana became 
similar line, took an int ° SC • . er commentators who followed a 
knowledge of pas t histonTm' 9 affairs - Anyone without any 
tyrannical something whiet, 9 ° e excu sed for condemning as 
independent government of JL r^i W - S , ° nly the follow ing by an 
Is this, however the wB f 1 9 0nial precedent. 

Nkrumah considered f m „ l**?' lanation? Was the Ghana of Dr 
^ estern opinion to cnncoV 6 rS , t ’ an influential section of 
equilibrium? Was it mavhp U 6 Z cbaPe nge to an existing world 
world as a whole had un 6n ° n - V subc °nsciously, felt that the 
lvided for ever into rich anH n ° W ’ estab hshed that it should be 
and poor nations on, as it had worked out, 



attorney general 22 7 

a basis of colour, and that the very existence of Dr Nkrumah in 
Ghana, irrespective of the economic or political policies he followed 
was in itself a threat to this, up till now, stabilized order of things. 
Unsupported charges of Communism can be explained as a warning 
of the propaganda assault which would be launched if Ghana was 
later to attempt in any way to persuade the Soviet Union or Eastern 
European countries to take an interest in Africa. ^ ... 

From a purely personal point of view, also, it is worth while 
setting the record straight. In a footnote to his attac ' on my e 
haviour in Ghana Mr Delmer added in bold type at e ott °m ° 
one of his columns, ‘ Indeed , the writer, Arthur Koest er, ws pu ic ) 
called him a Communist— and not been refuted.’ Why anything m the 
writings of Mr Koesder or, for that matter, m those of Mr Delmer 
should be taken as true because I have not corrected them 1 do not 
altogether understand but for some people it appears to e S0 ‘ n 
this particular point, if Mr Delmer had been a serious searcher alter 
truth, he could very simply have obtained the answer himself by 
telephoning the Labour Party at Transport House who could have 
told him I had been a paid up Labour party member since 192b 
Nevertheless, despite this obvious failure to check his facts, even th 
most bizarre of his other allegations, in the absence of a contradic- 
tion from me, appear not only to have been accepte as true y 

colleagues, but to have been expanded by them e }° n , 

For example, as will be seen, in the article in question, 1 
erroneously awarded me a half Chinese great-gran mo er - 
time I came to visit Bermuda nine years later I had been equipped 
presumably on the basis of Mr Delmer s ongina mis ’ 

with a full set of Chinese forebears, one newspaper positively assert- 
ing I had been bom there. 

‘Fantastic and eztmordinary characters,' began Mr DetoeA 
•have always been drawn to the magnetre shores of Afoca r Gold 
Coast. Freebooters, pirates, sUve-t»den, smugglers and “Star 
have all found it a splendid hunting-ground for the tot 5 ™ _jeare. B 
never has there been a more amazing and entgmahe than tall. 



C 

REAP THE whirlwind 

dcscribed'nT sIav< i s t0 be t^d in the new world. To be 

Drake’s first- 1 a ™ azin S ar >d enigmatic figure’ than Francis 
historian ^savc c ? mim ”d ,n g officer, whom Callender, the naval 
whose vova<ms'r ”1?^ n , C ? ed tbe founder of the slave trade’ and 
England’ would ° a° ? 1 ° C l 1 ^ oas . t made him the wealthiest man in 
Mr Delmer C< i datter ing if there was any indication that 
a rticle isTn v nr r" Ut 16 " aS talkin S * b out. Unfortunately his 
Express hcked^ ,°- f that tbcbbra D on Imperial Affairs at the Daily 
consul the rh Y f B , ritain ’ s ° ldesi African colony. Anyone 

and extraordinary' character read . that amon S the <fantastic 
magnetic shores Africa’s Go dr ^ a "’ ayS bCCn dra "’ n t0 ^ 
Bartholomew Diaz ChWcr i d S? a . St Wcre > amon g many others, 
Admiral de R U y er Columbus, Maurice of Nassau, 

J. H. Thomas and fo ,? arnet Wolscl . e > r > Lord Baden-Powell, Mr 
the most charming of rhn 131 matte B Brincess Marie Louise, one of 
the Royal familv from ^ ecc ? ntric an d adventurous figures which 
th Got, S y „„E T “ "T P rodu “ s ' Her book learn flm 
have been amon°- the ann" I9 7 6> migbt ’ one would have thought, 
Afcn Empire permin ' ■! D^re^ml^' °" ^ 

tinned, 'but they were^neT ^w ^ nine daj-s ’’ klr Delmer con- 
it. They began with a h ^ ?\ b ! cb s h°°k the world — and puzzled 
successfully challenged p r mcism of Bing by Shawcross as he 
cases of alleged contemnt ? ]uns Icdoa of the Supreme Court in the 
had reprinted a Daily Exit *• agai ' nst dle -ds/ianti Pioneer (which 
the London Daily TeleerJ+V t P ™ on cr ‘ticism of Bing) and against 

Attorney-General fifn b' ^ C ° lvln ' 
courts, charged Shawcross bad abused the process of the 

dictation speed. ’ Cl ° ln ° his words and delivering them at 

The nine days came in ,• 

and Western legal tradition— If “ T when ~ in the fac e of all British 
Interior, refused to let Shaw™ ° ° ^dusei, the new Minister of the 
m a new action.’ ° SS return to Ghana to defend his client 

In fact Krobo Edusei’s nff>. 

universal ‘British and Western 0 ? "T tbat he applied the almost 

u “" d S “«. Common, 5S ^ Lid down by 

Western European practice. 



ATTORNEY GENERAL 


229 


This tradition, by this time long established in the United States and 
Western Europe, was, in the majority of cases, to exclude from any 
particular country’s courts all but nationals of that country or else, 
as in the British case, all but those who had satisfied the Bar as to 
their knowledge of local law and of the fact that they had not been 
recently practising as a solicitor; rules which effectively excluded 
most Commonwealth practitioners coming to Britain to engage in a 
particular case. Ghana, unlike Nigeria after Independence, did not 
exclude non-Ghanaians from practice. On the contrary, it broadened 
the basis of admission, allowing any barrister or solicitor of standing 
from the Commonwealth to appear and did not merely limit 
audience, as in Colonial days, to practitioners from England or 
Ireland. What Krobo Edusei did, in Christopher Shawcross’s case 
was, by the use of immigration procedure, to apply the rule at that 
time imposed in almost all British African Colonies and many 
Commonwealth countries that a barrister coming from abroad, 1 
admitted at all, must get prior permission from the Government 
before he undertook any particular case. In so far as Western lega 
tradition’ had any relevance, it was on Krobo Edusei s side. 


‘The reason given for this step,’ explained Mr Delmer, that Shaw 
cross had unpardonably criticised Premier Nkrumah and his Govern 
ment-is one of the inexplicable puzzles that make up the mysterious 

Mr Bing. .... , 

For Bing, who as a Socialist M.P. was forever criticising the 
Government and defending the right of others to criticise must know 
that advocates in British courts have a duty to criticise an attac t e 

Government if the interests of their client requires it. . 

They are only limited by the powers of the court itself and their 
own professional ethics. But never by the police or the Home Secretary. 

To watch him now and contrast his present with his past it almost 
seems as though there were two men fighting each other behind those 
inscrutable, slant-eyed, almost Mandarin features. 


Mr BING OF LONDON, Socialist lawyer, politician, indefatigable cham- 
pion of civil liberties . . . 

versus 

Mr BING OF GHANA (shall we call him Mr Bong ?), authoritarian expo- 
nent of Fascist Communist Police State methods. 



230 REAP THE whirlwind 

Patririn'n '^ CS U P dle casc °f onc of his constituents, a Aire 

British fi? ?? " *° laS becn rc ^" usc ^ a re-entry permit by the then 
outsooL-pn - oast . authorities. Her husband, a journalist, had been 
Zt ffi “ 1 11S A Cnt,CiSm 0f . thc British Administration, 
motion in ft, . °e CCra ’ SCCS j° urnalist Dellcr and successfully files a 
Dellcr and her baby" 10 C ° Urt ™ PCrmit t0 be sivCn t0 MrS 

with arrete ? tbrcatcns British newspaper reporter Ian Colvin 
member of the Th ^ tT Conn ‘ vcs that Bis counsel, Shawcross— a 
Mr Dim t ? u 3r ~ iS rcfuscd Permission to defend him. 
Berlin and'rm CptCm cr ’ *935> goes to an international congress in 

thc . Hitler . for ^ 

democratic traditions ^ m pnson ' vlt, iout trial in defiance of 

deported without'tria 1 ] 3 ’ 5 Gh3n3 °PP osit, ’on leaders arrested and 

looking closdy’ tnto^mv^^ mC L ,Wll0 ’» aS hc cxplains later, ‘Bad been 
so many of his facts wrn past llst ory’, should nevertheless have got 
*95° to take up the cnJ ' ri Cxam P le > 1 did not fly to Accra in 
letters on behalf of ^ laides Dellcr’s wife. I wrote many 

though I cannot now recall rh^Tu’ n “ r doubt > } took up her case, 
be sure, I did not ‘file „ m „• , etads - Of one thing, however, I can 
her an entry permit for th *°^ ln . tbe Supreme Court’ to obtain for 
authorities never allowed tb S ^ lp e reas °n that the then Colonial 
powers to exclude arhitmr-;? ? Urts t0 have any control over their 
I did not ‘threaten Brin'd? " ° m tbe ^ wished from tlie Colony. 

arrest’. So far as I can remp ? e " s P a P er reporter Ian Colvin with 
not ‘arrange or connive th-iMv^ 1 baVe never s P oke n to him. I did 
the Ghana Bar— was re f.._ ? ls c °unsel Shawcross— a member of 
contrary, I had oririnallv f PCrm ‘ sslon to defend him’. On the 
s ould be admitted immediate? 30 ^ - tbat Christopher Shawcross 

d'ffi S °i that be could appear fo^M^ r' T^° Ut forrna lity to the Ghana 
difficulty arose, personaUv^ 7 Mr C ° lvm ’ even undertaking, if any 
exduded after the contemnt r Sp ° nsor h is application. He was 
Colvm had left Ghana It i s P „f ^ ° Ver ’ and after he and Mr 
Shawcross applied to return / C0Urse ’ true, that when Christopher 

r 0 vtn in contemplation but the^VIr ^ P roceedin gs against 

se I discontinued, naturally, as 



ATTORNEY GENERAL 


231 


soon as I learnt that his counsel had been excluded. In practice, the 
effect of Krobo Edusei’s ban was to secure in advance, through my 
intervention, what was, according to Mr Delmer, the purpose of 
Mr Shawcross’s visit. I was never consulted about his exclusion, 
Krobo Edusei saying to me afterwards, ‘If I had told you you 
would have tried to get the Prime Minister to stop it . This, at least, 

I should have attempted though I doubt if I would have been 
successful. 

Sir Arku Korsah, the substantive Chief Justice, was at the time 
acting as Governor-General but he called me to the State House to 
tell me that he personally approved of what Krobo Edusei ha 
done. Both he and I were anxious that the lawyers from as wide a 
circle as possible should be admitted to the Ghana Courts, e 
thought, possibly rightly, that it would be impossible to maintain 
this principle if lawyers from other countries were brought in to 
conduct purely political actions. Shawcross s clients had, be ore e 
left Ghana, started civil proceedings against Dr Nkrumah, the 
Commissioner of Police and myself. There was no question ot 
prohibiting this action. The issue was solely whether a non-Ghanaian 
lawyer, who had been admitted for another purpose, shou e 
permitted to return to deal with this case. Had the decision been 
left to me I should have said yes but the comment of the Uuet 
Justice showed that Krobo Edusei’s contrary view, ha , at east, 
some judicial support and, as I learned afterwards, the 1 mister s 

action was backed by Dr Nkrumah. , 

As for having ‘three Ghana opposition leaders arrested and 

deported without trial’, if Mr Delmer was referring to * ® 
leaders, there were two of them and not three an never ear 
them until after they had been arrested. In Britain, as elsewhere it 

is usual practice to deport non-nationals without rst 0 ' 

In fact, the sum total of my offence was that, after the disturbances 

in Accra, I was in no way opposed to this prece en eing 

and their being deported to Kano in Northern Nigeria, their home 

fanatics. The Ghana Government believed, rightly or wrongly that 
the two men concerned were engaged m racial and religious agi- 



R, AI ’ Tin. WIIIK1. WIN'D 

in^slnnt| V *fj''.*r' |* lc l >rc 'i ,u ^ c i ,< -Ticlencf history of political violence 
of the mm’ 'r- e 1Ct lc - l )r<,c hiimcd themselves as supporters 
0f l »rr lhe ^ thing, Morse, 

treatment of K ’ a "n of " having done so, against the 

to the Intern i , ) ’ 3cI,,unn "hen I came to Berlin as a delegate 
that Mr Delm ■. 1 ° nJ | C,U 3 . !ld ^'"‘tvniury Congress. I only wish 
Germany In M " *° 'm** 1 ,cn t *' c Impress correspondent in 
poMerf ’vo , Tn . a f le 1° Ws newspaper to add its 

reported the C ° P < f a ‘ 0WCVcr ' he must have l.now n, since he 
P«ofutti^S KSS ' 1 ut ." llnt 1 “U Jbout •nudnunn «as only 
1 il cl T ,hc regimes,.., .hole .hick 

referenced. ? ' ■ '« deploy. The in, ere., of Ms 

introduced S Coin.' 1 Ui ! hc * cct, '* , y- hor Mr Delmer, having thus 
verdict he had ,” Uni f l . CJl l cr 1 Preceded to deliver himself the 

«X^£Th u S S" 1 ,x “ ,y ratahi '’ “ 

"t. it with some supplementary evidence. 

pta^.s= zszr ■" in t f ■■ ^ ^ 

‘I ha\ c been In, t • ’ i , . ’ ,mn »cdiately supplying the answer, 

■here" 1 ” km5 d ~'>' i»>« Mr Dios’. pa>, his.ori end I ,Mol 

Imf G ' 0l, '" J ‘ adl l!i "S o > folio, er of ,l,e Comn.uni., Perry 

tradition for him lo daind'hc" 1 '''" -"' h ,l,,: l,Cit M° sco "' ayilator.' 
opposing the British r Protection of democratic liberties while 
his friends are in , |m. GOU ' nment ’ a,ul "■» as soon as he and 

half-Chinese Dui^omanl'l" aild Brcat-grandson of a 
Only a year later we find him ^ '° thc Bar in I 934- 
munist training centre in I i CGtunnK at AIar -v House, the Corn- 
generation of British Pn on . 011 ^ ronl which nearly all the younger 

munist-sponsored orcanwm' Cacrman Rc lief Committee”, a Com- 
were his fellow orators at fi"/ PoU,tt and olhcr Communists 
prisoned Thaelmann. ° J ' W * <T rallies on bchaIf of the im ' 

prisoned Communist "bos? 3ld t0 thc iamil 3' of tlic im ' 

hated Red dictator. Rakos >— who later became thc country’s 



ATTORNEY GENERAL 2 33 

(Said Bing, on returning from a post-war visit to Communist 
Hungary: “It was grand to find Rakosi once more playing his part m 
restoring democratic government to his country. ) 

During the Spanish Civil War, Bing went to Spain to work there for 
the Communist-dominated Republican Government. 

After the war he joined quite a number of Communist-sponsored 
organizations, such as British-Rumanian Friendship Association— of 
which he is vice-chairman, the Britain-China Friendship Association, 
and the International Brigade Association. 


The method of presentation is, it is of interest to note, exactly 
that of the Watson Commission when they made similar charges 
against Dr Nkrumah. It is guilt by association with, where necessary, 
the facts altered so as to fit the argument. For example, my great- 
grandfather, to whom Mr Delmer refers by implication was a Dutch 
Sea Captain of some distinction who remarried from time to time. 
One of his wives was an Indonesian girl from the Island of Maccas- 
sar but my branch of the family is not descended from her. Neverthe- 
less, a hundred years after her death, she is dragge m^to jus 1 y 
‘those inscrutable, slant-eyed, almost Mandarin eatures o s a . 
we call him, Mr Bong’. I am sorry, in many ways, I cannot establis 
a claim to mixed blood. I should certainly he p ease o e P 
Chinese. Yet, even supposing I was more than half Chinese, as 
example, Dr Wellington Koo, until lately a Judge th ® 1 , 

national Court, how can this be thought to govern my political or legal 
judgement unless indeed Mr Delmer was arguing in favour ot the 
racial theories prevalent in Germany in his pre-war a ^ s ' 

Certainly I gave a lecture at Marx House m a room, I : remember 
decorated with frescoes painted by a well-known member of the 
Labour Party who was later to become a success* ^Labour 
Earl Attlee’s administration. I was a supporter of those in the Lab 

organized to support the Spams P ^ j d _ aknost 

in Houses, -feting 

the House of Common^ orga ^ on 

dot i hope I did so. 1 



ATTORNEY GENERAL 


235 


‘It was as an extreme left politician,’ he wrote of me, ‘that he took 
up the cause of Africans whom he considered victims of British 
Colonial oppression. 

This association led to the appointment in 1957 _ of ex-M.P. Bing— 
he had been defeated in the meantime— as constitutional adviser to 
Ghana— an appointment as fantastic and extraordinary as his promo- 
tion to Attorney-General, which followed shortly after. . 

For barrister Bing had no special qualification to entitle him to sue 
appointments, neither as a constitutional lawyer, nor as a practising 

barrister. , 

Indeed so scanty was his practice as a member of the Bar that when 
Bing, as an M.P., was made a K.C., it was said that his was the most 

drfifinal Qillr pvpr 

By accepting a contract from the Ghana Government, Bing, in the 
view of his fellow members of the British Bar, has broken the rules of 

his profession. , , 

For by tying himself under contract to the Government he has com- 
promised his independence as a legal officer of Ghana whose one con- 
sideration must be the interest of the public and not that of the 

Government or the party. ^ 1 j „ 

Mr Bing no doubt would have waxed furiously eloquent had some 

Tory committed such an act. 

For him all these things have become antiquated trimming to be 
shed in the interest of “stability and order . 

An interesting case.’ 

To this argument I cannot even now reply Whatever else a 
1 • & 1 .1 yprfnjn road to disbarment is to disclose tne 

barrister may do, the _ certain road Chancellor, when 

past secrets of his fee book to anyone ouiu T , 

seeking- an armointment, and the Income Tax Inspector, when 
seeking an appom ’ hi d that Mr Delmer was right and, 
contesting an assessment. It 1 ninie . , . c _ . 1 • t 


crime ot touting . a large practice, then I would be 

mistaken and a - ous 0 ff enC e of ‘advertising’. Still, things 

committing the eq J Mr Delmer’s observations were 

being as they were ' h t i me it was otherwise when it 

unlikely to affect my credit out at ui<= 



ATTORNEY GENERAL 


237 


with the Government. Such exclusions, whether right or wrong, 
were so commonplace in the Colonial Commonwealth as to e 
hardly worth a paragraph on an obscure page of even the most e t 
wing British newspaper. Secondly, I was accused of deporting t ee 
opponents of the Government. British Colonial history is a Hong 
record of such deportations. Occasionally they received pu ^ty, 
as for example when Archbishop Markarios was sent to t e ey 
chelles Islands, but never, so far as I can recall, condemnation from 
the Daily Express. The truth is that, in the eyes not only ol the 
Daily Express but of other British newspapers as well, Ghana had 

committed the unpardonable crime of behaving, when m epen ent, 

as independent and had acted in her own territory in exact yt e 
same way as the British Colonial authorities would have done it they 
had remained in charge. 

Here was the real sin. Independence for Ghana was on y accep 
able to an important section of British public opinion provi e 1 ^ 
Ghana Government realized it must not treat the representatives of 
the British Establishment as if they were Colonial Africans or 
British anti-Colonialist agitators. A few years previous y Jo >n 
Stonehouse — afterwards to become Parliamentary ecretary a 
Colonial Office-was made a prohibited immigrant m East Africa. 
That was one thing. He had come to help the Africans. 0 ex 
Christopher Shawcross was quite different. He had com e to help 
Englishman. To use Mr Sefton Delmer’s final words, An interest g 

CclSC* A * 

Dr Nkrumah saw it in another light and was m “ ch J £ 

It was proof of a thesis he had often advanced. ' White peop 
generally,’ he said to me, ‘have a deep sense o gui .^ g are 

which they excuse to themselves by arguing . br themselves 

incanable on account of their race of doing anything for themselv . 
incapable on accounr 01 cannot do anything good 

From this it follows Really tha > hcmselvcs either . So they 
for themselves, they can not do b some wh ite man. This puts 

must have been led m dom b y dffi Accor ding to their 

those pushing this theo^ m s0 10 be a bad leader of Africans 

argument white men cannot b h European intermingling in 

you must be non-white but nun sum u 

your family.’ through his books. ‘Something exactly 

He went busily searchin,, a about Jamcs Brew, an 

of the same sort,’ he told me, 



REAP THE WHIRLWIND 


236 

came to the recruitment of British technicians and civil sen-ants for 
Ghana. If lawyers of whom we were desperately in need, were really, 
in the view of the British Bar, ‘breaking the rules of their profession’ 
by accepting appointments offered by the Ghana Public Sendee 
Commission, as set up under the Lcnnox-Boyd Constitution, then 
legal development in Ghana along British lines would prove 
impossible. In these circumstances 1 hoped for a refutation of Mr 
Dclmer’s definition of a barrister’s duties from that watchdog of my 
profession, the Bar Council. None came. 

The harm that this and other similar articles in other British 
newspapers did, syndicated as they were, like Mr Delmer’s article, 
throughout the Commonwealth, was not to me. I may have had to 
wait ten years before I was at liberty to reply to Mr Dclmer but I was 
comforted by the thought that the Civil Sendee would not always be 
my profession and ultimately I could speak for myself. The damage 
was to the conception of a Commonwealth Civil Sendee, recruited 
from its more developed countries and sening, as a matter of duty, 
with its newly independent members, without obligation to sub- 
scribe to the political policy of these new states. If now civil sen-ants 
recruited on this basis were not only to be saddled with the whole 
responsibility for the policy of the state they scn-cd, but also, if that 
state’s policy did not suite some British newspaper, have the secrets 
of their families, down to the marital vagaries of their great-grand- 
fathers, published for all to read, then of course such recruitment 
would be largely inhibited if not entirely prevented. 

In the final analysis, of course, what Mr Dclmer and his news- 
paper had against me was nothing that I had done politically in the 
past. On balance, probably, my left wing activities had not been as 
consistent or effective as some of those whom Lord Beaverbrook had 
employed from time to time to edit his newspapers. As with the 
Watson Commission and Dr Nkrumah, so with me and the Daily 
Express. Our crime was organizational, not ideological. His offence 
had been that in Colonial days he insisted on applying to a Colony 
the forms of political organization used by the Labour and Conserva- 
tive parties in Britain. My offence was different but parallel. I had 
taken part in applying the techniques of British Colonial rule in an 
independent state. The matters alleged against me happened to be 
untrue but they were, first, that I excluded a British lawyer who 
wanted to appear in court on behalf of someone who was in dispute 



ATTORNEY GENERAL 


237 

with the Government. Such exclusions, whether right or wrong, 
were so commonplace in the Colonial Commonwealth as to be 
hardly worth a paragraph on an obscure page of even the most left 
wing British newspaper. Secondly, I was accused of deporting three 
opponents of the Government. British Colonial history is a long 
record of such deportations. Occasionally they received publicity, 
as for example when Archbishop Markarios was sent to the Sey- 
chelles Islands, but never, so far as I can recall, condemnation from 
the Daily Express. The truth is that, in the eyes not only of the 
Daily Express but of other British newspapers as well, Ghana had 
committed the unpardonable crime of behaving, when independent, 
as independent and had acted in her own territory in exactly the 
same way as the British Colonial authorities would have done if they 
had remained in charge. 

Here was the real sin. Independence for Ghana was only accept- 
able to an important section of British public opinion provided the 
Ghana Government realized it must not treat the representatives of 
the British Establishment as if they were Colonial Africans or 
British anti-Colonialist agitators. A few years previously John 
Stonehouse — afterwards to become Parliamentary Secretary at the 
Colonial Office — was made a prohibited immigrant in East Africa. 
That was one thing. Ele had come to help the Africans. To exclude 
Christopher Shawcross was quite different. He had come to help an 
Englishman. To use Mr Sefton Delmer’s final words, ‘An interesting 
case’. 

Dr Nkrumah saw it in another light and was much amused by it. 
It was proof of a thesis he had often advanced. ‘White people 
generally,’ he said to me, ‘have a deep sense of guilt about slavery 
which they excuse to themselves by arguing that Africans are 
incapable on account of their race of doing anything for themselves. 
From this it follows logically that, if they cannot do anything good 
for themselves, they cannot do bad for themselves either. So they 
must have been led in doing bad by some white man. This puts 
those pushing this theory in another difficulty. According to their 
argument white men cannot be evil, so to be a bad leader of Africans 
you must be non-white but with some European intermingling in 
your family.’ 

He went busily searching through his books. ‘Something exactly 
of the same sort,’ he told me, ‘was said about James Brew, an 



238 REAP THE WHIRLWIND 

attorney of Cape Coast, who was the draftsman of the Fanti Con- 
federation Constitution. 5 — He would find it in a moment. This 
reaction and erudition that went with it was very typical. His library.', 
in which he was searching, was well chosen and he had a sincere 
regard for scholarship, however much he might politically disagree 
with the scholar in question. For example, I have heard him 
complain that Miss Perham, the biographer of Lord Lugard, had 
not acknowledged sufficiently the basic scholarship of Lord Lugard’s 
wife, Flora Shaw. Lady Lugard had written a book on Northern 
Nigeria, A Tropical Dependency, which Dr Nkrumah often praised 
though the political content of it must have been offensive to him. 
In this case, however, he could not immediately find the reference 
for which he was looking. Two days later, in die evening, a police 
car arrived at my house with an urgent message from the Prime 
Minister. The envelope, when I opened it, contained only one slip 
of blue paper on which Dr Nkrumah had written in the green ink he 
always used : 

‘Administrator Salmon to the Colonial Office on James Brew — “A 

penniless lawyer with an awful private character (a half caste)”. 5 

The slip was presumably destroyed when the looters wrecked my 
office, but, remembering the text, I have checked on it. It occurs in 
Despatch No. 153, written, strangely enough, by the Administrator 
on Christmas Day 1871, and ‘awful 5 was underlined in the original. 



CHAPTER SEVEN 


THE STRANGE CASE OF 
MAJOR AWHAITEY 


On the 21st January 1959 there was assembled on the orders of Sir 
Victor Paley, the British General then commanding the Ghana 
Armed Forces, a Court Martial to try Major Benjamin Awhaitey, at 
that time one of the most senior African Officers in the Ghana 
Army. The events which this trial disclosed were, in a sense, a dress 
rehearsal for the military coup which was to take place seven years 
later but every role was reversed. History was to repeat itself, but 
first as farce and only later as tragedy. Major Awhaitey was charged 
with ‘neglect to the prejudice of good order and military discipline 
... in that he, at Accra, on the 18th and 19th December 1958 failed 
to report, until after he had learned that the matter had been 
reported by others, that he had been informed of a proposed coup 
d’etat being organized by one Reginald Reynolds Amponsah and 
others, which coup d'etat involved, inter alia, the seizure of the 
Prime Minister, Dr Nkrumah, and other Cabinet Ministers by army 
personnel on the 20th December 1958’. 

Of the Officers who assembled to try him, two were British and 
three Ghanaian. All of these three Ghanaians were destined for 
higher Command. At the time they were Majors. One, A. K. Ocran, 
was, seven years later, to become one of the leaders of the revolt and, 
for his part in it, to be promoted Major-General, to be appointed to 
succeed as Commander of the Armed Forces its first leader Kotoka, 
afterwards killed in an attempted counter coup and to become a 
Commissioner in the National Liberation Council Government. The 
second, Major Charles Barwah, was, of the three, the one I knew 
best. 

The son of an army sergeant he had been born and brought up in 
the so-called ‘Northern Territories’ of the Colonial Gold Coast. It 
was from these ‘NT’s’ as they were generally known that the bulk 
of the infantry of the colonial army was drawn. At that time any 
African living there was under considerable handicap. Primary 


2 39 



REAP THE WHIRLWIND 


240 

education was poor and there was only one secondary school. Charles 
Barwah triumphed over all these difficulties and then, like his 
father, joined the army. In 1947 much to the surprise of the colonial 
authorities he did what no soldier from the North had previously 
done — passed the officers’ training course examination. 

So began a career which ended with his promotion to the rank of 
Major-General. When General Ankrah was in 1964 compulsorily 
retired, he took his place as Deputy' Commander of the Armed 
Forces and at the time of the revolt he was their Acting Commander. 
When the mutineers came to his house he left them in no doubt as 
to his loyalty and they shot him down there and then. In his book 
The Ghana Coup , A. A. Afrifa, one of the officers who planned the 
coup , thus records the death of the most distinguished soldier Ghana 
has yet produced. 

‘As for Barwah, he resisted arrest most unwisely and tlierby compelled 
an officer to adopt other methods which he himself knew would be 
adopted if he became stubborn.’ 

So died one of my best friends in Ghana, a man who in the modesty 
and gentleness of his life and by his triumph over all the restricting 
circumstances of his birth and upbringing in the then illiterate and 
neglected North, was the embodiment of all that was fine and honest 
in the Ghana Armed Forces. 

The third Major serving on the Court Martial -was General 
Ankrah himself, the man under whose command those who killed 
Charles Barwah were to come and who, after the coup d’etat, was 
promoted to the rank of Lieutenant-General and to the Chairmancy 
of the National Liberation Council. Reginald Reynolds Amponsah, 
the individual around whom the charge against Awhaitey was 
centred, was, shortly after the coup, appointed by Ocran and Ankrah 
and their colleagues on the National Liberation Council to the 
Commission which has drawn up Ghana’s new constitution. 

The bank account used by the conspirators in England was one 
nominally opened for the use of a Ghanaian student at Leeds 
University. The student in question, Osei-Bonsu, w r as later to be 
placed by the rebel regime in charge of State Information and 
Propaganda. 

Major Awhaitey was prosecuted by John Abbensetts, a Ghanaian 
lawyer, then in private practice, but who I was afterwards to 



THE STRANGE CASE OF MAJOR AWHAITEY 


241 

persuade to join my department. He was later to become Solicitor- 
General in Dr Nkrumah’ s last administration and then to go over to 
the regime of General Ankrah. The defending counsel was Kwaw 
Swanzy. I had come to know him when he was a member of the 
opposition and the partner of Dr Kurankyi Taylor, my friend in the 
pre-independence days in the National Liberation Movement and 
who died in 1959. Kwaw Swanzy was a good academic lawyer who 
had written an excellent history of the Colonial Gold Coast courts 
which we often consulted in my department when issues of past 
practice came up. He was to become the last Attorney General of 
the Nkrumah regime and a CPP Member of Parliament. Thus it 
was that, in the end, we found ourselves both imprisoned together 
in Ussher Fort. At the time of writing he is still there. 

Among the principal witnesses against Awhaitey was one of his 
fellow Majors, Nathan Aferi, who by the time of the coup had also 
risen to the rank of Major-General and to the command of the 
Armed Forces. He was absent from Ghana when the revolt took 
place but his cabled approval of what had been done was to assist in 
consolidating the regime. The Judge Advocate was Squadron 
Leader P. L. U. Cross, dso, dfc, a Trinidadian whose appoint- 
ment to my department I had secured a few months before. He and 
I first heard of the Awhaitey affair when we were together, on 
Christmas Eve, in Timbuktu. 

My wife and I had long planned a holiday in the African interior. 
My wife’s sister was coming to stay with us for Christmas so this 
seemed a good time to visit neighbouring territories and we asked 
Ulric Cross to join us. We planned to travel by car through what is 
now the Republic of the Upper Volta, meeting the Niger at Mopti, 
a busy river port, as full of canals as a Dutch town, and an important 
centre of trade in present-day Mali. From there we had booked 
a passage on the river steamer which went to Timbuktu. After 
fifteen months as Attorney-General I felt I deserved a holiday. The 
good Dr Savundra who had been my main worry over the last three 
months had been deported on the 15th December. The re-organi- 
zation of my department was going well. The Shawcross episode 
was behind me. Dr Nkrumah was due to leave for India on the 20th. 
The Cabinet was in recess and the Law Courts had risen. There 
was nothing, I thought, which could possibly keep me in Accra and 
so it was, early on the morning of the 19th, my wife and Ulric Cross 



THE STRANGE CASE OF MAJOR AWHAITEY 243 

contrary to the information given by the French Embassy in Accra, 
that the direct road to Mopti was impassable, particularly as 
everyone assured us that by making a detour through Bobo- 
Dioulasso, the only other sizeable town in Upper Volta, we could 
still reach Mopti in time to catch our steamer. The road, according 
to the unanimous opinion of all those we consulted, was good, if 
untarmac’d, and it was safe to travel fast. 

So it was, on this third day of our journey, in that tricky light 
just before dawn, Ulric Cross who was driving, hit, as we turned a 
corner, a belt of sand which had been driven across the dirt road. 
The car somersaulted twice. None of us was seriously hurt but the 
MG Magnet, my wife’s most prized possession, which she had 
bought for the 1957 cancelled Monte Carlo Rally, was left a mass of 
twisted metal on the roadside. In French territory, as in the former 
British Colonies, there existed that same class of Syrian and Greek 
business man. Fortunately, one of these, a Greek contractor, came 
by some hours later, picked us up and took us on to Bobo-Dioulasso, 
still some two hundred miles down the road. He knew a taxi driver 
who was going that day to Mopti and since this driver would be 
there anyway long enough to pick us up on the way back, he 
suggested we should bargain with him to take us. We were bruised 
and shaken but, after all the preparations we had made, it seemed 
cowardly to abandon our holiday now. So we set off in the driver’s 
somewhat dilapidated car. Our chauffeur had acquired, if not the 
language, at least the technique of the Paris taxi driver, and we 
found ourselves being driven faster than we had ever dared drive 
ourselves. We tried to console each other for these new risks we had 
so casually incurred by saying that if we got through we could dine 
out on the story of being the first Europeans to visit Timbuktu by 
taxi for Christmas. 

The paddle steamer which we just managed to catch turned out 
to be a kind of floating bistro, which drifted rather than sailed down 
the Niger. But, at least, unlike her sister ship, which had to be 
towed by a tug, the engine of our vessel still functioned. Convinced 
that all our troubles were over, we enjoyed on board French cooking 
and wine and we would sit drinking from the large variety of the 
Parisian aperitives on board, as the low and distant mud banks of the 
river slid slowly by and thus it was, to our surprise, that we arrived 
on time at the port for Timbuktu. Timbuktu itself, which had, in the 


244 


REAP THE WHIRLWIND 


Middle Ages, rivalled the university cities of the world, was now a 
htt e mud-house town, its dusty streets filled with camels and 
veiled Touareg men wearing crusader-like swords. When Leo 
Atricanus s guide to African trading was published in Venice in 
the sixteenth century there was a big demand for literature in 
Timbuktu. More profit,’ he wrote, ‘is made from the book trade 
than from any other line of business,’ but it was no longer so. There 
was not even a shop which sold picture postcards. It was an anti- 
™ ax a “ er a11 our misfortunes and exertions. We were bored, 
ihe Lampement’ or Resthouse which the French Government 
maintained had only twelve beds and was the only hotel accommo- 
da don, but we were alone in it and the only outsider we found to 

rhxi rT j louare S schoolmaster who taught the nomad 
children of the desert and studied world politics. He was remarkably 

of thP R r v e ^T H t W ° U o dlSCUSS endlessI >' such thi ngs as the policy 
P s , a our Party or political developments in Western 

, a r? d he 7 aS) I , lmagine > typical Of the intellectual elite 
nd t0 “S kad " esta hlishing an independent 

and pohdcally left wing Mali. There was a pleasant coloured girl 

dTlirV’ l T d™P™=»> ” d sh «. “ trie/to 

i fp"';,; h ” ! * fr “?. » Vietnam lady, married to a soldier 

mas Eve we th iTn 11 ’ lad 3 P ° wcrful radio - As it was Christ- 

*• TT Sed US ' 

arrested andTmn Eve that the Ghana Government had 

Amponsah MemST f the p mventive Detention Act, R. R. 
United Partv and h” aEia ment and General Secretary of the 
Leader of So ? C ° lle3gUe Modesto Apaloo, die Deputy 

deader oi the Opposition in Parliament. 1 * 

with^vhom to Sahara > isolated fr om pracdcally anyone 

Accra it seemed rn S *e gS) C , Ut off from a11 communication with 

“ been working 

think now pardv mLj 1 ¥ d been buter ty opposed, on I 
Preventive Detention Art- f grouncE ’ to the introduction of the 
Member of Parliament T i! j" mont hs before. When I was a Bridsh 
tyrannical and bigoted K v? attacbed "’hat seemed to me to be the 
mcnt Wh d i e 7 r of the Northern Ireland Govern- 
“ a separate Parliament was established in Northern 



THE STRANGE CASE OF MAJOR AWHAITEY 245 

Ireland after the First World War, almost its first act was to 
introduce a Special Powers Bill under which it could, among other 
things, imprison political offenders without trial. As a child, I 
remembered seeing a ship anchored in Belfast Lough, opposite our 
home, in which many of these prisoners including Cahir Healy, a 
Northern Ireland Member of Parliament whom I was later to 
know when we were in the Commons together, were imprisoned. 

In 1947, one of those rare occasions in the British Parliament 
occurred on which Northern Ireland’s internal affairs could be 
discussed. I took advantage of it to declare myself against preventive 
detention in general. The Northern Ireland Government had 
suspected that it had exceeded its Parliamentary powers in regard 
to certain technical matters and sought to have promoted a Bill at 
Westminster to validate what had been done, possibly in excess of 
its constitutional authority. Since at least a case could be made out 
for saying that preventive detention in Northern Ireland was also 
beyond the powers of the Northern Ireland Parliament to enact I set 
down an Amendment to this Bill. 

My proposal was that the British Parliament should validate 
what had previously been done under the Special Powers Act but 
would, in future, prohibit preventive detention and other similar 
powers being exercised by a subordinate Government in the six 
counties of Ulster. In view of the volume of the criticism which 
followed the introduction of preventive detention in Ghana it was, 

I think, remarkable, looking back on it, that I could find so little 
enthusiasm for my proposal to make it illegal in the United Kingdom. 
Indeed, I had so little support from my fellow Members that I did 
not even take my Amendment to a division for fear of showing the 
smallness of the anti-preventive detention vote. 

However, the next year another fortuitous circumstance arose 
which enabled those of us opposed to preventive detention to make 
some progress in our campaign. As a result of the Irish Republic 
leaving the Commonwealth it was necessary to introduce into the 
British Parliament an Ireland Bill. This once again enabled us to 
discuss Northern Ireland affairs. Better organized this time, we 
actually divided the House, getting on one occasion the support of 
some forty Members, among them a number of Parliamentary 
Private Secretaries to Ministers. Despite the Constitutional theory 
that, except in matters affecting the affairs of the Ministry of which 



246 REAP THE WHIRLWIND 

his Minister is the head, a Parliamentary Private Secretary is free to 
vote as he will, this opposition to Special Powers in Northern 
Ireland was considered a grave Parliamentary offence. Lord Blyton, 
then a Durham miner MP, escaped the wrath to come by a hasty 
resignation. The other Parliamentary Private Secretaries including 
J. P. W. Mallalieu, now a Minister in the Labour Government, 
were peremptorily dismissed. However much some politicians 
were later to condemn preventive detention in Ghana, it was clear 
that to vote against it being further continued in the United King- 
dom, was something that disqualified a Labour Member from hold- 
ing even the most junior position in Earl Attlee’s Government. 

Nevertheless, as a stubborn opponent of preventive detention 
anywhere in the United Kingdom I would, for this reason alone, 
have found it hard to accept it in Ghana. This apart, and even 
supposing 1 had voted with the majority of my Labour colleagues in 
supporting its application for the last quarter century in Northern 
Ireland, there were other arguments which then seemed to weigh 
particularly strongly against introducing it at this time into Ghana. 
It was true that neither tire police nor the Courts in Ghana were 
capable of dealing with political crime. It appeared extremely 
difficult, if not impossible, to punish treasonable or seditious 
offences under the existing system because of the deficiencies in the 
machinery' for collecting the necessary' evidence and because of the 
need for establishing, under the English laws of evidence, that 
certainty of guilt required under the British system. Nevertheless, it 
seemed to me that if preventive detention were introduced an easy 
way out would be provided. Neither police methods nor the 
organization of cases in court would then be improved and thus it 
would be always argued that preventive detention was necessary. 
My argument against the Act for which I had some support in the 
Cabinet had no effect on the majority of its members or on Dr 
Nkrumah who supported the idea from the start. Nevertheless a 
compromise was arranged to meet the views of those, like Kofi 
Baako, then Minister of Information, who were opposed to the Bill. 
If the Act was used at all, it would not be used against politicians in 
general and certainly not against Members of Parliament. 

Shortly after the Bill was passed an event occurred which appeared 
to justify those who had argued in favour of the Act. A dangerous 
tribal conspiracy was discovered. It w'as clear that it could only' be 



THE STRANGE CASE OF MAJOR AWHAITEY 247 

dealt with effectively by the use of special powers. The Special 
Branch of the Police was still under its old Colonial commander, a 
level-headed Southern Irish Catholic who therefore, I thought, was 
unlikely to accept what was done in Northern Ireland as necessarily 
a precedent to be followed. This officer, James McCabe, was in 
favour of preventive detention being employed in these particular 
circumstances which had arisen shortly before we had gone on our 
holiday. 

Accra had originally been a Ga town. The Gas are a people who 
had moved down the West Coast in the seventeenth century and are 
entirely different in origin and social custom to the Ahans. With the 
growth of Accra as the capital and with the neighbouring new port 
of Tema becoming the principal industrial area of the country there 
was an influx of people of other tribal groups into their traditional 
territory. The Gas found themselves losing their dominant position 
in their own community. The Ga Shifimo Kpee — ‘The Ga Stand- 
fast Organization’ — was the reply of those who believed in direct 
action. The political danger of politics becoming tribalist had been 
obvious from the start and the Nkrumah Government attempted to 
meet it, at first, by imposing by legislation the British political 
system. In effect, the two-party system was introduced by law. The 
Avoidance of Discrimination Act made illegal all tribal, religious 
and regional parties and thus forced the opposition, which had 
hitherto consisted of four or five separate elements, to come together 
in one so-called ‘United Party’. The Ga Shifimo Kpee refused to 
accept this and continued as a conspiratorial organization. It chose 
as its organizers and office holders men who were said by the police 
to have had long experience of violence and non-political thuggery. 
One of them, I remember, it was alleged, had no less than seventeen 
previous convictions of which a number were said to be for wounding 
or other acts of personal violence. The Special Branch were highly 
apprehensive of a possible breakdown in law and order if this 
organization was not broken up. Certainly spies’ reports of what they 
were said to be planning were frightening enough. Their Direct 
Action Group was said to have been organized into cells for the 
purpose of violence in two wings, the one known as the ‘Zenith Ten’ 
and the other the ‘Tokio Joes’. All the classical conspiratorial 
machinery was reproduced. Secret oaths were taken. The leadership, 
when it attended, would appear only at secret meetings held in a 



248 


REAP THE WHIRLWIND 


darkened room where the speakers were masked and otherwise 
disguised. I discussed with James McCabe attempting to bring 
some at least of the persons concerned to trial— Modesto Apaloo, 
or example, who was said to have addressed one of these meetings— 
but he took the view that any prosecution would disclose inevitably 
the very tenuous system which the police had built up in order to 

ir r,lf r T° n ° fwha , t Was going on and > for this reason alone, 
it should not be attempted. 

Nevertheless, I had had doubts about the use of the Preventive 
10n , A ^ again ^ fo «y-thrce members of the ‘Tokio Joe’s’ and 
would Tni ^ f S ‘ r }! 0SC arrcstcd included persons whom I 
Ashie Nil- C C aS i SC 1 ° j po ltlcians - Among them for example was 
Setln k f ° ’ had bc f n . a rc in the West African National 
ofTe cpp nnH - b T ^ ? riS : nalnic mber of the Central Committee 
the electoril l'" 1 ' ■ 6 L> Action, standing as a CPP candidate in 

domat s ' , COmP ,° Se r d ° f Nana Sir 0fori Atta’s old 
eoiwj h! A P defeated by onc vote in the electoral 
Skle Let, 1 S I 0 "’ WiHiam 0fori Ana - Yet he and 
mittee had been’r? r° 3 °J the 0riginal CPP Central Com- 

S Section of T ‘ ° UtIlnCd by the P0lice *he evidence of 
ection of and involvement with the Ga Shifimo Knee 

hatutXid™ and rlT j J * Parli ™™”>' Select Committee 
in r ? ad S " 8S ' SKd th '>’ llad b “" engaged 

« seemed l me 
principle was being eroded. 

everything ^the baW* 1 ' ” ay fr0m my offic ' “ d ° f ™ch with 
OpposS MeX«Tp n ," m ' n ‘ ° ftl “ tletention of two leading 
worsffbars and ? ™ f'T™' a ?P' a " d ? “nlirmation of m? 

upon. Apart from anythTng°elsTTw',s 8 l ,hlCh . h * d b een agreed 
tention had entered into f ’ V cIear that preventive de- 
purpose which nonp nf l j 6 " P base and was being used for a 
was passed. Something at tbe time tbat tbe Act 

our holiday was over and weTnrl’ 8 °u C ^ adly wrong ' Obviously 

took a jeep some fifteen miles across the s? ^ ACCra - at ° nce \ We 
we were able to nirL nr, n 1 P SS the Sahara to an airstrip where 

driver ^ **** ^ found our taxi 

where I could obtain official’ transport * Ghanaian fr ° ntier 
1 1 e first frontier town we stopped for a farewell drink and, at 



THE STRANGE CASE OF MAJOR AWHAITEY 249 

its little store, I remember congratulating the storekeeper on the 
coolness and the excellence of his beer. He was to remind me of this 
when I met him again four years later. He was then asking for ten 
thousand pounds from the Government in return for revealing the 
persons behind the bomb attacks on President Nkrumah and I had 
been asked to find out whether he had any information which would 
be worth buying. In the course of our talks we had a cup of tea. In 
the end, it seemed to me that he knew nothing of value and was only 
trying to make money out of scraps of information he had picked up 
in Abidjan in the Ivory Coast. Antony Deku, at that time John 
Hartley’s second in command in the Special Branch and today 
Commissioner of Police and a Member of the National Liberation 
Council Government, thought otherwise. He considered that this 
storekeeper, Yaw Manu, was himself actively involved in the 
attempts on the President’s life and that he should be put on trial. 

In court Yaw Manu attributed the admission he had subsequently 
made to the police on this score to the after-effects of a drug which 
he said I had put in his tea when we had had our conversation. Since 
his statements to the police were not made until some weeks after 
he had drunk the tea in question, the court was not impressed with 
this part of his evidence. When however, after my arrest, I was 
badly beaten up in the courtyard of the Central Police Station by a 
gang of soldiers, one of the grounds given was that I was well known 
for putting poison in tea in order to make prisoners confess. When, 
after my arrest, my wife took my supply of anti-malarial drugs to the 
Central Police Station, an army officer held a dagger to her throat 
while he abused her obscenely and attacked her for consorting with 
a man known to everyone to poison prisoners. When finally I was 
deported from Ghana, the columnist of the Government-owned 
Ghanaian Times, a veteran African journalist, who had been known 
for his contributions to the Nationalist press in pre-war years, wrote : 

'Sorry Geoffrey Bing, former legal adviser to the deposed president, 
has been expelled from Ghana. 

I am not happy that he was not allowed to meet the press to tell the 
part he played in the last treason trial— administering dangerous drugs 
to some of the accused persons. 

If he made any statement to that effect, let this be published. For I 
learn the man to whom he gave the tea with a drug is paralysed.’ 



250 


UKAP TMK WHIRLWIND 


same 1 S? ' fUU - rC bUl ” ,S rclcV3m at *1& «BC in that the 

! n, >? ,tn r 0,,s ra ”g trough the whole of the AMuitev 

seemed Z; 1 " fw 1 * ‘ /VV ‘" these disclosed 

seemed absurd but no more absurd tlian the possibility that bv the 

storv threew k T ,Stcr , < ; d j n ! c3 > n ".ay be led to Jell an untrue 
Awhaitev a fiZ T T‘ ^ ‘ thc aboruvc CUI,s Pm>cy revealed bv the 

InS'Etit H V '“ i,C> ,S “ d Court Martial 

oo, , of r °",, r “ n b! ' r"' S " " ,UI <* oorlv after- 

barn V ' „ U “ »«*■""" A.baitov had 

Soldier bv name Of , bccomc friendly with another 

missioned bur "at ' A ? c,,J ‘ ah ' w,w " as subsequent also com- 

Zm Zun ih V U - S Tl a Li ‘ u ‘™ a nt. According to 

Awh aitev a ‘t r ^ r^' him »° c ‘>™ his oflice- 
he ZZlT lum tST. ^r, an r daW ° f 1 lhi; Accra Garrison-and 
R. R. Amnonsah and \l c . 1US,U l>c ** orc tu o Members of Parliament, 
brought with them cL° ^ Ap;l l 0 . 0 ’ lud visitct! Win and tliev had 
£50 ^ WdZo T* whh b %« of rank and 

that thc two Members^of Parr 1 ”' 3 ' St ? rj ’’ Awllaitc >' i,ati u,lci him 
S n,y NCOS '» "■> 

Dr Nkrumah when he 1 ' , ^ :,0, h ct tla 'm to assassinate 

next morning US ab ° Ut t0 bo3rd his for India the 

account of wha\ mok place °was g t 0 -m CUt ' Amcn - Vah ’ s subsequent 

his friend Amenyah to meet A dl ,‘ ng l ° do thi s and he wanted 
place which had alreadv he r 111 D ons ‘^ 1 ail d Apaloo at the meeting 
possible Pei Awh 'itet o nr" &cd I and ,cH thcm that “ "’ould not be 
of doing this, reported nt n?"f C .! ht: T P d '* lal - Amcn >' ah > instead 
him to a senior British ofl! 1CC ." , la ^ he alleged Awhaitev had told 
the Army aut Wes mZT ^P 0 ” tested by 

and Amenyah was told lw hf Z. S , pmaI B . ranch ' vas consulted 
by Awhaitey. When Amenv'd ° K ccptllc a PPointment as suggested 
Place he found R R AmT fT* “ thc Ponged meeting 
him the message which heT'd Z? a ' 0nC in his “ r a " d he gave 
According to Lieut'. Amenyah" R ^ vb ? ltcy had told him to give, 
that the plan should be abandoned d^Pj 1 ^ ' vouid not accept 

when he could meet Awhaitev A ^ a i Skcd hlm t0 g0 and find out 
la 'te\. Amenyah returned to the camp and 



THE STRANGE CASE OF MAJOR AWHAITEY 2 5 x 

reported this to the Army and Police officers in charge of the 
investigation. James McCabe with Major Otu— later to become 
Commander of the Ghana Forces and whose dismissal was given as 
one of the reasons for the coup — and Major Afen— who was later to 
become Commander in his place-went together to the beach to 
arrest Amponsah. They found him still waiting there and asked him 
what he was doing. He said he had an appointment with Modesto 
Apaloo. Thereupon he was arrested. He was searched, found to be 
unarmed, and nothing incriminating was found m his car or on his 

P Meanwhile Major Awhaitey had been questioned and had given 
a statement which differed in many particulars from the story which 
Amenyah said he had told to him. The essence of it was that on the 
previous evening, the 18th December, Awhaitey had been called 
out by a driver, whose name he gave but who it was impossible 
find, on the pretext that his uncle, the Chief of Dodowa, wished to 
see him. In fact, the driver took him to visit : R. R. Amponsah. 

Awhaitey’s written statement continued, Amponsah ... to 
me that he had heard that I was the Camp Commandant and 
we should try to be grateful to the Opposition and the oniywaywe 
could do that was to support them to come to power I Risked ^h 
how we could do that as we were non-political and he 
should support them by organizing a coup f a . 

Awhaitey admitted that, except for his con- vers nation ” 

Amenyah he did not tell any other officer o t 1S a PP r ° alleged 
any official report about it. In regard tote e ai ^ g 

approach by Amponsah he was g rt ^wffich had taken him 

did not make any note of the number of • < i t0 regard 

to the meeting and brought him back. He ^ ^ 

this assassination plot as a private matter ' h fi questioned 
Members of Parliament concerned and when he was nrs q 

about it by McCabe he said W «£ 

d,in E .howfari,,UIbequoKdMn*eh r ht feh ^ 

an interesting indication ot tn y 

officers interpreted tbeir 'non-polmca^ ro^. been agreed t0 

By the time I g ot back “ ;\asis that what he had said of his 
court martial Awhaitey on b ^ ^ ^ therefore his on i y 

relationship with Amponsah about it. It was 

offence was failing to reveal a plot wnen ne 


252 


REAP THE WHIRLWIND 


thevThen^i°'' ^ er, t ° rec ° nc ^ e this version with the facts, even as 
°n the face of it, neither version of A^vhaitey’s 

different ver.i^ “ ntaine , d m h,s written statement or the rather 
be true Crimed ° ri? S re ated , b >' Lleut - Amenyah— was likely to 
small sums nf m > ana are bnown t0 have been committed for 
or Analogs in 0067 ' “ Yf m ° St un]ikel y anyone of Amponsah 
befecruited n P T C WOdd P resume that » for £50, NCO’s could 
Yet A™ T‘ g lt t0 assassmate or arrest Dr Nkrumah. 

by Awtoevand y'a St t beCn f ° Und at the rendezvous named 
for him Wh^ H u nyah W3S t0 be believed > was waiting there 
r ha ? h l mad a th c matter much more s ™s was that the 

£=“’ 5 iJ “ 

examining the evffiencT ItT * r , etU ™ ed l() Accra and be S an 
involved in some HinHp f seem ed clear that Amponsah was 
£130 on Officers’ had S ^ ac , tIVlty or e ^ se be would not have spent 
»me connection “E ^ 

Awhaitey, who had hppn ’ 7 Y JUSt P 0ssi b le , of course, tliat 
Amponsah had made aZ ? the , Senior ° fficers warned that 
the whole story in order to inv^T’ ^ ° n thlS account invented 
see what could be his motiv -° ^ Am P onsab but it was difficult to 
time which implicated 10 S ° d ? mg ; Tbe 011 evidence at the 
Awhaitey had mention A- ° " 3S tbat ^ eut - Amenyah said that 
ment niSbSS?.? 8 T* in his - ritten «**- 

of him. This mtffi If f A ?P 0nsah ’ s arrest, made no mention 
Amponsah alone had been^ 56 h aVS beei ? because he had known 
had misunderstood him or fn S 1 ° r ^ migbt be because Amenyah 
involve Apaloo. ’ f ° r S ° me P erson al reason, had tried to 

that Amponsahffiadsaid wIi^Th a Y the time against Apaloo was 

foat he was JS?£ ffl F ukB {t« he was doing at the beach, 
written to the Setalv^ffi my return > office had 

further evidence of ASw^nS^ Sayln -, that in our view, if 
his detention under the Art lnv ° jement could not be produced, 
hand, Awhaite™s lexo£w V ° d , n0t be juStified - 0n the oth e ; 

some major plot involving thlarm™ that P ° SsibIy 

° rn A was afoot. It was most undesir- 



THE STRANGE CASE OF MAJOR AWHAITEY 253 

able to detain two leading Members of Parliament without bringing 
them to trial, yet it was impossible to attempt to convict Amponsah, 
let alone Apaloo, on Awhaitey’s contradictory evidence and the 
isolated and unexplained incident of the purchase of badges of rank. 

At the time I had a, possibly naive, belief in the efficiency of 
English judicial methods when applied in Ghanaian conditions. 
Awhaitey’s Court Martial had sentenced him to be dismissed the 
Service and following this it was agreed, at my suggestion, to hold a 
full-scale quasi-judicial investigation ‘into the matters disclosed at 
the Court Martial of Benjamin Awhaitey . . . and the surrounding 
circumstances’. The Governor-General’s Warrant of Appointment 
of the proposed Tribunal provided that ‘the Enquiry shall be 
conducted as far as may be practical in the manner in which pro- 
ceedings were conducted by the Tribunal appointed in the United 
Kingdom on the 28th October 1948 to enquire into allegations 
reflecting on the official conduct of Ministers of the Crown and other 
public servants (commonly called the Lynskey Tribunal)’. 

After Independence, in order to strengthen the Court of Appeal, 
the Government had appointed to it an English Queen’s Counsel, 
who had been Recorder of King’s Lynn, Mr Gilbert Granville 
Sharp, now one of the Commissioners of the Crown Court in 
Manchester. For such a Tribunal he seemed the obvious choice as 
Chairman. He had not been involved in Ghanaian politics. On the 
other hand, he had played a distinguished part in British public life, 
having been a Member of the Royal Commission on the Press and 
of the General Council of the Bar. The two other members of the 
Tribunal were chosen with similar considerations of impartiality in 
mind. Only one Ghanaian was appointed, Sir Tsibu Darku. He had 
abandoned his policy of fierce opposition to the CPP which he bad 
followed in Colonial days and indeed now might have almost been 
classed as a CPP supporter. Against this he was among the most 
senior surviving members of the old African establishment which 
had supported the Colonial Governments of the past. I-Ie was an 
ex-Chief, a former Opposition candidate for Parliament and he had 
been a Member of the Governor’s Executive Council in the time of 
Sir Alan Bums. Taking it all in all, he was unlikely to be prejudiced, 
either for or against the Government. 

The third member was a West Indian, Air Maurice Charles, then 
a Senior Magistrate and later to become one of the small number of 



2 54 REAP THE WHIRLWIND 

K eS ?“ in °, ffice by the National Liberation Council after 
oJS c ^ Un J e T ’ he ' Vas sti!1 a mem ber of the Colonial Legal 
• , p, erv !“- could therefore look to a Colonial career 

and!?? 6 f d f‘ red and thus was not bkely to be biased by 
toind 11° °.r loca l advancement ; rather, he would be unlikely 
which miaLif t0 anytb ! n £ 'ykich might be criticized outside and 
the Common weal th. reJUdlCC ^ ° btainin ^ employment elsewhere in 

Commi^nn^ ^ enera / ^ a PP eared at t b e enquiry as counsel for the 
were ruo rl 111 aCC0 , rdance with ^e Lynskey precedent. With me 
Mills Odoi ban , aian Layers, then in private practice. One of them, 
widl me a ’ ll aS * ocla * of Tawia Adamafio, was later to serve 
and then to h , Q ° r • en . era ’ t0 succe ed me as Attorney General 
dftarhl was ™ 1° the Supreme Court - After the coup 
and as such was t / U - gC Advocate General of the Armed Forces 
public execution Slt ° n tbe court martial which sentenced to 
second couo d’etnt , arm ^ °® c ers who failed to carry out a 

outside the law wic" I ° ^ bert Reward-Mills, his only interest 

Accra Turf Club provSeYlf'yi’ T d P^ hapS ’ like ma ny others, the 
Certainly his orhf d dhls Geological connection with the rebels. 
London toeethcr^ limi ted. When once we were in 

only two valuable n^ 0 ?^ ^ bus ‘ ness my wife showed him the 

early niLIctl ce ^ gSWe P ° SSeSS .’ nvo sma]1 P a -ls by the 

indeed” he said ‘bur w? A n S e b ca Kaufmann. ‘Very nice 

Kwaku Boat " va a 'man of ^ ^ ^ painted >“£■’ 
impressed bv SPP 1 n ' man of more diverse interests. I had been 

from him declining a amon p .Lmil Savundra’s papers, a letter 
dra’s Ghanaian Mi n ;n° St r- UCratlV ^ ° ffer t0 be secret ary to Savun- 
Parliamcnt but he nevp^K ] orn P a ™ es - Boateng was not then in 
been a member of a C ° ^ . rePuscd on ^e grounds that lie had 
work was finished and °, mi T? ISSIOn on Concessions and though its 
undertake anv emnlo * e fmrt submitted, he felt he could not 
this document had he^^Lr'i! 10 ! 1 Evolved the mines until after 
show a degree of d onI^ Shed - This had secmcd to me then to 

West. He was iLrried to d ° CS n0t find evcn in thc 

deputy head of the Tm ^"Shsh schoolteacher who was the 

time and which was 1? a mmal School to w hich our son went at die 

Ghana of cooperative ° ^ m ° St im eresting experiments in 
cooperame private enterprise on a non-aligned multi- 



THE STRANGE CASE OF MAJOR AWHAITEY 255 

national basis. At the time of some crisis in East-West relations I can 
remember seeing the compound of the Ministry of Foreign Aifairs 
suddenly filling up with flag-flying cars of the Missions of the 
countries in dispute and their Ambassadors hurrying into the 
Ministry carrying files of papers. It was a meeting of the Inter- 
national School’s Board of Governors of which Michael Dei-Anang, 
the African poet and at that time Permanent Secretary of the 
Ministry, was the Chairman. He too ended up as a fellow prisoner 0 

mine in Ussher Fort. , , 

Later we were to become family friends with the Boateng s and 
Boateng himself was to be my Assistant Attorney General in the last 
few months of my Attorney Generalship, then to become Minister 
of the Interior and afterwards Minister of Education. He too was 
arrested after the revolt and is still in prison. ^ _ 

Everything possible, I consider, was done to make the Enquiry as 
effective and as impartial as possible. A team of shorthand writers 
from the English Courts was flown out. Investigating officers were 
sent to London, to Paris, Stuttgart and Lome, the capital of logo, 
where it also appeared that evidence might be obtaine . 3 y 

verbatim report of the proceedings was provided free to a 0 ose 
who might be involved. Ultimately the complete account, word tor 
word, of what took place before the Commission was 1 printed . and 
published at a subsidized price. It ran to just short of one million 
words. Evidence was taken in six languages from ninety seven 
witnesses who answered in all 12,619 questions. One un re an 
eight documents were tendered in evidence and the ommission 
for twenty-nine days. In the interest of fairness to t ose w o e 
be adversely affected, the procedure, as followed at the Lyns y 
Tribunal, was altered for their benefit. What was requesmd [by 
Counsel appearing for persons involved before the ^ Ljmsk y 
Tribunal and refused, was agreed to by the Granvffie Sharp 
Commission. As soon as a statement was taken from any mtii^s 
which might reflect on a person involved, he was served with a copy 

of i t - • cnpprii which followed the form of Hartley 

Shawcross’Topening to the Lynskey Tribunal I said that the 
k* k VnH hv now been accumulated might lead to one of 

ev.dencewh.ch had ^ four e c(m . 

^"Se whole story of, plot * deliberately 



2c6 

REAP the whirlwind 
fabricated in order rn i . 

point of view taken by Mr T Inn ° C f nt A P ersons - This ... is the 
certain other witnesses^ The mp ° nsah ’ , Mr Apaloo, Dr Busia and 
fact existed but SE^“* 0nd : * ■ is no plot in 

make martyrs of themselves and ', 0 ^ tbose implicated wished to 
tbe Preventive Detention Act ® j^rately courted arrest under 
possibility is that such a tlimn- i ’ ’ ul reasons f° r thinking this a 
appear at this stage ^ to ZV ^ ^ ° ne of explaining what 
possibility is that the allegations fa f° rS ‘ • * Thc third 

misunderstanding and a°serie<; nf ^ r WCre t ie r . esu l r of a genuine 
justly aroused suspicion but which 1 ” ° rt V, nate C01nc idences which 
separately . . . Tim fourth possibShv^ l eXp]aina ble if regarded 
• . . If, of course, the Commit cin 1S a * n feet, existed 
evidence, concludes that the a11 of the 

third possibility . . . t ] len g 10ns bave arisen as a result of the 
found. If, on the other hand the C ”” fur . ther re levant facts to be 
piot "’ as (to use a phrase from ^ 0mmissi0n finds that the alleged 
nesses) a “frame-up” it ^11 be TT™ by 0ne of the wit- 
to establish the facts about how rh V Comnl)SSI °n’s duty to tty' 
mdividuals participated ^ was organized and 

s that the allegations arise our miar A if the Commission 
Pot was deliberately concocted bv rh^ SCC ° nd possibiIit y, that the 

"ho have been suspected of comnF^ 6 persons > or some of them, 
suffer mnrf-..- _ \ U 01 complicity, in .L— .1 , . 


‘ , , '“-“uvrateiy concocted ,i. *-»»aiuiiuy, rnat un 

"lm have been suspected of corner ^ persons > or some of them 
*f Cr tttttftj’rdom, then m ° rder that ** shoulc 

mme who manufactured this evident C °™™ sslon ’ s duty to deter- 
dtc framers” the same as the “fr d e and how they did it. Were 

m s that a plot actually existed thT^ ’ Flnall >'> ' P the Commission 
to determ n,. > . stcd , then . . . lt w 1 . . 


— ... wa uie same as Hi* “r- ,, , uia ic. wer 

m s that a plot actually existed ' FlnaP P> *f tbe Commissioi 

* dCtCrminc "’ hat VI* WiH be thci r duty to tty 

Pwons concerned in it.’ ° f the P lot and who were thi 

die m ' 1 ‘ S trUC ’ "' c ™etIbU*cd b AAfr A rT* aWe t0 da Certair 
J Manager of ‘Badges and Fn’ A ^ Ir A ' D ' Glcnnie then, as now 

r". “ London ' i .“ISaTJ” ’ a ' ra "- t " 0 "'" S| '»I> i» >!» 

mnw A r n ‘[ , °, nSah had spent f no .^e evidence which established 
name of ‘John Walker’ .SoW London ln buying, under the 

zr\ ! ° ’"ter"? v™)’ 



THE STRANGE CASE OF MAJOR AWHAITEY 2 57 

for them to be sent to Lome, to what proved to be an accommodation 
address for Modesto Apaloo, who, it was established, subsequently 
collected them through an intermediary. The hackles provided by 
‘Badges and Equipment’ did not match up exactly with the Ghana 
Army type. Amponsah therefore returned them, together with a 

sample of a Ghana Army officer s hackle. 

‘Badges and Equipment’ arranged to have duplicates of this 
sample specially manufactured at a cost of some £23. These were 
sent to another accommodation address in 1 ogo where, mysterious y, 
they were allowed to remain uncollected until they were later foun 
by the Ghanaian investigators. No trace of the other accoutrement 
was ever found. Neither Amponsah nor Apaloo gave any convincing 
explanation of the reason why they had obtained articles 

Amponsah’s story was that he had bought t em on e a 
fellow West African, whose nationality he did not know, but 
name was ‘John Walker’. Apaloo’s explanation was that he hue 
nothing of the hackles and that the Togolese Member of Parliamen 
who said he had received them on his behalf, and his own 
brother who told the Togolese police that he had collected th 
from the MP for Apaloo, were both forced to make untrue 
ments by the Togolese authorities. 

At the Commission Major Awhaitey insisted that all the °* ce £> 
including Lieut. Amenyah, to whom he had onpnally told h s 
story, had misreported him and that his evi ence a i* S mrt : cu i ar i v 

Martial had been misrecorded. This seemed impro a ,P 

as the record of the Court Martial had been made by shorthan 
writers from the English Courts, but it did not 
to establishing what had really happened. e 0 , France 

equally inconclusive. Amponsah had jnsite er ‘ ^ 

at the time he made his purchases at Badges ^qmpment b 
except for the fact that he had ascended the “^^aith 
healer, the purposes of these journeys remaine PP ^ e(Jed 

The fact that the conspiracy, 1 there: ’ was^ ^ of the 

along traditional lines and, on ^ out vivid i y f rom Mr 

police which they were unable t p > • r 0 f t } le Special 

Justice Granville Sharp’s j ames McCabe. McCabe 

Branch, Assistant Comnussic 1 ^gd when arrested and the 

had mentioned that Amponsah was unarme 

following dialogue ensued. 



258 


REAP THE WHIRLWIND 


The Chairman (to the witness): One of the unusual features of this 
plan, if it is to be regarded as a piece of terrorism, a plot to assassinate, 
was that the man who it is said to be principally responsible w'as not 
armed ? — That is correct, my Lord. 

You said it was usual for people to be armed ? — I said in my ex- 
perience, my Lord. 

Which you say has been considerable? — It is considerable. 

Twenty' years’ experience, ten years in Palestine, you lived through 
two revolutions and you have seen a lot of terrorists? — -That is true, 
my Lord. 

The whole picture is rather unusual in many respects? — The pic- 
ture is very' unusual, very unusual indeed. 

For instance, you would expect, would you not, in a plan for a coup 
d'etat for some attempt to be made on communications ? — I would 
indeed, my Lord. 

The broadcasting system would be an attractive target? — A primary 
target, my Lord. 

Postal Telegraphs? — Indeed, my Lord. 

The Police? — Yes, indeed, my Lord. 

And this was not characterized by any of those features? — It was 
not, my Lord. 

Were there any other features of such an exploit which were miss- 
ing? — I do not know that I can — I think your Lordship has prob- 
ably covered the salient points. I think it might be helpful, my Lord, 
in considering what might have been going to happen, to consider 
what in fact happened in Burma in 1946. 

In Burma? — Yes. 

I do not think the terms of our Commission cover Burma. — I do not 
want to bring matters in, but it may be as well to keep it in mind. 

Your answer generally is that the characteristics of a coup d’etat are 
that persons engaged in it are armed; secondly the principal targets for 
attack w ill be the post office and the broadcasting system and, indeed, 
any means of communication, the army signals and so on ? — Yes, in- 
deed, the police barracks and the army barracks, part of the security 
forces. 

1 just wanted to get that picture in at this stage so it forms part of 
your evidence. — Indeed, my Lord. 

\\ e may want to ha\c you back again at a later stage. — I am at your 
Lordship’s disposal. 



THE STRANGE CASE OF MAJOR AWHAITEY 259 

The Attorney General: May I put one question to the witness ? 

The Chairman: Yes. 

The Attorney General: What did you mean by what happened in 
Burma, in 1946 ? Can you say in a word what you had in mind ? — In 
1946 in Burma a group of the opposition party dressed themselves up 
in military uniforms, stole an army truck and went into the cabinet 
room and massacred fourteen of the entire cabinet. 

( The witness withdrew .) 

The analogy is of interest. Burma was the country outside Ghana 
best known to the Army and Awhaitey himself had served there 
from 1943 to 1946. 

A number of other possibly suspicious incidents were brought 
out in evidence but the Commission rejected most of them on 
various grounds. For example, they were not convinced that Major 
Aferi, who gave evidence of a highly incriminatory conversation 
which he said he had overheard between Awhaitey and Amponsah, 
was telling the truth. They considered that Aferi might have been 
prejudiced against Awhaitey who had been promoted Major over 
his head, and were doubtful, in any case, if Aferi was near enough to 
have heard what he alleged was said. 

Much time was taken up over Awhaitey’s various cars, which it 
was difficult to see how he could run on his pay. In particular, 
evidence was led to show that in November and December he was 
using a green Wolseley car which belonged to a then prominent 
Opposition Member of Parliament, Victor Owusu, whom, after the 
coup , the National Liberation Council appointed as Attorney 
General. Awhaitey certainly had the car and was involved in an 
accident with it, after which it was repaired at Amponsah’s request 
and this seemed to show a connection between Awhaitey and the 
Opposition of longer standing and on a broader basis than anything 
to which Awhaitey had ever admitted. General Paley told the 
Tribunal that this car was in front of Awhaitey’s house at the time 
he was arrested. If this was so, how it came back into the possession 
of Victor Owusu was never satisfactorily explained. The Tribunal 
found that 'while the circumstances surrounding the matter 
certainly gave rise to suspicion’ they could not hold, 'in the state of 
the evidence as it is which creates a situation highly equivocal’, 
that the strange goings on with regard to this particular car estab- 



REAP THE WHIRLWIND 


260 

lished anything positive. So it was also with other innumerable small 
strands of evidence. One example will perhaps explain the difficulties 
one faced in this regard in Ghana and the difference between legal 
investigation in Britain and those in a country still in a state of 
development. 

It had been established that the money used to pay for the pur- 
chase of the military accoutrement bought by Amponsah came from 
an English banking account which had nominally been established 
for the purpose of providing education at Leeds University for a 
Ghanaian undergraduate, one Osei-Bonsu. There was no dispute 
that the money genuinely required for his education had been 
provided by his mother, but it was also clear that the account had 
been fed by other persons and that R. R. Amponsah had drawn on it 
on a number of occasions when in England for United Party 
purposes. In order to discover how much money from other persons 
had been paid to the Osei-Bonsu’s study account it was necessary 
first to establish how much Osei-Bonsu’s mother had paid to it. 
This verbatim extract of my cross-examination of her shows how 
impossible it was, even, to establish a simple matter like this: 

Q_. Can you remember, did you provide money for your son in the first 
six months of last year ? 

A. I used to remit him every day. 

Q_. Every day ? 

A. Every time, my Lord. 

Q. How often was every time ? 

A. Every time I got the money I gave it to Mr Amponsah to send 
to him. 

Q_- But how often ? Once a month, once every two months, once every 
three months ? 

A. At times I remit him monthly and at times if I have got it before 
that time I give it; I cannot tell exactly how often I used to remit 
him. 

Q_- But in January of last year — this time last year, did you give any 
money to Mr Amponsah for Mr Osei-Bonsu ? 

A. Yes. 

Q_. How much money did you give ? 

A. I cannot tell you the right sum because at times I gave £50 and 
other times £100 so I cannot tell. At times I gave him £200; at 


26 i 


THE STRANGE CASE OF MAJOR AWHAITEY 

times I gave £ 170 , any amount I had in hand, that is what I gave. 

Q_. In the first six months of last year did you give £50 at one time and 
£60 at another and so on ? 

A. That is what I have already explained to you. I did not take notice 
I gave sometimes £50 and sometimes £70 and sometimes /200. It 
is no use to me and I do not keep a record of it. 

In the same way it appeared that Major Awhaitey was spending 
more money than he could have earned through his Army pay but 
he claimed that it came from his family and a relative was in court 
to give evidence that he had in fact provided the money. To prove it, 
this relative produced the receipt cards for compensation which he 
said he had received from the cutting out of his cocoa trees and these 
showed that he was in sufficient funds to have been able to pay the 
specific sum about which we were inquiring at that moment. From 
an examination of the receipt cards, however, it turned out that this 
compensation had been paid to him after, and not before he had said 
he made his payment to Major Awhaitey and which Awhaitey in his 
turn alleged he used for the completion of the purchase of a Jaguar 
car. At this the witness was not at all put out. ‘I only gave you,’ he 
explained, ‘those five cards because they bear my name, 5 and he 
produced a great number of other cards whose payment was for 
an earlier date. The only difficulty was that they were made out to 
other people. This exchange then ensued : 

Q_. You now say the money in hand came from compensation paid to 
other people ? 

A. What I am saying is that these are my brothers and I am head of 
the family and look after their children and everything, and every- 
thing is paid to me. 

Under the complicated Ghanaian family system this might well 
have been right. The fact that none of the names of the persons to 
whom the money had been paid in any way corresponded to that of 
the witness was no proof, one way or another, since family surnames 
of the English type do not exist in Ghana. Short of an investigation 
on the spot of unbelievable complication it was impossible to tell 
whether this witness was or was not speaking the truth. 

One further incident underlines another difficulty encountered in 
judicial investigation in a country where not only many languages 



z6o 


REAP THE WHIRLWIND 


lishcd anything positive. So it was also with other innumerable small 
strands of evidence. One example will perhaps explain the difficulties 
one faced in this regard in Ghana and the difference between legal 
investigation in Britain and those in a country still in a state of 
development. 

It had been established that the money used to pay for the pur- 
chase of the military accoutrement bought by Amponsah came from 
an Lnglish banking account which had nominally been established 
for the purpose of providing education at Leeds University for a 
Ghanaian undergraduate, one Osei-Bonsu. There was no dispute 
that the money genuinely required for his education had been 
provided by his mother, but it was also clear that the account had 
been fed by other persons and that R. R, Amponsah had drawn on it 
on a number of occasions when in England for United Party 
purposes. In order to discover how much money from other persons 
had been paid to the Osei-Bonsu’s study account it was necessary 
first to establish how much Osei-Bonsu’s mother had paid to it. 

1 his verbatim extract of my cross-examination of her shows how 
impossible it was, even, to establish a simple matter like this: 

Q. Can you remember, did you provide money for your son in the first 
six months of last year ? 

A. I used to remit him every dav. 

Q_. Ex cry day? 

A. Ex cry time, my Lord. 

Q_. How often was exery time? 

A. Exery time 1 got the money I gaxc it to Mr Amponsah to send 
to him. 

Q*' ^ ut * um oll cn f Once a month, once exery two months, once every 
tiirec tnontlu, ? 

A. At times I remit him monthly and at times ifl have got it before 

that time 1 gixe it; I cannot tell exactly how often I used to remit 
him. 

U; Eut i.i January of last year — this time last year, did vou give any 
m ccy to Mr Amponsah for Mr Osei-llonsu? 

A. Yes. 

Hu»» mutt; money did you give? 

A. I cam. tel! you the right sum because at times I gaxe /50 and 
‘o u.. t«r..ws ^rcc so 1 cannot tell. At times J gaxc him £aoo; at 



THE STRANGE CASE OF MAJOR AWHAITEY 


261 


times I gave £170, any amount I had in hand, that is what I gave. 

Q_. In the first six months of last year did you give £50 at one time and 
£ 60 at another and so on ? 

A. That is what I have already explained to you. I did not take notice 
I gave sometimes £50 and sometimes £70 and sometimes /200. It 
is no use to me and I do not keep a record of it. 

In the same way it appeared that Major Awhaitey was spending 
more money than he could have earned through his Army pay but 
he claimed that it came from his family and a relative was in court 
to give evidence that he had in fact provided the money. To prove it, 
this relative produced the receipt cards for compensation which he 
said he had received from the cutting out of his cocoa trees and these 
showed that he was in sufficient funds to have been able to pay the 
specific sum about which we were inquiring at that moment. From 
an examination of the receipt cards, however, it turned out that this 
compensation had been paid to him after, and not before he had said 
he made his payment to Major Awhaitey and which Awhaitey in his 
turn alleged he used for the completion of the purchase of a Jaguar 
car. At this the witness was not at ail put out. T only gave you,’ he 
explained, ‘those five cards because they bear my name,’ and he 
produced a great number of other cards whose payment was for 
an earlier date. The only difficulty was that they were made out to 
other people. This exchange then ensued: 

Q_. You now say the money in hand came from compensation paid to 
other people ? 

A. What I am saying is that these are my brothers and I am head of 
the family and look after their children and everything, and every- 
thing is paid to me. 

Under the complicated Ghanaian family system this might well 
have been right. The fact that none of the names of the persons to 
whom the money had been paid in any way corresponded to that of 
the witness was no proof, one way or another, since family surnames 
of the English type do not exist in Ghana. Short of an investigation 
on the spot of unbelievable complication it was impossible to tell 
whether this witness was or was not speaking the truth. 



262 


REAP THE WHIRLWIND 


are spoken but where there are dialect variations which may not be 
appreciated by Court interpreters. Awhaitey had said that he had 
been lured to the meeting with the conspirators by a false message 
supposedly from his uncle who, he said, was the Chief of Dodowa. 
One of his other uncles from Dodowa was called, at Awhaitey’s 
request, to confirm his having received gifts of money from his 
family. In cross examination I asked this witness, quite casually, 
about the other uncle from Dodowa, the Chief. This uncle’s evidence 
was translated from Adangbe, a Ga language, but as recorded, in 
English in the proceedings, it is clear and beyond doubt: 

Q_. Now, just one other matter. You say they all came to your family 
house in Dodowa. Now the Chief of Dodowa, he is also an uncle 
of Mr Awhaitey, is he not ? 

A. No, he is not an uncle to him. 

Q_. The Chief of Dodowa is not an uncle? 

A. No, he is not an uncle. 

Q. Would he be called ‘Uncle’ ? Would Major Awhaitey call him 
‘Uncle’ for any reason? 

A. —No. 

Not only that; the witness further persisted in this denial of any 
relationship between the Chief and Awhaitey when he was pressed 
on it by counsel representing Awhaitey. It seemed that here, at 
least, one very small point had been established. Awhaitey, for some 
obscure reason, was pretending that the Chief of Dodowa was his 
uncle when he was not. However, Awhaitey was able to explain it 
all away as a misunderstanding owing to the interpreter speaking 
pure Adangbe while the uncle whom I cross-examined used a Shai 
variation of it. 

‘He did not understand the question,’ explained the Major, ‘owing to 
the interpretation. The interpreter asked him whether he was my 
‘tsc-ko”, which is the Adangbe for “uncle”, but he should have used 
the uord “tse-vayo”, which is “little father” in Shai language and 
means uncle”. So he did not understand; instead of saying “tse- 
wayo” he said “tse-ko”.’ 

The particular issue was trivial but it illustrates the general 
problem with judicial proceedings in a developing country. Under 
the English system of law, legal proof involves in almost all cases the 



264 REAP the whirlwind 

plotters had approached Awhaitey, not in December, just before the 
proposed assassination, as he said, but earlier in the year, in all 
probability before the purchase of equipment was made in London 
in June. Meetings might easily have taken place but there was no 
evidence whatsoever that they had, except for what Lieut. Amenyah 
said Awhaitey had told him and which Awhaitey later denied saying. 
Awhaitey was, at this time, the only Ghanaian officer who com- 
manded an independent Unit and was thus in a better position than 
any other African officer to organize a coup despite the fact that 
the troops under his control were largely administrative personnel 
and comparatively few in number. There was every factor which 
aroused suspicion and yet no single positive fact to substantiate it. 

In the period immediately preceding Awhaitey’s arrest there had 
been rumours of an army coup d'etat and there was even a Special 
Branch report in regard to it. Its source was a conversation in a 
foreign Embassy in Accra which had been allegedly overheard by a 
non-Ghanaian guest who reported it to the police. According to this 
report, Dr J. B. Danquah had been heard assuring a diplomat, 
known to be not particularly friendly to the CPP Government, that 
everything was planned and that Dr Nkrumah would be overthrown 
by Christmas by die Army. In view of the status of the informant 
the report was taken seriously enough by the Special Branch and 
by General Paley for there to be a thorough investigation made as 
to whether there was any possibility of the Army planning a coup 
d'etat. Nothing whatever had been discovered. Had Awhaitey set up 
any very' widespread organization, almost certainly something would 
have come to light in this investigation. 

The details of this Special Branch check on possible dissatis- 
faction in the Army were reported to the Tribunal, though die 
reason for which the inquiry' had been made was withheld since 
Dr Danquah uas appearing before the Commission as counsel for 
Amponsah, Apaloo, Dr Busia and other members of the opposition 
together nidi Koi Larbi whose London office had once housed the 
West African National Secretariat. The report itself proved little. 
1 he most that could be said with certainty' was that it was unlikely' 
that Amponsah and Apaloo would have purchased the accoutrement 
they did unless they believed thay had some Army link which would 
enable them to utilize it effectively but that any plot in the Army 
only involved at the most a few persons. 



THE STRANGE CASE OF MAJOR AWHAITEY 265 

The Commission after long deliberation issued three Reports, a 
unanimous Report, a majority Report and a minority Report. In 
their unanimous Report they found that Amponsah and Apaloo, 
‘since June 1958, were engaged in a conspiracy to carry out at some 
future date in Ghana an act for unlawful purpose, revolutionary in 
character’. What they were unable to agree upon was what was the 
nature of this ‘act for an unlawful purpose, revolutionary in charac- 
ter’. The majority of the Commission, Sir Tsibu Darku and Mr 
Maurice Charles, found that Awhaitey, Amponsah and Apaloo 
‘were engaged in a conspiracy to assassinate the Prime Minister, Dr 
Kwame Nkrumah, and carry out a coup d’etat’. 

Mr Justice Granville Sharp, in his minority Report, reached an 
exactly contrary conclusion. He found that Amponsah and Apaloo 
had withdrawn from the conspiracy when they suspected that the 
police were privy to it and that Awhaitey was not a co-conspirator. 
Thus he found that ‘there did not exist between Amponsah, 
Apaloo and Awhaitey a plot to interfere in any way with the life of 
the Prime Minister on the airport before his departure for India’. 

I had been convinced that the findings of the Tribunal would 
either show that Amponsah and Apaloo were prima facie guilty, in 
which case they could be prosecuted, or else it would establish that 
they were innocent and they would be released from preventive 
detention. At the time of the Enquiry I still hoped that the Act 
could be shown to be based on mistaken policy. The Tribunal’s 
findings convinced me otherwise. It seemed indeed that the only 
positive achievement of the Commission was to vindicate preventive 
detention. No Government could be expected to release individuals 
whom a majority of a quasi-judicial Tribunal had found were 
engaged in a plot to murder the head of the Government. On the 
other hand, it was almost certain that no successful prosecution 
could be launched against those concerned when a Judge of the 
Court of Appeal had come to the conclusion that, though they had 
been involved in conspiracy, it was impossible to determine what 
this conspiracy was and that they had abandoned their plans, 
whatever they were, prior to the date on which they were to be 
carried out. In view of these two contradictory' findings the only 
logical answer was that Amponsah, Apaloo and Awhaitey should be 
detained under the Preventive Detention Act and that such legis- 
lation was necessary. 



266 REAP THE WHIRLWIND 

On two important matters tire Commission were unanimous. 
First they found ‘that Mr Madjitey (the Commissioner of Police), 
Mr McCabe, Major Davies (a British Intelligence Officer attached 
to the Ghana Forces), and the Police and Army Officers who 
assisted them were connected with tire events into which we have 
had to inquire only in the performance of their duties, and were not 
connected with any design to implicate innocent persons’. They 
added, ‘There is no justification whatever for any suggestion that 
the Cabinet of Dr Nkrumah, or any Member of it, was interfering 
with the course of justice.’ Secondly, they equally exonerated the 
other leading Members of the Opposition. They found that there 
was ‘no evidence whatsoever that Dr Busia, Mr Appiah, Mr Owusu 
and Mr Dombo were involved in these transactions’. 

Looking back on the Tribunal’s findings in the light of after- 
events there is nothing to suggest that this last finding was mistaken. 
When preparing the material to put before the Commission it 
naturally seemed to us probable that the General Secretary of the 
Opposition Party, R. R. Amponsah, would have at least consulted 
Mr Joe Appiah, known in Britain as the son-in-law of Sir Stafford 
Cripps but in Ghana thought of, like Amponsah, as a former 
member of the CPP. They had been friendly, had had the same 
backgrounds, and, in general, it seemed unlikely that if a major plot 
was afoot, at least Joe Appiah and possibly Dr Busia, would have 
also been informed. 

The overheard conversation in the Embassy, in regard to a coup 
d’etat, suggested at least there was some rumour of what was being 
planned was circulating in Opposition circles. Nevertheless, the 
evidence against any of them when it came to the Tribunal was 
slight. Victor Owusu was connected only by the incident of the 
green Wolseley car and some other evidence, which the Commission 
also rejected, by a local Scout Master and his lady friend who said 
they had picked him up and taken him home from a point near the 
military camp on the night Amponsah was arrested. Otherwise the 
only suspicious circumstance was that early on die morning following 
Amponsah’s arrest the whole leadership were found by the police 
at i a.m. gathered at the house where Amponsah lived. Again, 
however, there was little suspicious in this on examination. All but 
Apaloo and Dr Busia were tenants of the building and they might 
naturally, as they said, have been awaiting Amponsah’s return, 



THE STRANGE CASE OF MAJOR AWHAITEY 267 

alarmed that something might have happened to him. The fact that 
subsequently everyone in that room that night was to be appointed 
by the National Liberation Council to draw up the new Constitution 
for Ghana, is one of those curious coincidences which surround the 
Awhaitey affair but are without any established significance. 

Though the Commission unanimously rejected the Opposition’s 
involvement, it equally unanimously rejected the case which the 
Opposition, as a Party, had argued before the Tribunal, namely that 
the whole idea of the plot was a ‘frame-up’ by the Government to 
justify preventive detention. In such circumstances, if the United 
Party was to continue to claim that it was a Parliamentary and a 
democratic organization the only course before it was to dissociate 
itself from the two plotters, remove them from their posts and make 
it clear that the United Party disapproved of those illegal activities, 
at least, on which the Commission had made a unanimous finding. 

Dr Nkrumah’s Government in the White Paper it issued on the 
Tribunal’s Report, specifically accepted the finding that the other 
Members of the Opposition were not personally involved. The 
breach between the United Party and the Government which arose 
over the Granville Sharp Commission came about, not because the 
Opposition were suspected of sharing Amponsah and Apaloo’s guilt 
but because they would not dissociate themselves from it. At this 
stage there was no question of detaining anyone other than Awhaitey, 
Amponsah and Apaloo, yet Dr K. A. Busia went abroad, being 
clandestinely conveyed over the frontier by my storekeeper 
acquaintance, Yaw Manu, and thus avoiding ever having to explain 
to Parliament his attitude to the conspiracy. The remaining United 
Party leaders attacked in the National Assembly the good faith of 
the majority of the Commission. It might be said that this was 
legitimate to the extent that, of course, it could be argued that Mr 
Justice Granville Sharp’s great experience in legal matters had led 
him to a fairer conclusion than that reached by his colleagues. No 
such argument could dispose of the unanimous findings against 
Amponsah and Apaloo. Faced with this straight choice, the United 
Party refused to accept the Commission’s unanimous conclusions 
or in any way to disown Amponsah and Apaloo’s action. 

The Awhaitey matter created in the minds of the Government 
the impression, never to be eradicated, that the United Party, as a 
party, would condone, and perhaps actively support, any illegal 



z68 


REAP THE WHIRLWIND 


means of overthrowing the Government. Thus preventive deten- 
tion, which when established was only to be used in an emergency, 
now began, more and more, to be regarded as the sheet anchor of 
stability and the old reluctance to use it largely disappeared. 

The Granville Sharp Commission was, in another way, equally a 
watershed in Ghanaian politics. Until now the Government had 
been sensitive to overseas opinion and particularly of criticism on 
the BBC and in the British press and policy had very often been 
modified in the light of the effect it might have on Western 
opinion. 

The Awhaitey Enquiry was, in a sense, a world propaganda 
move. It was an effort to explain why Ghana was forced to use 
preventive detention. In the Government’s view the Tribunal’s 
Report showed that they had attempted to examine objectively, 
w 'thin the accepted legal conventions of the Western world, the 
application of preventive detention in two key cases. It was true 
that the full Proceedings of the Commission were of enormous bulk 
but great trouble had been taken with the typography and layout. 
The document was readable, and in circulating it, the Government 
accompanied it with a summary and with a White Paper explaining 
its point of view. The unanimous, majority and minority Reports 
were each fully cross-indexed and any competent lawyer would 
have had no difficulty in following the argument where the majority 
differed from the minority and forming, on the basis of the evidence 
cited, his own opinion. 

Despite the fact that even the paper-backed edition of the Tribunal 
Proceedings weighed over four pounds, they were sent individually 
by airmail to every jurist throughout the world who was known to 
have criticized the use of preventive detention in Ghana or to have 
expressed concern about Ghana’s denial of civil liberties. So far as I 
■now, the only reply received was from a Japanese member of the 
International Commission of Jurists who wrote to congratulate 
the Government printer on his choice of type and on his method of 
printing, t made the Proceedings, he said, a pleasure to read but he 
gave no indication of the conclusions to which reading them had led 
him i he Proceedings were, so their title page claimed, ‘to be 
purchased from the Crown Agents for Overseas Governments and 
Administrations at 4 MiUbank, London, S.W.i’ but the Crown 

gents, it \s ou d seem, considered it outside their duty to advertise 



THE STRANGE CASE OF MAJOR AWHAITEY 269 

hem or send them for review even to learned journals and, so far as I 
•an recall, they sold less than half a dozen copies. 

The British and American press which had been so critical of 
•vents in Ghana scarcely referred to the Commission s finding , 
though all the usual steps to call their attention to salient passages 
of the Proceedings had been taken. A special analysis for the press 
was made and the issue to the public in Ghana and elsewhere of the 
Tribunal’s report were delayed two weeks or so to provide serious 
journals wittf advance review copies so that they could make an 
objective study of it prior to the official publication date. None did. 

^ treatment of the Granville Sharp Tribunal, perhaps more 
than X else, I think, convinced Dr Nkrumah and the 
Government generally that the attack on the absence of Civil 
Liberty in Ghana, was not motivated by genuine concern for the 
SI individual but was the result of a deliberate policy of 
denigration of everything that Ghana did whatever it was. Preven- 
tive detention had been established in n 1a e ofthetvne 

duced into Ghana without resulting m any denuncia ^ It was 
which its establishment and use m Ghana had argued 

accepted in Accra that it might be 
that the reason for the 

employ the Act un ustly and India j y- , u v w hich it 

Proceedings were offered to the world as 

might be judged whether thi s was so. ^ ^ cndrely ignored> 

m making the adjudication ‘ reafter in Gbana) international 

This was the turmng p • itt ’ n 0 ffas biased and world 

protests came more and more to oe wnucn 

F Se C! taf Z mple wm'perhap* illustrate this Ming that we all 
One hnal examp V ^ Quld be mlsun derstood and mis- 

had, that whatever ional > an organization for whose work 

reported. Amnesty everyone j n Ghana had the highest 

‘respect is»e“two or three years later, a Christmas card on which 
respect, issued, or isoners in various countries for whom 

they listed ^ had been ‘imprisoned for their 

prayers were asked since ^Y ^ Modesto A paloo. If such an 

political opinio • S ti onal’ misunderstood the Gran- 
TSS? ’X^l's ’Lings, what hope was there of obtaining 

sympathy or understanding elsewhere. 


270 


REAP THE WHIRLWIND 


It could have been argued, of course, by ‘Amnesty International’ 
that Modesto Apaloo should not have been imprisoned at all, in 
that he had never been convicted by a Court or stood trial in the 
ordinary way. The organization might have contended, though it is 
ifficult to see on what grounds, that the Tribunal was biased against 
hm. It might have argued that the Tribunal’s unanimous findings, 
in Apaloo s case, that he was engaged in a conspiracy to carry out an 
act or an unlawful purpose, revolutionary in character, and its 
majority Report, which held that the act in question had been a 
conspiracy to assassinate the Prime Minister and carry out a coup 
, eIa *’ we ^ e both insufficiently supported by evidence and could not 
therefore be accepted. What could not possibly be argued was that 
his political opinions had anything to do with the matter one way or 
another. Nowhere did they arise at the Commission. The reason for 
his detention had been advertised by the Ghana Government in 
every way t at it could. He had been placed under detention because 
a quasi ju lcia ody had decided unanimously that he was engaging 
in revolutionary activities and, by a majority, that these included 
murdering the head of the Government 
With the ‘Amnesty International’ Christmas card I, for my part, 
abandoned any hope, even with the most liberal organization, of 

evhwT? ° r , )Usnfyin S what was bein B done in Ghana. Whatever 
, . 0 c c °ntrary might be put forward whenever someone 

oninhw med ’ 11 W0U f t0 the outside world be ‘for his political 
so Prevent" 0 m f tter ' vbat effort was made to show that this was not 
precaution ek ^ entl ° n migdt be acce pted as a legitimate security 
beat the NkrumahGovemmInt Uld ** “ Stick ^ which to 

Prcvenrivf-n l t} ' A PC ° f controversy the actual facts of Ghana’s 

! ,n M 10n A( ; t ‘ lave tended t0 be overlooked. It was first 

anv Cablet 1th "“I Assembly by Krobo Edusei, acting without 

hk be nisi? f ° r e d0ing S °’ in Member *957 a * a result of 

that counte r Indian le g islat *on then being enacted in 

iLre ba?;/?! in fact > threatened to introduce a 

February but h U C ndlan ^ ct when Parliament resumed in 

eemedle Gov?''" 5 in the Cabinet and a t that time it 

S rnffi af? er I 1 "? 1 had definitdy decided a g a ™t it. It was 

Sitalaccout ' / ^ Am P onsah purchasing 
litarv accoutrement and that the Ga Shifimo Kpee had set up a 



THE STRANGE CASE OF MAJOR AWHAITEY 271 

secret organization, that the proposal was revived and a somewhat 
restricted version of the Indian Act was enacted in July 1958. As I 
have mentioned previously, it was then intended as a precaution 
only. Certainly at the time there was no intention that it would be 
used against leading figures in the opposition. For example, although 
the facts of Amponsah’s purchase of accoutrement were known 
when the Bill was passed, there was no suggestion at the time of 
using it against him on this account. 

The Act which was drafted and redrafted several times, in the 
end provided for detention up to five years. The detainee had to be 
served with written details of the grounds of his detention within 
five days of it taking place, and was given an opportunity to appeal 
against them but the appeal was to the Cabinet and the machinery 
did not work well in practice. A detainee could also always bring his 
case before the courts by way of habeas corpus proceedings, and a 
number of such actions were taken but the courts held that they 
could not examine the merits of a detention and this remedy was 
thus of little practical value. 

The Attorney General’s office was only concerned with the 
administration of the Act, in that we advised whether, on the face of 
it, it appeared to us that the evidence put up by the Minister of the 
Interior was strong enough to warrant detention, and that what was 
alleged came within the provisions of the Act. Our views were 
annexed to the Cabinet paper proposing the particular detention or 
detentions and only very rarely would I, or anyone from my office, 
attend at the Cabinet when a particular case was being discussed. 
Sometimes the Government proceeded with the proposal in the 
Cabinet paper despite our doubts, in other cases our views were 
accepted and the order was not made. In all cases, the Cabinet was 
the final arbiter. 

By the end of i960 three hundred and eighteen detention orders 
had been made. In the majority of these cases the detained persons 
were at that time still in custody, though it was not unusual for 
detainees to be released after only a short period of detention. 
However, of these three hundred and eighteen detention orders, 
two hundred and fifty-five were made in i960, after the Act had 
been extended, at the urgent request of the police, to cover gangsters 
whose activities were of course quite non-political. It can be 
argued, as I in fact did, that it is much worse to use preventive 



THE STRANGE CASE OF MAJOR AWHAITEY 2 73 

)een used wholesale. The one thousand three hundred political 
prisoners alleged by the opposition, before the coup, to be held under 

he Act was clearly an exaggeration. c 

The original proposal that the Act should lapse after five years 
was discarded in the face of the attempts on the President s life and 
the terrorist bomb attacks. From time to time large batches of 
detainees were released and certainly before the 1961 strikes Dr 
Nkrumah was in favour, if not of the repeal of the Act itself, at leas 
of the release of all those then held under it. In fact, however, it 
continued in use. From my own prison experience I do not think 
that any detainee would have been intentionally ill-treated by the 
prison staff but at Ussher Fort prison the medical facilities were bad 
it was, I think, possible that a prisoner seriously ill, might easily 
not have had proper attention. So far as Dr J. B Danquah, w o 
died in prison, was concerned, no prison official with whom I spoke 
at Ussher Fort, suggested that he had been treated other than well 
and after the coup if it had been otherwise there was no reason why 
these officers ^should not have said so. Nevertheless without citing 
anv evidence in support, Dr Fritz Schatten, apparently an accepted 
Federal German expert on Africa, has alleged that many detainees 
•were tortured to death', 'in concentrate camp. . “ “ 

the “Grand Old Man” of Ghanaian Nationalism J. B. Danquah . 

In fa t if one contrasts the attitude towards political prisoners in 
Ghana with that exhibited by European government m the pre- and 
oost-war years what stands out is the humanity of Ghanaian 

behariour as compared to that of supposedly more cmliaed nattons. 
behaviour P , war-time Germany there were no 

In Ghana, unlike in any gas chamb ers. No detainees 

were beaten ^0° death* as they were in Kenya at a contemporary 
were oearen « torture d to death’ as happened m the last 

period nor wer y . What is in fact remarkable is that 

b «" mable t0 diE up f any ■»*“*- 
cattd “ sc oTill-Satmcnt or indeed any execunon for treason or 

SbveSonm justify the type of allegation peddled by those of Dr 

S W a he„ n ’i S „ t May .967 I made this comment in connection with the 
When in iviay y / reg i m e of tw0 y0 ung army officers 

pubhc execution y^th ^ t During the whole period of Nkrumah 

rulTno single political execution took place the Information 


REAP THE WHIRLWIND 


274 

Officer of the Ghana High Commission wrote to the Manchester 

Guardian replying : 

‘This statement is simply not true. Mr. Bing, who was one of the 
deposed President’s advisers, must have forgotten that in 1965 
Ametewee, a police constable, was executed for allegedly making an 
attempt on Nkrumah’s life. Again, among the thousands of the un- 
fortunate Ghanaians whom Nkrumah locked up without trial not a few 
lost their lives in detention. I mention only two, Dr. J. B. Danquah, 

. . . and Mr. Obetsebi-Lamptey . . . Nkrumah had them arrested 
and locked up in prison where they died without benefit of medical 
care. . . .’ 

It is true of course that this police constable, Ametewee, did make 
an attempt on the President’s life but he was never tried, let alone 
convicted for this offence. He had admitted to the shooting of his 
superior officer in the police, Superintendent Salifu Dagarti, and it 
was with this that he was charged. Since this killing was connected 
with an attempt on the President’s life perhaps it might be argued 
that it was a political crime and he should have been reprieved when 
convicted of the murder but, if, as alleged by detractors of Dr 
Nkrumah’s Ghana, like Dr Schatten, many political prisoners were 
done to death, it is extraordinary that, fifteen months after the 
rebel regime had been in power, the Ghana High Commission were 
still unable to produce more evidence than this. It scarcely lies in the 
mouth of the diplomatic representative of the present regime to 
complain of Ghanaians ‘locked up without trial’ when at the time of 
the Information Officer’s letter to the Manchester Guardian the total 
of persons imprisoned without trial by the military regime far ex- 
ceeded the number at any time under Dr Nkrumah’s rule. This total 
never amounted to anything like one thousand, let alone ‘thousands’. 

While I cannot speak from personal knowledge about the treat- 
ment of Dr Danquah I can vouch for the expert medical attention 
which Obetsebi-Lamptey received. I myself visited him twice in 
hospital, where incidentally he was being visited by his relatives, 
and I talked with his doctors. At the time of his arrest he was 
suffering from an advanced stage of cancer of the liver. His death 
was inevitable and in no way connected with his imprisonment. 
Though at the time he had been charged with organizing terrorist 
bomb outrages in which thirty persons lost their lives and some three 



THE STRANGE CASE OF MAJOR AWHAITEY 275 

hundred others had been seriously injured, he was placed in a 
private ward in the best equipped civilian hospital ^ ^eja and had 
all the drugs and attention possible provided for him by the Gov 

""The maintenance of law and order in developing countries is a 
highly complicated question. The method by w ic a e P 
made to solve it in Ghana was unsatisfactory certainly n the 
ultimate resort, in that preventive detention d. d no . ^ 
organization of a successful revolt. In vie ? v of ‘ ^ be 

afoot, the number of political detainees mig t ° . j e p 

excessive but what proof was there that they were consniraev 
The Ghana Courts had failed to check 
because of the rigidity of the English laws 0 evi enc 
and their, perhaps, too dogmatic enfo— n — “ £ 

1“ K; - x Sirs 

preparation of cases. Police “ e *° ds h “ „ " Ias concerned, the 
necessity are defective and, so tar , tn line arth 

Awhaitey Enquiry showed that ^might ^ 

sufficient to prove a conspiracy of ^ existing mac hine, to 

effort made, it was impossible tial to reach definite 

establish all those small points which are esse 

and final conclusions. , - nn as applied in Ghana, was 

The trouble with preventive . ^ ’ tbe efficiency of the 

.ha, its fairness or <-‘ h f™l' t K^emSy »as likely to be only 
police investigation and thus th y fer as publi 

slightly more effect™ to M righAof the 

security was concerned and m ^ c5icumstances , what eke 

individual were involved .J of the expe dients to which 

was possible? The only basis ^ tulate an alternative which 
developing countries ; urcesa vailable to them, and this is 

is workable m terms ^ been unab le to do. Far from 

exactly what Western cou on princip i e and alterna _ 

preventive det f nt '° n Rrb 9b S Co i on ial Office view was that it was not 
tives suggested, the Bntis j highly moral and reformatory 
only a highly neeess^ b»^» y ^ Afria ^ g 
instrument °f g°^mme | or excused as due tQ j 

advocated rather than explains -1 v 

circumstances in some particu 



276 REAP THE WHIRLWIND 

Almost contemporaneously with the publication of the Granville 
Sharp Commission Report the British House of Commons debated 
in June, 1959, the circumstances in which eleven Africans in 
prevendve detention in Kenya had been beaten to death by 
prison warders. The Colonial Secretary, Alan Lennox-Boyd, 
naturally expressed the British Government’s sympathy with the 
relatives of the deceased and its profound regret that this lamentable 
incident should have occurred but he strongly defended the 
‘rehabilitation’ system in the over-zealous conduct of which the men 
had lost their lives. Far from preventive detention being wrong, he 
told the British Parliament, it was in fact the only method by which 
tribal conspiracies could be stamped out and those who had mis- 
guidedly joined them could be trained in a way which would enable 
them to return to civilian life. Progress, he felt, had been enormous. 
At one time there had been 38,000 Africans in preventive detention 
in Kenya. Now, thanks to the ‘rehabilitation’ policy it would be 
possible to reform the 13,000 detainees previously pronounced 
incorrigible and therefore likely to be imprisoned for life. The 
British House of Commons agreed with him and the Motion 
condemning the Government’s preventive detention policy in 
Kenya and calling for stern disciplinary action against those 
responsible for the deaths was decisively rejected. 

An equally interesting explanation of the need for preventive 
detention had already appeared in the London Times some two 
weeks before the debate on the killings in the Hola concentration 
camps in Kenya. Explaining certain happenings in Southern 
Rhodesia, the Bulawayo correspondent of The Times, in a two- 
column centre-page article, described how ‘500 members of the 
Southern Rhodesian African National Congress were roped in for 
detention in a smoothly executed night roundup’. The correspondent 
admitted that at first sight it might seem a little arbitrary to arrest 
and imprison without trial the whole of the then leadership of an 
African Party which it appeared represented the aspirations, 
however mistaken, of ninety per cent of the population of the 
Colony particularly as it ‘was the proud boast’, according to him, of 
the European minority ‘that no blood has been spilt in racial anger 
in their sunny land since 1896’. ‘In fairness to the Government,’ 
however, he pointed out, ‘it must be conceded that political sub- 
\ersion, preached to and practised among illiterate and semi- 



THE STRANGE CASE OF MAJOR AWHAITEY 277 

literate African masses can spread like a forest fire unless subjected 
to the most strict police and governmental surveillance . . . The 
normal trappings of a democratic judicial system are ill-equipped 
to deal effectively with such threats to public safety.’ 

These views were not hastily thought-up justifications to deal 
with immediate situations. In 1961 the British Conservative 
Government presented to Parliament a four-hundred-page White 
Paper dealing in detail, from start to finish, with the Mau Mau 
rebellion in Kenya. The argument throughout is that the Mau Mau 
movement only became established because the British Government 
failed to abandon soon enough normal judicial procedure and did 
not detain without trial, at an early enough stage, a sufficient 
number of African suspects. The Times article on preventive 
detention in Southern Rhodesia was quoted with approval. 



CHAPTER EIGHT 


DESIGNING A REPUBLIC 


If the British Government had been prepared to enact the Consti- 
tution as prepared by Dr Nkrumah’s Government in 1956 and which 
is set out in the Appendix to this book, it is possible that the pressures 
for a Republican Constitution would not have developed so early 
nor have been so insistent. As it was the Lennox-Boyd Constitution 
was unworkable from the start and had in any event to be replaced. 
By 1959 the climate of opinion was such that it would have been 
difficult to secure acceptance of another monarchical constitution to 
replace it. In fact an executive presidential type of Government 
was almost dictated by the nature of the civil service machine left 
behind by the departing British imperial authorities. Even to the 
last the Gold Coast civil service administration had been centred 
around the Governor. From 1951 onwards, it is true, civil servants 
were distributed in theory to Ministries but the chance was nominal 
rather than real. A centralized system of government was the 
Colonial legacy. That Ghana should choose to adopt the same system 
as the individual British Colonies of North America had chosen in 
view of the similar institutions which they had been bequeathed was 
therefore in no way extraordinary'. 

States, like individuals, are circumscribed by r the circumstances 
of their birth. What Ghana was in practice capable of doing when it 
became independent was affected and limited not only' by what had 
happened in the Gold Coast before Independence, but by the 
conditions under which that independence came about. Subsequent 
developments were predetermined by foundations already laid. The 
establishment of the Republic in July i960 was not, as it is often 
represented to have been, a first step to build on new autocratic 
foundations. On the contrary, it was the last planned effort to 
establish a \\ estern-type democracy'. Yet almost as soon as it was 
set up, it failed to be employed for this purpose. Again there is a 
paradox Much requires examination. 

The accepted British view of Colonial freedom was that after a 

27S 



designing a republic 2 79 

long period of ‘tutelage’ Colonies ‘ripened’ towards independence 
whfch was automatically granted by Britain once it was esmbhshed 
that the fruit had reached maturity. At first glance it seemed that 
this was what had happened with Ghana. wa ’ , , ’ nQ 

obvious reason for the grant of independence. rps : stance 0 n 

armed revolt or even strikes, demonstrations or passive resistanc^ on 
a scale which Britain had been unable to contain. Independence it 
seemed, had been ‘granted’ on altruistic grounds s 

settled policy of liberation. The metaphor of ^o t primarily 

the reality. Ripeness as a horticultural phenomenon, is not prim y 

the result of man’s activity. It depends upon th ^^™o t 
and the vagaries of the weather, but whether a Colony s ° r 15 n 
‘ripe’ for independence must depend upon -hether^been 

equipped m embryo with the orga " S una ided will not create 
survival of a self-governing state. N independence depends 

these. Their existence or otherwise before mdependenc P 

almost entirely upon the eonsciouspo cy o eve n in 

In fact, there was never developed in the ^ a sdf _ 

embryo, many of those organs nece Y , acce p t ing these 

governing unit. Nevertheless , loo^ ng ^ ^ Gh ‘ ana ^ because 

congenital omissions, the < |“ e * the’new state was unable on 

of the conditions of its birth or b * 0 f se if government 

the one hand, effective* ^capable of 

as it had been equipped with, > rty 0 f the organism 

creating new ones to compensate for the pove y 

with which it had been endowe . before independence, 

In a limited sense m the last tew , , • of the fruit. A 

Britain had attempted to force , ° up by apprenticing Ghanaian 
nucleus for a foreign service w. sphere was a scheme by 

civil servants to the (Ammons to provide detailed 

the secretariat of the no tec h n ique of running a British- 

technical training and advice ran |. officer from the British 

type Parliamentary democracy^ F ^ t0 reor ganize Town and 
Local Government Service 

District Councils. r a nc wly independent state is not 

However, the success or at * Iomats> the efficiency' of pro- 

determined by the suav - ... or t hc smooth working of its 

ccdurc in its Legislative • „ or failure depends upon thc 

local government machine, bucce.s 



REAP THE WHIRLWIND 


280 

technical ability of the new state to manage its internal economy and 
to control its external balance of payments. In this regard all the 
preparation, such as it was, was based upon the assumption that, 
though independent, Ghana would remain integrated, financially, 
economically and commercially to the British system in the same 
way as it had been before Independence. In other words, the 
technical preparation assumed the local demand for independence 
would be satisfied so long as there was a facade which gave the 
appearance of change. Behind this it was assumed that the old 
Colonial relationships could continue to operate unimpeded. 

That this should be thought to be the likely result was by no 
means entirely the fault of the British Government. The policy of 
the majority of the leadership of die United Gold Coast Convention 
who, up till 1951, it was assumed would come to power, was simply 
that Colonialism should be continued in an Africanized form. The 
policy of the CPP had, after their electoral victor)' of 1951, been one 
of securing independence by agreement, and this meant, in practice, 
never forcing an issue such as the appointment of the outside 
experts which Dr Nkrumah and I had tried to secure in 1953. On 
political independence alone, was the CPP prepared to make a 
stand. Speaking in the National Assembly in November 1956 when 
he announced that the British Government had agreed on 6th March 
1 957 as 3 firm date for self-rule, Dr Nkrumah had said: 

\\ hen I first became Prime Minister I determined that I would 
compromise, if necessary, on every issue except one — the Indepen- 
dence of this Country. In consequence I have had from time to time, 
to give way on this or that point and even to persuade my Part)' to 
accept half-measures which v.e all knew in our hearts were basically 
unsatisfactory. I his policy of which I, at limes, had grave doubts, has 
proved successful.’ 

In the circumstances, the British Government cannot altogether be 
blamed if the technical equipment provided was not such as to 
enable Ghana to enter immediately upon a plan to reconstruct the 
-olonul machine, let alone to destroy it root and branch and 
su 'stitute fur it some other system. Nevertheless, the result was that 
nuna was endowed will) a Parliament declared fully competent to 
make any law which it cho,c but was denied the technical personnel 
r. rev wry to frame anything more than the mo>t limited alterations 



designing a republic 


281 


to the existing Colonial legal system. Laws which are to be enacted 
by the British Parliamentary method or enforced by a British typ 
judiciary, need the most expert preparation, yet no provision . 
been made for the supply of draftsmen for the purpose fromBritai , 
or for the training of those from Ghana. It is a good exa ™P le , 
subconscious supposition that nothing wou e c an| 
independence. Yet a country can hardly be sard to be .pc fo 
independence if it is forced, after independence to continue in the 
Colonial pattern, not because this was the pohtical ■ — of the 
incoming Government but because the outgoing Colonial power 
denied it the technical means to change. . , tc 

The horticultural metaphor can be pursued one stage Mum If 
in ,957 Ghana was ‘ripe' for independence, ■ b “" e 

apparent that other African Colonial fruit s0 °" b ' 

same condition. What happened, therefore, was not just a quest 
of a failure to prepare adequately in the case of Ghar a. It » » “ 
overall failure of the British Government to thmk in terms of ma 
rather than nominal independence for its An can 
already mentioned, the most obvious techmca step-the enlarge 

ment If the ZZ 

able to second officers to Col™ 1 t Lugh a vital link in the 
even considered. The drafcma h fidd he is of 

chain of legal changes oriy “ eclm|ckns> sudl M taxation 

no value unless backed by ^ ^ ljke . and in general, a 

experts, exchange control spe for research and compara _ 

change m law is only posab ff^ ^ directionj eIsew here in 

tive study of other attemp system, have been studied. 

developing countnes widi a | ^ organizational approac h 

In practice it is ™P, OSS 1 ^ nment f rom their political implications, 
to die problems °f ^vep & problem w hich my department 
To take one smah - P ^ Indepen d e nce there was no bank- 
attempted to tackle m £ Bi u modelled on the English law, had 
ruptcy m Ghana and v h Letrislative Assembly had rejected it as 
been introduced in 1 95 , diti o ns . But where was the organ which 

unsuitable to Gold C ^ j cou j d asse mble as to what would be 

could instruct such expe Was Parliament so composed 

suitable for Ghanaian c ^ and if s0> w h at procedural devices 

that it was qualine enable it to lay down the basis of a 

were necessary in oraer 



282 


REAP THE WHIRLWIND 


bankruptcy law which would, in its view, be suitable for Ghana? 
In fact, in neither its composition nor its procedure was the National 
Assembly suitable for such a task. Thus ultimately in the end we 
were driven back on an extra-Parliamentary method of sounding 
public opinion. 

A mixed Commission chaired by the Ghanaian Secretary to the 
Bank of Ghana and having as its other two members a Ghanaian 
timber merchant and a British Civil Servant, was set up. This 
Commission not only toured the country but consulted with some 
sixty diverse interests. Among these were, for example, the West 
African Committee, representing the largest expatriate firms, the 
Accra Merchant Women’s Association representing African petty 
traders, the Commercial Attache of the Soviet Embassy, the 
Lebanese Community, the judges, the Bar Association, the Associ- 
ation of Chartered Accountants, the T.U.C. and so on. Nevertheless, 
this was improvisation. 


The main question, what should a Parliament in a developing 
country do, was never faced. It was a small example of a general 
proposition. Those who prepared African Colonies for Indepen- 
ence had no finality of purpose because they never received any 
c ear indication of what was intended by independence. Was, for 
example, the whole theory of centralized Colonial administration to 
be abandoned in favour of the British Ministerial system? Was 
arliament to be a replica of Westminster or to be a democratic 
version of the one-party Colonial Legislative Council? 

Io what, for example, was the 1946 Gold Coast Constitution 
suppose to lead? That it was supposed to lead somewhere is clear 
rom t e o omal Office s pained reply to the Watson Commission’s 
descripnon of it as being outmoded at birth. ‘The 1946 Constitution,’ 
tne bntish Government retorted in their White Paper, ‘was not a 
e ate recognition of long standing demands, but a necessary and 
cceptc step in constitutional advancement.’ But a necessary step 
in what direction? Towards a One-Party State? It would at least 
1 - m ron ? Governor Burns’ opening address to the first Legis- 
“ Ve C ° Un ? asscmbled undcr it- The unofficial African majority 
all vtlf 116 , not t0 lndu Ige in ‘mock Parliamentary procedure’ or to 
j r t e ™ se ' e s to become an official Opposition for this would 
, I" G ° VCr "° r ’ the ob i ect of the Constitution, 
ar \, e 1951 Constitution appeared to have been designed 



DESIGNING A REPUBLIC 


283 


for a one-party, rather than for a mo-party state The Coussey 
Committee which inspired it, contained many traditionalists w 
wished to get back to the old system of the democratic ch y 
society which had been destroyed by the attempt to use the chief 3 
an instrument of Indirect Rule. This idea of a return to a supposedly 
pre-Colonial Golden Age of indigenous democracy had muc 
said for it and in fact had, from the late nmeteent cen ’ 

influenced political thinking. The system it was t oug 
followed was that of the Akans who comprise ° ne 
population and whose various branches, the Fantis, e 
Nzimas, the Brongs and others had evolved m°r e * ag has 
pattern of rule in pre-Colonial times. This Akan sy \ on 

been previously explained, in essence democratic but based upo 

the principle of a one-party state. genuine 

The chief had to come from a royal family but there ' * < dc _ 

contest among rival candidates. The chief cou e ^ 

stooled’ as itls described, by those who 

significant that the most general reaso actio n, which had 

have been that of expressing an opinion C ^ uncil . There were 

not been previously approved by th ^ in his v m a ge 

gradations of chiefs. Every head of headman would sit in 

council which ekcted its he^m e Th t hat in the higher 

the council next m rank, and the cn supposed 

council, and so on. No chief, however high his ^ his 

to express his own personal views. consult those whom he 

council and, similarly, each counci extent of this consul- 

represented before expressing a vieun ^ impossib le, but for the 
ration would have made even p some how be found, 

view that unity was essential an Western countries 

This conception is not altos*' ‘ issue is decided by a 
despite a Parliamentary syste tbe alternative idea of unanimity 

majority. Almost to the present \ States jury system. This 

has survived in the British before action, had developed 

basic conception, of a genera Africa, in the same way as it 

in the rural conditions of t0 pro vidc the theoretical, basis 

had developed in medieval I q . difference was that it was 
of a jury’s unanimous ver ic • trad ition rejected the very 

more consistently apphet . matter and not onlv in legal ones 

idea of a majority decision in am matte 



REAP THE WHIRLWIND 


as did medieval Europe. The one-party system which this implied 
worked because when it was clear that a question had the support of 
the majority, the minority, as with a jury, were then inclined to 
reconsider their views and to come over one or two at a time, to the 
side of the majority. Once the minority was reduced to a hard core 
of dissidents then the chief would announce the sense of the meeting, 
and the remaining few were expected to swing wholeheartedly into 
support of the general view. 

It is probable that if an analysis was possible of United States and 
English jury decisions, one would find that unanimity was often 
reached by a similar process. In the Ghanaian case, opposition, in 
the sense of stubbornly remaining hostile in view of a general 
consensus of opinion, was regarded as something akin to treason. It 
was therefore, for example, in no way contrary to traditional 
e aviour that, of the thirty-two Opposition Members elected to 
the Ghana Parliament in 1956, seventeen should have joined the 
ovemment by the end of i960. It was nevertheless inexplicable in 
terms of British Parliamentary practice and thus added to Western 
misunderstanding. 

In this matter, from a constitutional position, there was no 
difference in outlook between the Convention People’s Party and 
t leir opponents. Neither in theory opposed the one-party state in 
prmcip e, t ey differed only as to who should control it. In theory, 
Bie Convention People’s Party believed that the Party should be 
irectly responsible to the mass of the people without regard to 
ra itiona organization. The Opposition, on the other hand, 
e ie\ e at it should be responsible to public opinion expressed 
nn ^? U ° r . 1X3 ltl0na f° rn js. This was why the principal opposition 
tt CI " * 954 > the National Liberation Movement, never admitted 
ji 11 " as a P ar ty at all. It was a ‘movement’, a grouping that 
system t0 CCrtam tren< ^ s thought within an assumed one-party 

n'mm-!!i^ en ^ nC n C0Il fidential discussions of policy were 
me rn V ? ve j Timen .t ^ es - It is impossible therefore for 

Color,:-! aUt onta * Ive opinion of what was the attitude of the 
Assemhli ° 1,erni t' ent In the early days of elected Legislative 

Governments. I. seem,, bovver, in 

thev thoiwhr th FS cons ‘^ cre( i the question at all, that 

o a the Gold Coast Parliament would be a body which 



designing a republic 2 ^5 

would operate along traditional lines. Only in 1954 when a two 
party system emerged in practice did it become to eir min 
desirable constitutional necessity. Even so, starting tom , j 
date, a system akin to the British one might have een 
had those in charge appreciated the essential pre-requisi 
English model. In fact, however, preparation ^nghsh^- 
mentary democracy never took place because its 
conceptions were rejected not only by African inte ec a 
but for a different reason by the British Government ltse - ^ 

In order to understand this it is necessary PP , ^ 
traditional Colonial Office approach to po ltics. , , ne ver 

Office the word ‘political’ had a number of meanings, th g ^ 
the meaning commonly given it in Britain. _ rI S 1I | £ , 'pyg 

wealth Territories were administered by P olltlca ' hi 

term meant, of course, not officers who were 
that political party in Britain but that t es ^ e content of Colonial 
charged with the enforcement of the p Colonial 

pol4. Later 'politics’ and ‘policy’ became d.vot»d.n the Colony 

Office vocabulary and the term politics tva « owe( i t0 affect 
cription of improper pressure whic office c i rcu lated a 

the carrying out of pohcy. fn 1962 p M s ke Commissions 
Note for the Guidance of Members of chairman 0 f the 

in Overseas Territories, written y Mu lhall. It contains 

Public Service Commission m Ghana, ivir j. 
this remarkable sentence: 

,. . n ,.w; c service from ministerial respon- 

se effect of excluding the pufcbc * Ue t0 individ ual Ministers, 

sibility may not at first be en Y 8^ has accepted the principle 

even though the Governm political influence.’ 

that the public service should be tree irom v 

• ■ i» rvf democracy was that the former 

In short, the first pnncipl , the control of the latter-day 

‘political officers’ must not come und 

‘politicians’. . , Qffice docu ment underlines the 

The preface to this C under _ developed sta tes will have to 
point. It is accepted th ^ made dear that t h e supervision of 
pursue a socialist policy ’ be taken out of t h e hands of the 

those carrying out this policy 
politicians: 



286 


REAP THE WHIRLWIND 


‘The creation and maintenance of an effective and impartial Public 
Service is important in all communities but of especial importance in 
under-developed communities where Government must play a large 
part in all major activities and must be the primary instrument for 
further development.’ 


One might have expected that this would be followed by the logical 
comment. If the community in question was ‘under-developed’ at 
the moment of Independence, the former ‘political officers’ must 
have borne some responsibility, at least, for this state of affairs and 
the existing Civil Service, whatever its integrity and impartiality, 
might require reorganization if the Government was to be ‘the 
primary instrument for further development’. Somewhere in the 
Notes one would have expected to find a reference to the fact that 
the structure of the Civil Service may necessarily have to be altered 
after Independence so as to provide for development. The docu- 
ment shows that the contrary was the intention. The object of 
creating the Public Service Commission was to preserve intact the 
ancient, and admittedly defective, administration which up till now 
lad rested upon ‘the ultimate protection of the Secretary of State 
or the Colonies’. A machine had to be created to perpetuate, if not 
is aut ority, at least the system by which he had worked: 

As power is steadily transferred from British to local hands,’ the 
preface explains, ‘the role of the Secretary of State in Public Service 
mattei-s diminisht; 5 and finally comes to an end. At the same time the 

< ~c '' * CC ^' omm ' ss * on is built up to assume increasing respon- 
1 lties or the Public Service and ultimately to be an independent 
. ecutive body fully responsible for the appointments and careers of 
individual members of the Public Service.’ 


/- i ■ } n r fL CSt °/. t , he P assa B e is the insight which it gives into 
i R • • , .thinking. The Secretary of State for the Colonies 
RriricE 1S 1 v° , ltlca a Ppointment, yet the ‘ultimate protection’ of this 
alitv’ niT 1 * lcian , ls ) sa ‘d * n t^ e P ast to have preserved the ‘imparti- 
constitn tirin' 1 ! e J!^ the system. But how? According to British 

resDonsil . 3 p 0r }! ^ ecause the Secretary of State was personally 

member nf ,? r lament f° r .the conduct of every individual 
miscondiirrer/t- e P a ^ t ^ le ^ t - His duty to resign if one of them 
lmself derived directly from the fact that he pos- 



DESIGNING A REPUBLIC 2 ^7 

sessed the power of their dismissal or transfer. The Colonia 
Office plan, which Mr Mulhall’s Notes set out m etai, ' va f * 
deliberate reversal of this supposedly fundamental ntis ar 
mentary principle. 

‘A convention,’ wrote Mr Mulhall, ‘should if possible be established 
that there is no direct approach between individua misters an 
Commission.’ 

Of course there are strong, if contradictory arguments, i , 
of this now universally enforced Colonial Office ^po C Y * 
territories coming to independence. ‘In Britain, says lesis- 

‘the position of the Civil Service, while regulated in 
lation, largely rests, like the constitution as a w o e > suc j 1 

and convention. In the Colonial territories ov ® r , h t t he 
convention exists . . It might h.ve been ‘ n 3° 0 f to 

absence of any such convention was rnvernment until 

territories could not be ‘ripe’ for Parliamentary ^ ar<Tue( j t h a t a 
it had been established. If, on the other a ’ ... ^ ^ Civil 

Minister in Britain has, in practice, no 

Servants and that all that was being one perhaps 

duce the British system as it in truth existed, Aen P ^ 

good sense in the Colonial °®: e * rg ^ ouse 0 f Commons in the 
Morrison, as he was then, told H Constitutional 

Cnchel Down debate— one of th ^ t he relation of the 

discussions held in recent years m 

Civil Service to the Government . ... f 

‘There can be no doubt that a oS°«qui«d. 

all the acts of his civil servants-and a^ ^ ^ envdope , . . There 
He is responsible for every s a P Min i sters are responsible for every- 
can be no question whatever , 

thing that their officers do . • - r 

i „ c deceiving the House of Commons. 
It can be argued that he w was then, endorsed this 

When Sir David Maxwell y > ser i 0U sness’ of this doctrine of 
statement and spoke of the im ^ en ^ assure( j the House of 
ministerial responsibility an ^ ^^oily an d directly responsible to 
Commons that a Civil Serv an ^ ^ een talking arrant nonsense, 
his Minister’, he, too, may a Colonial Office was right in 

A case could be argued that tn 



288 


REAP THE WHIRLWIND 


taking such a view of these particular utterances despite the status 
of those making them and the important occasion on which they 
were made. In that case it was Britain, not Ghana, which had been 
deceived as to the real nature of Parliamentary democracy. However 
this may be, it is beyond the scope of this book. So far as Ghana was 
concerned whoever was right about the control over the Civil 
. ervl '“ e i n Britain in practice — it is clear that what was intended to 
introduce into Ghana was not that type of parliamentary democracy 
p . . was > at a ny rate as stated authoritatively, believed to exist in 
ritam. The truth of the matter would seem to be that British 
po my, m determining whether a Colony was ‘ripe’ for independence, 
i not depend on whether it had a parliamentary system which was 
seen in practice to be like that of Britain. The sole test was whether a 
sufficiently strong Civil Service, outside political control, had been 
create . Under these circumstances, it is only natural that the 
question o training the Legislative Assembly, in the pre-indepen- 
ence peno of the Gold Coast, to act and to consider itself as a 
p ica o e House of Commons was overlooked in the process, 
omina y, o ^course, uniformity of behaviour was enjoined. A ‘do 
t yourself kit in the form of a Speaker’s Chair, a Mace and a 
speaaUy bound copy of Erskine May’s Parliamentary Practice was 
lacking ^ Inde P endence - was real preparation only that was 

Constitution was designed to prepare Ghana for 
SfamlT^n 11 faCt ’ h de ^ bera tely turned the principle of 

loc/t Cn P ■ ov f rnment: upside down. Under Section 44 of the 
1954 Constitution it was provided: 

n'f'nnW; the ^ overn ° r shall consider that it is expedient in the interests 
introdnr T ^ PU ** C or S 00 ^ government . . . that any Bill 
efferr tli ’ v ? n ^. mot * on proposed, in the Assembly should have 
such reaJ 1 ’ w J ^ ssem ^ 1 y fail to pass such a Bill or motion within 
thin l rr 6 Qme J • ; • the Governor at any time which he shall 

as if ir R n a k' eclare that such Bill or motion shall have effect 

as U it had been passed by the Assembly . . 

GwemoV TOuld^end 1617 PfeCedins section of this Constitution the 


have the draft of anv Bi ^lf- h ' m " 

Governor shnnlrl k ^ • 1 , or hlouon which it appeared to the 
e introduced or proposed in the Assembly 



designing a republic 


289 


‘introduced or proposed not later than a date specified in such 

m Th£' provisions ensured that the immediately 

Legislative Assembly of the Gold Coast was made responmb e not 

to Ae electorate but to the Governor. Lip service was paid to th_ 

theory of British Parliamentary practice by 1 the “ se , r ^? h all 

section in the 1954 Constitution which 

be collectively responsible to the Assembly , u 

sion for its element. Far from the Legislature being ^a^k to pass 

a ‘motion of: no-confidence’ in ^^“^/if the Assembly did 
order it to pass a motion of Connaen 

not agree to do so, pass it himself. ise h is powers under 

The Governor, however, could y - of if ^ Cabinet 

Section 44 if he had the approval 0 Secretary of State for 

did not approve, with the conc ^ n created that if the Cabinet and 
the Colonies. A situation was th ^ Legislative Assembly 

the Governor agreed they cou ^ ^ ^ had been in the old 

which remained just as much ? cb; and t h e Governor 
days of the Burns’ ConstituUoml^abme^ ^ ^ 

disagreed, the Governor coul * h Cabinet being responsible to 

of State. In consequence, far iromuie in pract i c e 

the Assembly, asthe ^Governor, and the Legislative Assembly 

they were responsible to the both These may 0 r may not 

was, in its turn, responsible t0 insert in a transitional 

have been wise and practica p cedent for autocracy and not a 
Constitution but they were a P ^ proved in practice. 

preparation for democracy. .. no t had in the last resort 

ThefactthattheCabmethad unuHpa?, ma de Party 

to rely on obtaining the s PP b WO uld have been difficult 

discipline less important, in ^ k had been considered 

to establish the tradition and ] n the Legislative Council 

proper in the Legislative 0 s S foly elected on a party basis, to 

before it, for Members, » j when considering legislation, 
act on their individual re P b ; ne t could override the Assembly 
Since the Governor and tn ^ thg Governm ent always having 
this removed the practical n d frQnt _ A trad ition thus grew up 
to present before the ra°^. se Cabinet Members might criticize in 
that Junior Ministers an c , As a logical development of 

the Assembly Government propos 



2 9° REAP THE WHIRLWIND 

this, argument in the Cabinet room tended to spill over into 
arhament. After Independence ministerial differences were often 
openly debated and reported in the official Report. In October 
19 2, to give one example, Krobo Edusei, then Minister of Agri- 
C .^ tore spoke. thus in Parliament of his colleague, Kwaku Boateng, 
t en e Minister of the Interior, urging him at the same time to 
suppress the Party press which had been openly critical of Krobo 

usei s conduct, and that of other Ministers suspected of cor- 
ruption. r 


There are, he told the National Assembly, ‘a lot of innocent people in 
the country who have been locked up by the Minister of the Interior, 
nnocent people w ho may not know anything have just been locked up 
} t e linister of the Interior for questioning. Why is it that up till 
no\\ t e Minister has not been bold enough to go to the Guinea Press 
n c ose it down? The country has entirely been disappointed by 

what is going on at the Guinea Press.’ 


it f!!,r ra i 1} u' hen Cr i! icisms this sort "'ere considered permissible, 
° „ C t tHat r n / t G0VCrnmen t Bill might be defeated by the votes, 
on s others of Ministers, and divisions in the House were by no 
n „ • 1 t'l 3 P 3 ,^ hnes. Indeed, in the pre-Independence 

Briricti p PP°sition did not oppose individual measures, as in the 
different * 3I ? lcnt i they absented themselves generally. Again 
Societv haH * , 10nS 'r Cre at " ork - The -Aborigines Rights Protection 
b cr tr US -, d t0 P art i c ipate in elections to the Guggis- 

in auestion Th ou . na . '''hen they could easily have won the seats 
was that an n C P. nnci P* c > derived from chiefly council practice, 
ostentatious , PP os '. tlon had the right, publicly to demonstrate by 
particular lu ' ? C . ntl0 /'> ^ hat they did not acknowledge the title of a 
The Gb ^ T u 0dy t0 P ass 3n f l3WS at all. 
freedom of I?" • ™ ent cn i°I' cd almost to the last considerable 

Si l£C S, ° n h u “ nCVCr P° s ? csscd - 35 does ^e United 
England somer, ‘ ^lenI:, P 3rt }' disci phne which is today in 

democratic svstTm Thm^b “1 ^ ™ 3 ' n in ^ edient of thc British 
model the Ka’tln 1 a hough theoretically a copy of the British 

in practice that I? 1 * • Cm ^ -. h ad hy i960 come so to differ from it 
in tiic British r° COnsidcr tr f in S t0 make jt " ork 

f irst there was A • ' P t0 nvo tendencies were apparent. 

’ CrC dcsirc s °mchow to get back to die Westminster 



291 


DESIGNING A REPUBLIC 


model, and secondly to have, what was inconsistent with it, the 
chiefly council type of Parliament in accordance with Akan practice 
and following the line of all Gold Coast Colonial legislatures until 
1954. Until i960 the first tendency was dominant and Parliamentary 
reform consisted almost entirely of attempts by legislation to compel 
the Opposition to behave like an Opposition in Britain. 

Abstention as a policy was prevented by depriving of his seat a 
Member who either publicly announced his intention of not 
attending, or who was absent for twenty consecutive sitting days 
without the Speaker’s permission. In fact this permission was 
widely given. R. B. Otchere, an Opposition MP, who was the only 
defendant to plead guilty at the treason trial in 1963, had for some 
two years previously lived almost continuously in the Ivory oast, 
enjoying his Parliamentary salary having obtained leave of absence, 
which was almost automatically renewed on medical groun s, rom 


the Speaker 

The Avoidance of Discrimination Act prohibited parties based on 
regional, racial or religious affiliations and. thus resu te m t 
Opposition becoming united in a single United Party, n practice 
this may have made Ghanaian democracy less effective, in tat - 
may have rendered the United Party,, as a whole, mcapa . e o 
expressing the views of the particular diverse elements 0 w *T . ! 
was compelled to compose itself. However, in appearance the Bntisn 

two-party system, regarded as essential to the working 0 t e n 1 

democratic method, was established. The second tendency could 
not however be eliminated in practice. There was a ways an in 
ation to presume that Parliament should somehow approximate as 
the Coussey Committee had thought, to a chie y counci an ’ 
if in the end, a general consensus, at least on major issues, 
obtained there was something wrong with t e sys em. 
Opposition Member who wished to join the Government party was 
welcomed, though in practice he might stand for principles very 

different from those of the CPP. , « u„,i 

Finally, Parliament remained after Independence, 
been by law immediately before it, a legislative body -In re _ ard to 
the making of laws it had a far greater degree of 
British House of Commons. In Britain, if the back bench Member 
of the Party in power were to insist on major changes in legislation 
Sc Government would either be forced to resign or become 



292 


REAP THE WHIRLWIND 


gravely discredited in the country, if it gave way. Its fate would be 
certainly sealed if the legislation in question was amended against 
its wishes by a combination of opposition and dissident government 
members. This used, however, to occur in the Ghana Parliament 
without the Government being in any way imperilled. Minor 
changes made at the time of the Republic were designed to emphasize 
acceptance of this state of affairs. The Members of Parliament were 
to be regarded as a council charged with criticizing the legislation 
put before them and not as a body obliged to vote on any Bill strictly 
on arty lines. Hence for example arose the introduction of semi- 
circu ar seating instead of opposing rows of benches and the 
discarding of the official title of ‘Leader of die Opposition’. 

un amentally, however, the Republican Constitution was an 
attempt to return to a British type of two-party system and, by new 
constitutional provisions, to enforce that Parliamentary discipline 
'Wiose absence had hitherto made it impossible to work it. Though 
nrr.v' COri , Ca 2 ^ orma l Opposidon was abandoned, every 
... .. _ 1Sl ,° n °, 1 1C ne '^ Constitution prc-supposcd two parties. For 
’ °j } le nc "’ Standing Orders of the Assembly expressly 
\ V . C °. r . art -’ Secretaries who would correspond in practice to 
nffiJVp 30 m "wnv other ways, including the statement in the 
1.. 1 ‘ 1 c P on .° l be Party to which a Member belonged, acknow- 

Assemhlv C T^ ISt i CnCC bL T anUc P art y organizations within die 
., n 1 p’ .\ e c - «°H e l bis proposed reorganized Party system 
sidiarv - CnUa . ^' ect * on Act, one of the many pieces of sub- 

Constitutfon 3tl ° n 1 " as cnactc d together with the Republican 

could hr n!* S '^ Ct a j^ Chanaian citizen over the age of thirty-five 
more citizens n'fri aS a “ n ^‘^ atc for Bic Presidency by two or 
narrowed h\ tl . r * ai | la ’ ie choice "as in practice greatly 

penalties if rh'c T*, m ‘ lc nomi nators had to declare, under heavy 
supporters of th-' CC 3rall . on turnc d out to be false, that sufficient 
•National W m i 7 a " 1 Jlc "°nld be standing for clccuon to the 
fo r nM V CnSUre ,h3t ’ if 1 "ere alfelected, they would 

die Xan.irjl C ' cr - candidate standing for election to 

Officer fo- the I> Cm -f V cnt ' t kd t0 deliver to the Returning 

dcaSnl h;^ l ck ‘ Clion > thc Chief Justice, a notice 

* i C fcrcncc for one or other of the Presidential candi- 



DESIGNING A REPUBLIC 


293 

dates. Before he could do so, however, he had to obtain the consent 
of the Presidential candidate in question. The Presidential candidate, 
as party leader, therefore, could ensure which Parliamentary 
candidates had his party ‘ticket’. The effect of these provisions was 
to make sure that the contest for the Presidency should be a contest 
between leaders of potential parties in the Assembly and not between 
individuals as such. It was designed to provide that, normally 
speaking, supporters of the unsuccessful Presidential candidate 
would be returned as Members of Parliament. The President was 
chosen at the same time as the new Parliament. The election 
formally took place by the Chief Justice counting the votes, recorded 
by the new Members of Parliament in the form of the preferences 
which they had given before the election. Normally there would be 
as many votes as there were Members of Parliament, although, to 
permit Independent Members standing, the lodging of preferences 
was not obligatory. 

A number of other minor provisions in this Act underlined the 
two-party conception upon which it was based. For example, if no 
candidate obtained an absolute majority, his nominators were 
allowed to withdraw his name, without necessarily obtaining his 
consent, and choose another candidate who might obtain support of 
Independents or those belonging to some small party. If there was 
not an absolute majority at the first count, Members were released 
from their pledged votes and the President was chosen by ballot 
from among the Members of Parliament. If after five such ballots the 
President was not elected, the National Assembly was deemed to be 
dissolved. The provision was intended to compel Members of 
Parliament to find a President in one of the ballots, since otherwise 
they would have to face a further general election. 

Constitutionally, the novel feature of the Constitution was its 
arrangements to avoid the situation which arises, as for example in 
the United States, when the President is of one political party and 
the majority of the legislature of another. Whenever Parliament was 
dissolved, either through an efflux of time or by the President, 
because he wished for an earlier general election, there was auto- 
matically also another Presidential election and the President, as 
chosen on the method already outlined, was bound to be the person 
favoured by the majority of Members returned to the new Parlia- 
ment. Thus, despite its executive Presidential form, the Republican 



2 94 


REAP THE WHIRLWIND 


Constitution followed, in essence, the British and not the United 
States model. The National Assembly could still force the resig- 
nation of the President by refusing Supply. Thus was preserved, 
what is considered by classical writers of the Professor Dicey 
school, the cornerstone of British Constitutional practice. On the 
other hand, and this was one of the difficulties in drafting the 
Constitution, the Government hesitated to state this principle 
boldly. 

The logical form for the draft Constitution would have been to 
provide that the President should resign on an express vote of No 
onfidence passed by, say, an absolute majority of the total member- 
s ip of the Assembly, but a draft provision to this effect was struck 
out by the Government on the ground that it would encourage 
irresponsible attempts to blackmail the Government by setting 
own No Confidence Motions for the purpose of forcing policy 
c anges. In the same way the power, existing in theory in British- 
P. e . Ons titutions, for the Head of State to refuse to assent to 
egis ation passed by the Assembly was retained; yet to deal with 
anj irresponsible amendment the President could not only withhold 
tus assent generally but also to any particular section of a Bill. On 
e same principle, the Cabinet had to be drawn from Members of 
< ar iamcn t exclusively and under the Constitution it was charged, 
su ject to t e powers of the President’, ‘with the general direction 
an contro o ie Government’. The provision in the 1957 Consti- 

A 100 m at 1 C ,^ a ^* net s ^ould be collectively responsible to the 
ssem ), tv as hovyever omitted since in practice it had never been 
° r app , li , < r d ' Nevertheless, the new Constitution was 
-ice t0 CSta i ls h an effective Parliament, to which it was 
ssumed, representatives of both parties would be returned. 

n Cr pro ° t h at at this time it was intended to retain the two- 
m eth J S r’ C ur u? ^ 0und * n the Government proposals for the 
the PleL; > Sta IS ! m 1 g t ^ ie ne " Constitution. Simultaneously, at 
accemS iL at .'?‘ Ch . the . pe °P Ic ™ to be asked whether they 
for the fi r„ e p ne "-a onstltut i° n J it was proposed to hold an election 
closelv -ic rCS i*, ent undcr arran gements made to approximate as 
Election A P °p S1 e , t0 t^ e seheme contained in the Presidential 
votintr M-icn ° r SU Sec i ucnt Presidential elections. For this reason, 
the mainrirv H r cons ptuenc)- basis and the candidate which carried 
UK majoritv of consutuencies was to be declared elected. 



DESIGNING A REPUBLIC 295 

The two Presidential candidates, Dr Danquah and Dr Nkrumah, 
were the leaders of the two contesting parties and so the result in any 
particular constituency would show how that constituency would 
have been likely to have voted if a General Election had been held. 
In fact, Dr Nkrumah won in all but two constituencies. In its 
White Paper, however, on the arrangements for setting up the 
Republic, the Government had stated that if the Presidential 
Election showed that there would be little change in the balance of 
parties in the Assembly, they would treat this as a mandate to 
extend the life of the existing Parliament. The result was treated as 
such a mandate by the Government, though, on the showing of the 
Presidential Election, the Opposition Members in the House would 
have been reduced to two if fresh elections had been held. 

This decision not to hold fresh elections cannot be squared with 
any policy at the time to eliminate the Opposition. The intention 
was to retain in the Assembly a sizeable group of Opposition 
Members who, if an election had been held, would have been 
unlikely to have been returned. 

The mood of the political leadership of the CPP at the time of the 
ig6o elections was undoubtedly to seek a democratic verdict. One 
interesting indication of this was the personal imitations sent by 
Dr Nkrumah to all African and Commonwealth countries to send 
observer teams to watch the conduct of the election. So far as the 
Commonwealth was concerned, there was a sound argument why 
the invitation should have been accepted. Ghana had to seek 
Commonwealth agreement to continue as a member when it 
changed its status from a Monarchy to that of a Republic. Whether 
or not this request should be granted, it might well be argued, should 
depend upon whether the change had been freely approved by a 
majority of the people of Ghana. South Africa’s application for 
continued membership was likely to be considered at the succeeding 
Commonwealth Conference and opposition to this, it might be 
anticipated, would be based upon the argument that the whole of 
the South African people were not consulted but only those who 
were white. 

Nevertheless, Ghana’s request was almost entirely ignored by 
the Commonwealth. The only positive response was from Nehru 
who denounced the idea as derogatory to the sovereignty of the new 
state and reproached Dr Nkrumah for ever issuing the invitation. 



296 


REAP THE WHIRLWIND 


Thinking back on it, perhaps the form in which the letter was 
worded might have, if the proposal had been generally taken up, 
been used as a precedent for outside interference in the Kashmir 
question. In any event, Nehru’s letter was strongly phrased and 
understandably upset Dr Nkrumah. However that may be, the 
general Commonwealth refusal to send observers could not have 
een anticipated, and no Government proposing to rig the election 
results would be likely to have run the risk of their frauds being 
iscovered and denounced by Commonwealth countries, including 
oouth Africa, then still a member. 

A further example of this desire by the Government at the time 
to ensure fair elections is illustrated by a strange incident a few 
mont is previously over a contest in Modesto Apaloo’s former 
constituency. After his detention, his seat was declared vacant and a 
new e ection ordered, but it was not until the time for nomination 
had almost closed that the United Party had decided on their 
W" ' a *k an l 6 man c h° se was at that moment under arrest, 
t,‘ f CCn c lar £ cc * with some smuggling offence. The police, 
rnmnw’ for bis nom ‘ nees to see him, and for him to 

.. . £ C e a . pessary papers in good time for them to take them to 
. . rS* ^ Cer ' ^ len > however, the nominators were on their 

T a . n . mt . e P a pers they were arrested, quite illegally, by 
survivo f h0r F° Uce ■ These local Police forces were the 
handed nv° E i° c . c ^ le ^f Pphce but their control had now been 
the same ° °i C f aut h° r ities, whose interests they served with 

when the 1SI " e ^ ar ° r tbe ^ aw as the y had exhibited in the old days 
when they were under chiefly control. 

declared thTcpp ^ n0t knowin 5 of what had happened, 
made Dr Ml- u andldate returned unopposed. The incident 
him The r rUm . a . as an or}' as I can ever remember having seen 
ateW the r mm ‘ SS1 ° nCr ° f P ° Hce and 1 were summoned immedi- 
Sk^ hSe^?R SS1 m e r ° f P ° lice t0 be reprimanded under the 
ators’ arrest a 1 V 1S / 0rce bad been responsible for the nomin- 
Sod of O t - t0 b * 0rdered *o find some immediate legal 
Sent Ls deCti0n - The *titude taken by the 

dance when th n e S by the Cabinet at which 1 was in atten- 
attemnted tn matte t was further considered. No Minister 

As ahvavs and most denounced what had happened. 

y hana these legal emergencies involved certain 



DESIGNING A REPUBLIC 


297 


difficulties. Had the Assembly been sitting we could have had the 
matter put right by rushing through legislation but as it was in 
recess we had in the end to fall back on the dubious device of 
officially correcting the Gazette notice which fixed the final date tor 
nominations, and to substitute for this a later date. The power which 
we used was of course only intended to cover genuine misprints in 
the Gazette but fortunately it was so worded that we could use it tor 
this purpose. A Government inquiry into the conduct of both police 
forces was instituted and resulted in, among other things, 
decision to abolish all local police forces as separate units. e ma 
in prison was released and was duly nominated and, when the 
election was held, he defeated the CPP candidate. . 

Again it is interesting to note the British press reacted m a way 
which convinced Ministers that it was deliberately biased against 
Ghana. Almost all English papers reported prominently the arrest 
of the Opposition candidate and his nominators, and accused 
Government of rigging the election. Of this Ghana could make no 
complaint. From a distance this certainly was the impression „iv - 
When, however, the Government dissociated itself from he 
whole affair, took vigorous action to put the matter right, an 
Opposition candidate was, in fact, elected in the end, one would 
have expected that these facts would also have been reported. They 
were not. Letters pointing this out were written t0 f Brit „ 
newspapers. The Manchester Guard, an alone, so far as 1 . ca > 

made any apology for what was in the circumstances an extreme 
example of misrepresentation of what took place in • 

This Anlo South by-election took place “ 1 “^ J 959 , ‘ 1 
figures were United Party 3,086, CP 2, ^ r . i n the 

theUnitedPartyhadamajorityof555-Inthesamecons y 

Presidential election of April i960, the' totel po 1 jashgh r bm 
the Opposition again won though wiffi a 

comparable ma joritv of 92. Personalities had at 

Nkrumah 3.47°-* United Party J in this constituency 

least something to do whh ^ f J n J C rMy larger. Taking 

tws is the resuit 

which one might have expecte ■ . fi available, it is 

« falsification « 


29S 


Kt.AI 1 111!. \V HH: J. WIN!) 


maile. On the other lumi, i( one takes the first Ashanti constituency 
t ( ) be won by the National Liberation Movement at a by-election in 
‘ 955 i Atwina Nvvabiagvia, it !uil nt the Cicttcra! Llcctiun in the 
o owing v car returned an Opposition Member on a 70 per cent poll 
with a vote ol {5,334 compared to a Cl’l’ total of 1,393. There was 
cvuence to show that this large Opposition tnajoritv had been, in 
some wavs, augmented by chiefly pressure. 

0 low ini: the C. 1 T victory in the country, the pro N!,M chiefs 

were e-stooled by their subjects, with, no doubt, some Government 

assistance, on the general principle that the traditional rider must, 

in accordance with the theories of indirect rule, be on the side of the 

esta ) is unent. lt would therefore not be unreasonable to suppose 

,' at 1 . lt: nc )\ ^ ^ chiefs of the area exercised an equal pressure on 

ie 01 ter side and in the local elections nine months before, for a 

somew rat arger area but of which this constituency formed the 

core t ie vote had been (.IT 17,129 as against an Opposition vote 

5 A . umin £> as UJ s likely, that the Opposition vote was 

r ' con , l, . nuin S t0 hall away gradual!}, the vote that might have been 

Sri CX1 ’ LCta 111 A, " ina Nvvabiagvia would have been, in 

f, r ,\ C ‘l\ Crcaial . ^P^tration, in the order of CIT 13,600, to 

’ n -° r . 1C , PP 0i| ttpn. 1 he official results recorded a 90 per cent 

1 /" ltsc,f “ 1 •uspicious feature— and the Nkrumah vote was 

mnlnl. aS 22 ’7 6 .. a \ a Satnst the vote for Dr Danquah of 137. This 

wholesale /kp - U IS °h v ‘ ous > rnust have been secured by a 

in simil-ir n s, ) Icatlon . oPt l ,c returns and an analysis of other results 

the same 2,' 1 ? SCatS 111 ^hami suggests, at least, that something of 

these consrin aUcm P tct '> ‘h not so blatantly, in a number of 
tnese constituencies. " 

elections vvero/ aCC f dds cur ‘ uu - s paradox. In some areas the 
plctc fairness n T , 7 tcc ^> *° Par as can possibly be seen, with com- 
and in the mV 1 US "° U , d a PP car 10 be so, in particular in Accra, 
falsification ShTT* ?*“'• if ^ynvhure, oltc tvoulcl suppose, 
seSvS ” P , b "- S'evcrtheless, in Atom Dr Danquah 

whole, 30 per cent.' ° V ° lCS and for 1110 urunicipal seats as a 

conductcTtvcre*laiddownT. C ^,^Kt P ! CbisCile and ckction " crc 

debate. Thev nmvirlr-ri ° l ^ e ^ atI ? na l Assembly after a full 
and Government could’ am °" g ot,ler thin S s > that both Opposition 
o vernment C ° Uld appomt a gcnts to be present in any 



DESIGNING A REPUBLIC 


299 


polling station and other agents to be present not only at the count 
of votes but at every stage from the printing of the ballot papers on. 
Posters in English and in nine Ghanaian languages were put up 
throughout the country, explaining the main provisions of the 
Constitution and the method of voting. In so far as the Government 
had an advantage in propaganda, it was an advantage which applied 
throughout the country and did not affect any constituency in 
particular. Further, the supervision of the voting was m the hands 
of the civil servants and the police. Any falsification must therefore 
have been done with, at least, their passive acquiescence Had it 
taken place all over the country this would be explainable but it 
does not explain how it happened in some few constituencies but 

not in the majority. e 

The factor which made it possible and was later to account tor 
wholesale falsification was, I believe, the revival of the inter-war 
British form of local administration. The traditional Co onial 
administrative system in Africa was based upon the Political 
Officer’ in the field. These District Commissioners, as they were 
originally called, were in charge of everything in a particular area. 
They ran its local government, they dispensed justice, sitting as 
magistrates, and it was through them that the or ers 0 t e cen ra 
government were imposed. They were the exponents o over 
ment policy to the people and the medium of communication with 
the chief. No matter in their district was too trivial to be excl 
from their purview. Thus, for example, when my wi e 
married in Elmina Castle in .956, the ceremony was performed ?? 
the Government Agent. Governor Arden Clarke's 
District Commissioner, dressed for the occasion in nmform and 

Wt Each of ’these District Commissioners was originally responsible 
tacn ot tnese Commissioners who ruled 

to one or other of the Ame d and the Northern Terri- 

respectively, m the old Colony, ty • i vn _ anf j 

tones Housed in huge ‘Residencies’ set amid extensive lawns and 
tones, Housea m n g an( j police to present arms, lower 

well-tended gardens, with soiaie _ r • d even ; ne - 

j 1 • _ T TTnirtn Tnck ceremoniously morning ana evening, 
and hoist the Unio J nrot , r j at e bugle calls, these officials 

and blow from time to 1 Colonial Secretary in his modest 

far outstripped in S randeur d t j . were the real rulers of the 
S^in^rs^in ,h. capita, did not possess 



300 


KF\1> Tilt WHIRLWIND 


the machinery to run the country and everything was in practice 
done by the District Commissioners under the command of these 
Chief Commissioners. 

Sir Charles Arden Clarke’s change of their titles from Chief 
Commissioner to Chief Regional Officer and from District Com- 
missioner to Government Agent, was a mark of the general distrust 
o tieir political power In both parties. In the 1951 General 
Llection, when the United Gold Coast Convention opposed the 
it nevertheless put as one of the first points in its election 
address that ‘Civil Servants must cease to be the “Civil Masters” of 
t le country . lhe part) promised, if elected and returned to power, 
that thev would ‘remove Civil Servants from the top level of “field 
administration”, and place the character and structure of the Civil 
cnice under the control of the Assemblv They, too, at this time 
rejected the theory of a Public Service Commission. 

Despite political pressure by both parties against the system, by 
rwV lU C lad ^ ecn ac h' c ' ed but a change of name. The most 
r] U .t™ " as diat l * lc m ° bt important and dominating of 

k three Uucf Comniissionerships, that of die old Colonv, was 

v P , and u Rc . gl0nal 0niccrs ’ in charge of Western, Eastern and 
T j ,° a . es !° n f snbstituted. Nevertheless, at the time of 
adminicr . C ?i C r , W ^ P°P u Iation of Ghana was still in practice 
acouaintTr^ r l "° ^ lccro - Sydney MacDonald-Smidi, my old 
Tamale in,? r V Rd die Northern Territories from 

The m- r* r ^ fthur ^°'‘ n Ru ssdl ruled Ashanti from Kumasi. 
Chief FCW,,, °, nS nff Ul0n ’ far from diminishing the power of these 
Go cniniem A ° RlCCrS and thcir subordinates,' the renamed 
missS d.,n A f ntS ’ C ‘ Urcnchcd i^ The Public Service Com- 
transfer of Gvil"^ t0 ^ aSC dlC ‘ r decisions as to promotion and 
frnm thrir sun n - Jnt 1 on L co, t f idcntial reports on diese officers 
future was P n "? l ° ** ^ Service ' A Government Agent’s 
Regional Offire ^ 1Ce , put at d lc discretion of the particular Chief 
BK 3 Office m C u rS f 0f thc re 5 ion where he worked and a 
orfnatS s ? u ® C r e e m? ^ “ efl ' ect ’ ****? dictate his sub- 
not control he rri „i,i rC " as a m3n it e did not like or could 
could recommend R - S tnins ^ r - Those who divvarted him he 

supported him he for P romot i° n » and those who 

meat Under die n P , r0Vldc " ith hi s assistance to their advance. 

Under the proposals of the Notes earlier quoted, die Minister 



DESIGNING A REPUBLIC 


3 0I 


of Local Government who was in theory responsible for what went 
on in the Government Agent’s Districts, was to be prohibited even 
from approaching the Public Service Commission to suggest 
transfers where the Government Agents were not fitting m locally, 
or failing to support Government policy. The tightening up of die 
definition of ‘transfer’ which we had raised at the time of Inde- 
pendence was no technicality. It expressed a policy that senior civi 
servants should be able, subject to a minimal control agamst abuses 
by the Public Service Commission, to dictate the structure of th 
Service and in particular retain in the Districts the Governmen 
Agents of their choice, irrespective of the wishes of the Gove 

m< The system, as it existed at Independence, was completely out of 
tune with any modem theory of democracy. The ntis compari 
would be with the Justice of the Peace system of local rule under the 
Tudors and early Stuart monarchs, but in indepen ent ana > 
Government had less control over these local magnates than eve 
had the Tudor and Stuart monarchy over the country gentlemen 
who ruled the counties in their name. On this issue there was “ 
party agreement. Opposition and Government a e were 
opposed to the continuance of the existing system. dispute was 
as to who should inherit the Government Agent s an o 

Commissioner’s powers. It was clear that the : reorgamza an 
rule must become almost immediately a ter n ep ecame 
important issue and so I began work on it a most as so made 

Constitutional Adviser, and in the p^Indopendence 

a tout of Ghana so as to sue for myscif the tvotbng of *e u«on„ 

system. Sydney MacDonald-Smith receive m orot , 0 sed for a 
Russell i/ Kumasi found all tht = dates 

meeting with him, m»n«m ^ ^ arr „ gc for me 

Daniel Chapman, * en S " cre ^ he nex t came to Accra on duty, 
to discuss things 'yithhmi ' h h ^ ^ he had approached 
Daniel Chapman told me atterwa hinl) only ta]k 

hlr Russell with I see from Who’s Who 

with the Secretary of S has j n hi s retirement acquired for 

that this redoubtable c^d sen ’ 1 convC rsationalist. He has been 
himself an even Presbyterian Church of Scotland. 

ordained into the i mi or3Ct ice illustrated the limitations of 
What to do about it m practice 



302 


reap the whirlwind 

constitutional change imposed by die realities of the situation. We 
could agree in theory that the Government Agents should not be 
magistrates and that there should be instead courts presided over 
y ^ a ’ ified Ia ' v yers. But where were these qualified lawyers to come 
rom. Similarly, many of the Government Agent’s powers obviously 
should go to the new elected local authorities. Immediately one was 
laced with problems of local authority stafT and finance. How was 
t ie particular official to take over to be found in die first place, let 
a one low was he to be trained in his new functions, and where was 
ns pay to come from? Nevertheless, a good deal was done in die 
eary ajs just before and after Independence, to divest Regional 
Utticers and Government Agents of much of their authority, 
rans erring it to newly established District Magistrates’ Courts, 
oca counci s, and sometimes to the police and other officials of the 
central Government like the Registrar of Births, Deaths and 
arnages. everthclcss, though much of their statutory power had 

m e rf Cn awa >' the P rest ige of the Regional Officers and Govern- 
ment Agents remained. 

f . F "°y c , r y cars a tradition had been built up that they were 
Cia S y° W 1< ? m t ^ lc commoners could petition for redress of 
their irp C an ,i t0 thc c ^' c ^ "ould go for advice. They lived in 
viduajc ’■ 13 tramed st aff and they knew the chiefs, indi- 

viduals of influence and the people generally of their district. In 

a constitn^i? 1 onw ards, it was die Member of Parliament for 
happened in C ri W *° * ts P°^t‘ c al welfare officer. This never 

wasdrea^l mn hana ' ^ hablt ° f turnin E to the Government Agent 
powers thev In S railaed ' shorn of their magisterial and other 
ment control y™ 11 ? 6 . a P°^tical force which was outside Govern- 
bodv resident ^ V^i ° b , CC Was essent ial. There had to be some- 
trusted him flip 1 ' C , ° ca 'W who could explain to people who 
trees or of sunt ^ ° r exam Pj e > °f cutting out diseased cocoa 
yaws' or for ioin?™ *!t^i & j am P a 'S n mass innoculation against 
I V rPP , g adult educat ion classes. 

understood i/pTcdce^^Ih^^fr dep£nded Up ° n the ‘ r bein f 

man of the villt 1, J * be c ^ le f farmer or fisherman, the head 
«"h°; Se5'„?r„£' Sh priest ' ?' olergyman or tire school- 

Government Ardent- duencc ln each small locality. For this the 

necessity. Yet the Lennox-EG ^Penor, the Regional Officer, was a 
x-Boyd Constitutional provision prevented 



DESIGNING A REPUBLIC 


3°3 


these former ‘political officers’ being controlled by the latter-day 

‘politicians’. . , , 

Another incident, arising out of the Interim Regional Assembly 
for Ashanti affair which had caused the resignation of my P red «- es 
sor, also brought to a head the position of Regional and Chiel 
Regional Officers. Mr Russell was believed by the Cabinet to have 
actively participated in the plans for the proposed state opening o 
the Ashanti Assembly. He was removed from his post transferred 
and posted to Accra for duty with a ministry. Un er e ennox 
Boyd Constitution it was doubtful whether the Government had 
authority to do this. Nevertheless, the anomaly of quasi-independent 
former Colonial political officers representing an in epen en 
Ghana in every one of its Regions, living under con ltions wic 
suggested they were all-powerful, and with persona con o 
still largely British staff throughout their area became ?“ dde 7 
apparent. The very rigidity of the Lennox-Boy ons r 

offiy a radical solutffin possible. Two months later the posts of 
‘Regional Officer’ and ‘Chief Regional Officer’ were a***edand 
‘Regional Commissioners’ who were both Membex s o 
and Ministers were appointed in their stead. It had bc “P la ^ d 
make them Ministers without a place m the Cabinet but again the 
Lennox-Boyd Constitution did not allow it, and so until Rgubh^n 
times these political Regional Commissioners J ere ’ ^ “ 

predecessors under the Bums’ Constitution, once agam members of 

the Central Government. tQ rev i v ; n g the District Com- 

From this it was o y a appointed on a political basis. For 

missioner who also soon was to ^ PP on er s existed side 

a time these new pohtmal District £nd ^ ^ 

Slde " fJSo fifl circle. The ‘political officer*? 

peared^The wheel had^O on ^ superseded by CP P ‘politicians’. 

0 They°adap a ted themselves, almost subconsciously, to the paterna- 
ine\ aaapteu , ^ ^ co l 0 mal predecessors and the 

hst role examples of it. For instance, 

Ghana press produced som under ^ 

^VonTcomiffisLner Warns Against Subversion in Kokofu’, 
carried the following item . 

‘Mr R. O. Amoako Atta, Regional Commissioner for Ashanti, warned 



3°4 


REAP THE WHIRLWIND 


a large gathering of chiefs, elders and people at Kokufo on his tour of 
the Amansie district recently against subversive acts. He said he knew 
all that was going on in the State, ... he would deal with anyone 
who would in any way worry the Kokofuhene (the chief of the district 
in question). He also asked the people to co-operate with the District 
Commissioner for the area . . . because that would enable them to 
have regular communication with the government. He asked everyone 
to give assistance to the Census officials, ... He visited places like 
the Destitute Home.’ 

Another item of approximately the same date from the Government 
press shows what went on at District Commissioner level. The 
Ghanaian Times of the 20th January i960 described an annual 
festival at a small town in Ashanti: 

‘The highlight of the festival was a Durbar which was attended by a 
large number of people, including the District Commissioner, Mr 
J. K. Donkor. The local fetish priest Obosomfuor Yaw Kye, com- 
mended the efforts of Mr Donkor in providing electric street lighting, 
a motor road and other amenities in the town . . . Obosomfuor Kye 
poured libation and said prayers against the proposed French atom 
test in the Sahara. He also sat in state and received homage from his 
people. He also rode in a palanquin amidst drumming, singing, 
dancing and musketry throughout the town.’ 

The full effect of this reversion to the old Colonial pattern was not 
at the time realized, I think, by any of us. Ultimately it produced a 
machine, which, like its Colonial predecessor, acquired a momentum 
of its own. As the old type District Commissioner had to show that 
his district was loyal to the colonial government and supported the 
policy of the Governor, so the new District Commissioners could not 
afford it to be seen that opposition was gaining ground in their 
districts. From this it was but another step to start tampering with 
first local elections and then national ones. Once this had begun 
anynhere the process snowballed. Originally it might have been 
sufficient for a District Commissioner to see that the government 
candidate won. Ultimately any opposition votes at all became a 
reproach. The referendum on Constitutional change held in 
January 1964 showed a 92.8 per cent poll and yet recorded that no 
opposition votes at all were cast in five out of the nine regions. 



DESIGNING A REPUBLIC 


305 

It was an impressive demonstration of the complete control by 
the CPP of the machinery of Government which resulted almost 
automatically through taking over the old autocratic control of local 
affairs devised in colonial times. The process of election remained 
the same. Theoretically all the guarantees of a supervision by 
impartial public servants still existed. The officials who supervised 
the polling booths in 1964 were the same civil servants who, 
thirteen months later, supported the coup. The police who super- 
vised the 1964 elections and were supposed to deal with those 
attempting election frauds, were actually to be a party to a revolt 
said to be aimed against undemocratic processes. It was in the power 
of these two organs of the state, if they had wished to do so, to 
prevent the gross electoral malpractices of 1964 or, at the very 
least, to expose them. Indeed, it is hard to see how they could have 
been achieved except with their active participation. 

The ‘political’ Regional and District Commissioners lacked all 
the statutory powers of their predecessors. They had no legal 
authority which enabled them to supervise elections, or which they 
could invoke to manipulate the results. All they had inherited from 
their Colonial namesakes was their moral authority. The Colonial 
tradition by which everything was done in accordance with the 
orders of the ‘political officer’, no doubt had some effect but it 
cannot be the whole explanation. In 1951, 1954 and 1956 the 
Colonial ‘political officers’ had set an example of scrupulously fairly 
conducted and supervised voting. There was no colonial tradition 
of electoral fraud to which to appeal for justification. The establish- 
ment of political Regional officers and District Commissioners 
certainly not only made possible but encouraged electoral fraud, but 
it cannot be the whole explanation. 

The answer may be that both sides had become disillusioned with 
fair elections though for different reasons. Indeed, by 1964 it may 
have been to the interests of both that the results should be as unfair 
as possible. To the CPP the fact that a false result could only be 
declared with the connivance, and in many cases, through the 
active participation of the civil service and police, who were always 
potential rivals for power, was in itself reassuring. Elections were 
accepted as a ritual to which all nations must conform, but their 
results appeared to be received quite uncritically. Indeed, often the 
bigger the declared majority the greater the prestige. 



306 reap the whirlwind 

Convinced as the CPP was to the last that it had the mass of the 
people behind it, it saw no reason why it should advertise to the 
world that, because of local problems, not understood outside 
Ghana, its percentage support among the people might temporarily 
have fallen. To those who subsequently engineered and supported 
the coup, fair elections were equally an anathema, however much 
they might subscribe to them in theory. They had become convinced, 
and they may well have been right even in 1964, that they never 
could have won even substantial minority support. Their lack of 
popular support could therefore be best camouflaged by demon- 
strating that the elections had been positively rigged. If the Regional 
and District Commissioners took the lead in organizing a flagrant 
distortion of the election results, it was not for them to hamper them. 
This difference of approach comes out clearly if one contrasts the 
entirely opposing views of three critics of the Nkrumah regime, the 
British historian, Dennis Austin, the American political scientist, 
Henry L. Bretton and A. A. Afrifa, the member of the rebel junta 
singled out by Dr K. A. Busia as in his view a leading exponent of 
real democracy. 

To Dennis Austin the last fair election was that of 1956 and he 
writes thus of it in his important and scholarly book Politics in 
Ghana 1946-60: 

‘The main polling day . . . was unmarred by any serious clash be- 
tween the two sides . . . the crowds w r ere everywhere orderly . . . 
and the police escorts unmolested. ... In part it was because of the 
confidence each side had in its ability to win by fair means, ... in 
part the peaceful conduct of the election was due to the vigilance of the 
colonial government— the officials and police— as a well-armed 
neutral supervisor.’ 

What Dennis Austin fails to query is why this ‘well-armed neutral 
supervisor’ so singularly failed to carry out a similar duty later. 

To Professor Henry L. Bretton, also like Mr Austin in the Gold 
Coast in 1956, it was quite otherwise. According to him, by 1951, 
the British Government had decided that the CPP was going to 
allow neo-colonialism to be established and that therefore the 
Colonial administration openly assisted in organizing a fraudulent 
election: 



DESIGNING A REPUBLIC 307 

‘By 1951,’ he wrote in his book The Rise and Fall of Krvame Nkrumah, 
‘Nkrumah became the chosen instrument of the colonial regime to 
guide his country through what was envisaged as a peaceful transition 
period; though political power would be transferred, the country 
would remain within a web of British financial, commercial, and 
military interests. ... In the course of the 1956 general election, 
which was represented to the public as a quasi referendum on the 
proposed constitution under which the colony was to attain political 
independence, it became apparent to the colonial authorities that viola- 
tions of the election code had been so widespread as to raise doubts 
about the validity of the over-all election results— i.e., the over- 
whelming victory of Nkrumah’s Convention People’s Party. But the 
Governor opted in favour of overlooking the substantial body of 
evidence indicating a nearly total breakdown of the election machinery 
in some constituencies. Not a single constituency election result was 
set aside. . , . An editor of the daily told me that towards the end of 
the campaign political murders had been so numerous that the British 
Government would have been compelled to cancel the election if the 
total had been published. They were not published.’ 

Since ‘the daily’ concerned was, it appears from Professor 
Bretton’s book, the Daily Graphic of Accra which belonged to the 
Daily Mirror Group of London which was opposed to the then 
British Government, it is strange that no word of these surprising 
irregularities by the Colonial authorities leaked out. 

To Busia’s Afrifa on the other hand the 1956 election was the 
unaided triumph ‘of the veranda boys’. He, on his part, described it 
thus : 

‘It will be remembered that the National Liberation Movement, later 
merged into the United Party had come out and offered a challenge to 
the mythical invincibility of the Convention People s Party. Through 
political gangsters and hosts of brigands, the Convention People’s 
Party intimidated this country and got itself elected into power as the 
Government Party at independence. 

Memories of the struggle of a number of men, from the north and 
from the south, who challenged the authority of this monster at that 
time are still fresh in our minds. Most of the opposition leaders had 
been detained and some of them had been forced into exile. The Con- 
vention People’s Party had no moral strength. The leadership was 



REAP THE WHIRLWIND 


308 

made up of ex-convicts, illiterates, bullies, and a gang of political 
malefactors,’ 


When this point of view is analysed it is clear that this attack is 
not on the one-party state as such, nor on the erosion of democracy 
which took place after i960. His main complaint is that Dr Nkrumah 
failed to follow the non-dcmocratie path. ‘Men like “Pa” Grant and 
Dr J. B. Danquah,’ he explained, ‘knew it was necessary to make 
haste slowly, and so they sought to meet the need and the wishes of 
the people rather warily.’ The argument of these rebel officers against 
Dr Nkrumah was not that he had not popular support but that his 
supporters were uneducated, and yet he tried to satisfy their aspir- 
ations. He did not believe, like the wise politicians of the United 
Gold Coast Convention, that he should meet their ‘wishes and 
needs rather warily’. The anti democratic case is put without 
equivocation by this writer whose supposedly democratic principles 
were so admired by Dr Busia. What he wanted was a system which 
would put the elite in power: 


Kwame Nkrumah,’ he wrote, ‘played hard on the illiteracy of his 
fellow men and women, marshalling the majority of the 80 per cent 
illiterate citizens around himself, and working them up against the 
rightful authors of Ghana’s Independence . . . these big brains — 
J. B. Danquah, Akufo Addo, Obctsebi-Lamptcy, William Ofori- 
Atta and many others. . . . His majority of illiterate followers . . . 

disregarded brain and wisdom in favour of brawn. . . .’ 


These three entirely different accounts of the 1956 election illus- 
! rat p, ow ‘ijfficuh it is to establish the objective truth about anything 
m ° hana - If, for example, the inhabitants of Gibraltar in a ninety 
per cent poll endorse their present regime by a ninety-eight per cent 
vote in its favour this is accepted in Britain as a true reflection of 
lew oyal feelings and there can be no question that in fact it was. 
a similar proportion of Ghanaians were said to have voted in 
lavour of Dr Nkrumah the result is condemned out of hand as faked. 

ne cannot t ius judge any election solely on its result. It is neces- 
sary e ore accepting or rejecting it to examine it on a comparative 


Sta ^ e it i s sufficient to note that though the i960 election 
u very properly have been criticized, so far as some Ashanti rural 



DESIGNING A REPUBLIC 


309 

areas were concerned, by contrasting previous patterns of voting 
with those of the Presidential election, even supposedly informed 
writers on Ghana in the Western world did not trouble to do this. 
Instead they claimed on general grounds, backed by an inadequate 
knowledge of how pre-Independence elections had been conducted, 
that the result as a whole should be disregarded. For example, Fritz 
Schatten thus treats the issues of the i960 plebiscite and Presidential 
election, in his book Communism in Africa : 

‘This personality cult reached a first peak in the spring of i960. Up to 
that time Ghana was still a member of the British Commonwealth of 
Nations under the Queen of Great Britain. This was, of course, only a 
matter of form, but Nkrumah and his followers attached great impor- 
tance to formalities. They therefore staged a referendum to decide 
whether Ghana should continue to remain under the British Crown or 
adopt a new status in the British Commonwealth of Nations as are- 
public. . . . There was not the slightest doubt about the outcome of 
this referendum . . . Just before the referendum the Government 
announced that “in order to ensure a tranquil poll” voting would not 
take place simultaneously throughout the country, but with several 
days’ pause between three separate voting areas. The idea behind this 
arrangement was obviously to give the CPP an opportunity of clinch- 
ing the final victory by concentrating all its forces on each voting area 
in turn . . 

Holding elections on different dates was no new invention by Dr 
Nkrumah but followed the practice of previous elections held in 
Colonial times, and was for the purpose of making sure that there 
would be sufficient civil servants available to supervise the voting 
and sufficient police present to prevent malpractices though in 1951 
the Colonial authorities had in their day so arranged the staggering 
that candidates like Dr K. A. Busia and Sir Tsibu Darku when 
defeated for one seat were in time to be nominated for another. 

The Government did not ‘just before the referendum’ announce 
this policy. The polling days were fixed by a resolution passed by the 
National Assembly on the 15th March, a full month before the 
election, which specifically provided that voting should take place on 
three different days and specified the parts of Ghana in which it 
should so take place. All this had been agreed to by the Opposition. 
Dr Schatten’s book was published in 1966. He had therefore plenty 



3io 


REAP THE WHIRLWIND 


of opportunity to consult a standard authority. In 1962 Butter- 
worths, a leading British law publisher, had issued Bennion’s 
Constitutional Law of Ghana which described in detail these electoral 
arrangements. The author was then a senior British civil servant but 
apparently his book did not come to Dr Schatten’s notice. 

It was typical of the Ghana Parliament that, although the draft 
Constitution had been considered and approved in detail by the 
Cabinet, after die most lengthy discussions and alterations so as to 
secure agreement, even Cabinet Ministers criticized it immediately 
when it first came back before the National Assembly. After the 
plebiscite, when it came for detailed consideration, these criticisms 
were renewed and two major changes were proposed. The original 
draft had provided that all Judges of the Supreme Court should 
hold office as in Britain, that is to say that they could not, in practice, 
be removed until they reached the age limit for retirement. It was 
now suggested that the Chief Justice should be appointed and 
dismissed by the President at will. 


Technically there could be little objection. The proposal would 
equate the position to that of the Lord Chancellor in Britain but 
politically, which was not my concern, there were grave disad- 
vantages. The Chief Justice at the moment was Sir Arku Korsah. 
de had in fact long passed retiring age and his appointment was, 
under the old Constitution, extended from year to year under a 
special power to do so. Occasionally the date would get overlooked 
until the last moment and I can remember once feverishly tele- 
phoning, I think, Vienna, where Dr Nkrumah was on an unofficial 
visit, to get him to reappoint Sir Arku by cable, it having been 
discovered that his term of office expired the next day. However, it 
was valuable that he should stay in office since, in a much more 
important way than Sir Emmanuel Quist, he represented the link 
between the CPP and the old Colonial establishment. 

r !!' , r } ai K ? rsah begun his political career as the Secretary 
ot the Aborigines Rights Protection Society but had broken with 
em w en they boycotted the elections under the Guggisberg 
onstitution, and in 1928 he was returned as a ratepayer candidate 
tor ,P e Coast, and he continued to serve in the Legislative 
ouna or some twenty years. He had been a member of the 
orthodox London deputation which my Aborigines Protection 
Society friends of 1935 had been so scornful of and had become a 



DESIGNING A REPUBLIC 311 

member of Governor Burns’ Executive Council. His official resi- 
dence was very near to my own and we saw a good deal of each 
other. He was the Government’s link, in a way, with many of the old 
ruling families and I would meet at his house Dr Danquah and 
others who had been in the old Legislative Councils prior to even the 
1946 reforms. So long as he was Chief Justice the Government could 
carry with it many of the old intellectuals. Anything that appeared 
to question his position seemed to me on purely political grounds to 
be undesirable, but legally speaking this proposal raised no issue of 
principle. 

Nevertheless I was not to escape criticism for it. When after the 
coup d'etat I was imprisoned, the London Sunday Observer, in a 
note on the various shortcomings which had brought me there, 
remarked : 

‘He shocked many of his former colleagues at the British Bar when he 

worked out a constitutional way for Nkrumah to remove his Chief 

Justice.’ 

The surprising thing is that having been blamed by my ‘former 
colleagues at the British Bar’ for this alteration made by Parliament 
on its own initiative to the draft of the Constitution as originally 
proposed by the Government, I should not have been equally 
blamed for the other much more fundamental alteration insisted on 
by the National Assembly. 

A final article to the Constitution was proposed and accepted by 
the Assembly which allowed the President, if the national interests so 
required, to legislate by decree. At the time this seemed to me to 
undermine the whole principle of the Constitution which had been 
so carefully elaborated and explained. At one stroke it appeared that 
the delicate balance between the powers of Parliament and of the 
President, so laboriously examined in Cabinet after Cabinet and, 
after much alteration in detail to meet every point of view, finally 
agreed, was suddenly to be abandoned to meet the whim of a 
notoriously irresponsible Parliament. 

It was the one moment when I seriously considered resignation. 

I had not of course drafted the Constitution myself, nor any of the 
mass of legislation with which it necessarily had to be accompanied. 
The draftsmen were experts, some Ghanaian, some from other 
countries such as Britain, Ceylon and Ireland, but they all had 



312 REAP THE WHIRLWIND 

embarked on this arduous and difficult job as members of my 
department and it appeared to me now that all their work had been 
thrown away. Yet in the light of after events I was mistaken. The 
Constitution was later indirectly rendered valueless by the failure to 
hold free elections and by its adaption to fit a one-party state for 
which it was never intended, but this particular provision was never 
used. The military coup, however, demonstrated its obvious 
necessity. It could still be used as a means to restore a legal regime 
and preserve Constitutional continuity. 

While the Constitution was the most important single matter on 
which I was engaged when Attorney-General, it did not occupy the 
majority of my time, which was devoted to attempting to reform the 
legal profession to meet the needs of the country and to build up a 
department capable of dealing with the problems of independence. 
Some account of this may be of value, as it illustrates in detail the 
type of problem that, in practice, all developing countries must face 
and the reason why these problems so often remain unsolved. 



CHAPTER NINE 


MINISTRY OF JUSTICE TO 
FLAGSTAFF HOUSE 


My first task as Attorney General had been ^ 
my department. I had begun with an analysis of its pay sttucm i ^ 
Theoretically expatriate staff and Ghanaians reeled ^dr^same 
salary. In practice the cost of employing an exp r j ate was 

twice as much as that of employing a G anaian. months 

entitled to travel back and forth to England ^ 0n “ d 

or so, ratios his wife and up to 'S^^^Ghaoaian 
longer leave and had to > have housi g P Aft _ Gener al’s depart- 
la^ers could not be obtained for £ short supp l y and 

ment, partly because they were, in y ’ nractice. It was 
secondly because they could earn more in E 0 ff ere d Ghanaians 

easy to prove that the State would saw ev^ ^ ^ fifty per cent sa i ary 

who would join the department ur oueans and thus got local 

bonus over the standard rat ^ F^ t E difficult t0 get the 

staff to replace those from abroad, it w y 

civil service machine to agree. j vas attempting 

In colonial days cost accoun ^ have been an 

would have revealed too many * dition ha( j established it as the 

argument for A^^^Jlishment office could not take into 
sort of matter which the Est -would mean that 

account. It was argued, Qther specialists. An analysis 

Ghanaian lawyers were P al ^ specialists showed that if applied 
of other departments emp }° y , ° P de Nevertheless, the arguments 

in them equal savings woul ■ only after considerable 

against it were interminable and it J y 

struggle that I secured ‘s u SLe Court and the Attorney General’s 
For a trial p e nod the| P o ^ entrants a salary compet itive with 
office were allowed to ott nractice. Soon in consequence we 

the earnings to be made in p P ed ^ scheme had recruited a 

and the judiciary w ° Ghanaian lawyers. Without it it would 
promising group ol youn D 

313 



REAP THE WHIRLWIND 


have been impossible to find even the Magistrates to take over the 
judicial functions of Government Agents. However, in the long 
term the remedy was not to pay the inflated salaries which the overall 
shortage of lawyers involved but to train students locally and thus 
have sufficient practitioners both for Government service and for 
the expanding opportunities of private practice. 

According to orthodox British thinking, one of the things wrong 
with Colonies generally was that they had too many lawyers and that 
young intellectuals, instead of becoming engineers, chartered 
accountants or doctors chose the easier and more lucrative pro- 
fession of law. In a way there was just sufficient sense in this theory 
to conceal its fundamental absurdity. Looked at in terms of per- 
centage of the existing professional class there were too many 
lawyers in Ghana at Independence. At the time of the Watson 
ommission, for example, there were only forty-seven African 
octors in the Gold Coast as compared with fifty-seven legal 
practitioners in private practice. But this was not the result of a 
conscious lack of regard for the public interest by the intellectual 
c ass. t \\ as the inevitable result of the policy of Colonial education 
generally. There was in the Gold Coast, prior to Independence, no 
training whatever for the professions and therefore anyone who 
wished to acquire a technical qualification had to go to Britain or, 
o \ enough, to die Irish Republic, whose professional degrees the 
Colonial Authorities also accepted, though they refused those of 
na a an Australia. This limited the possible output to those 
children of wealthy families who could meet the cost of maintaining 
a student in London, Edinburgh or Dublin where, for an African, 
expenses ten e to be higher in any event and where the cost of 
board and lodging had to be met the whole year round— not only in 
term time as was the case with a British student. 

ihe pressure was therefore to choose die profession where the 
the n s^L^ S w C , S j 1 °H est and tile examination the easiest. Before 
c,Lt„T ld r ? Ihc English and Irish Bar 

needed theSC two rc q ui rcments. What in fact Ghana 

serve d, S0 } l< : mT . s rather ^n barristers, but solicitors had to 
evnen it K??' 5 " England and not only "as diis excessively 
Punik T1 ,U 1Cr - C V ' a f r<ductance f o accept Africans as Articled 

ncrsonal vn C ° ntmUcd aftcr Independence, as I learned from 
personal experience. 



MINISTRY OF JUSTICE TO FLAFSTAFF HOUSE 315 

We wanted to article picked graduates with firms of solicitors who 
did the type of financial and commercial work for which Ghana 
needed experienced technicians and I personally toured their 
offices. Everyone whom I interviewed was very nice about it. It 
was not he, or indeed anyone in his firm, who objected to Africans. 
On the contrary, they would have liked to have had them. Un- 
fortunately, so it apparently turned out in each case, each firm 
was cursed by having among their clients, persons of strong racial 
views and they had, they explained to me, to take this into con- 
sideration. It was not that they did not want to take our candidates, 
it was only that they were certain they would be happier elsewhere. 

Before the Second World War the qualification for the English 
Bar was gastronomic rather than academic. Provided one ate the 
proscribed number of dinners the examinations presented no real 
problem. In consequence, in English terms, the Bar had become 
overcrowded and subsequent to the war the standard was raised. 
However, the curriculum remained unreformed. In reality it was a 
memory test and very little else. Without entering into the con- 
troversy as to whether this type of examination is the best means 
for preparing an English barrister for his profession, it had very 
little relevance to Ghanaian conditions. The student might qualify 
as a barrister but when he returned to Ghana he had to practice as a 
solicitor and for this he had no training whatsoever. Ghanaian law 
in family matters and in question of inheritance and of land differed 
completely from English law so what the student had memorized 
was not even necessarily of value and might well be confusing. In 
so far as English law applied, it was the English law of 1874 and 
this was no longer taught at the Inns of Court. Above all, the 
profession as it existed in England and as it was carried on in 
Ghana, were, from the very nature of the differences between the 
two countries, so dissimilar as to make the training for the one 
almost useless for the other. 

A local law school might cure this difficulty but it would not help 
with the major problem. To increase the number of legal students 
meant drawing from the pool of those with university qualifications, 
or even with university entrance qualifications and it was this 
limited class which provided the only possible intake into other 
professions which were more important than law from the point of 
view of national development. If lawyers were to be increased it was 



316 reap the whirlwind 

essential therefore to find some different source of supply. I believed 
the problem could be solved by reviving the ‘attorneys’ who had 
practised in the Gold Coast in the second half of the last century. 

When Courts were first established in the Gold Coast, a develop- 
ment parallel exactly to what happened in the United States and in 
the older Dominions followed. The Courts themselves, without 
reference to any outside authority, licensed individuals to practise 
before them though they had passed no legal examination. I 
believed the principle might again be applied. Apart from Govern- 
ment service what was most needed were individuals with sufficient 
legal training to be able to advise the ordinary man and woman of 
the small town and village about their day-to-day affairs. It was 
clear that the absence of such advice led to many unnecessary 
disputes and real injustice. When, for example, cocoa farms were 
pledged, the lender would produce a document drawn up by some 
‘licensed letter writer’. To this the illiterate debtor would put his 
mark. Quite often it would turn out that the terms arranged verbally 
and those in the document did not correspond and in such circum- 
stances there was no one to whom the debtor, or for that matter the 
lender, could go for even elementary legal advice. 

The provision of a class of lawyer charging small fees would have 
been a valuable element in controlling the discontent, confusion 
and often obvious injustice which resulted from cocoa-pledging 
transactions. Ghana is a great country for proverbs and it is signifi- 
cant that in the inter-war years a new one became current: ‘Cocoa 
has not shown us the good man.’ In any plan for the solution of the 
difficulties caused by a new rural industry with which the traditional 
methods of the old society were unable to cope, the provision of 
cheap legal advice available on the spot was essential. 

Indeed, disputes over cocoa were only symptomatic of the many 
other unresolved problems which arose out of the gradual break- 
down of traditional society and the growth of a money economy. 

his was evidenced by the growth of the ‘new shrines’, already 
re erred to, which can be corelated to the development and spread 
o the cocoa industry. While these ‘new shrines’ became for want of 
an) t nng better a kind of legal advice bureau, the law which their 
priests expounded lacked precision. I took up the idea that what was 
needed was to upgrade the best of the licensed letter writers. They 
had already to obtain a licence before they could practise. They 



MINISTRY OF JUSTICE TO FLAGSTAFF HOUSE 3 X 7 

were thus subject to discipline and were in fact doing what would 
in Britain be regarded as solicitors’ work. They were largely 
employed for business and legal communications rather than tor 
personal letters. I worked out a plan for a three months course in 
which those participating would be selected by examination rom 
the top grade of letter writer and would be given a course in t e 
rudiments of law they were likely to encounter in t e country areas. 
In this way I thought we might create a class of Attorney on the 
English eighteenth-century and the Gold Coast nmeteen cen ry 


The reaction which this proposal produced, I was later to realize 
was typical of the obstacles w’hich occur, in practice, w en one 1 
in the twentieth-century to apply the methods of progress success- 
fully pioneered a hundred years ago by the present mdustna 

nations in their developing stages. 

We had set up a General Legal Council about 
receive a number of pained letters from eminent and liberal jur sts 
of the Western world. The legislation appointing it provided that 
in theory, a small minority of non-lawyers mig f app 
In fact ik England there is a similar provismn m i rega rd to the 
doctors’ disciplinary body, the General Medical Council, and one 
k^membeMsto tWs da/klways appointed. 
no weight with Lord Gardiner, the most 

persistent and indeed the most courteous, of my many corres- 
persistenr, anu mw n f them the theory of ‘legal liberty’ 

pondents on the su ) • decide on the structural framework 

meant that only lawyers could deed ^ ^ with the 

GenSl L^Tcouncil tas that insufficient laymen were i appointed 

have been found among the le 0 , r 

In principle the Government accepted the idea ot upgrading 

ticensed'ktter writers but when it came down to a dear ose of the, 
f iTip Cabinet were unwilling to challenge the lawyers 
sort many of the Cabinet wer while other of those in 

on what they thoughttobe yiew . At the GeneraI 

Leo'^Qmndfwhen^dtimately I made my proposal no one would 
listen to it It was a ‘Colonialist’ suggestion, implying that Ghanaians 
could not aspire to the same standards as the profession m England. 
S was my Irst encounter with this conception of absolute standards 



318 reap the whirlwind 

which is, I believe, the most substantial of all barriers to developing 
technical skills at the level required. 

This controversy illustrated, in miniature, the internal struggle 
which was going on between the elite and the mass of the people. 
A ruling elite is created if education is restricted to the few who can 
command the key positions in the Civil Service, in the professions 
and in commerce and industry. The legal elite, already established, 
did not wish to see its ranks diluted by the importation of persons 
of the class of a ‘licensed letter writer’. 

The University propagated the theory that no one was properly 
qualified unless he had the same qualifications as a lawyer would 
have had in England. Yet the whole question of standards is relative. 
A standard in education is high enough when it can adequately 
serve the needs of the community for which it is designed. As these 
needs increase so the standard will automatically grow to deal with 
them. The rules for admission to the various State Bars in the United 
States is a case in point. American Universities have automatically 
produced a higher legal standard for their law qualifications as the 
needs for commerce and industry have become more exacting. The 
fact that neither Presidents Jackson nor Lincoln would have 
qualified as lawyers under the conditions existing in the United 
States today does not mean that either of them was not a first-class 
attorney in the terms of his own society. 

In one respect, however, I was able to achieve something. The 
General Legal Council agreed that a Law School should be set up 
which was to be part-time for two years and full-time for one year 
only. It was intended to attract a number of those, particularly in 
the lower and intermediate grades of the Civil Service, army, police 
and commerce, who had the necessary educational background but 
whose families lacked the money to send them to London to read 
aw. Again, its successes and failures were an object lesson on the 
issue of standards. It was not acceptable that the level of qualifi- 
cation should be lower than that at least of the English Bar examin- 
al f K * n . anc k as was ne cessary also to teach the students the elements 
° u “ an .^ s °i‘ c * tors ’ work, in fact the standard was 
inuc lgher. Considerable numbers enrolled and then fell away 
ut a ew did qualify during the short period the school was in 
existence. One of these was the wife of John Harlley, now the 
\ ice-chairman of the National Liberation Council, but then head of 



MINISTRY OF JUSTICE TO FLAGSTAFF HOUSE 319 

the Special Branch of the Police Force. I used from time to time to 
drop in at his house in order to get from them both advice on the 
working of the course and how we could persuade more of the police 
to enrol. 

The Law School, nevertheless, in its turn succumbed also to 
academic opposition. In Colonial days the University had been 
unwilling to establish a law faculty, though this had been recom- 
mended by the University of London under whose guidance it 
came. These future champions of academic freedom in this par- 
ticular matter yielded at once to the Colonial Office prejudices 
against lawyers. Once however Ghana became independent and we 
had found a Professor, the excuse why nothing could be done 
in this regard, disappeared. The University had its revenge. It 
insisted that no one should be admitted to practice who had not 
secured a degree at it. 

In the meantime, as a short-term measure, it was necessary to 
recruit from outside Ghana not only for the Attorney General’s 
department but for die Law Courts, the University legal staff and, 
if possible, for other Government departments. 

Our first source was British technical aid. Under the scheme then 
in force the British Government would lend technicians and pay 
their salaries to fill gaps where no local recruitment was possible. 
This plan, admirable in conception, was rendered largely inopera- 
tive in practice because the British Treasury would never agree to 
the creation of sufficient supernumerary posts to form a pool from 
which technical aid could be drawn. The House of Commons 
appointed a Fourth Clerk to the Table, when only three were 
required for the British purposes and there was therefore always one 
highly trained parliamentary technician available to go abroad to 
advise countries attempting to develop a Parliamentary system. 
This example showed that the scheme was possible but the methods 
of the Idouse of Commons were not followed by other British 
Government departments. 

Technical aid was accepted in theory as a moral obligation that 
must be met but when it came to applying it the technicians were 
seldom available. For example, the reform of the law of insolvency 
was a necessity not only for Ghana but for Britain which was at 
that time Ghana’s principal trading partner. I had in the end to go 
personally to Sir Frank Lee, then the Permanent Secretary at the 



320 


REAP THE WHIRLWIND 


Board of Trade to beg for the loan of a Chief Clerk to a Chief 
Registrar in Bankruptcy to help us with some highly technical 
problems in regard to insolvency. Finally and, as a great favour we 
obtained the Chief Clerk’s services for three months, but only, so far 
as I can remember, provided he gave up part of his leave and we 
met various costs. When later we wished to establish a Science 
Museum we were only able to borrow an expert from the Science 
Museum in South Kensington, if we paid everything in sterling, 
including the British share of his superannuation payments. 

It must have been apparent to anyone who made any scientific 
study of the matter that African countries coming to Independence 
Mould have to re-shape their laws and that they had no technicians 
with which to do it. Yet the Parliamentary Counsel Office in Britain, 
where drafting of Parliamentary Acts is carried out, was never 
expanded so as to meet this obvious need. We were particularly 
lucky in Ghana in that, having applied first, we obtained under 
technical aid two leading draftsmen, A. N. Stainton and, after he 
left, brancis Bennion. 


Other African States were not so lucky and Ghana had in the 
en to provide, from its small stock of scarcely trained draftsmen, 
tec mcians in this field for East African Commonwealth countries. 
A ride of the British Parliamentary Counsel’s Office prevented it 
taking Ghanaians for training and we had to go to the Irish Republic 
in order to obtain help in this regard. Had we had to depend on 
cc mca ai or our recruitment of the outside experts needed, the 
Ghana legal services would have broken down. Fortunately it is 
possi e, i one looks around the world, to find many people who 
cannot ac leve vvhat they want to in their own countries, because 
ere is something wrong with them which, from the Ghanaian 
point of view, was immaterial. 

Indeed, doser inspection reveals a world full of such people. For 
' jjlf 5 L> , ln Ce y lo n there was S. Namasivayam, who was the 
• 1° U 'i° standard works on its Constitution but could never 

countrv'V^i r f k ° f second Parliamentary Counsel in his own 
materSl • S ™“ bccausc he was a Tamil, a disability im- 

cSuia OUE ' U “ Gha “ a " d raa<k him FirS ' 

E I" SaST U . n . iv ? rsi, r Patrick Atyiah, the son of 

> a i, a distinguished Arab nationalist but long resident 



MINISTRY OF JUSTICE TO FLAFSTAFF HOUSE 3 21 

in England, who had been the Secretary in London of the Ar 
office out of which grew the Arab League. Has son Itektad .a 
double First in Law from Oxford. What was wrong wi 
that his Arabic was not as fluent as that of his fa er s - * Tr nCT i; s h 
no disability in Accra. He was the author of a stan ar » 
work on the Sale of Goods and was just the type o exper , 

needed. To strengthen the prosecution branch we °^ n ^ ’ 

Ulric Cross, who sat as Judge Advocate at the Awtoy Court 
Martial. Originally a solicitor from Trinidad, e a Office 5 

been called to the English bar and worked m the Cobnml Offi^ 
In the war he had a distinguished record and was a navi* t 
RAF, had become a Squadron Leader, and had won ffi^FCand 

the dso. What was wrong with him, from a pom disability 0 in 

practice in Britain, was his colour. Again, this was no disability 

The same issue, accentuated by Cayworked in 

broadminded enough to accept a ^ judice aga inst women 

to accept a woman, and those reservations on the question of 
lawyers, often turned out to which was t0 anticipate 

race. In a matrilineal society s Hi^h Court Bench, sex was no 

Britain in appointing a woman to i » nor the other . 

disability and colour counte n p Qrm brought us recruits from 
The same principle, in a ,, Wing-Commander in the 

Canada and Ireland. Sidney nf . n alizcd bv his being subject to 
legal service of the RCAF, va rat j ona j officers, and therefore 

the same early retirement age peace-keeping force, where 

had to leave the United Nan ^taff 0 f General Bums. We thus 

he was an administrator on tn de experience, capable of 

secured someone with cons Commercial Section of my office, 
building up the new' and ' or of Statute Law Revision m the Irish 
Vincent Grogan, Directo h ; m in the sense that Pauli 

Republic, had nothing merel y that, at the time, Statute 

Murray, for example, h d.^ ^ provide sufficient stimulus or 

Law Revision \ rela , thus he was willing to be seconded to 
scope for his abihties • Irebnd j n Ghana, John Hearnc, had 
Ghana. His successor Constitution and had seen his work 

been the draftsman of the l - 


REAP THE WHIRLWIND 


322 


copied in the Indian and many other, perhaps less well known, 
Constitutions. He had been later the first Irish High Commissioner 
to Canada and then Irish Ambassador to the United States, where 
it was said his list of honorary degrees from American Universities 
far surpassed the score previously obtained by any other member 
of the diplomatic corps in Washington. We were able to obtain his 
assistance simply because he had reached the normal retiring age 
for Irish civil servants. Perhaps even Mr Justice Granville Sharp 
could be put into this class. His difficult}', if it may be so described, 
was that, though he had stood as a Liberal candidate for the Epping 
Division of Essex in every single inter-war general election, he had 
never quite been able to defeat Sir Winston Churchill, though in 
the 1929 election he came within striking distance of it. 

In those days Ghana presented opportunity for people of ability 
who for some reason or another were thwarted in their own country, 
to cany out abroad the work they had hoped to do at home. For 
example, we were able to get a foremost expert on English Company 
aw, ro essor L. C. B. Gower, then Cassel Professor of Commercial 
Law at London University and who is now one of the Law Com- 
missioners, to come to Ghana to work on that type of progressive 
Corporation legislation which he had been unable to persuade 
ose m authority to accept in England. The background to his 

appointment illustrates the sort of difficulties with which we had 
to contend. 


At the time of the Boer War there had been a Director of 
eo ogy in e old Coast who had, perhaps imprudently, asserted 
V Tlr lhat PotentiaHy the Colony was as wealthy in gold as 
u nca. he immediate result of his statement was, not an 
2 u a r V production of gold on the Gold Coast, but a fantastic 
tip hcation of the companies registered to exploit it. In the end, 

remflr Ar m ° n thc Colonial authorities that the Colony at least 
TR- ° mP T leS Act ’ and cast ro ™d for the first one in 
and in T n S * ? Ut t0 ^ English Companies Act of 1862, 

LawofX 7 r XV CrCe J d ’ a ! m ° St WOrd for word > as the Company 
panics An tW r ° aS p des P lte t ' le fact that a new English Com- 
ComnanJ ’ a w 9 !? 8 ’ W3S already on the stocks - The Gold Coast 

Wht T 't b " n S fty y “' S behind ^ 

cenu.rtA ;?/ ;"’" GeneraI « ™ »lre»dy nearly a 

ty ut of date. In its heyday the English Act of 1862 had been 



MINISTRY OF JUSTICE TO FLAGSTAFF HOUSE 323 

regarded as the Companies Promoters’ Charter, and it may have 
been because we still then possessed it that Dr Savundra had been 
attracted to Ghana. It was typical of the type of law which we had 
to reform before any controlled private enterprise development was 
possible. 

At the same time as Professor Gower was making his visits to 
deal 'with Company Law, we were able, thanks to the working of 
the system by which, on grounds quite immaterial to Ghana, 
developed countries got rid of able technicians, to secure as Pro- 
fessor of Law at the University and as Head of the Law School a 
scholar and practical commercial lawyer, John Lang, whose 
experience and knowledge would normally have been far beyond 
our reach. Indeed, possibly he might have occupied Professor 
Gower’s Chair if he had not been persuaded to accept, instead of an 
academic post, the position of deputy Solicitor to Imperial Chemical 
Industries. Then came a dreadful discovery. His wife had once been 
a Communist! In such circumstances, said the British Government, 
they would order no more armaments from ICI until they changed 
their deputy solicitor. When his case had been raised in the House 
of Commons, Mr Reginald Maudling, speaking for the then Con- 
servative Government, was adamant on the point at issue. A 
Committee of Privy Councillors, he explained, had pointed out: 

*. . . that in deciding these difficult and often borderline cases, it is 
right to continue the practice of tilting the balance in favour of offering 
greater protection to the security of the State rather than in the direc- 
tion of safeguarding the rights of the individual.’ 

Thus it was that two years later John Lang was established in 
Ghana as Professor of Law in the University. His appointment 
was however not made, even in Ghana, without difficulty. Hitherto 
the University College’s explanation as to why it had not established 
a law faculty was that it had been impossible to find any sufficiently 
qualified individual who could be obtained as a Professor. John 
Lang had the support of London University, with which the 
University College of Ghana of that time was in ‘special relation- 
ship’ and indeed his appointment had originally been suggested 
by Sir David Hughes Parry, a former Vice-Chancellor of London 
University and well known for his work in organizing Universities 
in Nigeria. Nevertheless, these University of Ghana academics, 



REAP THE WHIRLWIND 


who were later so strongly to defend their academic freedom, 
considered that in this case they could not make the appointment 
without first obtaining British security' clearance and it was not 
until this was granted that the appointment could be made. 

Permission was not always so easily forthcoming. In the early 
days of Independence the Public Service Commission followed a 
similar rule. We were badly in need of Veterinary officers of which 
at the time there was a surplus in Denmark, and some Danish 
veterinaries were prepared to come to Ghana. The appointment 
could not be made, not because the applicants were Communists, 
but because those in Britain who were advising the Ghana Public 
Service Commission, lacked the machinery to enable them to 
discover the past political history of Danes and presumably, on the 
John Lang analog}', of their wives, and therefore the Public Service 
Commission was advised to reject the applications in bulk. 

Ultimately, to save the scruples of the University on the question 
o appointment of persons whose background did not square with 
t eir views of political propriety', a class of Presidential Professors 
was established for whose appointment, like that to Regius Pro- 
fessorships in Britain, the Government accepted full responsibility, 
io one of these Chairs, that of Physics, Alan Nunn May was 
appointe and startled muttcrings of disapproval came from various 
T ^ j tlC i c l uartcrs an( l landed on tire desk of a Ghanaian official 
w o a always prided himself on being completely outside politics, 
iriis reaction was revealing. 

During his period at a British University he had been most 
care u to avoid joining any organization which might have any 
oca or international political tinge but, being of a religious turn 
o mm , e ad thought it safe to join a church organization which 
concerned itself with the after-care of released criminals. ‘When 
was m ngland, he said bitterly, ‘I tried to rehabilitate their 
prisoners. Now when we try to rehabilitate one of theirs, there is 
• , !1, us l s ‘ see now what the old man means about neo-colonial- 

‘nt ° > m ? n WaS Nkrumah. The phrase is an angliciza- 
. , ana > t ^ le of respect awarded to chiefs and was the 

the™ resident C ° nVerSation by civil servants and police officers for 

p tbe bav ' School, John Lang’s second-in-command was Leslie 
, a recent y arrived white South African lawyer and a former 



MINISTRY OF JUSTICE TO FLAGSTAFF HOUSE 325 

Senator. He had waited until the last moment when his Senatorship 
was about to be abolished, and then made his way abroad and he 
was typical of that class of liberal South African, who gravitated to 
Ghana to find employment there. Some were white, some coloured 
and some black. All had to choose between accepting a system which 
rejected the political and social ideas for which they stood, or 
abandoning the country of their birth. 

Their presence in Ghana was later to raise an issue which African 
Nationalism has not yet resolved and in which both my wife 
and myself were to become indirectly involved. What, in terms of 
the liberation of Africa, ought South African opponents of the 
apartheid regime to be encouraged to do? Should they stay in South 
Africa and fight it out or should they emigrate? If the question was 
only one of propaganda, then obviously it was better that those 
who could possibly remain, outside jail, should stay. A refugee 
political movement is, from its very divorcement from popular 
contact, likely to lead to faction fights and dispersion of effort. 
Because the political refugee must, in the long run, be dependent 
for funds on other Governments and organizations, based in 
countries foreign to his own, he is subjected to influences which 
lead him, if only subconsciously, to support policies favoured by 
those who give him succour and hospitality. Since the countries and 
organizations helping the refugees are unlikely to approach his home 
situation from the same angle, there is added another outside 
pressure which further stimulates the natural tendency of refugees 
to quarrel. 

From the African point of view there was however another 
argument strongly in favour of encouraging refugees. Those who 
had been so politically committed in South Africa, as to be incap- 
able of living normal lives any longer there, tend to be drawn from 
the more able and more skilled of the professional class and this 
was certainly so among potential white refugees. The skills which 
they had acquired in South Africa, whether it was in the Foreign or 
Civil Service, mining or administration of industry generally, 
public health, teaching, journalism or law, were those abilities 
most lacking in the developing African States. 

The historical example of the Huguenots is an argument in 
favour of encouraging their emigration. In all probability only 
fifty thousand Protestant families escaped from France after the 



3 zb REAP THE WHIRLWIND 

Revocation of the Edict of Nantes in 1685. Yet these were sufficient 
to establish the watch-making industries of Switzerland, to contri- 
bute, perhaps decisively, to the industrial revival of Holland and to 
set on foot that of Brandenberg. Huguenot soldiers, like Ruvigny 
and Schomberg, introduced into the training of the British and 
Dutch forces the disciplines and techniques of the armies of France 
an possi y thus payed the way for the subsequent victories of 
ar oroug . By an irony of fate, it was these same Huguenots, 
tieemg from intolerance and oppression at home, who saved the 
Ut< T . ^ tbc Cape. It was the industrial knowledge and 

specia s '1 s of two hundred Protestant French families which 
res ore prosperity to a Colony, which up till then could neither pay 
is way nor even provision adequately the forty-odd Dutch and 
oreign s ips, which at the time was the meagre annual total of 
shippmg which used the ports of the Cape. 

AfnVa S r W ™ e Value of attractin 5 to Ghana this South 

0 • H * 311 3 ter ‘'’harpeville in i960 my wife was to pioneer an 

by Which refu S ees of & colours were 
“ , C l ‘ an and 3nd airlifted over the Federation of 
transit— lin'd' ^ ^ ou ^ d bave been arrested even if only in 
total nil ml "'k-'u ^ Con S° and from there on to Ghana. The 
but ° M ™ S Sm *“-o„ly twenty-four- 

svnchrnn irl r j 1 r tL t i''Jt was, its detailed planning, with the 
tine border crn ° 1 C " a '” ItS across South Africa and of clandes- 
It gave hone tn S fh n ^ S, ‘ W ^ a demonstration of what could be done, 
waflom^, ” ‘ " , J S °" ,h AfHca ." i“ ls “d “Sored them there 

resources was ° Ut j 6 ? 0Ut ^ ^-hrica which, however meagre its 
at the time of the d lep ' Some y ears later . bei ng in England 

of the Snfereni uT ^ COnference > I went to it. In the lounge 

1 began discuss' Af - Were a S rou P °f South African refugees and 
bored “t SS* AfnCan affairs with them. They were obviously 

T ” ld **"”■»« ”d they 
are so sorrv > sJd Y ' r ! 6 later the ^ returned in a body. ‘We 
Bing’s husband.’ ^ ° them ’ * We dldn,t realize Y 011 were Mrs 

documenUve mven^H^^^ 68 WC wanted t0 com e to Accra a travel 
theory °fC°nimonwealth^itizensh^p. S Ml 0 Comrnonwealth^countties 



MINISTRY OF JUSTICE TO FLAGSTAFF HOUSE 327 

had agreed, at the time of the passing of the British Nationality Act 
of 1948, to include a Section in their own Nationality Acts giving a 
special status to citizens of the Commonwealth. When Ghana 
became Independent this practice was followed and on this authority 
passports could be issued to South African citizens. The Ghana 
Document had this letter of introduction on the inside cover: 


‘The Minister of Foreign Affairs of Ghana presents his compliments 
to all those to whom this letter shall come and has the honour to state 
that the holder, is a Commonwealth citizen by virtue of section 9 of 
the Ghana Nationality and Citizenship Act, 1957 and is entitled to all 
privileges and immunities of a British subject. The holder has indi- 
cated his desire to take up residence in Ghana and this letter is issued 
to enable him to do so. 

The Minister of Foreign Affairs of Ghana therefore requests all 
those whom it may concern to afford to the holder the status of a 
Commonwealth citizen and to allow him to pass freely without hin- 
drance and to afford him such assistance and protection as may be 
necessary.’ 

On the second page it contained, again strictly in accordance with 
the then universal Commonwealth Law, after the Document’s 
number and the name of its bearer, the statement: 


‘ Status 


Commonwealth Citizen; 
British Subject. 

COMMONWEALTH COUNTRY OF WHICH A CITIZEN 
The Union of South Africa.’ 


The document was generally honoured but not in the Rhodesian 
Federation. Sir Roy Welensky, when Dr Nkrumah raised it with 
him at a Commonwealth Prime Ministers’ Conference, made it clear 
that he considered he had the right to pick and choose which 
Commonwealth obligation he would accept or reject. Naturally the 
conditions under which the applicants could apply for the document 
were a little out of the ordinary. We had provided the Minister of 
Foreign Affairs might designate individuals who could issue the 
passport outside Ghana and an old Colonial British Civil Servant, 
for a short time Mr Russell’s successor as Chief Regional Officer in 



328 


REAP THE WHIRLWIND 


Ashanti, Mr David MacWilliam, had been sent to Salisbury to deal 
with South African applications. In view of Sir Roy’s opposition, 
his mission was fruitless. 

My wife was therefore also commissioned to issue them in any 
other territory where this was permitted. Ultimately, still in 
possession of some two dozen passports my wife ignominiously 
oun lerself, having been caught in the first mutiny of the Force 
1 ublique in Leopoldville, reduced to the status of a refugee. Her 
nope of escape lay m crossing the Congo River to Brazzaville, from 
wiose airport United States military planes were flying to Europe 
; 0S , C 0 cou d manage to escape from the Congo. Within ten 
^ a , r , S 0 tle err y gangway she was surrounded by mutinous 
vnli/T? "• 10 I sus P ect ^ her of being a Belgian and smuggling out 
a es in t e bag in which she was carrying the passports. Her 
refusal t0 understand French and the soldiers’ inability to 
t, i _ lc P‘ lss P orts g°t her through but her only method of getting 

aircraft 3na . Was ^° secure passage on a United States refugee 
aircraft evacuating Belgians to Brussels. 

c , !! S ^ mCld “ ts ' ver , e > however, the least of her troubles. For the 
e n “in airlift she had intended to use a civil aircraft, a four- 

and wat ? ak , 1 ’ Whlch had been lent b y the United Arab Republic 
o Bib,! , n I CX P enenced Syrian pilots. The plan was to !ake it 
wouldt fvTh f nd , P1Ck UP there the refugees, who meanwhile 

for the ulf ff e r C an CStmeIy assem hled. United Nations clearance 
Govern mpnf t, i° n ^° a ' r P orts had been obtained and the British 
in Bechuaml ^ a ^ rcc tbat the aircraft could land at Francistown 
meS * h ™ on the point of take-off when a cyphered 
with those* con fro, i™™ tbe wdf eless link which we maintained 
South Africa > -j® tle as f em hhng of the refugees. Conditions in 

for fouf d vs’ The d ’ neC “ d that the ^t should be delayed 
Cross stores whf V a . lr " a \ however ’ was already loaded with Red 
in the Consro dfh ^ beCn agreed h should take to UN troops 
scheduled but 1 ? r was decided that it should take off as 

cTosf on boar^r n my ^ wkh ^ ambers the Red 
dist ss sifnaT Th ^ ^ AcCra ak P ort received from it a 
airporr or s f l if* C ° uld not ° btain a from Leopoldville 
was worried (yjrn H Sa ,l ’ vT c ° ns ‘ stent navigational directions. He 

of peS nd ^ ^ He waS sbort 

• here was nothing we could do but wait, 



MINISTRY OF JUSTICE TO FLAGSTAFF HOUSE 329 

listening to his continual calls for help. His last message was that he 
was over the sea, that his fuel was exhausted and he would have to 
make a crash landing in the water. In fact he was not over the sea 
but over a broad reach of the Congo River. By chance when the 
aircraft was on the point of sinking, a river vessel came along and 
the crew and the Red Cross officials were taken aboard, though the 
aircraft was lost. 

My wife made the journey four days later in an Air Ghana two- 
engined Dakota which lacked the range of the lost aircraft and 
meant that it was necessary to refuel in both Leopoldville and 
Elizabethville in Katanga. The outward journey was made safely 
though it was the first time, apparently, that an African had piloted 
an aircraft South of the Equator. On the return journey with a full 
load of refugees, after leaving Elizabethville, my wife noticed petrol 
pouring from the tanks. As soon as the aircraft Captain saw what 
was happening he headed back to the airport but the runway was 
blocked by oil drums and trucks and it was a question of whether 
these could be cleared away in time for the aircraft to land before 
all its fuel had leaked away. In the end it got down, but it was a close 
thing. 

The Belgian Sabena staff were nonchalant about the whole 
affair. ‘Those Africans,’ they said, ‘why they forgot to fit the cap to 
the fuel tanks.’ The two incidents on top of each other, followed 
incidentally shortly afterwards by the loss of Dag Hammarskjold’s 
aircraft, raise a question as to whether all was coincidence. 

Be that as it may, in fact neither the recruitment of South African 
refugees nor the enlistment of specialists from abroad was sufficient 
to deal with Ghana's lack of technical manpower even on the legal 
side. So far as modernizing the law was concerned the problem 
could, in any event, only be undertaken if it was more broadly based. 
Effective law requires text books and specialists. These will not be 
found, for purely economic reasons, if a particular law is confined to 
one small country. It does not pay for a publisher to publish a text- 
book on, say, Ghanaian Bankruptcy Law or for a lawyer to specialize 
in it. On the other hand, the principles of a bankruptcy lav/ worked 
out for Ghana would make it suitable, with small modifications for 
other African states and territories with, a British legal system. The 
legal uniformity over large areas upon which textbooks and 
specialists depend could have been secured in the past. There was 



33 ° 


REAP THE WHIRLWIND 


no reason technically why this uniformity had not been achieved in 
Colonial days, and, after British African Colonies became inde- 
pendent, there was nothing to prevent their each adopting similar 
laws, except for the fact that there was no central Commonwealth 
organization to prepare them and organized conferences to agree 
to them and to secure uniformity of practice. During Air Alac- 
millan s wind of change’ visit to Africa, Dr Nkrumah put up to him 
this idea. There was some exchange of correspondence about it and 
I once saw Mr Alacmillan on it in London, but nothing effective in 
the end was ever done. 

So it was indeed, it seemed, with every project on which Common- 
wealth co-operation was possible. The failure to co-operate so far as 
1 f "'" , i as concerned was of no great importance. The different forms 
o Colonial legislation which the newly independent African States 
o the Commonwealth had inherited, were, through their ineffi- 
ciency, slowness and uncertainty, of course, a clog on industriali- 
zation and an invisible surcharge on ever}' commercial transaction. 

et 1 \\ e had been able, through a Commonwealth scheme, to 
devise the best legal system in the world, we should only have been 
scratc nng at the surface of those underlying problems to which 
cooperation between developed and developing countries should 
first have been directed. The more one devoted oneself to legal 
retorm the more irrelevant it seemed. 

For example, I think it might be shown that the Ghanaian 
Interpretauon Act was by far in advance of anything in Britain, the 

."nr’ the Cornmomv ealth or in countries which have a 
so-called common law system. My claim to any credit for its 
composition is small. I knew precisely what I wanted. I had deter- 
° n f the 8 eneraI hnes and priorities of law reform, but the 
W, '7 r j DeW a "' S ’ a . hl S hl y specialized task, was outside my field, 
and'm act T t0 ^ ccrn com petent experts from abroad 

work wh'TV 7 ^ lanaian rec ruits to this exacting branch of legal 

Mined t Vi "T b u'“ “P™ t0 lh “” P">P' rl >' 

influence T L j ana ai ?^ I was able to use what political 

similnr tp 1 , 3 - 'i" seem S t l lat this Interpretation Act and many other 
r u S r r^ 1Ca T SUreS Wereena «ed. There can, I think, be no 
existed hirhe't ^ succee ^ e< l l 11 producing the best basis which 
lezislarinn TT ° m c< ? mmon l aw countries for the interpretation of 
egislation. Unquestionably it was immeasurably ahead of the 



332 REAP THE WHIRLWIND 

Subjectively, Western thought shrinks from considering the 
a ternatn e consequences to mankind which would flow from the 
banning of the malign explosions. 

In a less politically oriented journal, Punch, I tried to answer this 
and similar arguments by putting the case, of which by 1061, 1 had 
ecome convinced. All my experience as Attorney General in 
‘ ■ , Cmp in = 1ITUted reform along conventional lines, seemed to me 
ither premature or valueless. If individuals from developed 

rnnlV^V'T 0 j° °f an y service in the less developed world, it 

■ -r 0 ^ , e ? ne by their challenging accepted basic political, 

j i C f n , SOC1 j theories which pre-supposed the existence of a 

het-\wJ )C >i, an r 3 de ^ e °P\ n £ world, doomed for ever to be divided 

m t i • , e T C "' r . 1C1 nat ‘ons and the many poor ones. The argu- 

this fnrn! C if trlC * c? h Ut * n rc Piy to Mr Killick, ran something in 

Domilnti'n A 7 Car ! countr y> hke Ghana, cannot support the 

that the ind' f C - \ ev ® °P ed country like Britain can, the reason is 

it did not df rev ° lu t tlon in the West eliminated the horse but 
it did not do away with the cow. 

appliecTto tit'' 12 ' Progress produced a revolution of power 
vested landed ? ^ an . manu facture but, perhaps in deference to 
form Revolnf' ln C - reStS ’ ir eft a griculture essentially in its neolithic 
as Areas'! Productive capacity has been defined 

So far as minnftV * r j efo d dur * n g the life span of an individual, 
the West in the it * C . ^ oods are concerned, this was done in 
century and is n and hrst half of the nineteenth 

history of man P l° bab J ^ done a S ain today. It has never in the 
scieS has been Tn 1 °^ “ the ' aase of Culture, In so far as 
true have been C t0 a g r i cu hure, two ears of corn, it is 
possibly at the £ F™ W ^? ere one grew before, though 

has been no am-i P i nse ,° Pdle nutritive value of the flour, but there 
been an indusS ltural revolution in the sense in which there has 
become a mythical atside f h e racecourse the horse has now 
measurement of the nT 1 Wh ? S - C Pormer prowess is today the unit of 
us, still performing ^u Wer ° btS su Pplanter but the cow is still with 
Stone Age. ° 6 Same econom ic function as it did in the 

to ^eat S grass alld sbce man first employed the cow 

cheese fhe protebS P “? 4l bad ‘ W Hm 38 meat > milk; butter and 
protein he could not otherwise extract. In hese far off 



MINISTRY OF JUSTICE TO FLAFSTAFF HOUSE 333 

days the conversion factor of the cow was, so far as science can 
calculate it, just over 5 per cent. Today the most cosseted and well- 
fed cow has a conversion factor of around 15 per cent and the 
animal is still limited to its ancient narrow range of diet. The Stone 
Age cow wasted from man’s point of view 95 per cent of its protein 
intake. The cow of this supersonic age wastes 85 per cent. Such is 
a measure of the agricultural lag in the last nine thousand years. 
Yet there is no reason why it is not possible mechanically and 
chemically to eliminate the cow as well as the horse. The production 
of protein direct from leaf is already scientifically possible and to do 
it on an industrial scale, thus producing an agricultural revolution 
capable of feeding all the mouths humanity could produce would be 
no more expensive nor require more scientific skill than a journey 
to the moon. 

Why is the one attempted and not the other? May it not be that 
there is a barrier in men’s minds in the developed countries pro- 
duced by the very prosperity they have attained which forces 
research into the trivial? Faced with the problem of a globe three- 
quarters of whose inhabitants are growing poorer and poorer and 
one-quarter richer and richer, scientific energy seems concentrated 
on escaping from its surface into space rather than looking at that 
surface and determining how it could be adapted better to support 
its inhabitants. Decadence implies turning one’s back on progress, 
refusing any longer to interrogate nature or to continue the process 
by which man, step by step, has conquered his environment. 
Nowhere in the West is there this trend. Nature is challenged more 
and more daringly but, if looked at from an undeveloped continent, 
more and more pointlessly. It is not the energy that is lacking. It is 
the insight to direct it where it is needed. In material things the less 
developed world cannot compete with the developed but it can 
provide by its challenge to existing values the stimulus to direct 
world energy into new channels and at least compel us to ask 
ourselves whether science and progress have not broken adrift from 
their moorings to humanity. 

It was because I had begun to think like this by 1961 that I 
wanted to be rid of law and the duties of administering a depart- 
ment. Ghana, I thought then, was a country that, with all its short- 
comings, was one in which at least the ability and will to challenge 
existing values existed. It seemed to me Ghana was somewhere 



l!l \1> ‘ 1 II}. Vi Illr.t.V !ND 

n ,! 1 ;! 0 ? ^,r sU,lc V’. pruu,kc a fcimcw of ideas restrained by 
V° ° t ’ lui , ' lrrKr: ’- 1 be real objectives to work fur, it seemed to 
(.riil.-lV!’ '.V! ' l - IKU y‘l UCiIU, n.ii .system and at the top institutions 
niL'iiMHi*" nr C ' 11011 " Uck c<ndd *' c forcing ground for a funda- 
... ‘ * u truu . a PP ruJc1 ' t«> the problems of mankind. Talking 

tou ink* 1 “r "** !• ?. r * N 'l- ruill 'l 1 , 1 said that 1 hoped to work 
the Pr< ; l' 1 , 'I’ °.! 1 sort * u 'd he suggested J might take one of 

1, d V at the University. ' 

sav for tlir”- 1113 ’ “ UC ' u]ctl tu smc it,r ,MO normal tours, that is to 
to* deil ubh W" ; \T lK K C ’^l 1 had stayed on in the post 
out of ii l '| L ^ pul)llcan (■•‘institution and the matters arising 

<luil . wrl > *« September, vhen I 
and ] hid ts^'^*! ° r lour ) CJr!>> lasers thing had been arranged 
annronriio. I "r'l 3M C ' )nsU . tUliolul ljs} '. *c»t to the President an 
my 0 flj cc ra 1 utcr iur ^‘ ,n 10 send back to me, relies ing me of 

to stay on °for ^ I ^ I ' str '^' c and * ls aftermath, once again I was asked 
month that the p ^ i° r M> ?! ld so 11 " Ji not until' the end of the 
Mmc time , * '7 tUkI n,c hc send off to me at the 

the fair copy of theTeUer f 1 , d, . a " sc \ lo <)thcr Cabinet Ministers, 
agreed 1 lud P ra, °usly drafted. I should, we 

suggested adding to 17"'’ •' S ud becn planned, and Dr.N’krumah 
appointed J SuU? ToT* of >* retirement that 1 was being 
nothing to do with" he u ro . fcs:>0 . r - 1 llou gh these appointments had 
more tactful if he ‘ Umvc«.uy, I thought it might at least be 
I thought w as a 1TZ ^ ,n . ad ™« md so agreed on what 

‘asked to remain in G1 nu>mnm,a l phrase, namely, that 1 had been 
remain m Ghana to carry out certain assignments’. 

papers, Vndmv C mhem° Ut my ° W cncmics .» thc Beaverbrook news- 
On thc front p a <r C of " 7 co, ! vcrtcti Int0 a one-day sensation, 
spread : P ° f thc Slwd V Ex P r ™ there w as a seven-column 

A ‘ for tough talking 

kkrumaii sensation 

HE SACKS DING, Q.C. 

“t keeps him in Ghana for special tasks.' 

On thc eve of thc visit to Ghana by Mr Duncan Sandys, the Com- 



MINISTRY OF JUSTICE TO FLAGSTAFF HOUSE 335 

monwealth Relations Minister,’ explained the Sunday Express political 
correspondent, ‘President Nkrumah caused a sensation yesterday by 
sacking Mr Geoffrey Bing, Q.c. — former Left-wing Labour m.p. — 
from the post of Ghana’s Attorney-General. . . . 

In London the news caused widespread speculation; especially so as it 
comes at a time when the Queen’s visit to Ghana, due to take place in 
six weeks, is in the balance, and when Mr Sandys is to try to heal the 
widening breach between Britain and Ghana. . . . For Mr Bing’s role 
in Ghana has won him no acclaim in Whitehall or Westminster. . . . 
He is believed to have been chiefly responsible for devising Ghana’s 
Republican Constitution which gives President Nkrumah almost dic- 
tatorial powers. . . .’ 

and naturally there were many more paragraphs to this same 
effect. 

By this time I was hardened to it. I moved out of the Attorney- 
General’s office and settled into an office at Flagstaff House, the 
former residence of the British General commanding in West 
Africa, but where the President lived and worked. The two rooms 
where I established myself were in a one-storey temporary building, 
among the cluster of other similar hutments, outside the main 
compound area of Flagstaff House. 

This overcrowded agglomeration of temporary buildings grouped 
in the grounds of a post-war colonial bungalow has subsequently 
come to be represented as a mysterious fortified centre of intrigue, 
policed by security officers from the USSR. To Dr Schatten, 
Flagstaff House was ‘a Colonial Fort’ where ‘a President too 
scared to appear among his people for months on end’ was ‘forced 
to live cooped up’ behind a presidential guard armed to the teeth 
with every modem weapon. Unfortunately, so far as Dr Nkrumah’s 
Government w'as concerned, Flagstaff House was not so well 
protected as this. 

So many people have subsequently testified to seeing the Russian 
guards that I feel like the odd man out at the party who always 
missed the ‘flying saucers’. My only consolation is that my secretary, 
Miss Margaret MacDougall, a Wren Officer from the last war and a 
Colonial Civil Servant of many years standing, failed also to notice 
them. The Presidential guard, which the mutineers defeated only 
after a considerable period of fighting, was no Praetorian force but 



336 REAP the whirlwind 

training 2 Household ^00^ ^ .J rivilegeS 3n< ! 
guards for British nil , * roo P s who provide ceremonial 

Led, „o by tp S ““ P “ b !! C buM "S s ' * W been ins.i- 
British Commande/of tife Ghaim Army ^ 

“S’ ” Gh “ a >’ he "™“ '» b« book African 

4 Z\! X G ““ d "»*■* w bose main 

reliefs simpler and f™, ,1 , SC and Vlsitlng Vlp s. It made Congo 
service.’ ' n 3 bome f° r °ld soldiers unfit for active 


the circumstances 1 ' oftfT aWe mamtain so strong a resistance in 
February ° n Flagstaff House on the a 4 th 

matically with the rebel c A m- y means aP the army sided auto- 
F ort’ or a stronghold with le ,?' F agstaff House was not a ‘Colonial 
around the u..:,n h Wel1 Signed defences. There was a wall 


Fort’ or a stronghold with JTj Flagstaff House was not a ‘Col — 
around the main buildino- th f S - gned defences. There was a wal 
for example, surrounds die * W f £ 0t S ° high as that which 
outer perimeter defence so ® de ” s of Buckingham Palace. Th> 
surmounted by ornament 1 s .P ea k> consisted of a waist-high wal 
small boys but not Quite th tf” ' ngS> an Active protection agains 
capture of this supposed^^dif 16 ’ W A cb tbe ^b^’s account of theii 
The London S If ' ” B5 ' „ . 

reported an account of Flagstaff u Februa ^ x 9 6 6 in all seriousness 
the subsequent propaganda ° USe wbldl * s typical of much ol 


un- 


‘There 

stocked with rnore°amlr SSaSeS ™ nnin S for some miles. These a: 
Ghana Army and with fn ** * 3 ° tbat P ossesse d by the who! 
booo security Jn ln J for something like six months for ' 

known number of Russians^ndChfneE^ Hous ^- in cIuding an 

Nkrumah’s day" 11615 ° r the Ilke were built at Flagstaff House in I 
No doubt because of rh 

did not ahv ays advertise in ad van ° n his life Dr Nkruma 

«nd because of his devotion to f ^ WS Ieaving the build in 
P er baps, than many other Spent longer at his desl 

egree of social S e C i us io n would h „° f state - Had I known that hi 
could easily have kept a log- sin C< f- me 3 matter °f general conceri 
P tog, since from the window of my office 



MINISTRY OF JUSTICE TO FLAGSTAFF HOUSE 337 

could see his car entering or leaving. My impression is that he went 
out during office hours, perhaps seven or eight times in a week but I 
confess I have kept no statistics. As always with a head of state there 
were difficulties in his making informal visits and I have no standard 
of comparison to say whether he moved more or less freely than any 
other President. V hat I do know is that he never accepted seclusion. 
Even at the time of greater tension I used to occasionally bathe with 
him and other friends some ten miles out of Accra at a little public 
beach without so far as I could see any abnormal security precautions. 

At the opening of the Volta Hydro-Electric Station, less than a 
month before the coup, when for the first time the power was 
switched on so as to illuminate the dam and the lighting on the hank 
of the river switched off to emphasize the contrast, he walked in the 
semi-dark through the vast crowd greeting those whom he could 
distinguish in the half-light and was quite unguarded. 

When Dr Nkrumah married, my wife came to know Madame 
Nkrumah and, for a year or so, used to visit her nearly every day in 
order to help her with her English. When Dr Nkrumah and I would 
be away my wife would more often than not stay with her. These 
were the days when Dr Nkrumah was Prime Minister and I was 
Attorney General and Lord Listowel, the Governor-General, was 
living temporarily at Flagstaff House, a residence incidentally which 
we were told by experts on British protocol, was far too small and 
undignified to be the permanent home of the Queen’s Representa- 
tive and it was for this reason that the first enlargements to State 
House were made. Dr Nkrumah was at this time living in a small 
flat which occupied one half of the top storey of Christiansborg 
Castle. This fort which had been built by the Danes m the eighteenth 
century had been, until independence, the Governor’s official 
residence. Under Dr Nkrumah it was converted from a minor 
palace into a practical working centre and had to be hastily recon- 
verted when it was used as the Residence of the Queen when she 
visited Ghana in November 1961. 

At this time Dr Nkrumah’s quarters consisted of a hving- room 

opening onto a balcony overlooking the sea on one side with another 

larger balcony overlooking the courtyard which was Used 33 a 
second living-room. Leading off the main room on one side was the 
main bedroom and bathroom and on the 1 other side two guest 
bedrooms with a shared bathroom and one other small roo m which 



33^ REAP THE WHIRLWIND 

roomT\vJ' S k™ m ^ 1 , had dad ma de into a kitchen. The main living- 

dri k n C ° onial da y s > 1 had had on occasion an informal 

and the hill' a ovemor > were now only used for official receptions 
and the bilhard r ° om was turned int0 offices 

music hnnl? a ^ 1V - ed “ mforta bLv but simply. He liked good 
enjoyed wh ’ OCCasiona hy hints and, contrary to his usual taste, 
r 6 T the Beatles> «cord ‘It’s a Hard 
and when w S wou d cad * n at the castle without ceremony 

or o"the eLhr re ^ ^ W ° Uld ““ ° f US Sk taMn & ° n the ^ 

Se battlemen ts so as to watch the sea and 

princbTe ^ He had n ° ob i ection whatever to drink in 
Invariablv he \ S °!V '? pracdce that he was almost a teetotaller. 

gU6StS ad vice on what to drink, 
after tastine- if ^ anous suggestions before ordering and then 
nonnall r leave it unfinished. He played tennis 

when we went out done >° mS t0 leam t0 drive but never did > and 

duty he was crav t h L ^ W3S m y w ^ e w h° would drive us. Off 
y ne was gay and completely unaffected. 

Flagstaff HouseThouffh 1 ] 16 be carried with him, so far as I know, to 
If however officials and thJ h ™ S0C1 . all y much more seldom there, 
the long lunch break h ^ , S f cretaries were working late or over 
together at a 2 ble L tuo hX? SOm f a ^ ^ggest that we all ate 
Head of State Droir>™l a T eranda °h his office. There was no 

invariably served any 

ministry and that ’if nmr ° senior . CIvd se rvant, did not visit any 
concerned must come bad t0 ta ke place, the officials 

be asked to take action in 1S ° ffice ' the Attorney General was to 
the letter of request wac an ^ matter > standing orders provided that 
personally by the Perman ° c I ° nored h it had not been signed 

”• In .hf iaiSS 1 ?' Minist ^ 

prevailed and the atmncnt, a o st aff House, no such nonsense 
chambers in England nm^i " ^ rat her like that of a barrister’s 
informally and everyone talked dr0pped ln . on each other quite 
any one of us might have ° Ver 3n ^ difficult piece of work 

s concerned, directly or indirectly, on a wide variety of 



MINISTRY OF JUSTICE TO FLAGSTAFF HOUSE 339 

matters but all these questions were dealt with, not by one ‘Adviser’ 
but by an ad hoc group composed generally of Ministers and 
officials. Someone would produce a draft paper which we would all 
first discuss informally. In important matters the document might 
then be cyclostyled and circulated to all ministries and others who 
might be concerned. If the matter concerned External Affairs, the 
Ghana Mission at the United Nations and the High Commissioners 
or Ambassadors in the countries which might be affected were 
almost always consulted. 

During my time at Flagstaff House I worked on a wide range of 
subjects but not on law, except in one or two special cases. I was a 
member of the mixed police and legal committee which inquired 
into the terrorist bomb outrages in Accra. I investigated some of 
Ako Adjei’s financial dealings which had aroused suspicion and I, in 
practice, had charge of an extradition case in which a man was 
accused of conspiracy with a minister to defraud the Government 
of some £2 million and had allegedly taken refuge abroad. Generally 
speaking however I was concerned with civil service reorganization, 
methods of preventing corruption, international questions at the 
United Nations and the Commonwealth Prime Ministers’ Confer- 
ence, in particular over Southern Rhodesia. I was closely concerned 
with various negotiations over cocoa and with the ‘World Without 
the Bomb’ Conference which was held in Accra in June, 1962 . 1 was 
also concerned with the reform of Ghana’s educational system. This 
last subject, which perhaps occupied the least of my time, was in 
my view, by far the most important issue with which I was con- 
nected. 



CHAPTER TEN 


EDUCATION 


I never in fact went to the University and, as things turned out, 
never was able to influence much what I believed then, and still 
believe, was and will be, in Ghana and in other developing countries 
the key issue. How can one begin to build an educational system 
which is tuned to the needs of the country and which, for this very 
reason, must be something other than a copy of any educational 
system as it now exists in any developed country ? 

In its broadest sense education consists of passing on and aug- 
menting the knowledge which enables man to conquer his environ- 
ment. The student’s mind must be so trained that he will for ever 
after question, in accordance with scientific principles, the world in 
which he lives. In short, education is the art of learning how to 
interrogate nature. This was the attitude to learning developed in, 
among other places, the Land Grant Colleges of the United States 
from the third quarter of the nineteenth century onwards. It was 
these colleges which, I used to argue, Ghana should have taken as 
the prototype of the top of its educational pyramid and should have 
adapted to Ghanaian conditions. 

The universities in any country control educational policy 
generally. The syllabus of the secondary school is designed to fit 
their entrance requirements. Primary education is geared to provide 
an intake to the secondary schools and which will have already given 
the pupil the grounding which will enable him to pursue a course of 
studies designed ultimately to lead to entry into the University. In 
Ghana, the fact that only a tiny fraction of the children entering 
primary schools were likely to go to a university did not affect this 
general tendency to orient the whole system of education to ultimate 
university requirements. To affect educational reform, it seemed to 
me therefore necessary to begin with a university system which was 
itself designed to provide for the needs of the country'. 

As things were in Ghana this meant one had at the start to 
challenge the principle of the English university in the form in 


34 ° 



EDUCATION 


341 

which it had been imported into the Colonies and, indeed, in the 
form in which in the previous century it had been imported into 
India. During the heyday of imperialism it had come to be thought 
in England that education’s most important function was not that 
of teaching how the world might be improved, but of instructing 
men how to rule men, and in teaching its corollary that the majority 
of mankind should, as part of the natural order of things, submit to 
the rule of the minority. 

Originally the English Public Schools had been seen as the ideal 
training ground for the Indian, and later, the Colonial administrator. 
As the Clarendon Commission said of them in 1864, they were ‘the 
chief nursery of our statesmen’. Haileybury College had been 
founded by the East India Company in 1809 to educate their civil 
servants and the virtues they instilled had at first seemed sufficient 
equipment for the Colonial administrator. Schools were developed 
to meet the need for an enlarged ruling class and were designed to 
educate, on a basis of equality, the representatives of the old landed 
families and the children of the self-made men of the industrial 
revolution. Rugby, as reformed by Dr Thomas Arnold who was 
appointed its headmaster in 1828, was the prototype. ‘It is not 
necessary,’ wrote Arnold, ‘that this should be a school for three 
hundred or even one hundred boys, but it is necessary that it should 
be a school of Christian gentlemen.’ But what was the curriculum 
which would train boys for this profession? 

As a textbook for teaching how to be a gentleman, the Bible is a 
very imperfect instrument. The boy destined to become a Colonial 
Governor might learn what not to do and what type of Indirect 
Ruler to avoid by studying the career of Pontius Pilate or Herod 
Antipas, but where in the Scriptures was the prototype of the good 
Colonial Governor or even the good Indirect Ruler? It might be 
possible to conceal from the boys that a great part of the Bible 
consists of denunciations of the propertied class and calls for revolt 
against Colonial overlords. It might be possible not to over- 
emphasize that the right to overthrow by force tyrannical rulers is 
the main message of the prophets. All this might be contrived but it 
still remained impossible to construct from the Bible a coherent 
code of conduct for the Christian gentlemen of Victorian England. 
Yet the social structure of English society and the fact that Britain 
possessed a large Colonial Empire made it necessary to teach, to 



342 REAP THE WHIRLWIND 

justify the thesis of Colonial rule, that there were certain persons 
born to rule and certain persons born to be ruled, that gentlemen 
owed obligations to each other which they did not necessarily owe 
to those who were not gentlemen, that loyalty to one’s fellow 
gentlemen was the highest virtue and ‘letting the side down’ the 
worst of crimes. 

As late as the last decade of the nineteenth century, an English 
poet had explained that even simple education at a minor Public 
School, like Clifton College, was sufficient to enable the public 
schoolboy to deal with the type of problem which arose on Colonial 
expeditions. 

‘The sand of the desert is sodden red, 

Red with the wreck of a square that broke; 

The gatling’s jammed and the colonel dead, 

And the regiment blind with dust and smoke. 

The river of death has brimmed its banks 
And England’s far and honour a name, 

But the voice of a schoolboy rallies the ranks; 

‘Play up! play up! and play the game!’ 

But what was the meaning of this invocation which was so much 
more powerful than any counter-spell which the schoolboy’s 
opponents could call to their assistance? An uninformed African 
reader of Sir Henry Newbolt’s poem might think he had in mind 
cricket, and be puzzled, not appreciating what was a commonplace 
of England of the day, the mystique of Muscular Christianity. 
This was the original colonial ideology and it united die missionary 
explorer like Livingstone and the soldier administrator like Lugard; 
and provided the moral justification for the annexation and Euro- 
pean pacification of the African continent. It inspired men, who at 
home were regarded as pioneers of Socialism, to preach a romantic 
imperialism abroad. 

The young Cecil Rhodes first based his ideology of Colonialism 
on Jo n Ruskin but he soon found a sounder and more scientific 
bas is Ihe Trekbocrs who had crossed the Vaal to found the 
Republic of the Transvaal, had carried the Bible in their saddlebags. 

*T n , eci Rhodes crossed the Limpopo to found Rhodesia, he 
came in his, Aristotle s Politics and the Musings of that gentle 



EDUCATION 


343 

neo-platonist, Marcus Aurelius, the most consistent persecutor of 
Christians among the Roman Emperors. 

This change in standard ideological reference books was a tribute 
to the scientific theories of imperialism pioneered in Oxford and 
later at Cambridge from the second half of the nineteenth century 
onwards and based on Graeco-Roman political philosophy and 
particularly on the political science of Plato, Aristotle, and their 
disciples. History had perhaps always been taught, not as the story 
of the means man has used progressively to conquer nature but as 
the chronicle of the varying devices employed by him, from time to 
time, in the science of ruling. However, from the reform of the British 
civil service in the second half of the nineteenth century, the teaching 
of a philosophy of rule based on history of this type and classical 
philosophy of rule became linked with the actual recruitment of the 
Colonial and Home civil service. 

Benjamin Jowett, the famous nineteenth-century Master of 
Balliol College, Oxford, had taken a practical part in the reform of 
the Indian civil service and in framing the system of competitive 
examinations for entry into the British civil service which followed 
upon the Indian reforms. It was no coincidence that he was also the 
rediscoverer and popularizer of Plato’s political philosophy. While 
theoretically the examination system started under the Northcote- 
Trevelyan Reforms of mid-nineteenth century opened a civil 
service career to all the talents, in practice its effect was to limit 
entry almost entirely to the products of Oxford and Cambridge and 
particularly those who had studied either classics or conventional 
history. 

So successful was this policy of recruiting a largely class elite 
under the guise of competitive examination that the Economist 
reported in 1961 that though in theory, ‘the inner circle that keeps 
vestal watch over the whole homogeneity of the ruling classes and 
their policies is recruited by competitive examination’ by the Civil 
Service Commission nevertheless: 

‘the people they end up with are pretty much of a type. It has not 
changed all that remarkably since the Northcote-Trevelyan days; 
certainly it has not changed since before the war. Between 1925 and 
1937 Oxford and Cambridge produced 78 per cent of the successes in 
the administrative class examinations. Between 1948 and i960 they 



REAP THE WHIRLWIND 


344 

have produced So per cent. A similar proportion of the success — the 
trend is actually increasing — comes from the upper-middle or com- 
fortably middle-class homes. While the working class is keeping up its 
small entry into top Whitehall, the lower-middle class is actually being 
squeezed out. Perhaps, inevitably, most of the successful candidates 
prove to have read history or classics; even the economists and PPE 
men, who might be thought to have acquired some vocational training, 
are a dwindling race.’ 

Plato in his two great works, The Republic and The Lams, had 
argued that the ideal political regime was one where the inhabitants 
were divided into three rigidly defined classes, each with different 
obligations and thus a different education. There were first the 
rulers, a highly educated but numerically limited class who devoted 
themselves to the welfare of the state occupying the top positions in 
its administration and armed forces and directing its politics. 
Below this class were the administrators; their modern equivalents 
being the police and the other ranks of the army — the nco’s in 
particular — together with what is known in Britain as the ‘executive 
class’ in the civil service. On the lowest level were the producers 
who, at least in Aristotle’s view, should have all been slaves but 
who in practice at the time contained a class of free craftsmen and 
technicians of various sorts. However, both to Plato and to Aristotle, 
it was contrary to the very idea of freedom that free men should be 
engaged in such lowly occupations. Plato’s form of ‘democracy’ 
fitted admirably into the philosophic theory of Colonial rule which 
had already been developed in the eighteenth century. 

Scientific British Colonialism can be said to have begun with 
Edmund Burke. He had declared at the impeachment of Warren 
Hastings, ‘If we undertake to govern the inhabitants of India we 
must govern them upon their own principles and maxims and not 
upon ours. We must not think to force them into the narrow circle 
of our ideas; we must extend ours to take in their system of opinions 
and rites . . .’ Here was, perhaps, the first theoretical British 
statement of the principals of Indirect Rule. The logical applica- 
tion of his theory of ‘natural law’ led also to a belief in a 
preordained elite, a ruling class whose authority derived, not from 
social or economic status, but from immutable divine authority. 

We are all born,’ he had written, ‘in subjection — all born equally, high 



EDUCATION 


345 

or low, governors and governed, in subjection to one great, immutable, 
pre-existing law, prior to all our contrivances, paramount to all our 
ideas and all our sensations, antecedent to our very existence, by 
which we are knit and connected in the eternal frame of the universe, 
out of which we cannot stir.’ 

This belief in natural law, the conception that what already 
existed was justified because, to exist at all, it must have been 
ordained by some supernatural authority, was a philosophy which 
could be used to justify colonialism far more satisfactorily than 
philanthropy and commercial expediency. In the second half of the 
nineteenth century Burke’s general proposition was developed in 
Oxford into an ideology of an elite born to rule the world. 

The practical value of this new Oxford teaching was understood, 
as has been pointed out, at least by the greatest and most consistent 
of colonialists. Cecil Rhodes was a man who believed that every- 
thing could be done by money and conspiracy. He was determined 
that when he died his wealth should be devoted to maintaining the 
British Empire by these means. In 1888, writing to the lawyers 
engaged on drafting his Will he said, ‘Take Constitution Jesuits, if 
obtainable, and insert English Empire for Roman Catholic religion.’ 
By 1901, when he came to make his final draft and establish the 
Rhodes Scholarships he had become convinced that Oxford edu- 
cation, in the form in which it had then developed, would provide 
everything which could have been obtained by copying the Society 
of Jesus. Oxford’s new approach to the problems of power on a 
platonic basis fascinated him and it is significant that the qualities 
which he laid down in his Will, as necessary for Rhodes Scholars, 
are exactly the same qualities which Plato had declared must be 
possessed by ‘the rulers’. 

Indeed, from the second half of the nineteenth century onwards 
Christianity became more and more relegated to the formal aspect 
of education and the classics were refurbished in order to provide 
an ideological basis for the gentlemen’s code. Dame Margery Perham, 
it is true, in her biography of Lord Lugard, has pointed out that 
Indirect Rule was not a British invention but had many ancient 
justifications, some noticed in the New Testament. As she said, any 
intelligent conqueror, however self-interested, who had come from 
a country with a reasonably high standard of order, would hesitate 



346 reap the whirlwind 

to destroy the structure of the subjected society unless he had some 
overriding reason for such action and the means to carry it through. 
‘Rome, as Tacitus said, making even kings the instrument of its 
rule, was the most famous empire to adopt this expedient,’ she 
explained in regard to Indirect Rule, adding ‘and the story of the 
three trials and sentence of Jesus Christ is a familiar example of its 
working.’ 

This no doubt was true. On the other hand it was difficult to 
escape the climate of disapproval with which this type of govern- 
ment was clouded in the Scriptures. For Indirect Rule the Bible was 
a hesitant and uncertain guide. Plato who believed that the university 
should not, primarily, be a place for the training of teachers or of 
priests but should, above all, be an institution where men learnt the 
art of ruling men, seemed to be the better mentor. In the hard school 
for teaching the management of colonial peoples in the early 
twentieth century, Christianity offered too many hostages to 
fortune. 

Yet this change of ideologies had one fatal defect. The missionaries 
who knew that Jesus had been apprenticed as a carpenter, saw 
nothing incongruous in teaching the constructional and mechanical 
techniques or in honouring those who practised them successfully. 
Now through education itself, a distrust of education which always, 
perhaps, existed in some British army and civil service circles, was 
immensely strengthened and a similar distrust of the technician 
and the professional man was passed on to the Colonial Service and 
from them to the new African elite. 

Lord Lugard believed soldiers to be the best administrators but 
he intensely disliked those among them who plied a mechanical 
trade. Commenting on some technical proposals for a survey of 
Northern Nigeria he wrote of the officer of the Royal Engineers in 
charge: 

He seems to think that God made the R.E. first, and then, if not with 

their approval, made the rest of the world. I am therefore of poorer 

clay. . . .’ 

Sir Gordon Guggisberg, an r.e. then also serving in Northern 
Nigeria, was refused transfer to the Administrative grade of the 
Colonial Service. ‘Your application,’ he was told in 1912/ has been 
noted in the Colonial Office and will be considered with those of 



EDUCATION 


347 

other candidates on the occurrence of suitable vacancies’. In fact no 
‘suitable vacancy’ occurred for seven years, until indeed Lord 
Milner, the Colonial Secretary personally appointed him to the 
Gold Coast Governorship. Even in his case the Colonial Office had 
their revenge. When broken in health Guggisberg retired from the 
Governorship of British Guiana and came back to Britain to die, he 
was refused a pension. He had not been long enough in the ‘Adminis- 
trative Service’ to qualify. There was too little money in his estate 
even to pay for a tombstone and the grave of one of the greatest 
British Colonial administrators would be today unmarked but for 
the raising of a fund by the chiefs and people of the Gold Coast 
who alone remembered him and provided him with a fitting 
memorial. Such examples as this naturally reinforced the already 
existing tendency for those intending to enter the Colonial Civil 
Service or later the Ghana Public Service, to shun professional and 
technical qualifications and to opt for the more acceptable classical 
or historical education. 

In 1964 Sir Eric Ashby, the distinguished botanist and Master of 
Clare College, Cambridge, and who had been for twelve years 
Chairman of the ‘Ashby Committee’ on higher education in 
Nigeria, delivered the Godkin Lectures at Harvard University. His 
subject was ‘African Universities and the Western Tradition’. He 
called attention to the progressive line adopted by the Colonial 
Office Committee of 1925 in their Report, Educational Policy in 
British Tropical Africa. ‘Education,’ he noted they had said, ‘should 
be adapted to the mentality, aptitude, occupation and traditions of 
the various peoples, conserving as far as possible all sound and 
healthy elements in the fabric of their social life’ ; but he pointed out 
‘that a generation after this principle was announced there is no 
record that it had been generally adopted’. 

This Report had been produced not by products of the Civil 
Service examination system in the Colonial Office but by a Com- 
mittee, in Colonial Office terms, of progressive and even anti- 
establishment figures who included Lord Lugard, James Currie, a 
Director of Education from the Sudan, Michael Sadler who had 
headed the Calcutta University Commission, Hanns Vischer who 
had designed the educational system of Northern Nigeria, and J. H. 
Oldham, one of the most forward-looking of missionaries. 

Lord Lugard was certainly disappointed that there was not more 



348 REAP THE WHIRLWIND 

general recognition of the importance of his Committee’s document. 
‘A future generation,’ he wrote, ‘may look back with amazement at 
the comparative apathy of the British people today in a matter so 
momentous and may regard this little-noticed White Paper as one of 
the principal landmarks of Imperial policy of the twentieth century.’ 
In one way it was. It expresses perfectly the imperial dilemma over 
African education. Despite its progressive approach it is shot 
through with pessimism as to the possibility of any colonial edu- 
cation at all. The real difficulty', say its writers, ‘lies in importing any 
kind of education which has not a disintegrating and unsettling 
effect on the people of the country’. 

Education was only safe if it somehow bolstered up a belief in the 
old order through which Indirect Rule was conducted. ‘Education,’ 
it states, ‘should strengthen the feeling of responsibility to the tribal 
community . , . since contact with civilization — and even education 
itself — must necessarily tend to weaken tribal authority and the 
sanction of existing beliefs, and in view of the all-prevailing belief 
in the supernatural, which affects the whole life of the African, it is 
essential that what is good in the old beliefs and sanctions should be 
strengthened and what is defective should be replaced. The greatest 
importance must therefore be attached to religious teaching and 
moral instruction. Both in schools and in trainingcolleges they should 
be accorded an equal standing with secular subjects. Such teaching 
must be related to the conditions of life and daily experience of the 
pupils. It should find expression in habits of self-discipline and 
loyalty to the community. With such safeguards contact with 
civilization may not be injurious, or the introduction of new religious 
ideas have a disruptive influence antagonistic to constituted secular 
authority.’ 

The wheel had gone the full circle since Arnold’s day. The 
teaching of Christianity had become only permissible so long as it 
was not antagonistic’ to the ‘constituted secular authority’ of the 
Moslem emir or the Priest-Chief of an animist state, but if Chris- 
tianity was to be muted it was the Boy Scout Movement rather than 
technical training that was to take its place. 

In the Gold Coast since the mid-nineteenth century there had 
been continued agitation for a West African University and other 
institutions of higher education. As an example of the demand for 
the latter, as early as 1861 Dr Africanus Horton, the African Army 



EDUCATION 


349 

surgeon whom Governor Pope-Hennessy had thought so much of 
that he suggested him for appointment as Administrator of the Gold 
Coast, had proposed an African medical school. Joseph Cascly 
Hayford had taken up these proposals and, from 19x1 on, had 
campaigned for a University in the Gold Coast. In 1920 the West 
African Congress petitioned the British Government ‘to found a 
British West African University on such lines as would preserve in 
the student a sense of African nationality’. Sir Gordon Guggisberg 
had pressed the idea but his successor claimed there was no real 
desire on the part of the people for it. It was ‘premature’ and ‘too 
expensive’. 

By 1933 Lord Lugard’s Committee had come round to endorsing 
this proposal. Their detailed suggestions were circulated by the 
Colonial Office to the Governors of British Colonies in Africa for 
their views. Three years elapsed before the Colonial Office had 
received all replies. The Gold Coast Government answered that 
they were satisfied that existing facilities were adequate and that 
any sudden increase of opportunities for higher education would 
only lead to ‘an over production of graduates’. 

Up to the Second World War the line of policy thinking which 
emerges is that in the first place, whatever the pattern of education, 
any education was a dangerous experiment and was likely to under- 
mine the authority of the traditional ruler. Secondly, whatever the 
contents of the white man’s burden, it did not include any responsi- 
bility for paying from his own pocket, for the education of those 
over whom he had assumed the right of government. Education 
should therefore only be undertaken provided that it could be paid 
for out of taxes raised in the colony itself and, that which was the 
important proviso, the Home Government did not consider that the 
colony should devote these funds to some better purpose. In 1909, 
despite its support by Lugard who was then the Governor, the 
British Government vetoed a vote by the Legislative Council of 
Hong Kong of a grant of £. 5 , 0 °° 3 Y 031 " t0 su PP ort 3 local university. 
The argument was thus developed as follows, primary education, 
though dangerous, was permissible. Secondary education was 
beyond the financial abilities of the Colonies and in any event ‘not 
wanted by the Africans’ and it was useless to build a university 
except on a sound system of secondary schools— a curious view- 
coming from a Colonial Office staffed almost entire \ from Oxford 



REAP THE WHIRLWIND 


or Cambridge Universities which had flourished long before there 
was any sound system of secondary education in Britain. 

Ghana had been fortunate in one respect. Sir Gordon Guggisberg 
was prepared to defy the Colonial Office policy on secondary edu- 
cation and Gold Coast revenue was at least sufficient to endow and 
build fee-paying boarding secondary schools. Of these the most 
famous was Achimota. It was the only African school to put into 
effect in the inter-war period the progressive side of Lord Lugard’s 
Committee s recommendations. It openly stated its aim was ‘to 
produce a type of student who is Western in his intellectual attitude 
towards life, with a respect for science and capacity for systematic 
thought, but who remains African in sympathy and desirous of 
preserving and developing what is deserving of respect in tribal 
life, custom, rule and law’. But even in the Gold Coast the old habits 

0 thought persisted. Thus education was largely excluded from the 
Northern Territories which contained a fifth of the population on 
t e grounds that the Northern people would not accept teachers 
trom the South and there were no Northern teachers available. The 
segregation of the North from the rest of the country, socially and 
educationally, was carried to the extent that it was considered a 
remarkable concession when the Government allowed three boys 
a year to be sent from the North to be schooled at Achimota and 

au *f 3S . 1 teac ers - At the time of the Watson Commission, through- 
°u ew o c orth there were only 3,970 pupils enrolled in primary 
schools and only 8 o receiving secondary education. Nevertheless, 

, er ® '' as a su cient secondary school output from other parts of 
ie o °ny, even before the war, to have provided an intake for a 
niversity. y then should the idea have been turned down in 1939 
and yet so enthusiastically welcomed in 1945? 

^ ~ 03 j Perhaps be found in platonic reasoning. Faced 

fnnnrl TT, V1 °^ s . exoneration of chiefly rule, a new elite had to be 
Thi'c C so utl0n was a un iversit) f designed to produce them. 

1 • r i cer am >' was how the two commissions which dealt with 

Colonial IT 1 - 10 " — t l . e Coast, the Asquith Commission for 
w . niversities m general and the Elliot Commission for 

Comm id' Ca / n P ar * ac ul ar > conceived their mission. In the Asquith 
the n i net eenth-century Oxford theory' that 

trains irs S ° U ^ rSt anc ^ foremost be the place where a nation 
trams its rulers was stated clearly and without equivocation. 



EDUCATION 


351 

‘In the state preparatory to self-government universities have an im- 
porant part to play; indeed they may be said to be indispensable. To 
them we must look for the production of men and women with the 
standards of public service and capacity for leadership which self rule 
requires.’ 

In 1945, when the two Commissions reported, ‘self rule’ in 
Africa seemed a far-off goal, perhaps to be attained in twenty to 
thirty years. Meanwhile, it was presumed that there was going to be 
time to train the new platonic African elite. It was perhaps because 
only in England had the idea that universities were designed for 
this purpose been fully developed, that neither Commission con- 
sidered other types of higher education which have grown up in the 
English-speaking world to meet different educational needs, though 
two of these traditions must have been familiar to many members of 
the Commissions, the Scottish system and that of the United States. 
They set their faces against creating anything except exact copies of 
the British ‘red brick’ universities of pre-war days. The reason was 
made clear by Sir Eric Ashby in his Godkin Lectures. As he said: 

‘The founders of these universities worked in the belief that the social 

function of a university in Africa was to create and sustain an intel- 
lectual elite.’ 

The medieval clerical tradition had endowed the original English 
universities, Oxford and Cambridge, with a form of academic self- 
government, later to be adopted by the new English universities of 
the nineteenth century. Medieval universities had been ecclesiastical 
agencies, and their ‘self-government’ had followed simply from the 
autonomy of the clergy. Academic freedom in the nineteenth century 
at Oxford and Cambridge had essentially been the right of Colle"e 
ruling bodies to impose their collective decisions as to 7, 'bom they 
would admit and what they would teach. The demand, Jomr after 
religious toleration was accepted elsewhere, that the two universities 
could refuse to admit anyone but a professing mernU-r of the 
Church of England and terminate the Fellowship <,[ ' Don 
who broke the monastic rule and married, had its parallel in the 
twentieth century in the British universities generally insist in"- that 
they should control the content of secular teaching. The fact that 2 
university teacher was able at times to hold extreme political or 



352 REAP THE WHIRLWIND 

otherwise unconventional views was due, not to any overall policy 
of allowing intellectual or personal freedom, but to a part of the 
ancient clerical concept that a Church Living, whether in a parish 
or in a university, was property of which the holder could only be 
deprived by due process of law. 

On the other hand academic freedom in the United States sprang 
from the puritan and anti-colonialist belief in the right of protest 
and dissent. It was enforced not, as at the older British universities, 
by the governing body but in opposition to it. Even before the rise 
of the Land Grant Colleges — indeed even in Colonial days 
American colleges had been controlled by the community in whose 
area they were situated. The proper sphere of control to be exercised 
by the managing body and that to be exercised by the staff had 
been long established by convention. The Land Grant College, 
with its direct state management, fitted into this pattern and 
provided a model which could have been followed in Africa. 

The English university system, like, for that matter, the British 
Parliamentary system, is housed in a medieval edifice and all its 
most picturesque and noticeable features are those which are the 
most antique. Its actual method of working, again like that of the 
British Parliament, is hidden behind an ancient fafadc but it is m 
fact the product of a compromise struck between those who were 
originally in power in the universities and the great reformers of the 
Victorian era. Again there is a parallel with the reforms of procedure 
in the 1 louse of Commons in the nineteenth century, which adapted 
Parliament to entirely different purposes but left the outward aspect 
of its proceedings unchanged. Both these sets of reforms were 
carried out with the object of providing British industrial and 
commercial development in the particular circumstances of the 
time, while in the case of the universities, as part of the compromise, 
preserving some of the former privileges of their ancient ruling 
bodies. 

In the social and economic conditions in ninctccnth-ccntury 
Britain, it was understandable to re-design a university to produce 
an elite and it was essential to establish standards. In fact, of course, 
these standards in Britain were continuallv varied in response to 
social pressures and therefore continued to conform in fact with the 
qualifications required of university graduates at any particular 
time. Nevertheless, because of the retention of much of the medieval 



EDUCATION 


353 

constitution of English universities, their ruling bodies came to 
regard themselves as the absolute arbiters of these standards to 
which they attached a supernational value. 

To be fair to the Asquith Commission, its Report does not make it 
absolutely clear whether they accepted these English standards 
being necessarily always applicable in the colonies. The key passage 
is: 

*. . . universities serve the double purpose of refining and maintain- 
ing all that is best in local traditions and cultures and at the same time 
of providing a means whereby those brought up under the influence of 
these conditions and cultures may enter on a footing of equality into 
the world-wide community of intellect.’ 

Once the colonial universities were established, the doctrine of 
academic freedom came into play. Those appointed to them — in the 
early days hardly ever citizens of the colony in which the university 
was placed — regarded themselves as the sole custodians of the 
‘Asquith doctrine’ which it was their duty to see implemented to its 
last detail, and, where the Report spoke in ambiguous terms, as in 
this case, it was their right, and their right alone, to say what it 
meant. Fifteen years later the Principal of the University College of 
Ghana in a memorandum to the Government laid down what had 
now become in academic circles, the accepted meaning of the 
passage in question. 

‘Ghana cannot afford and would not wish to have the graduates of its 
University considered as of lower standing than those of other univer- 
sities in “the world-wide community of intellect”. Only by maintain- 
ing high standards for its university degrees can it expect that its 
graduates will be accepted in Commonwealth countries, and especially 
in Commonwealth universities, as the equal of their own . . .’ 

This authoritative pronouncement begged the one question vital to 
Ghanaian development and which had two years before been 
posed by the head of the Agricultural Department of the Kumasi 
College of Technology, the only other establishment of higher 
education in Ghana. He had said: 

‘I am convinced that since we in this country are not producing agri- 
culturalists for any other country there is very little point in basing our 
course on an imaginary universal or even British standard. The whole 



354 


REAP THE WHIRLWIND 


question of standards is relative. ... A standard in education is high 
enough when it can adequately serve the needs of the community for 
which it is designed. As the problems become more complex so the 
standard must grow to deal with them.’ 

He was angrily contradicted by the University. Standards he was 
told are ‘unchangeable’. They were dictated by what was considered 
the appropriate level of knowledge in London or Montreal or Mel- 
bourne despite the fact that the great majority of students in Ghana 
had no opportunity of ever reaching these standards. If they did, 
they would have had to acquire much knowledge of no value to 
them in Ghana and, because the ‘standard’ was external to Ghana 
and ‘international’, there was no guarantee that they would be 
taught what they needed to know for Ghanaian purposes even if 
they attained it. In November 1965 I delivered one of the anni- 
versary lectures of the Ghana Academy of Sciences on ‘Politics and 
Education’ and made the point in this form : 

One of the manifestations of neo-colonialism is a belief in academic 
standards. This in essence is to accept without question what was 
taught during former imperial times and to presume if the identical 
knowledge is not acquired in the former colonial territory then the 
level of education has fallen. Let me give one illustration from the 1964 
syllabus from the West African Examinations Council. Section 5 of the 
prescribed Chemistry curriculum is concerned with the combustion of 
carbon and carbon-containing substances in a plentiful or a limited 
suppjy of air. It deals with the combustion of coal, coal fires and coke 
fires, all of which are at present rare in West Africa. It does not deal 
with the chemistry of charcoal, which is one of the commonest forms 
of African fuel. The note to this item states that “While a detailed 
description of the gas works is not required, candidates should be 
familiar with the following states, distillation, removal of tar and 
ammonia, and the removal of hydrogen sulphide”. The use of coal gas, 
o\\ e\ er, is unknown in West Africa. On the other hand, the chemistry 
o 01 refinining is important in West African industrialization. It is not 
dealt with in the Chemistry syllabus.’ 

In the outside academic world these things were realized. For 
example, in his Godkin lecture, Sir Eric Ashby put in other words 
the same points as I have made : 



EDUCATION 


355 

‘Policy . . . became hardened into dogma, resistant to criticism and 
change. People talked of the “Asquith doctrine” and referred to uni- 
versity colleges in Africa as “Asquith colleges”. The doctrine was a 
vivid expression of British cultural parochialism: its basic assumption 
was that a university system appropriate for Europeans brought up in 
London and Manchester and Hull was also appropriate for Africans 
brought up in Lagos and Kumasi and Kampala. . . . The funda- 
mental pattern of British civic universities — in constitution, in stan- 
dards and curricula, in social purpose — was adopted without demur. 
Colonial universities were . . . from the outset ... to be self- 
governing societies, demanding from their students the same entry 
standard as is demanded by London or Cambridge; following curri- 
cula which might vary in detail but must not vary in principle from 
the curricula of the University of London; tested by examinations 
approved by London and leading to London degrees awarded on the 
recommendation of London external examiners.’ 

He endorsed also the view that the object of the new universities was 
to provide a platonic ruling class. 

‘. . . as for their social functions,’ he said, ‘the colonial universities 
were to be completely residential, and their prime purpose was to 
produce “men and women with the standards of public service and 
capacity for leadership which self-rule requires”. In short, they were, 
as in England, to nurture an elite.’ 

Nevertheless, there was never a concerted counter-move by pro- 
gressive Commonwealth academics who could perhaps have 
salvaged the position. On the contrary, when ultimately the Ghana 
Government attempted fumblingly to challenge the pretentions 
of the ‘Asquith doctrine’ the progressives found, for one reason 
or another, that they must stand by their university colleagues 
and the English theory of academic freedom behind which they 
sheltered. 

So far as the proposed new university on the Gold Coast was 
concerned the British Secretary of State for the Colonies had 
reserved the right to nominate the first Principal. His choice fell on 
a classical scholar and student of Plato who believed there was one 
civilization, the European, and that this civilization had but one 
origin, in Greece. 



REAP THE WHIRLWIND 


356 


David Mowbray Balme, the first Principal, who held office from 
1948 to 1957, had been a classical scholar at Cambridge and subse- 
quently a Cambridge Classics Don and everything which he did, it 
would appear, was conditioned by this experience. He had had a 
distinguished war record as the Commander of a Bomber Squadron 
winning, like Ulric Cross, the dso and the dfc. He was an excellent 
administrator and, within the limits of his philosophy, an enthusi- 
astic exponent of African advancement. As he explained to the 
assembled students of the Gold Coast’s new university college: 


The whole issue has been bedevilled by our careless use of the 
phrase “European civilization”. It may be justifiable that the things 
which are studied at universities ... are themselves the instruments 
of civilization. If so, then it follows that there is only one modern 
civilization. It happens to have started in Greece ... and spread first 
through Europe. But it is high time we stopped calling it European as 
though there were some other from which to distinguish it . . .’ 


Within his one world civilization’, Dr Balme had grudgingly to 
admit diat there were varying national cultures but he considered 
these should be allowed to fade away and that it was not part of the 
job of a university to try to keep them alive by teaching them. To a 
new country like Ghana, seeking out its cultural past as part of its 
credentials for. international recognition, he explained that folk 
WaS y “ s , ou * in England and hand looms had been replaced 

CnlW^Tn,' r d m ^ Unk We need weep,’ he told the University 
Si! f ° P the , Gdd Coast > <w hen national traditions go . . . it’s 
only a matter of pride in superficial things.’ b 

imnorf 0I rhp Ct d sup ^ r h ci 'al things, at least, he was determined to 
****? ° f 1116 Univer$ity 0f Cambridge, 
because there harl h 6 ° 0Wned- The college had to have a Manciple, 
had to he or. , CCn T at bridge. The students and staff 
K:st rr d r^ Ha,1S ° f resid ence, each with their own 
Steward to the hm, ‘Cerent and with sinecure officials, like the 
tSs of an Afr^ S T aU * 35 k Was at Cambridge. The incan- 
as irreverent barhiU St °5 dle P our ing of libation was dismissed 
St bu < dle recitation of a grace in Latin and the 

s SSS dbed (I m the pr0per direction at Hi S h Table, as the 

the sec?ecv of r n T atl0n SU1Ce this was done at Cambridge in 
secrecy of the Combination Room) was essential for the proper 



EDUCATION 


357 

education of tire scholar. To the African politician these things 
could be, and were, dismissed as harmless religious observances. It 
would have been thought unfair and contrary to the general toler- 
ance in such matters upon which the CPP prided itself to have 
deprived the Principal of his ju ju when clearly he was so genuinely 
convinced that his magic would improve the educational prospects 
of his undergraduates. 

Had Dr Balme’s eccentricities ceased at this point the conflict 
between the Ghana Government and the University would not 
later have arisen. However, he proceeded to run the University in 
accordance with three principles which he conceived to be the basis 
of the Cambridge system. The first of these was that no one not on 
the roll of graduates had any voice whatsoever in the University 
College affairs. The second was that sovereignty over the University 
resided, not in the College Council, the body appointed by a Gold 
Coast law which had been enacted in a form drafted by the Colonial 
Office, but with the whole body of the Faculty. His third principle 
was that the bodies appointed to prepare policy to put before the 
Faculty in general meeting should not be composed of the most 
senior or the most responsible officers of the University, but of 
elected representatives of the staff on which Europeans were at the 
time in a majority. Staff, curriculum and standards of admission 
were all decided in this way without reference to the Council. In 
fact the Council had been persuaded to hold only two formal 
meetings a year and was so starved of information of what was going 
on that for four years it was unable even to publish the Report 
required of it by law. 

The body thus excluded from power by this academic coup d’etat, 
was no revolutionary assembly or collection of Party nominees. On 
the contrary, it included three senior members of the academic 
staff, two members nominated by British Universities and seven 
Africans, including the Chief Justice and two chiefs. In the words 
of Sir Eric Ashby, ‘The Government of the College, still de jure 
conducted according to the Ordinance, was de facto being conducted 
according to a set of by-laws which followed with touching fidelity 
the- archaic and exasperating procedures of the University of 
Cambridge. The Gold Coast Government never approved these 
by-laws; nor was the original Ordinance (giving sovereignty to a lay 
Council) amended to conform to them.’ 



REAP THE WHIRLWIND 


358 

After Independence, in proportion to its per capita national 
income, Ghana was spending ten times as much on education as 
Spain and yet its Government was excluded from any say in how its 
university should be run in consequence of the imposition of a 
mechanism of rule, not sanctioned by Ghanaian law nor even 
approved by the outgoing Colonial Administration. It might have 
been supposed that some at least of the leading figures in British 
academic life would have dissociated themselves from this high- 
handed disregard of the ‘Asquith doctrine’, if from nothing else. 
On the contrary, Dr Balme’s unilateral declaration of university 
independence was acclaimed as academic freedom’s greatest hour. 

When Dr Balme left in 1957 Dr Nkrumah was anxious to secure 
a new Principal of a different style. Even then he was thinking of 
someone of the type of Conor Cruise O’Brien, and I was sent off to 
the United States, England and Ireland to sound out academic 
opinion as to who might be available. Plenty of advice was offered 
but no suitable recruit came forward. Among those whom I con- 
sulted was Sir Eric Ashby who considered the matter should be left 
to the Inter University’ Council for Higher Education in the 
Colonies. With the departure of the Principal who had over- 
shadowed it, the University Council in Ghana had emerged from 
long seclusion and was anxious to exercise its constitutional func- 
tions. Though Dr Nkrumah would have wished to defer the appoint- 
ment of a new Principal even longer to see if someone of exceptional 
calibre could not be obtained, the Ghana University’ Council 
decided to follow Sir Eric Ashby’s recommendation and to appoint 
the British Inter-Universities body’’s nominee. This was a Dr R. H. 
Stoughton, Professor of Agriculture at Reading University. As Sir 
Eric Ashby had pointed out in his Godkin lecture, Dr Stoughton 
was unable to persuade his staff to reverse Dr Balmc’s unilateral 
declaration of independence. He proposed an ‘Asquith doctrine’ 
type constitution and this was put to the staff. ‘There followed,’ 
said Sir Eric Ashby, ‘two long and stormy sessions of debate . . . 
I here was among the academics a powerful preference for Balme’s 
experiment and a determination not to retreat to the more con- 
x entional institution . . . We have to recollect that the staff was still 
essentially European ... in 1959 only sixteen per cent was Ghanaian 
and there was not a single African Professor.’ 

Dr Stoughton, to his credit, at least saw to what the acceptance of 



EDUCATION 359 

he Cambridge pattern had, in practice, led. In his Memorandum to 
he Government he wrote: 

‘The University holds a unique and dominating, and in a sense un- 
supported, place in the structure of higher education. If we should 
turn to the familiar image of education as a pyramid with university as 
the apex and primary school at the base, we would visualize a con- 
siderable gap in the middle ... So far as the school leaver is con- 
cerned, it is a degree or nothing. . . . From the national point of view, 
the most significant feature of this situation is the serious wastage of 
talent’. 

He admitted to a fear that ‘post secondary education in general’ 
was ‘perhaps insufficiently diversified and possibly’ was ‘becoming 
even less so’. Yet he was prevented from suggesting any remedy of a 
practical nature by his uncritical acceptance of restricted university 
entrance and the maintenance of standards. He admitted the 
existence of a large class of people in Ghana ‘who, though not quite 
of university calibre, crave further education and possess abilities 
having a potential value equal to those of graduates’. He agreed that 
in other parts of the world there were suitable ‘forms of education’ 
for such people. These were provided ‘in the United States of 
America, for example, by community colleges, two-year colleges 
giving diplomas, liberal arts colleges, land grant colleges and 
universities, and many other types of institution . 

The bankruptcy of the ‘Asquith doctrine’ could not have been 
made clearer. It was admitted that, in a country whose whole 
progress depended upon technical and professional training, 
there were many students craving for a higher education and who 
had potential abilities equal to the elite for whom that education was 
now reserved. The example of the United States m devising means 
to develop such abilities was actually quoted. Yet throughout Dr 
Stoughton’s long Memorandum there was no suggestion whatever 
that the University, as such, had any duty to provide this training 0r 
could help, in any practical way, to organize it. 

"With the failure of the new Principal to secure University agree- 
ment to operate even the ‘Asquith doctrine a. clash over the um_ 
versity’s relationship with the State was inevitable and > it arose as a 
result of a report made in April 1959 of the university finances by a 
Committee composed largely of expatriate experts. They 5^ 



REAP THE WHIRLWIND 


360 

reviewed w hat seemed to them various extravagances in the adminis- 
tration of the university and in particular the}’ went on to say: 

‘ 1 he item w hich especially captured our attention is that of leave- 
passage allowances. The estimated cost of providing passages to the 
United Kingdom for the Academic and Senior Administrative stall' is 
more than £100,000 a year, or about one-ninth of the total estimated 
expenditure of the College. This is because the senior members of the 
College have the right under the terms of their appointment to go on 
lease to the United Kingdom every year and arc entitled to first-class 
air passages.’ 

I he President’s office referred this issue to the University and the 
battle for academic freedom was joined. Even Sir Eric Ashby in his 
Godhin lecture has given the impression that in so doing the 
Government were in the wrong. As he told the story: 

\\ ith great sympathy and understanding, Adam Curie (at that time 
I rofexsor of Education at the University) has traced the melancholy 
storx which first became notorious in 1959, a couple of years after 
independence. At that time Dr. Nkrumah’s office issued directives to 
the University College requiring changes in the system of leave- 
passages to Britain, and in other matters internal to the college. The 
co ege stall constantly on the alert for infringements of academic 
freedom , resisted these directives.* 

. ^ acutc an observer as Sir Eric Ashby did not perceive the 

significance of the event which produced this first struggle for 
ac..t emic rcedom . What the university staff were asserting was 
not t le rig 11 of individual dissent, the essence of academic freedom 
as un erstoo in the United Slates, but the right to a corporate 
prn i Cj,c w itch placed the Don in a superior position to non- 
academic travellers on the same salary scale. What was being 

ofTht^clhc 10 t lC !nc ^* cva * tcncls of Cambridge and the prerogatives 

in!-! 'i'c ^ n ‘' cr ' SIt >' s spending of one-ninth of its total income on 
. ; first-class air passages to Britain was to be defended on the 
- L “ t : cnuc freedom, what hope had the Government of 
V c or [H in ‘he curriculum or the policy of the University. 
1CrC . , . >!X ' n a hundred empty places but the college 

..icss r-ixcd its entrance requirements ‘in conformity with 



EDUCATION 


361 

the requirements of the University of London’. In consequence, it 
was more difficult at the time to get into the University College of 
the Gold Coast than it was to enter a university in Scotland, Ireland, 
Canada, Australia or most of the universities of the United States. 
This limited entry was persuaded to engage in excessive and quite 
pointless specialization. What was needed from the Art side of the 
university were secondary school teachers and administrators who 
had a broad academic background in sociology, so as to understand 
a society in transition, economics so as to understand and deal with 
problems of planning and organization, and sufficient law to enable 
them to understand the principles of Government and of just 
dealing in administrative matters. Yet of the 140 students who 
graduated in Arts subjects from 1957 to i960, 95 studied single 
subjects and only 45 took a general degree. No African language 
could be studied at university level, not even Arabic, but in the 
session 1959 to i960 12 undergraduates were devoting their full 
time to Latin, Greek and ancient history. 

Above all, in the words of Sir Eric Ashby, the University and their 
graduates were: 

‘Isolated from the life of the common people in a way which has had 
no parallel in England since the Middle Ages’. 

It was a situation about which something had obviously to be done 
and in 1961 Dr Nkrumah asked various members of the Academy 
of Sciences, of whom I was one, to submit papers with ideas. 

I proposed that since the University College was to be transformed 
into a full-scale university this would provide an opportunity for a 
new start and that we should attempt to reorganize it on a basis 
similar to that of the Land Grant Colleges of the United States. It 
seemed to me from a legal point of view that the employment of the 
existing staff came to an end with the disappearance of the existing 
University College, and that therefore the simplest plan would be 
to make a break by saying that all the staff must apply for re- 
employment with the new University under new and clear con- 
ditions. For those who did not apply there was, as always in Ghana, 
compensation to be paid for a loss of career through the disap- 
pearance of the University College. 

While the way in which the University had been previously 
conducted had not aroused any academic criticism, this attempt to 



REAP THE WHIRLWIND 


deal with the problem was greeted as a major assault on academic 
freedom. 

* 1 his clumsy intervention provoked a storm of protest,’ said Sir Eric 
Ashby, ‘not only within the college but from all over the world.’ 

I his reaction both from the world and Sir Eric Ashby is interesting. 
Nobody has better described than Sir Erie the shortcomings of the 
University College in Ghana. If the Ghana Government which not 
only paid for the total capital and running costs of the University 
but provided ever}’ student with a scholarship into the bargain was 
not entitled to reorganize it — who was? 

Dr Nkrumah’s plan to deal with the question of University 
organization was a typical example of how lie had tried to apply 
co-existence in practice. A group of leading academies from Britain, 
the U.S.A., the U.S.S.R. and Africa were invited to Accra to devise 
some more sensible method than those which had previously been 
tried for running the University College of Ghana and the Kumasi 
College of I technology. Those appointed to this Commission of 
.nqutry were nicely balanced politically as well as academically. The 
two United States representatives were Miss L. A. Bornholdt, the 
can of \\ omen and Professor of History at the University of 
ennsyhania and Dr 1 Iorace Mann Bond, a foremost Afro-American 
cducanonahst. From Britain came E. E. Evans-Pritchard, Fellow of 
' ‘ Professor of Social Anthropology at Oxford, J. D. 

r . n '? ’ ‘ ^lessor of Physics at London University and the Principal 
l i. ... ' c . London University’s agricultural wing, Dr D. 

CC ’" T i ot l lcr Lad lege Principal from outside Ghana was an 
- rican, r Davidson Nicol, from the oldest Institute of higher 
cumin in \ est Africa, Fourah Bay, bv then known as the Univer- 
sity College of Sierra Leone. From the Soviet Union there was 
'r‘ fU .| CXf I r * c' 1 °rochesnikov, an expert on Inorganic Chemical 
the Mendeleyev Institute in Moscow, 
ic mamixsion s Chairman Kojo Botsio was the member of the 
‘.h 10 ’ 1 experience of education during the Colonial 
I t' } - - 1CC Chairman was my old friend Daniel Chapman. He 
“v’ C3rccr * n colonial times by teaching geography at 
y ’ m l", j' l . :t ‘ lc dicn become tlic I lonorary Secretary of the All 
’ J ' ! ‘ ! '' 1! | cc ’ 3 body whose aim was to obtain by constitutional 
‘“dependence of both British and French Tozoland. For 



EDUCATION 


363 

this he had been dismissed from his teaching profession by the 
Colonial Government but, after a period of unemployment he had, 
through the good offices of the Indian Government been found a 
place in the Secretariat of the United Nations. Despite this it was 
necessary after Independence to promote a Special Bill in Parlia- 
ment to restore to him the right to teach and his claim to his pension 
which had been forfeited at the time of his dismissal. When after 
1954 the Cabinet was no longer presided over by the Governor Dr 
Nkrumah had brought him back to be its Secretary. On Indepen- 
dence he was appointed Ghanaian Ambassador to Washington and 
Permanent Delegate to the United Nations. He had given up these 
important posts to return to Achimota School as its first African 
Headmaster. 

The Secretariat of the Commission, upon whom the major pre- 
paratory work fell was similarly balanced. David Carmichael was 
one of the few British civil servants to stay on in the Ministry of 
Education. The other two members were Dr Thomas Hodgkin, 
formerly Secretary to the Oxford University Delegacy for Extra 
Mural Studies but now a Research Associate at McGill University 
in Canada in Islamic Studies. The third secretary was the only chief 
with a Doctorate in Philosophy, Nana Kobina Nketsia IV, who now 
combined his chiefly role with that of a civil servant in the Ministry 
of Foreign Affairs. 

I was appointed a consultant to the Commission and thus had an 
insight into how they approached the problem. Their work which 
extended from December i960 to May 1961, showed what might 
have been achieved in the past if only the British Government, 
theoretically committed to the United Nations, had, when originally 
planning the post war universities of Africa, consulted its educational 
agency UNESCO. A surprising degree of unanimity was achieved and 
such divisions of opinion that there were were on organizational 
rather than ideological grounds. The United States representatives 
and those of the Soviet Union were united in urging against the 
British representatives a number of changes, in particular that the 
two institutions of higher learning should not be combined as the 
Government had originally proposed, and this was ultimately 
accepted. 

Their other recommendations were in the main frustrated by 
academic inertia. At their suggestion a Council of Higher Education 



REAP THE WHIRLWIND 


was appointed and Dr Nkrumah, to mark its importance, appointed 
A. L. Adu who had succeeded to Daniel Chapman’s post with the 
Cabinet as its Secretary. However this body of which I was a 
member never functioned as intended and such overall planning 
as was done, was carried out by the Academy of Sciences. As a 
gesture to the British connection Prince Phillip had been appointed 
its first President. Its members included Ghanaians of all political 
views. At a dinner at Flagstaff House given by the President to those 
elected to it I found myself sitting next to Dr Danquh who had been 
only a day or so before released from his first period of preventive 
detention. While the majority of its membership was Ghanaian it 
contained a proportion of non-Ghanaian academics such as Miss 
Barbara Ward, Dr Joseph Gillman, a white South African expert on 
Public Health and British scientists connected with agricultural 
research in Ghana. However neither the Academy nor the Council 
of Higher Education was able in practice to alter the path upon 
which the University had been set by its previous administration. 

n deference to the world outcry, few changes were made in the 
academic staff and the President set his hopes on obtaining a new 
Vice-Chancellor with progressive ideas. The choice fell on Conor 
raise O Brien. In fact the appointment came too late. The long 
iso ation of the University from the life of the country produced in 
modern form the sordid brawling between ‘town’ and ‘gown’ which 
tv *sg ra ced medieval Cambridge. The Government newspaper, 
he Lrhanatan Times, said in February 1964 that the Universities 
have become the fountain heads of reaction and fertile ground for 
imperialist and neo-colonialist subversion and counter-revolution’. 

. ~ c ar “ c ^ as un true. The crime of the University was its passivity 

in ace o t e crying economic and social needs of the country. 

ie arm which it did was that it failed to produce the type of civil 
servant an army and police officer that was required. Above all, it 
contributed nothing directly or indirectly to the solving of the basic 
pro em 0 c angmg the nature of Ghanaian education generally so 
as o prow e the skilled personnel necessary for development. 

orse sti its influence on the secondary schools produced there 
too the idea of an elite trained in the classics. 

V e ! r Eric Ashby, Dr O’Brien’s mistake was that he did not 
a a " ade ™ c freedom of the University of Ghana which he 
e wi such skill, courage and pertinacity was not intended 



EDUCATION 


365 

by most of those who most vigorously proclaimed it to be a licence 
for the free expression of opinion in academic circles. It was merely 
the modem version of the ancient claim of the academic clerics to be 
the sole arbitrators of truth and to have the sole right to punish and 
expel the heretic from their midst. 

A month after the National Liberation Council seized power, the 
new Chief Justice, Eric Akufo Addo, appointed Chairman of the 
University Council, addressed the academic body assembled in 
Congregation; Dr O’Brien, invited back for the ceremony, was an 
honoured guest among them. 

‘This occasion,’ he began, ‘will perhaps go down in history, that is if 
history is properly nursed, as the greatest day in the life of this 
University.’ 

The University, he went on to tell them, had never had the chance 
to develop academic freedom or those ‘concepts and values — 
freedom of thought and expression — which alone constitute the 
true characteristics of a true University’. What was meant by 
‘freedom of thought and expression’ he explained as follows: 

‘There may still be members of the staff whose intellectual faith in 
Kwame Nkrumah, his ways and his manners has not suffered a change 
in spite of recent events. Such men if they exist may not find the new 
going easy or congenial. On the assumption that such people are sin- 
cere in their faith and will hold on to their faith as all believers do, I 
say to them with all due respect to be patriotic and leave the campus 
for the good of the campus.’ 

In the old days, Mr Henry L. Bretton, professor of political 
science in Dr Nkrumah’s last year in power, used regularly to 
deliver what he has described as ‘my non-Nkrumaist lectures’. With 
the re-establishment of ‘academic freedom’ such unorthodoxy was 
now to be suppressed and in Congregation itself, the new dissenters, 
the ‘pro-Nkrumaists’, were warned off the campus by the University 
Council amid the plaudits of the Don s. 

It was this preoccupation of the University with the production of 
an elite with all thinking alike that led to the neglect of the essentials 
of higher education and the ‘gap in the middle’ of the educational 
pyramid. Despite this, particularly in certain spheres where the 
President could act outside the framework of the University’, the 



3^6 reap the whirlwind 

West African Examination Council and the Ministry of Education, 
remarkable progress was made in filling die gap though this, on 
occasion, involved creating bodies such as the National Educational 
Trust so as to by-pass the delays of the still colonial oriented 
organization of the Ministry of Education. For example, there was 
no top-level nursing school until 1945. The single school of nursing 
established in that year had only achieved an annual output of eight 
nurses by 1951 when the CPP came to power. By 1962 six schools 
° nursing had been established which provided 265 new nurses and 
md-wwes in that year alone. Nevertheless the overall effort was 
an 'eted by the inertia seeping down from Legon Hill, where stood 
t e mversity, which in Sir Eric Ashby’s words ‘established in 
palatial premises . . . outside the city, drew its skirts around its 

a airs an became (as an architect boasted of its quadrangles) 
inward-looking” ’. n & / 

Mr Tony Hillick, the former University of Ghana lecturer 

rjjr 111 " 1 ' 3 L Cr ^ IC C0U P ' not unfairly, in an article in the magazine 
westAJnca, the various shortcomings of the Nkrumah Govern- 
en s economic policy. He noted that the rate of the investment in 

rr,i, a ^ a - WaS VCr ^ U “ r1 ’ even if judged by the standard of developing 
Louncries * 


n fact, the rate of investment, as a proportion of the national income, 
mpare we even with the achievements of many of the rich coun- 
tries, including Britain.’ 

But he remarked 


w t;i . n relati0n t0 tbe s * z ® °f the effort the results were poor, and 
c , nvestm ent w as claiming more and more resources, the growth 
of he economy was slowing down . . . in 1955 . . . Highly twelve 

wrntW 1 n CUrrent ° UtpUt "’ as obtained f tom each pounds- 

oniv ahn ?T' ta . -ir ^ Same amount of capital was providing 

sintr n l n SS " VOrth 0f 0Ut P ut and faur years later it had 
slumped to eight shdlings-worth.’ 

growth^e^ref ° . tb * s P aradox of high investment and slow 

roncentrate mt * Planning and the failure to 

concentrate more on agriculture but then went on to say: 

The biggest mistake of aU . . . was, however, to believe that the one 



EDUCATION 


367 

important thing in development is a lot of capital investment in con- 
structions and equipment. Basically, CPP policies were based on the 
equation, Development = Investment. What they ignored was that 
investment in things will only produce satisfactory results if it is 
accompanied by investment in people. Trained manpower, not capital 
goods, is the crucial bottleneck in the future development of 
Ghana . . .’ 

He pointed out that the Seven-Year Development Plan had estimated 
that in this seven-year period something above 100,000 additional 
skilled personnel would be needed if all parts of the plan were to be 
fulfilled. This would have meant that the existing supply would have 
to have been roughly trebled in seven years. This, he said, was ‘an 
impossible target’. 

Was it in fact so impossible? If the University from the start had 
played its part, if ‘the gap in the middle’ had been filled, would there 
not have been a sufficient output of pupils from the secondary and 
even from the primary schools, to profit from the technical training 
which should have been provided but was not? Certainly set against 
what the Watson Commission thought conceivably possible, the 
achievements of Dr Nkrumah’s governments in secondary and 
primary education are extremely impressive. 

The universal desire for the education which had been denied 
under a colonial regime was one of the main springs of the Indepen- 
dence demand. ‘Nothing impressed us more,’ said the Watson 
Commission in their Report, ‘than the interest of the people of the 
Gold Coast in education. Practically every African who sent in a 
memorandum or who appeared in person before us sooner or later 
started to discuss education ... the general complaint appears to 
be that the education provided in the schools actively discourages 
pupils from turning to trades and crafts. It is realized that literary 
education alone is doing great harm in the Gold Coast.’ 

To the Commission however it appeared it would take an almost 
indefinite time to secure universal primary education. ‘We have 
been told,’ they said, ‘that it would take at least twenty years to 
achieve, if finance and other factors are taken into consideration. 
This, however, appears to us to represent a minimum time.’ They 
thought it quite impossible that current school education could 
quadruple itself in the next twenty years. ‘We feel,’ they said, ‘that 


3^8 REAP THE WHIRLWIND 

it would be more realistic ... to base plans for die future on a 
longer period than twenty years.’ In fact, Dr Nkrumah’s Govern- 
ment proved that it was more than possible. By 1961 compulsory 
primary education had been introduced. By 1962, that is to say 
fourteen years after the Watson Commission Report, the number of 
children in primary schools was five times as large as it was at the 
time of their Report. 

At the time of die Watson Report the majority of the children 
enrolled were in the infant junior schools, for those from five to 
e even years old, and not in the senior primary catering for children 
up to sixteen years, the figures being 237,026 in the infant junior as 
compared with 46,662 in the senior primary. At the time the standard 
o teaching in both was, according to official reports, low. Thanks 
arge y to the influence of Sir Gordon Guggisberg’s reforms, there 
was good secondary education, but in 1948 only 6,490 pupils were 
enrolled and only 457 teachers were in training. When this is 
contraste with the position as it was on the eve of the coup the 
success 0 the CPP Government’s educational policy stands out 
clearly. At that time there were enrolled 1,480,000 pupils in 10,388 
primary an middle schools, of which 400 schools had been opened 
npw^ reV1 ° US j 1 "' ^ ere were I0 i secondary schools, including 11 
° ne A^ ene m a tota ^ sec ondary school enrolment of 

tp ' u°' > °^ C - ren l ar kable even tiian this, were strides made in 
ers training. In 1966 there was an enrolment of 12,720 and the 
mber of teachers training colleges had almost doubled since the 
- 10US ^ £ar r 0 at beginning of 1966 as compared to 44 at the 
° 1C ' > r' ^hramah’s Government had achieved in 

hw 6 n ye mi mUCh , m0re than the Watson Commission thought 
Colnniaf 0551 ' e ’ Un ^ ^ m ? st f avoura ble circumstances, for a 
Killick’c XT t0 aim t0 ac ^‘ eve twenty years, and yet, if Mr 

enontrTi t nC Ur£S 3re correct > even this stupendous effort was not 
enough to support a modest development plan. 

ffrnwffi i,, 1 ? TJ- We ? 1 wrong w hh education in Ghana was not its 
invesritrafin 1 ‘ lreC o°! 1 ' Watson Commission made tlieir 

for everv n U ^ there were 50 children in the primary schools 
1066 X "ft. a secon( iary education. Eighteen years later, in 
stifl X X lH NkrUI ? ah Govern men t was overthrown, there were 
secondary tX “Xi? P ” mar y schools against each one in the 
r Y’ 1S an t ^ e a bsence of technical training, had been a 



EDUCATION 


colonial heritage which the educational system of Independent 
Ghana had never been able entirely to discard. Technical education, 
rather than book-learning, had always been the African demand. 
The programme of the Fanti Confederation of 1871 had provided 
for ‘normal’ or technical schools to be attached to every State and 
Missionary school ‘for the express purpose of educating and 
instructing the scholars as carpenters, masons, sawyers, joiners, 
agriculturalists, smiths, architects and builders’. Missionary 
schools have been accused of teaching only such subjects as would 
enable their students to study the Scriptures, but the charge is by no 
means just. The Basel Mission had always tried to provide technical 
training and the skills they taught penetrated far beyond the class- 
room. Even today the Akan carpenter saws his wood in the Swiss- 
German method, exactly as taught a hundred years ago by the 
Basel mission, with the teeth of the saw away from him holding it 
upright and following with his eyes directly above it, along the 
cutting line. As early as 1858 the Basel Mission had even established 
technical training for wheelwrights, locksmiths and bookbinders 
and their example was copied by the Wesleyan Missions. 

Technical education was not developed because the Colonial 
Authorities thought, or pretended to think, it was opposed by the 
Africans. Even in the face of the positive finding of the Watson 
Commission that ‘the general complaint was that the education 
provided’ discouraged ‘pupils turning to trades and crafts’ and that 
‘literary education’ in isolation was considered by African opinion 
to be ‘doing great harm’, the Colonial Office stuck to their assertion 
that only literary education was possible because of African odoo- 
sition to any other type, and that it was to meet African wishes that 
most of the Gold Coast education effort was concentrated on the 
infant junior schools. , 

In the British Governments Statement on the Report of th„ 
Commission, it w. conceded that ,t m,ght 
technical education that: 



37 ° REAP THE WHIRLWIND 


So far as the Watson Commission’s recommendation that a greater 
emphasis should be placed on senior primary and secondary 
education, the British Government replied: 

This could only be done at the expense of children u ho are at present 
enied junior primary schooling. The present policy of the Gold Coast 
overnment, again based on popular demand, is to extend junior 
primary schooling over as w ide an area of the Territory as possible 
existing educational policy in the Gold Coast is based on the 
recommendations of a representative local Committee.’ 


n it was to this Committee that the Watson Committee’s recom- 
men ations were sent. Ihc attitude of mind of this ‘representative 
ommittee and of the British Government can only be understood 
*- tS "! contex t. The reasons why education was never better 
j ’ eit ler before or after independence in Ghana, in reality 
d(-vpV,r, S U ^° n tlC ,^ as * C a PP roac h of those planning educational 
mind £” len |> whether British or Ghanaian, and this attitude of 

those m aS U tln J atcl T> ar >d probably decisively, influenced by what 
thc^e concerned had themselves been taught. 

oonosedtn^ SUppo “ cd concept of an elite were violently 
could nnlv i C 5 Cner: ! extcns ‘ on education which in their view 
which rbev ° °? £ / lowering those educational standards by 

reasonS en C °, n ! lde - ed , aI1 “"6 musC be J ud S cd - One of the 

cation had lie ' ngadier -^Crifa for the coup d’etat was that edu- 
cation had become universal and thus debased. As he put it: 

field of edn ar , Ca ' n T Vdl ' cb Nhmmah’s rule planted havoc was in the 

the Accelerated Educrtioiwl^ai^^^Th a ® 

certain m„„r , 1 rian - • • • The direct result of this was a 

every staJ^f A 0 '? nng of educational standards which effected 
enSed n o 1 3tI0n “ thi$ COUntr >’- • • • The Education Trust 
high renutari 6 P . reS . erve op Education Department, w'hich had a 
to set UD sern° A Unn i? dl6 ccdon ‘ a l administration, and proceeded 
was enoueh SCh °° ls aI1 over the country, whether or not there 

already ordJ^T p0 j ,ulatIon in , the area to fill these schools. Into the 

colonial days wat . eC ° I V?' e d uc ation pattern, nursed and built in the 
days, was pushed a haphazard programme.’ 

Academy of Sciences had in 1 960 promoted the writing of an 



EDUCATION 


371 

overall Study of Contemporary Ghana. The first volume, published 
in 1966, contained a detailed review of the economy by, among 
others, Mr Tony Killick who was later to attribute, in the article I 
have noted, the absence of sufficient investment in education as the 
main reason for Ghana’s economic difficulties. Yet in the preface to 
this first volume, which Mr Killick himself helped to edit, Mr E. M. 
Omaboe, one of the general editors of the project — who was then 
the Government Statistician and is now head of the National Econo- 
mic Committee set up by the military regime — pointed out the 
inescapable dilemma of all developing countries. In 1963-64, 
he noted, out of a total central government expenditure of £144 
million, 31 per cent went on educational and health services while 
only 29 per cent was spent on economic services. The expense of 
these he said was ‘now running at levels far ahead of the capacity of 
the economy’. 

H. G. Wells once remarked that ‘human history becomes more 
and more a race between education and catastrophe’. It was a race 
in which Ghana could not win. 



CHAPTER ELEVEN 


THE LAST YEARS 


In all I was Attorney General for four years, from September 
I 957 to October 1961, and thus intimately involved in the legal 
c langes made during this period. Then for the next four and a half 
years I sat on the touch-line, like some substitute player at a football 

m u tC a ’• WatC ^* n ° tbe & ame ad the time but only occasionally being 
ca ed in to play, always in different positions on the field and for 
s lort periods only. Then in February 1966 the Government was 
overthrown and I spent my last month in West Africa pondering 
over Ghanaian affairs in the slave fort that the Dutch had built two 
centuries before to house their captives in before selling them over- 


rison ife under any conditions, as is no doubt one of its objects, 
orces one to review, without illusion, one’s previous career and to 
examine with concern the mistakes one had made to bring oneself 
ere. nj estimation of what I originally thought w'as right or 
wrong to do must now be subconsciously tinged with the hindsight 
us prison re-appraisal. In the little prison yard, where in previous 
inTn S ^ c . ncra j 1 ? n a ^ ter o encra tion of slaves had been assembled, 
3 l M 3I ? d r r n ndcd before shi P ment to the Americas, I used to 
™ r a UlC fC - ° W pnsoners fr om our cell, still, as when I first 
resets r a SlXtCen years before and visited Neif Halaby there, 
tritinn or . stran S er j to Africa. In the prisons of Ghana, segre- 
crimimk m A mC and r most m y companions were Lebanese 
lenmh ‘ ^ A”* .° f ex . ercise , was short of a cricket pitch in 
of nrknn n^ C t0 tbc Wa * st a £ ablst the heat, wearing only a pair 
talkinc .nr™ tr °r n CrS ’ ^ us . ed to walk up and down endlessly 
Ghannim it™' 0nc , j c ! °" Pobbcal prisoner, H. M. Basner, a non- 
home in wA t n A Sdf ’ r Ut a wb ‘ te S . ou th African who had made his 
imnelled m ! 1 nC ^ some thing of the same motives as had 
Member of C p° r tay *" Ghana : Hc ’ likc had been a lawyer and a 
the Smuts nerA A'a r nt e ^* bcnd Senator in South Africa during 
P 0 . After the Sharpevillc massacre he was, like many 



THE LAST YEARS 


373 

other progressive Europeans, imprisoned by the Verwoerd Govern- 
ment, and had served some seven months in various South African 
gaols. Then, when released under restriction, he had succeeded in 
escaping with his family and, after many wanderings, arrived 
without passport or travel papers in Accra and here settled down. 
He was a brilliant journalist and a man of high personal courage. 
Though not deeply religious in a conventional sense he always 
maintained the observances of his Jewish faith despite the pressures 
from Arab Africa to whom he looked for support in the liberation 
of the South. His integrity paid and his open acknowledgement of 
his racial origin never prevented his articles being reprinted in the 
Cairo press. Accra had seemed to him then the best centre from 
which he could continue the political objective he had set himself in 
South Africa, the destruction of apartheid and the creation of a 
planned economy throughout the African continent. His complete 
acceptance by Ghanaians as an African like themselves, despite his 
colour and his faith, had symbolized Nkrumah’s dream of a united 
Africa free of prejudice on grounds of race or religion. His imprison- 
ment signified more clearly than anything else, that the old values 
were gone. 

The Nkrumah system had been destroyed overnight in circum- 
stances neither of us had anticipated. It was obvious thatwehad both 
miscalculated, but how and where? Was what had happened, in 
fact, inevitable? Could Dr Nkrumah in practice have followed 
another policy and, if he had been able to conduct such a policy 
would it have been any more successful? Had the new state of 
Ghana been born with such congenital defects that it could never 
have long survived or was the collapse of the Nkrumah system due 
to a series of subsequent miscalculations, mistakes and crimes 
which, with ordinary prudence and honesty, could have been 
avoided ? 

Before any of the questions can be answered they must be seen in 
their broad perspective. What the Nkrumah Government was 
attempting was, in the twentieth century, to achieve what the 
developed countries of the world had achieved in the previous one. 
This aim was to some extent acknowledged and even applauded. It 
was however presumed by the world, and indeed in Ghana, that one 
could secure the grandeurs without the miseries and that the class 
exploitation and repression that accompanied the industrial revo- 



374 


REAP THE WHIRLWIND 


ution in Britain, the Civil War which was its necessary precursor 
in the United States and the profound political upheavals which 
" ere an esscnt ' a l P art °f the industrialization of Western Europe, 
\\ ere none of them inevitable to development but could be avoided in 
t e light of latter knowledge. What happened in Ghana may only be 
t e partial answer to the question as to whether this presumption 
vas justified but it provides a reason for studying the Ghana 
experiment objectively; but this cannot be done if one attempts to 
isolate Ghanaian events from those of the rest of the world. 

IT . *7 entieth century is not the nineteenth. Britain and the 
mte fates were never undeveloped countries in the sense that 
e great majority of the poorer nations of the world are today, 
ere are some few states which are still undeveloped in the true 
ense. epa and the Yemen are perhaps examples, but the majority 
e poor countries have an economy which has been developed in 
response to nineteenth-century pressures from the developed world. 

the W , 7 C ° Untries in S eneral are not isolated cases where 

ZS TT 1 ? C0I T y of P r e-industrial Europe has continued 
. ' f j . Ci . avc become the raw material producing counter- 

[he niol cM. trlahZ " d WOrld - 0f this Ghana was perhaps 
two- third<: n i . n o CYam Pl e - Its main export, cocoa, which provided 

to die indni- 1 T eamingS > W3S * n ° Way rel2ted 

£ 2 0r agricultural needs of the country. It was a 
the indusr ' UCCd t0 satls fy a demand which had arisen out of 
its world nrir(‘ /a Rowing wea ith of the developed world and 

Ghanai m 1 T T*- ° fitS USe > Were almost entirely outside 
new industrhlk ? th . e ni r icteen th century the products of the 
Britain like thit7 Sb ° rt su PPty- The industrialization of 
and devcloninn- m ° i T”’ Was basc d upon the existence of a free 
came to indent ^ manufactur ed goods. By the time Ghana 

permitted to grow coSabS if d °° rS closed ‘ Ghana might b<3 

nude the tarifT wnlk' but f anyattempt to process it at home was 
effective exStlof 1116 mdustrialized ™rld prevented its 

potential wcalth'-md C °, Unt ^ cs ob world developed first their 
ciplcs The child i afterwards, their social and moral prin- 

i n d ust rializa ti on^ £SS 1 C ° mp ° nCnt ° f Britai "’ S ^ 

accepted the obligation of ! mpossible m an a ge which 
S of compulsory education. Inadequate 



THE LAST YEARS 


375 

housing and sanitation, disease, poverty and ignorance existed as 
automatic regulators of the growing population of the states which 
developed in the nineteenth century. It was only when prosperity 
was assured them that their national conscience expanded to the 
extent of communal action to provide public sanitation, working- 
class housing, free education and health services. Until then, death, 
the traditional adjuster of population balance, ensured there were 
not too many old or young to support. The less developed world in 
general, and Ghana in particular, accepted, without query, the 
responsibility for these recently established social obligations of the 
West and thus assumed a burden never borne by the industrialized 
countries in their developing days. For every child per member of 
the working population in Britain in 1960, there were in Ghana in 
that same year, two. 

On top of these difficulties in the way of development which were 
common to most poorer countries, Ghana had two additional 
problems of her own, the fragility of its monocrop economy and the 
inexperience and understaffed public service with which she had 
been endowed. In an editorial headed ‘A Frightening Position’, the 
Financial Times of the 16th July 1965, using cocoa as its text, spelt 
out the implications for the less developed countries of the failure 
by the developed nations to pay a fair price for the primary products 
which they purchased : 

4 . . . Cocoa prices yesterday stood at roughly half the level reached 
at the beginning of the year, which was itself below the average for 
1964; allowing for changes in the value of money, the real worth of a 
ton of cocoa is actually lower than in the depression years of the early 
thirties . . . For the countries who rely heavily on these commodity 
exports, this is a frightening position. . . . The position of workers in 
these countries’ main industries is similar to that which would face 
operatives in the Western automobile industry if the price of motor 
cars halved in six months, except that employees in the developing 
countries have few savings and little social security on which to fall 
back. 

The economic dislocation caused by falling export prices and the 
failure of investment plans is bound to have political repercussions, of 
an extremist sort. The climate for a gradual progress towards demo- 
cratic concepts could hardly be worse.’ 



THE LAST YEARS 


377 

first seven months of 1965 had averaged £139 a ton. These figures 
suggest that even the British public did not benefit from the 
impoverishment of Ghana and that the profit had been absorbed by 
manufacturers, brokers and speculators. 

One of the other difficulties in obtaining a fair cocoa price was the 
practice of speculation in commodity futures. After the great Stock 
Exchange panic in the United States in 1929 most developed 
countries have protected their ora nationals against speculation in 
shares, which is watched and controlled. It is otherwise with the 
primary products of developing countries which are now one of the 
main bases of the gambling which previously took place in domestic 
shares and stocks. 

The sterling area is a major producer of cocoa, providing over 
60 per cent of the world’s supply of beans. While Ghana and 
Nigeria are the main suppliers, cocoa is an important crop in some 
of the 'West India Islands and is vital to the economy of New 
Guinea. The cocoa price in the world markets is therefore of 
concern to the sterling area as a whole, particularly as this area is a 
comparatively small consumer of cocoa beans, taking less than 
10 per cent of the world’s total output. It had for long been realized 
that the maintenance of the position of sterling depends upon, to a 
considerable extent, the obtaining of fair prices for the primary 
products produced within the area. On this Air Harold Wilson had 
written, as long ago as 1953: 

‘It is, however, becoming widely realised, even in the United States 
that the dollar problem of the Western world cannot be solved on a 
stable or secure basis without American co-operation in the establish- 
ment of international agreements and long-term purchasing arrange- 
ments for primary raw materials, to put a floor in the market for dollar- 
eaming primary products.’ 

In July 1965 cocoa had fallen as low as £91 6s. a ton and, if such 
a low figure continued for any length of time, it would affect the 
overall earnings of the sterling area to a significant degree. The 
Ghana Government therefore proposed at the Commonwealth 
Finance Ministers meeting in that September that the developed 
countries of the Commonwealth who were in the sterling area 
should undertake to purchase sufficient cocoa as to raise the price. 

It was su oTr ested that they should keep this cocoa off the market 



THE LAST YEARS 


379 


with the many problems that cocoa brought m its tram, Gha 
required a first-rate Civil Service, not only of officials who were 
honest and hard-working but even more important, who understood 
the complications of import licensing and of st " n | en 5 f ® e gn 
exchange control. Neither the service which Ghana had inherited at 
Independence, nor the training provided by the University p 

duced the class of official required. r , . 

How necessarv it was to have had already developed m Ghana at 
Independence a broad educational systein which cou!d have 
produced a new class of public officer can be shown by the un- 
fortunate history of the public service up to n epen e • 
was placed in a position of finding practically from scratch md 
viduals to man the whole apparatus of state. The University fro 
which the new entrants were supposed to come considered 
above giving the down-to-earth technical 1 ' 1 v j t ^ 

at this critical time, Ghana found itself with officia s to de al with 
abstruse problems of international trade whose only p ofessio 
qualification was a degree in Ancient History, English Literature 

^By Second half of the nineteenth century the Gold Coasted 

been well on the way to developing its own rican A frican 

Even with the limited education available, first-cl s ^ African 

administrators emerged and were appointed to p®i ° , capital 

G. E. Eminsang, an African and ‘Free Burgher’ of 
of Elmina, was appointed by Governor Pope Hennessey, 
of authority included both the Gold Coast an j Oold 

Colony, Civil Commandant of " even 

Coast possessions were ceded to as Admin i s trator 

proposed to have appointed Dr At -whole of the 

Is the Gold Coast, that is to say as fLImake this 

future Colony. Though the ‘higher 

ro?tLThedt Mri»ns io held seven of the then twelve 

s 

Services and his reports wo P lgg a sierra Leonean 

Webb, then a Colonial Offi ‘ . Court Jud°-e and in 1892 

lawyer, Franz Smith, was ^ in M D edica i Officer and at about 
another Sierra Leonean became cjuei 



REAP THE WHIRLWIND 


380 

the same time a third African from Sierra Leone was appointed 
Solicitor General. George Ekem Ferguson, though nominally a 
chief surveyor, and another African civil servant H. Vroom, later 
to be awarded a cmg, were the chief negotiators of the treaties by 
which the Gold Coast frontiers were extended to die North. Vroom 
even acted at dmes as Secretary for Native Affairs, a post carrying 
ex-officio membership of the Executive Council. It seemed at the 
rime that within ten years or so the majority of the judicial 
and public service posts might be occupied by Africans. The 
reverse happened. The fact that in the last century Africans had 
occupied leading positions in the Colonial Government had, fifty 
years later, so far faded from British memory that the appointment 
of two Africans in 1942 to the junior posts of Assistant District 
Commissioners was hailed as the first great advancement towards 
Africanization of the service. 

Already in the nineteenth century there were within the Colonial 
Office officials who strongly objected to Africanization and with the 
appointment of Joseph Chamberlain as Colonial Secretary', this 
group got the upper hand and racialism became, for the first time, 
official British policy' in Africa. In 1903 Chamberlain had minuted 
that he thought it 

pretty clear to men of ordinary' sense that British officers could not 
have confidence in Indian or native doctors” ’ 

and the pamphlet drawn up for the new West African Medical 
Service stated that applicants must be of ‘European parentage’. 

The young Dr Nanka-Bruce, then a medical student at Edin- 
burgh and intending to enter the Gold Coast Medical Service, as 
many African doctors had previously done, persuaded the Dean of 
the Faculty to write to Joseph Chamberlain. The reply set out 
c ear y t e racialist theories of the new Secretary of State: 

There are special difficulties in the way' of employing native doctors, 
even if fully' qualified, to attend upon European officers, especially 
when stationed in the bush or at outstations.’ 

In 1901 a Nigerian graduate of Edinburgh was appointed as an 
sistant olonial Surgeon. It was the last such appointment to be 
made for three decades. 

By 1908, of the 247 officials recorded in the Civil Service list only 



THE LAST YEARS 


381 


five were Africans. One was Franz Smith, the Judge, whom the 
Colonial Office had tried unsuccessfully to transfer. The remaining 
four were a District Postmaster, an assistant Chief Clerk, a sub- 
assistant Treasurer and a third-class Supervisor of Customs. By 
1010 even these posts were not occupied by Africans and there was 
only in the Civil Service one single Gold Coast citizen, Woolhouse 
Bannerman, who was a District Magistrate and who came of the 
family which had fifty years before supplied the Lieutenant- 
Governor of the Colony. His appointment had been made as a 
special gesture by the previous Governor and was regarded as 
something special not to be repeated. No place 
for any other representative of the great African families who ha 
had so long a tradition of public service in the previous century. 

Governor Bannerman’s portrait in the uniform of his o 
might hang in Temple House, the family home of the Hutton-Mills 
but no member of this highly educated and cultured familj 
others like them, could obtain public employment on the basis 0 
their professional qualifications. It was not unti , more 
decade later, Alex Hutton-Mills, old Thomas’s son a bams er and 
also a pianist of concert standing, was appointed a Magistrate, that 
a policy of limited Africanization of the judicial services bega • 

The same racialism was applied to the 
was made at the turn of the century not to appom a y 
officers to the Gold Coast Regiment despite the P ro ^t, even of h 
Chief Commissioner of the Northern ^Territories who raWhoj 
valuable they had been. The army and police, whl J^ P izc J 

contained a number of outstanding African officers becamc o pnized 

P“rdy on a colour basis. No. only 

Europeans but Africans were even beach in 

nco appointments. When I used to go g BORS 

the .950’s the most prominent buildmg was one labe led BORS 
‘British Other Ran J. It was the a™y's segregated bmhtng hut. 

At Independence, 

the army was that of Major. O seven 

officers including medical staff, there were in W54 °™y seven 
omcers, including risen tQ sixty . All the senior 

Ghanaians. By i960, ranks and usually not through the 

officers had c0 ™ e . up r r °°Vi q w t he first Ghanaian Commander, 
fighting arms. Major-General O , tn Major-General 

had been an army schoolmaster ana f j 



382 REAP THE WHIRLWIND 

Ankrah had been a sergeant in army records. This denial of technical 
employment to Africans in the army was paralleled in other Govern- 
ment employment. For eighteen years, from 1901 on, Africans were 
no longer recruited even as engine drivers on the state railways. 

Sir Gordon Guggisbcrg was determined both on grounds of 
economy and for political reasons to secure Africanization. By 1926 
he had already made twenty-seven African appointments into what 
were then classed as ‘European posts’, and he announced a twenty- 
year plan, carefully phased with internal training programmes. 
Pressure from die Colonial Office compelled him to bar Africans 
from either becoming Judges or entering the so-called ‘political 
service’, that is to say, diey could not become Chief Commissioners 
or District Commissioners or hold other posts directly connected 
with the political management of the country'. Otherwise said the 
Governor: 

Neither an African nor a European will have any' claim to promotion 
... on account of his colour but because he is the best man for the 
appointment.’ 

It all came to nothing. As a sessional paper of the Legislative 
Council of 1950 put it: 

The ambitious and noble vision of Sir Gordon Guggisberg remained 
an elusive mirage, while the lofty structure which he had designed 
was destined never to be erected.’ 

Guggisberg’s plan was that by 1935, 148 high Civil Service posts 
should be held by Africans and that by 1945 this number should 
ave been increased to 229. He failed, not unnaturally, to take into 
account t e great increase of the Civil Service as a result of war-time 
an „ P ost-war conditions and his 1945 figure was based on a total of 
55 European posts of which therefore, according to his scheme, 
rtcans would hold two-fifths. The plan was approved by the 
o oma nice and, when Guggisberg was retired, sabotaged. In 
193 > ten years after Guggisberg’s departure, there were only 
nrty one Africans in senior posts, only two more than when he 
e t, an in 1948, at the time of the Watson Commission, when there 
'\ere more than 1,300 senior posts, Africans only occupied ninety- 
wf ot them - If the proportions laid down by Guggisberg had been 
adhered to, there would have been 520. In 1888, with an admittedly 



THE LAST YEARS 


383 


far smaller service, 23 per cent of the higher posts were held by 
Africans. By 1948 the African share had been reduced to 7 per 

cent. . , . 

Nevertheless the Watson Commission, which presumably was 
not told of the Guggisberg plan, let alone about the nineteenth- 
century Africanization, were impressed by this figure of ninety-tour 
not realizing it was less than half the target even on a numerical 
basis set in 1926 for 1945. The Colonial Office had the records on 
their file and must have known better. This did not prevent a hig 
note of self-praise creeping into the Government’s official comment 
on this passage in the Watson Report: 


‘The Commission have recognized that it is the settled policy of the 
Gold Coast Government to encourage to the maximum possible ex- 
tent the entry of Africans into the higher branches of the public ser- 
vice. His Majesty’s Government are glad to note the Commissions 
opinion that there had been no lack of good faith in recent years in 
promoting this policy.’ 


In truth, the policy begun in 1901 of closing the Civil S 
to qualified Africans had only been hesitatingly a nd judgm 0 y 
reversed. There was thus during the preparatory peno 
dence no hard core of experienced African ^ f-a^The new 
recruits were those mainly who came from e n £\ - 

were therefore taught to believe themselves as beloign n 

elite and yet they had neither the knowledge, background or 

training to equip them for thar mk- effect ofthis concep t 

Sir Eric Ashby has spo 'en 0 , ^ ^ particular its effect 

of higher education on African “ c ^ ^ ^ between Uvo 

on the African Civil s ^“t 11 horizons of thought. In 

spiritual worlds, two systems of cth , ^ Western civilization; 

his hands he holds the “ instrument to the welfare of 

. His prob ern is how to on this problem 
his own people. But he has no opportune r 

the -an between himself and his people is very great. . The 
. . . tne gap oerween nur tured and where his ideas 

umversuy * the nursery “ Cities and their graduates are 

to of the nineteenth century 



REAP THE WHIRLWIND 


384 

had been dispersed their British successors had been a strange lot. 
One of my predecessors in office as Attorney General, Sir William 
Nevill Gear}', after he left die Gold Coast entered into private law 
practice in Nigeria and in a book, Nigeria wider British Rule, 
published in 1927 and dedicated by permission to Joseph Chamber- 
lain, then long dead, he thus described the ‘2,005 white officials’ of 
that Colony: 

‘For some of the departments professional and technical qualifications 
are of course necessary (except for the Judiciary in the Provincial 
Courts), but for the general Civil Service it was a mystery how and 
why men got their appointments; still I have only known of one 
official who had previously “done time”, and he was an excellent 
public servant and retired on a pension. One mercantile house made 
it a practice if they had in their employment a “dud” to pass him into 
Government service. . . . Some men enter the service young perhaps 
because they cannot pass the examinations required for the pro- 
fessions. There is another class of older men, frequently the best, who 
enter the service because they have had “troubles”, pecuniar}' or 
amorous, elsewhere.’ 

By the time I came to the Gold Coast in 1950 all this had changed 
and there was a new type of able and efficient officer. For example, 
I do not think I could have run the Attorney General’s office 
without the assistance of an old hand from the Colonial Public 
Service, Hilary Battcock, who served with me practically through- 
out as Solicitor General. However, in die administrative service 
particularly, the theories of British colonialism of die nineteenth 
century lingered on. The tradidon remained that the ‘political 
officer must be in charge — and the British officer’s African successor 
equally resisted on principle any alteration of rank or salary scale 
which might disturb the original hierarchy as set up in Colonial 
times. 

A personal experience of my own when I was asked by die 
resident to look into certain cases of corruption, may illustrate the 
e ect of this rigidity. I had been appointed as a sole Commissioner 
t( ? CX ,^‘ ne , the workin S of such State and mixed enterprises as I 
ax/? 11 ° e . ected * ^ act ^ was not a general roving assignment. 
What was intended was that I should look at certain specific 
m ustries but in order that they should not appear to be singled out 



THE LAST YEARS 


385 

as under suspicion, my Commission was put in general form. In 
fact in the end I only examined, in detail, one industry. What 
became immediately apparent, was that, whether there had been 
any corruption or not, the mechanisms for checking it were wholly 
absent. 

The account of all such enterprises had to be, in theory, audited 
by the Auditor-General but if he lacked the staff to conduct the 
audit of any particular one of them, he was entitled to arrange for a 
qualified firm to do it on contract terms. The salary scale offered by 
the Government was too low to attract competent Chartered 
Accountants to the Auditor-General s department in face of the 
high salaries offered to qualified Ghanaians by local firms. Therefore 
the Auditor-General had to arrange, not for one, but for all of these 
boards and firms to be audited by private enterprise on his behalf, 


on contract. 

The cost to the Government of contracting out this work would 
have paid two and three times over the increases in salary necessary 
to tempt Ghanaians into the Auditor-Generals department. In 
consequence, in my report, I proposed that a sum equivalent to that 
spent on contracting out the auditing of State enterprises should be 
devoted to recruiting and maintaining a special department of the 
Auditor-General’s department, which would not only audit the 
books financially but would carry out, at the same time an efficiency 
audit. I discussed my proposal m detail with the Auditor-General 
and the senior officers of his department, and worked out with 
them proposals based on efficiency audit practice as apphed in the 
United States and Britain. These were turned down not because of 
any political objection but because the sa ary cales ; we thought 
necessary to attract the Chartered Accountants and other pro- 
fessional staff required for an efficiency audit were ro 0 high. The 
issue was not one of spending. have 

cost rather less than did the exis o > - • j ? audlts out on 

contract. It was turned down on fe P^e ^that my report 
offended against the salary grading of the Civil Serv.ce, and that 

W Wms"'the inherited prejudice against the p rofess ; 

worse stm, me u reform much more diffi- » ~ 

technical civil servants mad pJy ^ Gh The 

idea that some special skill obtained by offerbw , " d 
short of direction of labour, 0 Co - 7 npetitive 


13 



REAP THE WHIRLWIND 


386 

salary, was regarded in the Establishment Secretary’s office as 
entirely disruptive of the principles of the Service. 

Social prestige and precedence in the Civil Service depended 
upon salary grading. The administrative officers had therefore to be 
the most highly paid. To increase the salary, say, of a geologist 
would involve a pay rise all around and this, it could easily be 
demonstrated, could not be afforded. The consequences of this 
policy were reflected in the progressive denuding of the technical 
ministries. Despite the fact that the Watson Commission had 
commented, in particular, on the deficiencies of the Government’s 
agricultural services even in die colonial period, the Colonial Office, 
with all its resources, had not been able to fill the many vacancies. 
After independence the deficiency of die educational system was to 
make it almost impossible to find sufficient Ghanaian recruits with 
the necessary technical qualificauons. 

In 1961 when I left the Attorney General’s Office I had been 
able, through my continued but successful struggle over lawyer’s 
salary scales to leave behind me a fully staffed department. At the 
same date, in the Ministry of Agriculture, out of an establishment for 
267 Agricultural Assistants, it had only been possible to fill 147 
posts. In the higher grades die position was almost as bad. The 
Division of General Agriculture, which dealt with the key questions 
of increasing food supplies and lessening the dependency of the 
economy on cocoa, was supposed to have 173 technical officers 
above the rank of Agricultural Assistant. Fifty three of these 
positions were, at this date, vacant. 

It might have been possible to have recruited more technicians 
from abroad but for the past history of the subterfuges used to 
sabotage the Guggisberg plan and to prevent Africanization of the 
service. Now every such suggestion was quite naturally suspect and 
this was particularly so when key posts were involved. 

Shortly after independence Michael Collins, the Commissioner 
o Police under the Colonial regime, whom it had been decided to 

ee P m office, died and his British deputy was due shortly to take 
U P * ® P os *- Secretary to the Henley Regatta. I suggested that we 
s ou take advantage of this unexpected vacancy to borrow from 
Hritam, for a one- or two-year period, a police officer of distinction 
w 0 cou d reorganize the force and select, without prejudice from 
previous colonial connections, the Ghanaian officers most worthy of 



THE LAST YEARS 


387 


encouragement, promotion and specialist training. The name I put 
forward was Colonel A. E. Young, then Commissioner of Pohce of 
the City of London but whom I discovered was available for 
secondment. The Cabinet, I afterwards learned, argued over this 
proposal for hours. There was general agreement that the Ghanaia 
pohce officers had not had sufficient experience but against ffi 
was the fear that the Party would alienate the police lf the Y brou S 
in a senior police officer from outside as Commissioner and 1 did m 
appoint to the post the Ghanaian otherwise entitled to it according 
to the colonial rules of succession in the force. In consequence Ae 
senior Ghanaian pohce officer, E. R. T. Madjitey, a former school- 
master, was appointed. c . • n t 

In the end it did him little good. A product °f AfnC ™ tl0 f ^ 0 ^ 
the top himself, Madjitey was unable to resist the pre 
below to remove the remaining British police ofitesbgj 
technical posts, though there were not yet a su cien , ^ 

mined Ghanaian substitutes. I fought hard tc .ream a Scodand 
Yard expert on fraud and even succeeded in ge mg 
the Attorney General’s department, but he 
very short period. When the contracts 0 e 
British pohce specialists were terminated, he cons ' dercdb 
should Eesign. Madjitey was, in the end, left with a force not 

sufficiently technically equipped or trame to 01 <rp[ ouse 

In JantLy .964 an armed constable, on duty at . Fhp itaff .Hou*, 
shot at the President and killed a Snpenntendent of Pol ^^L 
to disarm Urn. The subsequent investigation into police g 
revealed numerous deficiencies and shortcomings j p 

the Special Branch, John Hartley, who tad been long : “ 

Eric Madjitey’s running of things, was »PP““ . or P gan n, ers 0 f 
Harlley was to be, two years later, o P 

th My 'o.h« unsuccessful attempt to have appointedskilied Brinsh 

professional men to fill an0 *^ r ^pp’fp^t-independence pohey 
of success. In accordance with Je ^m po V t0 

of separating executive and over the run- 

recruit a considerable number of D .| rict Commissioners , now re- 

mng of the courts of the form^ ^ ^ enQUgh t0 find 

christened Government n ; nce t0 be junior magistrates. 

Ghanaian lawyers with sufficient experience j 



388 REAP THE WHIRLWIND 

It was impossible on top of it to expand the judiciary if, as was then 
desired, a legal structure similar to that of England was to be built 
up. 

As a stopgap measure I suggested we should fill the middle grade, 
that is to say the positions which corresponded to that of County 
Court judges, full-time Chairmen of Quarter Sessions and the like 
in England, with experienced retired British or Commonwealth 
judges who would serve for two to three years. By then there should 
have emerged from the growing body of Ghanaian lawyers, sufficient 
individuals to fill the posts. The Cabinet approved my plan and my 
office drafted ‘The Commissioners of Assize and Civil Pleas Bill’ 
which was to provide Parliamentary' authority for their appoint- 
ment. Again the idea was subject to violent attack, this time in the 
National Assembly and led by Ako Adjei, the most narrowly 
nationalist of the Ministers. The Bill was passed but at his insti- 
gation a proviso was added, limiting those who could be appointed 
under it to Ghanaians. In consequence the whole scheme fell to the 
ground. The Act in the form finally passed was used to enable a few 
retired Ghanaian magistrates to be re-employed but for all practical 
purposes it was still-born and was repealed three years later. 

Cocoa and the Civil Service have always seemed to me to lie at the 
root of Ghana s problems and that without examining their impli- 
cations in detail, it is impossible to understand what took place. 
This however is not the view taken by o titer observers. Mr Henry L. 
Bretton, for example, the author of The Rise and Fall of Kwame 
Nkrumah, had visited Ghana in 1956, 1959 and 1962 and was in 
1964-65 Visiting Professor of Political Science at the University of 
tana. Since he had already written a book on Nigerian politics 
and had, before completing his book on Ghana, spent a year at 
e University College at Nairobi in Kenya, one would at least 
suppose that he would have possessed a basis for comparison. He 
was a Professor of Political Science at the University of Michigan 
and his visits to Africa were financed by the Rockefeller Foundation 
and by Michigan University’s Developing Areas Fund. He had the 
time, t e experience and the money to produce an expert study of 
ana and his book, with its elaborate ‘Selective Bibliography’ and 
its trw enty pages of notes on the authorities on whom he relied for 
S lves a H the appearance of scholarship in theory, 
ne Central Intelligence Agency of the United States Govern- 



THE LAST YEARS 


389 


ment thought so highly of the work of American scholars visiting 
Mric a that S in many^ases when funds from voluntary sources wer 
insufficient to finance their visits, these were <ro m 'he 

CIA’s secret reserves. The real interest of Professor Bretmn s ^boot 
and similar articles and studies on Ghana y 0 er 
developed world, is whether a dangerous system of sdf ' decep ° 
has been set up. To what extent have studies of Africa by such 
persons been objective and to what degree, on the other hand, toe 
die skilled observers from the Western World returned the rn^ern 
which they believe would be most in accord 1 wnh ^ what ta m 
power in their own countries, wanted to hear . ' - ■ j ^ 

die calculated supply of misinformanon, which bedeviUef ' Br «™ 
Colonial policy in its last days, been revived m a grander more 
dangerous form with thevisiting Western Professor ""VS 
place of the illiterate chief. Britain’s failure to understand vh w 
happening in the Colonial Gold Coast arose, as I have «r 'd earlie 
to explain, through reliance on information supplied by ^the duds 
whom the British authorities maintained m power. V ry y 

these chiefs gave the answers which they though would be most 

pleasing to those who kept them in 0 s , . . ar r : ca t i, a t 
through United S “ es ^^“^uTe shnilarly biased? 

lSSTS? ffiHeSaSon if is in any even. ** - 

examine how Professor Bretton treats the issues I have briefly 

'tt £ £ g 5 £u Civil Service is 

as ‘slow-moving, red-tape addicte. “ atriat ’ e commercial 

‘geared largely to 0 „ t0 examine what seems to me 

interests . However, he does not extent t h eS e continuing 

to be the important issue, namely, Nkrumah’s 

defects in the Pff^^^toprSeding colonial 
Governments or the inevitable - f A main lssues 

regime. This in itself is a pUy because on ^ it ig 

raised by the Ghanaian ex^ene ■. dismantle the existing 

necessary in all former on a new basis. 

Civil Service machinery and Financial Times, had 

Ax m the cocoa q« J ^fmost pressing problems-the 
highhghted one of the • t that this is having on 

weakness of commodity prices 



39 ° REAP the whirlwind 

the plans of developing countries’, Professor Bretton’s analysis is 
restricted to the following passage: 

‘Of course, the steady drop in the world price of cocoa contributed to 
Ghana’s over-all economic weakness. Considering the heavy depend- 
ence on the sale of cocoa — about 60 per cent of all export trade — the 
drop from £467 per long ton in 1953 to £191 per long ton in 1963 was 
critical indeed. However, to insist, as Nkrumah did, that the Ghanaian 
economy was deteriorating simply because the consumers of the 
world’s cocoa refused to pay higher prices was something of an exag- 
geration. The overextension and mismanagement, the erratic course 
of Ghana’s industrialization, the fanciful fiscal policies, and the mis- 
appropriations could not be ascribed to the consumers of Ghana’s 
cocoa.’ 

The fact that the figures he quotes are wrong is only of marginal 
interest in indicating the extent of his scholarship. What is of 
importance is the automatic supposition that what went wrong in 
Ghana was in the main the result of internal mistakes and crimes. 
With Professor Bretton, as with other critics, there is no attempt 
made to evaluate how far the matters commonly held against Dr 
Nkrumah arose as a consequence of external pressures 'which would 
have equally affected any other government in Ghana, however 
chosen or run. 

The average world price of cocoa beans in 1953 was not £467 a 
ton but only £287. It was the sudden jump to £467 a ton the 
following year which produced the political crisis that followed the 
J 954 general election. Again the price of cocoa in 1963 was not £ 19 1 
a ton but £208. It was the subsequent fall in 1964 to an average of 
£191 and, more particularly, the fall to £140 in 1965 which are the 
politically significant figures. It was this movement in the cocoa 
price which largely explained ‘the over extension’ of the economy, 
t e erratic course of industrialization, and, what Professor Bretton 
calls the fanciful fiscal policies’. 

. thirty-one per cent of Ghana’s total capital stock was locked up 
m cocoa trees. If the farmer did not receive a return which at least 
met is outgoings then he would neglect to spray his trees or to cut 
out diseased ones and, as the Watson Commission had pointed out, 
, swollen shoot’, the dread malady of the cocoa farm, was not 
always kept under control, the whole of the Ghanaian cocoa 



THE LAST YEARS 


391 


planting would be destroyed into a generation I liras I *erefae 
Lential to subsidize spraying and cuttmg out to « P»J ' 
farmer a price guaranteed in advance, mespecroe of the »™uiu 
coco, he produced or the price at which his produce could be sold 

on the world market. ...... _ nil u he 

While this was the only policy by which the mdu try ced 

kept ahve, its side effects were serious. If fa ™< 5 P ^ 
large quantities of cocoa the world price e an r f ore ;^ n 

was thus deprived, both of revenue and o e r Board 

currency which were accumulated by the ocoa ; ntema l 3n d 

when there was a substantial difference between the m =mal and 

external prices. A big crop stimulated a demand 
semi-durable imports since the farmers overall earn! P_ 

However, as external earnings declined proportion s 
of the crop the foreign exchange earned was no gre ate r w totever 
size the crop. The licensing of imports-what “““ 

calls ‘fanciful fiscal policies’-became , ' c “ ssa ^ b “'” , d the 
disbalance between internal and externa earni g same 

fluctuation in the size and price of the cocoa crop. For to* 
reason the economy became ‘over extended'. The togs '“f s 
reasonably anticipated through increase cocoa p ’ 

not available since the fall in external pnce canned out tn 
increased earnings expected from a bigger crop and 1 

industrialization was set on ‘an erratic c0 ^ rs ? ) ' f Bretton and 
How are these errors and misanalyses by r . ^es 0 f f act 
other like minded critics to be interprete . e r acts w hich 

and the failure to draw obvious conclusions from th f 
are right, due merely to chance or is it due, as d • 

days, to m attempt to find arguments to justify the existin* 

the world ? i. nrnvc usinsc 

Broadly speaking Professor Bretton se s o tke p 00 r 

Ghana as the example, that the latent co f nm 0 f the 

nations of the world and the wealthy ones poorer while 

dissatisfaction of those who are growing poo conspiracy 

they see others growing richer and richer °f a 
inspired by the anti-Western feeling o ^so^ ^ exp loi te d for 

Western intellectuals. It ,^ s th g’ ^r Nkrumah, who, had they 
their own purposes individuals, decent and 

been left to their own devices, would have turned ou 



392 


REAP THE WHIRLWIND 


honest neo-colonialists. To Professor Bretton, Dr Nkrumah’s error 
was that he started out on this course as a crypto neo-colonialist for 
Britain and not for the United States. According to him ‘London 
completely accepted Nkrumah’ and he comments that ‘a glance at 
the trade balance over the years shows that the choice had actually 
not been a bad one’. He complains bitterly that Dr Nkrumah’s 
opposition to neo-colonialism ‘did not apply to Great Britain to the 
same extent as it did to the United States’. 

This is a complete and fundamental misunderstanding. In so far 
as Dr Nkrumah can be accused of favouring any Western country 
it was the United States and in so far as any of his development 
projects were of a neo-colonialist nature, the Volta Hydro-Electric 
Scheme best^fittcd this pattern. It involved as Mr Tony Killick has 
pointed out, an extraordinary generous agreement’ with two United 
States firms, the Kaiser Aluminium and Chemical Corporation and 
the Reynolds Metal Company. 

The Volta project was originally planned at a time of aluminium 
s ortage m the sterling area and was devised as a scheme to develop 
the very large bauxite deposits in the Colony of the Gold Coast as it 
was t en. Aluminium production proceeds in three distinct and 
separate stages. The least profitable is the first stage — the mining by 
open cast methods of the raw material, bauxite. The second stage is 
he conversion of this bauxite into pure aluminium oxide or ‘alu- 
mina as it is called. The third stage is the reduction of this alumina 
m a sme ter into metal by a process which consumes such large 

t ai ? le j! 0 e < j ct:rlc ity that aluminium has been described as 
packaged power . 

v J h lT rn whicbGhana obtaine d from its bauxite exports was 
5 chn r° UI , ld IOi ' a ton> In 3 x 956 inquiry into mining it 
Z iT 5k th u c » !t . 0f shi PPi”? <»“>*« to Scotland, where it 
between j , e 't'"^ Aluminium Company into alumina was 

SX* ““ it tmti transporting 

orodiirincT S< ? m — h subse 9 uent development, the original idea for 
GntSJTTT metal locaU >: had from Sir Gordon 

based nn karri C l a ,P ro P ose ^ an integrated aluminium industry 
be processed ^ 6 eCt £ 1C P? w . er br . om the Volta. Local bauxite would 

would be red •" £re ^ * S m ' ned an d the alumina so produced 
would be reduced in a smelter in the Colony into the final product, 



THE LAST YEARS 


393 


aluminium metal. The post-war British Government proposal [for a 
Gold Coast aluminium industry were likewise based on the whole 

manufacture taking place in the Colony. 

The Volta River Project as finally established was of quite a 
different character. It was unconnected with any proc«amg of tal 
bauxite Valeo the aluminium Company established m Ghana by 
SI firms, merely undertook to «* a redu«m plan 
which would reduce to aluminium alumina powder p oduerf^ 

the two firms in fire United States 

The only obligations of the American firms to Ghana were first to 
build a smelter Ind secondly to pay annuaUy m foreigi excl hang 
sum for a quantity of power from the Volta ^^^f^fter! 
rising from £542,000 in 1967 to £2,464,000 in 1973 
AH such power as the smelter might require had to be sold ^ 
Volta Hydro-Electric Authority at a fixed £ 

which is equivalent to just under \d. a unit T^^f^dted 
power could be obtained by the companies United 

States it would have cost them up to 4 nulls m Weston Europe 
between 4 and 6 mills and even m Japan, where power is cheap, 

between 2-7 and 4 mills. had to 

In order to supply this power fire Ghana °T™f 4 e y olta 
undertake to construct a dam behind whic w There 

lake, 250 miles long and with an area of 3,275 s 9 Qhana and 
was thus flooded 3 per cent of the former land surface 
farms which had previously produced some £500, 

annually, were submerged. Ghana had to 

To pay for this immense hydro-electric complex ^Gham had ^ 

expend £40-4 million in foreign exc ang was on ly possible 

local currency. Of the foreign exc ange n g ^ ^ « so f t > rate of 

for Ghana to borrow £9-6 mi 10 The Governmen t had to 

3 i Per cent over a period oft 3 ^ reS erves of foreign exchange 

find £5 million from their own p Intemational Bank, the United 

and to obtain the remainder h^ ^ Unked Kin g d oni Export 

States Export and Import cent tQ 6 cent 

Credits Department at Aeharfia 1 W *5* P ^ ^ ^ has 
repayable wthin twenty-fiv y further costs 0 f some £7 million, 

estimated that Ghana had t ancillary work. Further, Tema 

much of it in foreign exchange, m ancillary 

harbour, essential to the scheme cost £27 millio . 



394 REAP THE WHIRLWIND 

Writing off any return on these items of expenditure, the hoped 
for profit on the Ghana capital invested in the Volta Scheme was by 
no means excessive and it had to depend entirely on the expected 
sale of surplus electrical power. The current to the smelter was, 
under the Master Agreement to which the United States Govern- 
ment was a party, supplied virtually at cost price. In the coming 
years the Volta River Authority will have to find just under £3 
million annually in foreign currency for interest and repayment 
charges and not even after 1973 does the promised payment in 
foreign exchange by Valeo amount to this figure. On the most 
optimistic estimates the Volta Authority cannot make a profit until 
1971 and the maximum return w'hich Ghana can hope to obtain 
on the capital invested is, even on a fifty-year average, only between 
8 and 8-5 per cent. Even these figures depend on a continually 
growing demand by industry for the power surplus to smelter 
requirements and a rapidly rising standard of living which would 
increase, at a fast rate, domestic consumption. 

In short the Volta project was not, as is so often represented, a 
generous investment by the Western world in Ghanaian develop- 
ment. In reality, it was, on the one hand, a scheme for processing 
alumina powder produced elsewhere by foreign companies enjoying 
substantial tax exemptions and obtaining electric power, one of the 
main costs of aluminium smelting, at a cheaper rate than that 
obtainable almost anywhere else in the world. For Ghana, on the 
ot er hand, it was a calculated gamble. The construction of the 
smelter made possible the building of the hydro-electric complex 
ut its profitability ultimately depended upon industrialization in 
* n *^s turn postulated the creation of an all-African 
mar ct. evertheless it might have been reasonably supposed that 
minimum benefits would come to Ghana in return for the highly 
favourable terms granted to Western industry. 

o give one example. The Volta power production would in any 
C% a r m ^ xc . ess Ghana’s immediate needs. Power was badly 
nee e or the industrialization of Ghana’s neighbour Togo, whose 
capita ome was closer to the generating station than Accra. 

estern pressure in support of African sharing of the current 
pro ucc rruglu at least have been expected. Togo could have been 

“ Ia ?, CU j 3 ent on t ^ le vcr y favourable terms offered to it by 
r rvkrumah s Government. No such support for African-based 



THE LAST YEARS 


development was forthcoming. In the interests of African industria- 
lization Ghana made every concession to Western financial interests. 
No encouraging move was ever made in return. 

After all, the Volta project did not stand alone as an example of the 
effort which Dr Nkrumah’s Governments made to reach a basis for 
co-existence with Western capitalism. When the gold mines pro- 
ducing almost one half of Ghana’s total output of gold threatened 
to close down unless granted large Government loans, the Ghana 
Government bought them out by a take-over bid on the London 
Stock Exchange I was one of those in charge of this operation and 
though a number of individuals in Ghana, who have now been 
charged with wholesale corruption, knew what was gomg on, not 
one of them, and this I was able to establish positively, ever attemp- 
ted to make the very large sums which could easily have been made 
by speculating in the shares of the companies concerned before the 
terms of the offer were announced. As it was no shareholder was 
offered less for any share than he might have paid for it at any time 
since independence. The shares in the largest of the companies 
concerned which were currently quoted at 3d. were bought for 15. 
and the other companies’ shareholders obtamed terms which were 

almost as generous. . , 

The British Treasury has power to remit stamp duty on such 

transactions at their discretion. In vien o e samp utj in 
question having to be paid by a less developed Commonwealth 

country which had compensated, lf g “ eroiKl A 

individual British shareholders, we asked that Treasury discretion 

should be used in Ghana’s case. The 

It should have been a warning to us of things to come. Lnder no 

. MIUU1U , under Dr Nkrumah, receive ce^-r.u- 

circumstances would Cjhana, unuer u>. • ’ 

treatment in return, however well foreign interests uere !« 5 ;ed 
after. 



39^ REAP THE WHIRLWIND 

i^n 5 mHIi0n f industrialists and other creditors in the United 
states, Britain and the countries of Western Europe. 

even L7 aS r< j? uired was not foe writing off of these debts nor 
lemrfheni' 11 SC f 75 d °™' ^ . t ^ at was as k ed for was merely a 
The Sn ; r 6 PCn ° d durin S which they had to be repaid, 
sooner S V “ 8rced - The Western countries refused. Yet no 

Western m 7 ^ ”7^ re lP me established itself than these same 
extending iLp !- eS 3 p tened t0 °fo er t0 foe mutineers a scheme for 
hand, to Dr Nlaumah. Why 7** they had ° Ut ° f 

foemselvetGn^ S Governments even if they had not conducted 
Bretton Ins « neo " c °fo^ ladst a way towards Britain as Professor 

period. It was^the^Gol if' S . Upported sterIin S in its critical 
afterwards Ginn ? c C ° 3St C °lony under Dr Nkrumah and 
sterling area with 7 ^ ^ independent . which had provided the 
criticaf ^. GlZ * * ddkr 

investment of ire c • 7 , }een . re P aid by the unfortunate ill- 

Ghana’s reserves ° d S ed in Britain which had resulted in 

the fault of Britain i 6 ? e 5 ed £6o million. This was entirely 

difficulties were also tea b r Charge ° g the reserves - Ghana’s present 
manufacturers of rfip w r g e extent due to the fact thatthechocolate 

Pledges con ^ “ P “ ^ 
Conferences by leaders of th beha f at Intern ational Cocoa 
of cocoa Ghana produced rlJ ^ dustry > that whatever the quantity 
at a price of betwppn r Western world would purchase it all 
foe foreign 3 t0n ‘ Ghana’s failure to find 
considerable part the result nf^ sh % t : term obligations was in 
average, in ^ 31 ° nly 3 t0 "’ ° n 

purchase price had hppn u i a< ? t lat ln previous years also, the 

^ „c„ s “ ItX S ,h = pr0 ™ sed "tatam. 

assist Ghana under Dr Ml- dev<do P ed countries for refusing to 
extravagant and cornmt md l 4 W3S that the re S ime was s0 

that to give it anv nr * , ad . £ enera by been so mismanaged, 
indebtedness. Y accommoda tion would only lead to further 
Of 

the absence of sufficient- 1 ru7 en - ent ex \ sted - It was due in part to 
Part to nepotism and to theT™ 5 - in ma nagement, and in 
enterprises of individual* PPomtment to the Boards of State 
individuals not capable of running them effectively 



THE LAST YEARS 


397 


Thus, for example, General Ankrah when retired, was made a 
Director of the Ghana Commercial Bank. Had he not become Head 
of State as a result of the mutiny, his appointment no doubt would 
have been given as an example of a choice made from motives of 
political expediency, rather than of banking experience. 

However, a great deal of this attack was misdirected. The object 
of State enterprises was often to save foreign exchange, rather than 
to make internal profits, and this was true of the two Corporations 
which made the greatest losses, and are most often attacked, the 
State Mining Corporation and Ghana Airways. Looked at from the 
pure angle of profit, Ashanti Gold Fields, foreign owned and 
foreign managed, made enormous profits, while the State Mining 
Corporation incurred an annual loss of £i million a year. In large 
part this was due to the fact that the Ashanti concession included the 
richest ore in the country while the State mines had to exploit ore 
which a commercial firm might not have considered it worthwhile 
to mine. For example, in 1962 Ashanti Gold Fields were producing 
one ounce of gold for each ton of ore mined. At the main State 
mine it was necessary to process five tons to obtain the same 
quantity of gold. Nevertheless in terms of foreign exchange 
earned the State mines were more valuable to Ghana than Ashanti 
Gold Fields. In 1961-62, £5,225,000 worth of gold was produced 
at Ashanti. The State Mining Corporations only produced 
£4,740,000. Yet in terms of net foreign exchange earned for Ghana 
the State mines produced £ 3 , 75 °> 000 Ashantl Gold Fields 


only produced £3,325,000. 

In the same way the utility of Ghana Airways an . indeed of the 
Conference buildings constructed for the rganization of African 
Unity meeting in Accra at a cost of £7 ml 10n an cited as the 
supreme example of Dr Nkrumah s extravagance must both be 
regarded in the light of their potentia orei 0 n exc ange earnings. 

Looked at in theory a large tourist industry could have been 
built up on the basis of the Air Ghana services and its fleet of 
aircraft was justified on this account. ® P e . n la l passengers 
existed. What was lacking were the skilled ad mstrators to work 
out the technical details and the whole supporting sk llIs r equ i re d 
for a tourist industry, from chefs to p ° V” peak, ng Spanish. 

Experts did not exist in the Civ.l Service or elsewhere to ex p l oit the 
expansion of air traffic possible, throu a h the f urable geographical 



39 § 


REAP THE WHIRLWIND 


„ i 10n , 0 ^ cr f; Often an opportunity was opened up but some- 
re a ? ng 1 e Ine tbe specialist, the administrator, the technician 

■ ™ e t ' V f >Ist neede d to despatch the letter was missing and the 
project came to nothing in consequence. 

rnnr^ Xa ? ple ’ Ghana ’ s purchase of British VCio aircraft has been 
nf thee nC as unjustifiable expenditure, though in fact the features 
anv niti aCr ° P a f S L Were better suited to African conditions than 
with rmJ / tben _ obtainable. If they could have been flown 
have nrnvprf , 6 0ads f° r tbe i r maximum flying time, they would 
the asking wif^ P robtab J e and tb e passengers were to be had for 
rivhN th' at " as lacking was diplomatic negotiation of landing 
planning t SCle . I ! tl ^ Prospecting of new routes and technical 
equidistant r ° 0ne P art icular case. Accra is almost 
large Lehi r ° m Uenos A lres and Beirut. There are comparatively 
wWch haveTnt TT mtleS in West ^a and Latin America 
Buenos Aires rt, r am u y connect * ons - An air service from Beirut to 
the ^avaihWe t f ^ by VCl ° aircraft could be shown on 
Accra-Bdrur ? "TT *' be most Potable. The existing 
that its extensiorTtnV Pa ‘ d but avaiIa ble figures indicated 

Paying and Ghana hacTth USing a VCl0 > would be hi S hl >' 

was missing wac m d aircr aft to provide the service. All that 

arrangements nee ° Sta ^ 6 t0 WOrb out m detail the complicated 
arrangements necessary to establish it. 

firmest bSs C ° n , ference buiIdin S s ‘ The 

of international m r start a tourist industry is the promotion 

AgaiXr,l“ c*S„r d W- 

tad the disadvantage of not A dd» ''baba, which 

and of having a high altlo a a g ° n main communication lines 
Hall equipped whh fnll S. T " WaS ’ ^ its new Conference 

with GaSetS SL“| l° r r uta "““ i-«Pr« ! »S » d 

only other place i n Af 6 lbe °f mternational standards, the 
intwnational conferences 03 ’"$«'>* Sahara where full-sctde 

P»tcy had, i„7h?“Sd “ bE no„-ali g „ed 

never, in practice exnlntWi T mmerclal implications which were 
which, for exanmle hni-t, ft. ’ . Was one °f tbe f ew countries to 

ambassadors were accredited “ d N ° rth Vietnameae 

large but came from nil fi, ’ . e dl Plomatic corps was not only 

shade of opinion AnH 6 contlnents and contained almost every 
opinion. And not only the political but the physical 



THE LAST YEARS 399 

infrastructure for international conferences also existed. There was 
adequate hotel accommodation and the facilities for expanding o 
meet demand. There were excellent world connections to Accra 
which was served by many airlines and its cable and telephon 
facilities were, in my opinion, in many ways superior to ^neva. 
Indeed, with all its advantages, once it had the conference budding , 
Accra could have, if not rivalled, at least emulated Geneva whose 
start as an international centre had arisen f ron ^ its repu a 
non-alignment gained by its citizens who forme an con r° 
International Red Cross. There was no reason why Accra like 
Geneva, should not have become the home of a num er o , 
increasing International Agencies of the Unite a ons 
world organizations. 

The greatest problem of any less develope coun ry ^ 

balance on invisible account which is a continued dram die limtied_ 
foreign currency which can be obtained from lts ex P° ' t 

mittee of British National Export Council pointed o m a T 
Britain’s Invisible Earnings, published 7 only m seven yearn ^ 
the hundred and seventy years smce 1796 has Britain ^ p 
than she imported. This almost invariable adverse balanceo 

trade has however nearly always been made up y a p p^tain’s 
on the invisible side. In .966 toy-seven pe. of Bntams 
overseas earnings came from invisible paymen P. .. tour jst 
dends from overseas investment, sluppmg and aitos, , tounst 

traffic, banting brokerage and marketing, ays ly • n exchange 

of the United Kingdom's total gross balance in forei . b g 
came from evports. The United States mv,s.bl = re “ f A „ s Sa a„“ 
running at around the same Bgnre as have those of Italy, Austria 

Norway. ^ Pr pfnrp not afford a deficit on its 

A less developed country can ^ ^ of dlis much 0 f 

invisible balance of payments ac ^ has been beside the 

the criticism of, for examp e, - n A much of this was in foreign 

point. The airline mad= thpor, charges The^e 

currency by way of fuel, ex p f exc hange on the pur- 

was, in addition heavy capi n ncve 5 hdess by which Ghana 

chase of aircraft. The P™P er . d d is whether if ms passengers 
airways P crf ?™. C f orei<Tn Clines the cost in foreign exchange to 
had been carried bj = Further the very existence of an 

Ghana would have been higher, rurui 



400 


REAP THE WHIRLWIND 


211 l £ j 1S a stimulus to tourism and tourism is one of the few quick 
met o s by which a developing country can promote invisible 
exports, e tween 1952 and 1964 Yugoslavia largely in this way 
increase er invisible earnings from $22 million to $326 million, 
jor an was able, over the same period, to maintain, again largely 
011 o tourism, the fourth fastest growth rate per head of the popula- 
1011 in invisible exports of any country in the world. Ghana which 
per aps more than any other African state has most to offer to 

Af™” 1 e ^ 1Can tour ' sts who in increasing numbers were visiting 
nca, ia every justification in spending Iavishingly on a con- 
ftrence centre But for the military revolt Ghana might well, like 

class°of cou 3 tr’ ^° rdan ’ bave broken through into the tourist earning 

be P a . me independent foreign investment was already 
indue? 11 ^ 1. C mmm S an d timber industries and such secondary 
the clp!?d aS 1 Cre W3S ’ re P atr i at i° n of profits therefore cut into 
of foreio-n 61 re ^ ources op foreign currency necessary for the purchase 
tial fond •^ qmpment ’ ra ' v materials, semi-durable goods and essen- 
there wrrp ?° S ' n ac ] dlt: i on the fact that such flow of tourists as 
had to bp trJ? S ” utwar d s grom Ghana, that every professional man 
to be born / r .° ad and t ^ at insurance and shipping costs had 
Mble tapom g " CUrrC “ y 8,1 P iW “P » >>4 burden of 

world o,;S r K ,h 'r C “” cro P . c ^ e b>wer the price per ton on the 
tonnaae In rnr? e cost °f shipment remained proportional to the 

the cost 'in forei^Tu^ncy infhi ^ ?° C ° a aVeraged £l40 * ““ 
cent of the fnrii • ? ln s n 1 Ppmg the crop was over seven per 

to be Led tTd fr ° m f S3le - Ever y method had therefore 

to increase invisihl mS . ex ^ erna i spending on invisible account and 
lines was not alwaysSSuiS 1 S* 1 Wasa ! tem P ted along these 

ing is that in the criticism nf n,^ s J ur P nsm S- What is surprl ?‘ 
purpose of whir b?? of Ghana under Dr Nkrumah the basic 

presumed that if Gb? S was never appreciated and it was 

conference cem^ ^ Shlppin g or airlines of its own or built a 

W3S merdy the rCSuIt oPdelusions of grandeur. 

were undoubtedly dp? 1 ' 6 eXte ? t and aJs ° corruption did exist and 

thing eSoutGh ??’ t0 1116 econom >’ hut, as with every- 

it difficult to put ffie problem*^ ^ beCn S ° distorte d as to make 
put me problem in its true perspective. 



THE LAST YEARS 


401 


I received, roughly speaking, the same salary and allowances as a 
Minister, £4,000 a year together with provision for expenses under 
various heads which probably averaged around £1,700 a year, n 
the ten years I was in the Ghanaian Civil Service I saved on y some 
£600 in Ghanaian Bonds. Had I been more careful and economical 
I might perhaps have set aside twice or three times this amount but 
the high cost of living and taxation would have made it impossib e 
for me to have saved more than this. Therefore when one saw 
Ministers, Senior Police Officers, Judges and civil servants who 
were apparently only dependent on similar or sma er sa aries, 
building large houses, running new cars and entertaining freely one 
had at once the suspicion that this wealth had been some ow 
acquired dishonestly. It is however much more difficult to e certain 
that this was so in Ghanaian conditions. Their extra mcome mig 
come from family property or through trading y rien s an 
relatives. Nevertheless in Ghana under Dr Nkruma , corrup 10 , 
which had previously existed, was never eliminated and it is posstbe 
to argue, though I do not think it could necessarily be proved, tha 
it was worse after the control of justice and po ice P ass ® * n 
African hands. The difficulty of assessing the problem is tha 
many wild and unsubstantiated accusations are ma e 
difficult to separate the true from the false. Ta e or exa p 
charges against Dr Nkrumah himself. . 

He has been accused of salting away funds amounting to any* g 
from M million to £5* million. Much of this alleged 1 P rsonal 
fortune of Dr Nkrumah has been made up by attribunn P Y 

to him property held in the name of the President Tbs had on* 
nally before the establishment of the Republic, stood m die name 
of tb: Crown. There were, for example, m Ghana pensive Crown 
Lands’. With the establishment of the Republic sue P P ^ 
automatically transferred into the name of the Went bu Dr 
Nkrumah exercised no more personal control over it than does the 

British Monarchy over British Crown an S - „.; ven at 

Apart from this the allegations come from ewdence given a 
Commissions of Enquiry by Emmanuel Ayeh i Kunu » «™or 
official in the President's office and a promment member of the 
CPP and W. M. G. Halm, the former' Gove nor al F the Bank of 

Ghana and Treasurer of the Party. Their evidence h been in 
unana ana 1 reasui i nf ! CTe d abroad in their names was m 

terpreted to mean that monies lodged aoroau 



THE LAST YEARS 


4°3 


all, completely of refined non-commercial gold (which in anyeve 
was not available in Ghana) it would have been worth £13,200. Jo 
this reason to me the idea of he or anyone else personally carrying 
through the customs in Egypt or elsewhere the large sums in go 

suggested is absurd and can be written off. , f • 

To back up these allegations the rebel regtme also put ' Wore ‘hem 
Commission of Enquiry a certain Henry Ktvadjoe D ! aba ^ 
odd coincidence, was also a fellow prisoner 0 in , . 

One of my cell mates was a Lebanese receiver of stolen goods and he 
was friendly with Djaba and used to pass on to me what -he said 

about events. Djaba was then awaiting his ppea S million 
of twenty— four— years 5 imprisonment for having stole £ ^ 

from the Government. In short the case agains 1 
he had conspired with the then Minister of Agriculture and a cm 
servant in the Ministry to inflate the price of spraying 
cocoa farmers and had pocketed the difference. Hl ^ h 

that a good part of this illegal profit he had paid over to .Dr Mkruma . 
According to the Daily Telegraph of the 21st April 1966. 

‘In 1963 Djaba secured another order for 25,000 spraying machmes 
from which he stood to make £400,000. This time, he sa.d, 
Nkrumah asked for £100,000, a bullet-proof car and a glider. 

Irrespective of Djaba’s guilt or innocence m regard 

for which he was convicted in Dr N ' ^ nQ dealings 

complete certainty that he and Dr ceased to be 

together. This was one of the rare occasions a ter I ceased tob^ 

Attorney General that I was involved in a » Uce were 
President called me in because ^ s ^ peC e Scape abroad when his 
sheltering Djaba and had allowed 1 ^tinces pj r Nkrumah 
arrest had been ordered; in these circu • proce edings. It is 
asked me to take general charge of ffie » were in league 

quite inconceivable that if Dja m these specia l step s to see 

together Dr Nkrumah would I D j aba was tried with a former 

that he was brought to trial. Fu > tbe t i me of his arrest a 

Cabinet Minister, F. Y. 0 f a Government Board. 

Member of Parliament and t j ie £ W es and to me it was 

Asare had considerable to g Ct rfd of corruption in high 

an example of Dr Nkrumah s a i s0 be prosecute d 

places that he was anxious that Asare sno 



4°4 REAP THE WHIRLWIND 

although the bringing of such charges would obviously involve 
political difficulties for him. 

It has been usual in liberal circles in Britain to defend Dr 
krumah on the ground that his personal fortune was irrelevant and 
that he should be judged on his achievements rather than on what 
e may have gained monetarily as the head of the Government in 
ana. There is good historical justification for this approach. No 
one, or example, attacks the Dutch Royal family though they have 

c t e [ ast f c T entUry amasse ^ a fortune estimated at £100 million, 
e lah of Iran, whose father jumped from army NCO to Head 
ot State, is not criticized because of the extent of the Imperial 
ega 1a w rich forms the specie backing for the Iranian currency. 
Potentates from Asian countries are not disqualified from making 
f 1S , US . to Britain because they have, by a judicious management 
ng ) usiness, acquired very considerable personal fortunes, 
ow ever, it is not necessary to plead any such excuse in Dr 
won iff S CaSC ’ ^, lc been interested in a personal fortune he 
" Utside Ghana ‘ If various Commissions of 
it ifw n Mn S ied . by the milltar y regime have proved anything 
foreign r ru ^ a l never transferred a penny from Ghana to any 
nersoml f C< f Unt " T u- re rema ‘ ns the charge that he had a large 
and no n V" 6 " U f ln Ghana. If this w-as so it was easily proved 
cave civile Ha r f ° rWard t0 P rove it- Dr Nkrumah’s Will, which 

staff hniicpt. 0 its stood in his name, was found at Flag- 

publish dT„ ’ e They have quomd from it but neve, 

\Yh v not ? n “ ered K at an y °f their Commissions of Enquiry- 
were therefor ' Uma never handled money personally. If there 
vans „Z vo, nr PC ; dCali ” SS thcre ">"= live been civil set- 

called to give ctidmce MVh," ° f ' hen1 ' Wh S' hav,! the y bccn 
against him ' '' b ' was lC necessary- to rely for the case 

financial irremq " - persons "’h° were either already in prison for 
In Tddit of f UleS T WCrC subse< I ucn tly to be convicted of them ? 
with a rominri ^ goob Treasure Dr Nkrumah has been endowed 
charge that f ‘ Whether there is any substance in die 

women whose n aintaiacd c ' osc friendship with the innumerable 
LibmtioJ TLnT h3VC bGCn bandied about by the National 
discrcedv in the ° S pro P a f a nda service and rc-cchoed more 
arc true then the f if °. lbt ^ ^t’ * not know. If the allegations 
ic\cment was one of note in that he consistently 



THE LAST YEARS 


405 


-worked an eighteen-hour day. I, in common with other senior 
civil servants would often be telephoned by him on matters ot 
policy often as early as 4.30 a.m. and occasionally as early as 2.30 a jn. 
and it was quite usual for him to call me at 1 1 at night. e pro a 
bility is that much of these subsequent slurs are the result ot ta es 
originally invented as a compliment. With many peop e in ana 
fecundity not monogamy was the ideal. When I was in prison one 
of the warders who had a sincere admiration for t e ationa 
Liberation Council said to me in praise of one of its members, A 
great man; twenty-two children already and two wives sti wor 
producing.’ Whether there is the slightest basis for this intended 
compliment I do not know, but I presume that is story w ic a 
wide circulation among this officer s admirers wou , 1 e we 
fall from power, be used in a similar way to disparage him. 

The truth is that, contrary to the views of Professor Beetle 
cocoa crisis and lack of experience and training m t e 1V 
governed events almost from the establishment of the Republic 
onwards. The type of fair-weather budgeting associa e ' ’ 

Gbedemah, who represented the right wing of the Party, 
longer possible. Indeed, the Ministry of Finance a 
without any idea of planning in mind and was t YP 1< "f , , 

that the Civil Service was still subconsciously assumed to 
old centralized pre-1951 basis and was never P r( T ei W 
into ministries. It in fact only worked when put back n o its old 
shape and, therefore, once an executive resi en , t 

been established, the Civil Service of its own momentum began ^ 

gravitate towards the President. The o vl ° us 

Budget Bureau in the President’s office which would take over 

budgeting from the Ministry of Finance. figure in the 

Kojo Botsio had been traditionally the most power gu 

cp’p after Dr 

Mrnisoy and i was % into effect in r 9S 3 

Nkrumah and I had discussea ^ advice 0 f an expert on 

was revised, and it was decided t Qkoh the Head of the 

finance, and at the suggestion Dr’ Nicholas Kaldor, 

Civil Service and Secretary o^ &bme ; ^^ ^ ^ ^ 
then Reader of Economics at Umona^, 

he l p - , . rPP in general was becoming resdess over 

In the meantime the Lrt m a 



REAP THE WHIRLWIND 


the apparent corruption and obvious high living of some Ministers 
and Party officials. In April 1961 Dr Nkrumah, speaking on the 
radio at dawn, the traditional hour when a Chief made a solemn 
pronouncement, launched a wholesale attack upon it. 

Corruption is endemic in every society. The extent to which it 
prevails depends first on the mechanism which exists to detect and 
check it, and secondly on the opportunities for it which the state 
organization at any time affords. In West Africa it was nothing new 
and the Watson Commission had referred to it as a major feature 
of the life in the Gold Coast, in the period long before Dr Nkrumah 
came to power. Dr K. A. Busia had exposed it among the Ashanti 
Chiefs. When I was Attorney General we held two Commissions 
of Enquiry, one into the administration of Nana Ofori Atta I’s old 
traditional State, Akim Abuakwa, and the other into the affairs of 
the Kumasi State Council. The State Council of Akim Abuakwa 
was shown openly to have devoted its funds to supporting the 
opposition. A month’s salary was for this purpose taken from the 
pay of each chief whether they agreed or not. Entered in the State 
ooks, we found records of the purchase of crate after crate of soda 
water, paid for again from the State funds of the traditional area. In 
a hot climate a bottle of soda water well-shaken and thrown into a 
crow will explode and can inflict serious wounds from flying glass 
sp inters. The soda water had been bought for the 1956 election to 
isperse CPP meetings. At Kumasi, £19,000 accumulated by a local 
tax of two shillings a load on cocoa in order to build a new palace 
or the Asantehene was discovered to have been handed over to the 
National Liberation Movement. 

It cannot therefore be said that the CPP had any monopoly in 
rruption. evertheless, corruption by a Minister was likely to be 
on a ar larger scale than by a chief. Yet from a national point of 
view so ong as the money is kept within the country there may be 
no very great effect on the economy. Indeed, corruption in the 
” 6 , tates ln 11 e ^ ast century may have materially assisted capital 
pi l ' nU1 a , t10 ? y concentrating wealth. In a small country like 
na > e arm likely to occur was far greater because the holder 
money corruptly obtained was likely to lodge it abroad and not 
r - CS l f ln ln ustr i a l development at home, as was done with the 
fruits of corruption m the United States in the last century. 

ny rate, it looked at this time as though a determined attempt 



THE LAST YEARS 


407 


would be made to clean up the Government .and the Party .The 
drive was led by Tawia Adamafio who, with Ako Adjei, had ong 
nally supported the opposition but had joined the arty e or 
Independence, obtained a scholarship to read Law m London had 
returned, been called to the Ghana Bar and then rapidly risen m 
the ranks of the Party. By i960 he was its General Sec ^tary. H , 
no doubt, was much of the drafting and the inspiration for t 
Dawn Broadcast. When he became a Minister I thought that he 
would prove an effective ally for the President an 0 , contro i 

who were attempting to get corruption m ig _P a work- 

Such was the situation when Dr Kaldor arrived a o once 
ing on new budgetary ideas. Any plan or new . an ^ 

revealed how rickety was the whole Civil l Service s machine 
Dr Kaldor’s fiscal planning was circumscribed by w 

c tzS r tiiTuptaTt 

foreign exchange reserves which ha ^ een u cQuld nQ 

difference between the buying and selli g p -world 

longer be built up from this source owing to the 
price. There were growing demands for oretgu «cta 
capital goods needed for developme . ' fot tlie | os t cocoa 

to impose additional taxation not on y Y et the channels 

revenue but also to check consumer limited and inefficient, 

through which taxation could be app ie were s i wa tion was bound 
Any budge, honestly desired - teason why 

therefore to cause discontent. Inis 

corruption had to be dealt with. , 0 f Ministers, 

A Committee had been set up to composed 

Party functionaries and Members 0 stayed on from 

of the Auditor General, a British * "“^of the Civil 

Colonial days, Sir Charles Tachie f-"-’ general the Ghanaian 
Service Commission and the new 0 1 ^ ^ ^whaitey case 

lawyer Mills-Odoi, who had appeare had been c i er ks together 
and was an old friend of Adama - when the report was 

in the Supreme Court and were ^ ^ Mem h ers were now 
presented it was clear that many 0 f w h a t they could have 

in possession of property far m 

earned in the normal way. hudeet was introduced. It 

It was at this stage that the new * 



REAP THE WHIRLWIND 


408 

affected particularly the industrial workers and political strikes 
broke out. There was no doubt that the opposition joined in 
organizing them and was attempting to use them for propaganda 
purposes abroad. The Government replied with the Preventive 
Detention Act and Dr J. B. Danquah was, for the first time, detained. 
Behind it all, however, was genuine discontent, heightened by the 
knowledge that the corruption denounced by the President in the 
Dawn Broadcast still continued. Both Dr Kaldor and I urged that 
at least those Ministers and officials shown to have large amounts of 
property should be asked to resign, though no allegation could be 
necessarily made about something for which there might have been 
a genuine explanation. The President agreed. Both Kojo Botsio and 
Ivomla Gbedemah were forced from office, as was Ayeh Kumi, then 
the Executive Secretary of the Development Secretariat, and others. 
It seemed to me that the President must justify his position by 
publishing the Investigating Committee’s report and we had it 
actually in print ready for distribution. 

It was at this stage that Tawiah Adamafio intervened. Pie brought 
every pressure to bear to prevent publication and even succeeded in 
enlisting the support to the Secretary to the Cabinet, Enoch Okoh, 
the most powerful of all civil servants, the trusted confidant of the 
President and now a high official serving with the rebel regime. In 
t e en d, Dr Nkrumah gave way. The incident illustrates the effect 
of the various pressures that had built up. The Civil Service from the 
top post downwards, were opposed to any showdown which might 
imperil the existing structure of power. The President was cut off 
rom making a popular appeal against the corrupt elements of the 
arty 1 e could get no support from Adamafio, the inspirer of the 
Dawn Broadcast, since he could no longer turn to the industrial 
si e o t e Party which he had alienated through the budget. Even 
the engine-driver, Biney, who had defeated Sir Tsibu Darku in 
I 95 1 ) was among those detained for organizing the strike. The 
puzzle is why Adamafio took the stand that he did. 
lie was intensely unpopular with most of the CPP old guard. 

aT ° • 1 st00 ^ by Dr Nkrumah in 1954 when almost all 

Asnanti had been persuaded by the promise of a higher cocoa price 
to side with the Asantehene, his chiefs and the National Liberation 
o\ ement. erhaps more than any other individual Krobo Edusei 
save t e Party at the 1956 elections. In consequence of his 



REAP THE WHIRLWIND 


410 


me were disturbed by corruption, as to what he should do but, like 
the opposition groups from which he had come, he distrusted and 
despised the people. His broadcasts while the President was out of 
Ghana during the 1961 disturbances showed it. He called the 
strikers ‘rats’ but it had been these ‘rats’ who had put the CPP into 
power when Adamafio had been in opposition. 

Unless a popular movement against corruption was organized 
over the head of the old guard the President was powerless. The 
District Commissioners who controlled, if Dr Nkrumah did not 
have sufficient support to intervene, regional and local opinion, had 
in many cases been nominees and supporters of the Ministers now 
displaced and the overall economic situation allowed Adamofiio’s 
position easily to be undermined. 

Then came the attempt on the President’s life at Kulungugu. 
The stop at the little village just inside Ghana, as the President 
returned from a visit to the Upper Volta, had only been arranged at 
the last minute. It was obvious therefore that the bomb-thrower 
must have been told of the change of plan by one of the few in Dr 
Nkrumah’s entourage who knew of it and Adamafio could be made 
to fill the role. 


A month after the attack he and his fellow Ga Minister, Ako 
Adjei, were arrested and held in preventive detention. I had been 
concerned with looking into Ako Adjei’s dealings, but I had no 
connection with preparing the case against Adamafio. However, 
trom talking over both cases with the then Director of Public 
Prosecutions, Austin Amissah, who was an old protege of mine— 
later to become the first Attorney General of the National Liberation 
rc 5 ' mc and to sign the papers authorizing my own detention 
an in ee to take over the house in which we lived — I came to the 
cone usion, despite Austin Amissah’s views to the contrary, that the 
evi ence oth against Ako Adjei and Adamafio was, even if it was 
T e ? ta , Is e ln . cour t) insufficient to secure a conviction, 
n t0 it av ? m August 1963 for the Security Council meeting on 
. er T n , nodesia in New York, shortly after the trial began, but 
re 1 left I told the President that I thought the two former 
ms ers w ould both be acquitted and I questioned the desirability 
a trial when the evidence against them, seemed, to 
to h a i/r St ’ S0 ^satisfactory. Dr Nkrumah replied that it was wrong 
to hold termer leading members of the government in prison under 



THE LAST YEARS 


4 1 1 


preventive detention and that a trial would decide the : issm one way 
or another. I certainly was left with the impression that he thoug 
they would be acquitted and that in this event there was no questio 

of his not accepting the verdict. Presided over 

The court proceedings were m every way dramati . ^ 

by Sir Arku Korsah, the other judges were J B Van L , ^ 

bench since Colonial days, and Eric Aku o_ o, Q overn0 r 
Six’ who had been imprisoned with Dr Nk ™ ma f / < Bi six > 
Creasy in 1948. In the dock was a second member of tl^ “ 1 ** \ 

Ako Lid, but the trial was 

dead man. Obetsebi Lamptey had fled the country he kter 

at the time of the .96. brfore ^ 

returned to organize terrorism, but had aieci in 

"FdSgupon the Kulungugu grenade-throwmg thet^occurred 

a series of organised terrorist bomb ^J^tee'tu "deed 
of these thirty people had £“">"3 ubBc meeting the police 
injured and maimed for life, iunaii} rnneealed between his 

succeeded in arresting a man with a gr . Obetsebi Lamptey, 
legs. Investigation of his contacts revealed tta. Obets ^ ^ 

who had returned clandestinely from 0 y ^ actual 

exile, had supplied die grenades and rec: ™‘“ d “7“ the 

assassins. It seemed also clear *at .those ^ 

Kulungugu attack on the Presiden w w j t h the Accra 

later teVorist outrages. Seven per* f^Sced to death 
bomb-throwing were tried, five o w deatdl sentences were 

and two given terms of imprl ^° n ,™; n J alled t0 give evidence in the 
commuted and those concerned Kulunmigu attempt. In 

trial of those supposedly behind B . Otchere, 

addition to an Opposition Member ’ ^ about tea> the former 

and Yaw Manu, the man who had ass0 ciate Tawia Adamafio 
Foreign Minister Ako Adjei, his on Coffie Crabbe were 

and a former Executive Secretary o Ad ^ afio an d Obetsebi 

now in the dock. 

Lamptey, was a Oa. L.raDoe i 

succeeded him in his party positions. Dennis Austin thus 

In his book Politics in Ghana 1946-19™ 
described the trial and its seque 



REAP THE WHIRLWIND 


412 

‘A strange muddled tale was unfolded of intrigue, fraud, party quarrels, 
witchcraft, and “money doubling” by resort to the magic world of the 
spirit Zebus from the kingdom of Uranus”. (So Ako Adjei pleaded in 
defence of his misuse of government funds.) That plots had been 
hatched in Lome and elsewhere by former opposition members — 
notably by Obetsebi Lamptey — was clear. And, indeed, Otchere 
pleaded guilty. But that Tawia Adamafio, Ako Adjei, or Coffie Crabbe 
had anything to do with the Kulungugu attack became increasingly 
doubtful as the trial continued. And on 9 December all three were 
acquitted. No one who examined the evidence could have supposed the 
verdict would be otherwise. Nevertheless, on 1 1 December, Nkrumah 
acting within the terms of the constitution — dismissed Sir Arku 
Korsah as Chief Justice. On 23 December the National Assembly met 
m special session and passed the Law of Criminal Procedure (Amend- 
ment No. 2) Act empowering the President to quash any decisions of 
t e Special Court; and on 25 December Nkrumah declared the judg- 
ment null and void.’ 


In September I had gone down with cerebral malaria, a pleasant 
lsease to tave since one merely becomes unconscious, but it does 
ave, un ortunately, a high mortality rate. My doctors would not 
ear 0 me returning to Ghana until the following year when the 
woe constitutional upheaval which arose out of the trial was over. 

rom w at I learned when ultimately I returned in the following 
' the Crisis had arisen because the Chief Justice had 

°i™ d TL Nkrumah what the verdict was likely to be and Kwaw 
• J’ e Uorne y General, left him with the impression that a 
convicuon was certain. Had Dr Nkrumah been forewarned he could 

He m,/ry Cd - ^ j lC was wa s caught completely off balance. 

when V. 6 3 t ; er 'j vards '•bat the first he had heard of the verdict was 

the newt "'T 1 - IS and k' s steward, who could not believe 

the news, asked him about it. 

no’:;^ k° wev f the issue went deeper. The Chief Justice was 
was Chairmi ° !: he J udlcla . r y- He was also a political figure who 
administered Jt, ° ^ Presidential Commission of three which 
un till nnw v, . countr y w ben Dr Nkrumah was abroad. He, who 
no Colnniil a Wa ^ S ^ported the regime, suddenly behaved as 

remSe“ f tt ft haVe done ' This Colonial standard still 

that to which it was expected he would conform. Whether 



THE LAST YEARS 


413 


to acquit or not was of course the prerogative of the judges, even m 
Colonial days, but in any Colonial political trial the Govern 
would certainly have been kept informed as to how 1 : was pro- 
gressing and given the opportunity to discontinue e p ’ 

if an acquittal seemed likely. . , , . , 1 1 _ 

Dr Nkrumah’s policy of internal co-existence had involved l dose 

cooperation with Suit section of the African Establishment which 
had in the old days supported the Colonial administration In hi 
youth Sir Arku Korsah had broken with the Abor ^ n “^ g the 
Protection Society, of which he had been Secre ary 
Society opposed the Guggisberg Constitutiona re • . - . 

connected bv family and association with t at g r0U P National 
aristocracy who had in the early days tned to organise .he Nanona 
Democraric Party in opposition both to the UmKd Gold 
Convention under Dr Danquah, and the Convention Peoples 

Party under Dr Nkrumah. t> ^ wpre nick- 

Those belonging to the National Democratic P V ^e 

business men. . imnnn ni ir w ith the rank 

These ‘Domos’ were always intense y P w hen their 

and file of the CPP and I can remember in 1938 or 959 . g Dr 

Party had been out of existence some s^or^ dem y onstr ’ ating w ith 

Nkrumah greeted at the airport by they had 

placards ‘Down with the Domos'. It ™ J* J ons of 

been allowed to come in at the top and occupy tn P 

P° wer - . • ,whar<m Sir Tsibu Darku who had 

There was justification in th h ^ ^ was now Chair- 

bitterly opposed the CPP P n0 , sir Charles Tachie Menson, 
man of the Cocoa Marketing B ■ riye Council in Governor 
who had been a Member 01 -.her of the Legislative Assembly 
Burns’ time, and an opposition 1 e Service Commission. Sir 

after 1951, was Chairman ° ^ had been elected to the Accra 

Emmanuel Quist, who before ^ bad been Speaker of the 

Town Council on the Domo ^ Independence. Nana Ayirebi 
National Assembly at the t J me r , • ^ aut horities in the inter-war 

Ackuah who had sided with e 



REAP THE WHIRLWIND 


414 

years and had in consequence been removed by his people from the 
famous Stool of Winneba, once occupied by the founder of the 
hand Confederation, King Ghartev IV, was Chairman of the 
National Educational Trust. Two of the most prominent judges, 
N. A. Ollennu and K. A. Bossman, had been respectively Vice- 
President and General Secretary of the National Democratic Party, 
and in 1951 had stood as the ‘Domo’ candidates in the Accra 
election not only against the CPP candidates, Dr Nkrumah and 
*1 homaS' Hutton Mills, but also against the UGCC candidates, 
Obetsebi Lamptcy and Ako Adjei. 

1 he judges at the Treason Trial were all in a sense ‘Domos’. 
Even Eric Akufo Addo, though UGCC in origin, fitted into the 
pattern as did the third member of die court, W. B. Van Lare, who 
ad been appointed a Colonial magistrate as long ago as 1943. 

The acquittal fanned to flame die long smouldering resentment 
of CPP rank and file stalwarts against these aristocrats and chiefs 
who had somehow clung to power. This rank and file resentment 
was supported from the Party’s old guard who saw, in the result of 
t le trial, an attempt by the ‘Domos’ to strengthen their hold by 
associating themselves with Adamafio and others like him who 
attacked the old guard on the one issue on which diey were par- 
ticularly vulnerable, corruption. 

The conception that it was part of some system of natural justice 
o accept automatically that all the judges in office when the colonial 
regime came to an end, should continue as judges of die newly 
independent state, had little logic behind it. It was not what had 
lappene , or example, when the American Colonics became 
n epen ent, though the United States system of electing judges 
•n 'T- 0 ! ’ n ?. t . ro , m ^ le ^ ar °f Independence but from the older 
<dinnLi t™ 1Ca th ,?°7 °^ t * ie seventeenth century, that the judiciary 
shown cont . ro b y t * le Legislature. In Ghana the judges had 
snrinl 1 . ei ? ls . e ves man y ways reactionary in their attitude to 
thpir !P S atl ° n Lantnstically and exasperatingly technical in 
ship l Sements. They had been appointed before diere were many 
out for'^ ei f S rom . w ^ om t0 choose and a good case could be made 
Benrh au some °f them to remain indefinitely on the 

fatal mistake 16Se ^ ressures com bined in the making of what was a 

Irrespective of the desirability or otherwise of reorganizing the 



the last years 4 j 5 

courts there was no case whatever for doing it a ® a °.^ ^ r j' ts> 

which any impartial observer would have supp edeed The 

The setting aside of the verdict was of cour f ’ d ^t^ e re also 
death sentences on the MP, R. B. Otchere and Yaw Manu were also 

quashed and so far as the three prisoners acquitted ."nheTttom'ey 

their position was no worse than it wou ave . 

General had, before judgement, done what was often done 
Colonial days, discontinued the proceedi £ gS ' A tbe President’s 

No d„ubt y d. howl of disapprove 
action in Western countries was, m s Y .. £ t 

General de Gaulle had dealt sundry with 

acquitted rebel officers from Algiers, -i <- ome months 

nation and when the National Liberation 

after their coup d’etat carried out z .^^ eorpus proceedings and 
judges who had ruled against them ‘ com ^ t Jm the Western 
the like, their action received no adverse ^ removed from 
press. The Chief Justice was not, ^ of Appeal and the 

the Bench. He remained a member of the Co J P that he was 

limitation of the action taken against 1 judicial, short- 
being penalized for his administrative, n Q f tbe other 

comings. No action at the time was ta eng^ ^ being set 

judges. Van Lare resigned in pro S ^ ^ following year , 
aside but Akufo Addo continued t , , b pj ead 0 f State to 

when the Constitution wvas amended 

remove judges. He and others th ^ vicdmize d in any way. 

compensation for loss of office an stan ds. It might well 

Yet the basic criticism of wha P - n progre ss, but it was 
have been justified if a social rev0 f h ‘Domos’ and by this 
not. Dr Nkrumah needed the support ot me 

action he lost it. , - ra i consequence of the breach 

The 1964 Plebiscite was the logic^ ^ & 3 emonstrationj no£ of 

with the old Establishment. 1 ^ Government still controlled 

popular opinion, but of the ta and that its grip over the 

the Civil Service machine an P elimination 0 f the ‘Domes’. It 
country had been unaftecte . * k -up of the old alliance between 

was an empty victory. Witn . ling classes, the way was left 

the CPP and the G han a and outside it which, for one 

open for all those elements against Dr Nkrumah _ 

reason or another, had lon 0 



CHAPTER TWELVE 


THE NON-POLITICAL ARMY 


At independence, the Ghana Armed Forces were in a run-down 
state. General H. T. Alexander, who was their last British Com- 
mander, in his book on his Ghanaian experiences, African Tight- 
rope, accepted this as a natural state of affairs. ‘As Britain was 
preparing to grant the West African territories their independence,’ 
he wrote, it was natural that very little money should be spent on 
modern equipment for the armed forces.’ Sir Victor Paley, his 
predecessor and the first Commander after Independence, he 
explained, had ‘had quite a time preventing the Ghana Government 
from spending a disproportionate amount of money on the armed 
forces . When General Alexander took over, he found that the army 
had only one new barracks at Accra. ‘Most of the others were very 
old and dilapidated. . . . Very little had been spent on equipment 
and transport’, with the result, according to General Alexander, 
t at most of it was worn out. ‘For example,’ he wrote, ‘in one 
battalion, of the six 3" mortars on establishment, all but two were 
U ',! SC, x V1C J e ? le ’ and ’ n a mortar platoon I could find only one man 
W mi r , rc< ^ hi s mortar within the last three years.’ 

While General Alexander considered that it was perhaps an error 
0 a ow t e run-down to continue to this extent he accepted General 
laleys premise that developing countries could not afford armed 
iorces of a size or with the equipment which was capable of taking 
any ecisive military action abroad. ‘So far as the navy and air force 
ere concerned, he said, ‘there was very little reason for a small 
ountry like Ghana to have either,’ and after all his experiences in 
Stl t0 t ^ s v ‘ ew - The judgement is political, not 
, le e f am P le of tile Congo showed that a minute body of 
rry t r ? ie , an well-trained men could dominate any situation. 
mnt° n | 6 S S ^ cess > ’ n l * le military sense, was that he had under his 
ontrol a small number of highly trained mercenaries whom he was 

wfipr^i^^ S t0 t ^ e pla< : es w here he wanted them at the times 
C " ante them. In this type of warfare everything depended 

416 



THE NON-POLITICAL ARMY 4 I 7 

upon mobility. The lesson of the Congo was that military success is 
not determined by numbers but by armament, training an , a 

^GknXnatural orientation militarily was towards the United 
Nations. A non-aligned policy had, among its asic assu ’ 

the propositions that Ghana would never need to P r ® vl 
contingents which would be called upon to coopera e 
power block outside the African continent and t at it ,^ ou • t 

itself in military alliance with any State outsi e a . 

However, if it was to fulfil even United Nations e omI ^ militarv 
on the African continent it had to have not ° n y. m trans- 

forces, but these had to have their own means 0 air 

portation to the area where they were ' *? *J e XfvsW be taken into 
In considering Ghanaian strategy it had y neces- 

account that tasks on the African continent w c ^ f a n 

sanly the responsibility of any J 

to their lot. At the Commonwealth Prime sierra Leonean 

Lagos in January 1966, Sir Albert Marg ’ * nd the British Prime 
Prime Minister, had urged military ac , for gun b 0 at 

Minister had sharply retorted that h D 

diplomacy when he had not even got on 5 ®^ sibl g f or one African 
Dr Nkrumah always saw that it was P Tbe most which 
state to afford a fully integrated tha j element which its 

any one country could do was to con ^ renc i er ed possible, 

strategical position and techmca , ld be argued out on 

Whether Ghana had a navy or an air cou ld take place, he 

its merits. In order that this sort 0 p Union Government 

was in favour, even before any f° r ®°. _ Command’. Once 

was established, of setting up an A ” ; nten ance of the link with 
again the policy of gradualism an ^ of African Unity. In 

Britain came into collision with tne ^ ^j. ab states of North 
any such high command, the mtegra , eoend ence came less than a 
Africa was essential and Ghana s 

year after the Suez war. maintain the British military 

Technically Ghana needed 0 ^ ;t were a l mos t insurmount- 

connection. Politically the objec 0 ^ c j asb 0 f interests, the 

able. Subconsciously maybe, ^ ^ Ghana Armed Forces 

British Commanders and 0 C p. na > s army’s only task was the 
accepted the assumption tha 



REAI» Till. WHIRLWIND 


418 

securing of internal .security. All their military planning was based 
on this supposition. Their views became orthodox theory with 
the Ghanaian ofiicers whom they trained. The leadership of the 
military revolt condemned support by Ghana of the United 
Nations in the Congo and among the grievances which the) listed 
in their propaganda justifying their mutiny was the complaint 
that it was planned to use the army again outside Ghana. Ihc 
duty of being ‘non-political 1 had come to mean the resisting of 
Ghana forces being used for anv purposes of police by the Ghana 
Government. 

I he basic error of General Alexander and those other liritish 
ofiicers who believed in a non-political army was the assumption 
that it was in fact practical. Kveryonc who enters an army must still 
retain, to some degree, the political views which he had before he 
enlisted. If the army had been recruited so as to represent a true 
cross-section of Ghanaian opinion this might not have been so 
important. As it was, the ofiicers had been trained to become an 
e ite and the rank and file, in the infantry at least, were largely 
recruited from the North. They had very little education and their 
a egiance had been to local tribal chiefs. They were therefore, in 
General Alexander’s words, ‘simple, respectful, still holding to 
many tribal beliefs and suspicions’. Such men could be persuaded 
them anylhmB Unckr thc ortic « of those immediately superior to 

• Kon 'Poetical so far as these soldiers was concerned, of course 
involved, as did colonialism generally, the maintenance of super- 
ion an t ic bclid in an irrational supernatural. Nothing is more 
revealing than the account in the London Obscnrr from Cameron 

rm, 0 * °i’ 3 . 1 , anai! J n "* 10 " as their correspondent in Accra after the 
A describing thc assassination of General Barwah: 

When Colonel Kotoka’s troops got to General Barwah’s house, he 
'as already m uniform and armed with a pistol, lie tried to shoot 
0I1C ° t0 a a, ’d thc newborn legend lias it that “Colonel Kotoka, 
no is well versed in juju magic, collected thc pellets as they flew and 
re" them back at General Barwah. One of Colonel Kotoka’s men 
meanwhile riddled General Barwah with submachine-gun bullets.’ 

assuming ^ ataona ], Liberation Council’s first radio broadcast on 
g power, Colonel Kotoka announced ‘The myth surround- 



THE NON-POLITICAL ARMY 4 9 

ing Nkrumah is shattered’. In the situation of *e time thiscodd 

only he attempted by the revival of every ° ter individual the 
rejecting unified state leadership, pers°m e m ^ ^ dei ^ on _ 

army had already been forced to substitu 

't-*c tank and file from the North and its *^drawn 

from the elite or from former Southern 3 necessary for the 
little community of interest. For this ^ to 

leaders of the revolt to proclaim as one o c ^ T y s W as the 

better by force the living conditions of the ^ ^ o he ; ourna list 
motive given by an officer prominent m the coup to J 

Cameron Duodo : 

‘The public thought the Army tsTSoffite 

therefore did not like us, whereas clothes and had no 

r-* . . . 

boots on but wore canvas shoes. 01 

Here was a new and privileged class in *= 

weapons but who were yet being enie dtey were not 

national cake. Unlike the armies o cnrietv. They resembled 

defending thevested interests of any c ass ^ - ts me mbers to 

a trade union which took the strike ac ances . This was the 
secure the legitimate redress of err o army in Africa 

strength and the weakness of it. 

cannot be for long divorced from -p . - g a ff e cted by the 

Every soldier is a member of a fami y g* . . ' w - tb t } ie army. Their 
welfare of many relatives with no ct® strength but upon their 
fate depends not on their own m , ® on ex ternal factors 

internal cohesion which m its tri j irrL ^ nternat ional cocoa price or 
ovet which they have no countries. . 

the terms of trade as they aff had been the mutinous 

If, however, the welfare of them V and less ris k y ways 
officers’ first concern, there Tn er thtir n L S nffitions an indeed, General 
of securing improvements Ghanaian soldier was less 

Alexander gives the impression tn ^ {o his British on e and 
attached to his Ghanaian o c tbat t he British officer cared 

that perhaps the reason f° r 1 mu tinv in the Congo, he remarks, 
more for his welfare. Discussi D beaten up ... it was 

‘Although one or wo British officers 



THE NON-POLITICAL ARMY 4 21 

the Divine Right of the army to nm its own affairs without pohocal 
interference and without respect for democracy or 

°That the armed forces should be an autonomous body, ruling 

themselves and deciding without interference w military 

which command is an idea not unknown even in 

circles today. The struggle in Britain durmg thirst WoMVtet 

between the Generals and the Government was its mostnoticeab ^ 

expression and Earl Haig’s direct representations 0 

good example of it. Lloyd 

points but their victory was not decisive. t j ie j r 

and Air Marshals were at least able to preserve norL _ po li t i C al 
authority by the development of the theory o . contro i 

Army’ over which civilian Ministers shoul ave w hich 

This idea was transplanted m theory to t e World W ar. 

Britain organized in Africa at the time in the C0 l 0 nial 

The trouble with it was that it could no P ^ t : t was no t 

circumstances of the time. Troops could e au„ Conservative or 

their duty to prevent the installauon m ntam be 

alternatively a Labour Governmen . Y struggle 

instructed that it was their duty ^^wndence an d those who 
between those demanding colonial in P , r anc l with- 
were supporting the existing order. NamraUy, ^ 

out any conscious indoctrination, dur g . j se nse that 

Armed Forces were taught to be ‘non-politmal m the se^ ^ 
they should be against all politicians, t wa ^ cdvej S o far as 
were, after all, threatening the coloma o P ^ were Dr 

the Gold Coast Regiment was concerned, whether tn y 

Nkrumah or Dr Danquah. _ . }n Ghana are full of 

General Alexander’s memoirs Politicians who can secure 

examples of this Sines the 

a mass following are describe v0 ; ce of the veranda 

Convention People’s Patty j&ime it was, according to this 

boys, the poorly paid fid th PP this ‘rabble’ and law, 

theory, the Party of' ^ in colonial times, the 
order and constituted authority, ^ neu tral. 

Gold Coast Army was not taug 1(joical attern became more 
When Independence came ° t p ara llel with those 

confused because Ghanaian conditions P 



422 REAP THE WHIRLWIND 

in Britain. Once there was a move towards a one party State, the 
British compromise was impossible, as General Alexander saw 
clearly: 

‘The British argument is,’ he wrote in his book African Tightrope, 
1 “Keep the army out of politics and politics out of the army — their 
loyalty should be to the President and to the state”. President 
Nkrumah’s argument is that the Convention People’s Party is the 
state; the President himself is loyal to the Convention People’s Party, 
and therefore loyalty to the state means loyalty to the Convention 
People’s Party.’ 

This was a situation for which the English theory of a ‘non-political’ 
army had no answer. In fact what happened, as a result of the British 
teaching of officers that they must remain neutral, was that they 
accepted, as a neutral view of Ghanaian affairs, the highly prejudiced 
accounts appearing in the Bridsh press. The ‘non-political’ officers 
set out to destroy not the regime that existed in fact but the regime 
which they had been told existed by the experts of the Western 
world on Ghana. 

t Afrifa s book is, in essence, an elaborate defence of the theory of 
martial freedom’, the idea that an army, like a university, should be 
a sovereign entity and that it must be entitled to determine for itself 
t\ho will or will not exercise command. He thus describes the final 
event which in his mind made the coup inevitable. 

In August 1965 something else happened. Major-General Otu, the 
then Chief of Defence Staff, and his deputy, Major-General Ankrah, 
"ere retired from active service. Ghanaians were informed that they 
had been retired”, but most of us in the Army knew they had been 
dismissed. I was only a junior officer and had no means at my dis- 
posal for finding from them the reason for their sudden “retirement”. 
But this was not the way to treat Generals.’ 

^ ' h) the change was made and the two Generals retired I also do 
not know but there was nothing unusual about it. There had been a 
1 erence of polity with General Ankrah, who wished to expand the 
arm} at a faster rate than President Nkrumah thought prudent, but 
t doubt if this had much to do with it. General Otu’s predecessor, 
General Alexander, had been appointed for a three-year term, 
cnera s Otu and Ankrah had served in their present position for 



THE NON-POLITICAL ARMY 4 2 3 

four years. General Otu’s appointment was in any case onl^^ ^ 
gap one. The man being groomed to succeed ene • 1 d 

Brigadier Joe Michel, an old friend incidentally ^of my wife and 
myself, and who had been best man at our we , ^ t 

choice’ of both President Nknunah and General ^^but 
shortly before he had been killed m an air cr • jjave 

other officers of almost equal seniority whose effici y Y 
been considered greater than these two w o C on o - 0 it 

substituted when, owing to the then Bntis po icy had'held 

was decided to retire the not 

these two command posts, lne tivo r . . „ nnn : nte d to 

penalized in any way, but, as is often ^likely tha? they even 
the Boards of state organizations and it j 

suffered any drop in income. d h; succeS sor 

As to the relative efficiency of General Otu ana n 

General Aferi, Brigadier Afrifa had this to say . 

‘I knew very little about Major-General Otu * j^JTcon- 

Chief of Defense Staff. I did not like 1S “^ blic and in un if 0 rm was 

sidered that cigar-smoking by a Genera P and w hether he 

a sign of a certain ineptitude. This did not impr 
was a good General or not, I do not know. 

On the other hand, General Aferi, '“iTdered fhafceneralOtu 
just these qualities which he apparen y 

IflpVpn 

he wrote. ‘He is a most religious 
l I knew General Aferi very well, - nd appointment as 

man, and a fine officer. Before his P™ - n the Ghana Army who 

Chief of Defense Staff he was the o y approach to staff 

had passed the Joint Services Staff Cou«e. His PP 

problems was good, and under him I . 

, Brigadier’s mind, affect the issue. 
This however did not, • t0 1 ^eshmed to provide openings at the 
Any interference, even if it was °-r done by a politician, a justi- 
top for better qualified officers, explained it: 
fiable reason for mutiny. As h • P 

, jr wamc Nkrumah was one of the 

‘The dismissal of our Generals y f ^ 2 ^ th Fe bruary. As a result of 
major factors that led to the coup f e l t that the profession of 

this action the Ghanaian officers 



424 


REAP THE WHIRLWIND 


men-at-arms had been disgraced and that their Generals as well as 
they themselves had been humiliated.’ 

General Ankrah, now Chairman of the National Liberation Council, 
is even obliquely criticized for not organizing a mutiny the moment 
he was retired: 


The dismissal of this General in 1965 gave me a shock,’ he wrote. 
Because of the amount of confidence I had in him, I anticipated he 
would take some military action to extricate himself from this humilia- 
tion and all it implied for the freedom of Ghana. I knew that the 
majority of the officers and men in the Ghana Army held him in great 
respect, just as I did. I knew that if he was to take any action, he would 
have the full support of the young officers and the men.’ 

So far as his other arguments against Dr Nkrumah’s government 
were concerned, they were merely a repetition of the Opposition’s 
case. The Nkrumah regime is condemned on five main grounds. 

irst, it was not based on an elite, but on ‘one man, one vote’. The 
o jection to Dr Nkrumah was that he believed in democracy. He 
used it, according to A. A. Afrifa, to stifle the true intellectuals who 
must always be in the minority. As he put it: 

Though constantly employing the slogan “one man, one vote” he 
rendered ineffective the few sober-headed members of the Nadonal 
Assembly.’ 


Secondly like the Opposition, Brigadier Afrifa supported chief- 
amcy. . n e est Dr Nkrumah had been much critized for his use 
t Ut r sagy ?/° . w h'ch it was suggested meant ‘Messiah’ and 
t ‘ 1S , f1 er r rC s ^ cri i e gi°us. To Afrifa there was nothing wrong with 
the title but it belonged to the Asantehene. 


He also, he "rote of Dr. Nkrumah, ‘without authority abrogated to 
umself the paraphernalia of our chiefs ... He took upon himself 
A vf * 't. ^ Sa ° ye ^°” an£ i “Kantamanto” which belonged to the 
a ' U , C ! ngs • • • Chieftaincy is an institution that must be re- 
cc c an protected. It is the embodiment of our souls. The chiefs 
arc traditional focal points of a people’s collective activity . . . chief- 
taincy provides the momentum for our people’s advancement.’ 

Under this head the coup was, according to A. A. Afrifa, designed 



THE NON-POLITICAL ARMY ^5 

to restore chiefly power which he appeared to equate with the British 

Thirdly, he held that the despatch of “asm 

Congo had been wrong, though, as he rnise a ^ he felt, 
why it was wrong was not clear to him. controlled by the 

should have been left to a British Genera an n ^ other, 
Ghana Government. This criticism, more P er P re h e ls -were 
reveals how, at any rate subconsciously t e Ghanaian 

influenced by British « 

attitude to the Congo crisis of 19°°" 9 “ f ] Como and it is 
great length in Dr Nkrumah’s book “ d eta ii but essentially 
unnecessary for me therefore to deal x N • . even w hen the 

Ghana’s policy was to support the Uni e * ’ critical 

Ghanaian government were, rightly as it turn ^ armed forces 
of U.N. actions. At no time whatever were the ^ 

employed other than in strict accor an ^ preve nting Patrice 

this involved on occasion such m , • his position w'hen 

Lumumba using the Leopoldville ra loto e ‘P p j e Minister by 

he had been unconstitutionally removed .as Pnme^ ^ ^ 
Kasavubu. Though under considers e P ^ ^ withdraw the 
radical African states, Dr Nkrum insisted throughout 

Ghanaian troops as other states had done and ^ United 

on a solution being found within *L d o f his policy it was that 
Nations. If there is any cr ^ clsm ^ ab e ;u or wi ll to solve the Congo 
he put too much trust m the U. 1 N. j 

crisis. . Af-f. apparently terrified 

Fourthly, the Army was, ac . c0 * ^pLja. How such a rumour got 
of being committed to action m avhich I was involved and 

about I do not know. This was a matter 1 ^ of many staff 

to my knowledge it was nev “ the question of how effective 

talks which were solely conaena , A{ ycan States acting as a unit in 
a force could be mounted by _ t .i inr ; 7 in 0 ' military action. General 
the event of the United Nations a . African Unity’s Com- 
Aferi was Chairman of the kept senior officers informed, 

mittee on this subject and p par that this rumour was deliber 

On internal evidence it worn a PP Q f w hat 0 ne might call the 
ately put about to obtain e 

‘pacifist group’ in the army. Southern Rhodesia was purely 

The whole of this argumen 



REAP THE WHIRLWIND 


426 


political. Whether military action should or should not be taken was 
not, in these army officers’ view, a question for the Ghanaian 
Government. It should have been settled by the army, who were 
well informed on the subject. As Brigadier Afrifa puts it, ‘I person- 
ally knew that Her Majesty’s Government of the United Kingdom 
was quite capable of dealing with the Rhodesian situation’. In his 
vievv, the matter should have been settled by the four million 
Africans in the territory. ‘All they could do,’ according to Brigadier 
Afrifa, was to throw a few petrol bombs when they could have done 
so much more in fighting for their country.’ In fact it was this very 
issue which General Aferi, the then Commander so much admired 
by Afrifa, was investigating at the time of the coup — Why had 
resistance within Southern Rhodesia not been more effective? If 
resistance were encouraged, would it help to deal with the situation 
or would it merely result in a useless waste of life? Nevertheless, 
according to Afrifa one of the reasons why the troops participated in 
the coup d etat was so as to avoid being sent on a military expedition 
to assist fellow Africans. 


The fifth reason put forward by the military conspirators was the 
general charge of dictatorship, corruption and inefficiency. On each 
o these heads there is of course a serious argument to be deployed 
ut nowhere was it advanced. Wild accusations, as for example, that 
5, 'rumah had had executed political opponents, are mixed up 
wit 1 other matters for which there is some justification. It was one 
o t e virtues of the Nkrumah regime that in fact no one was ever 
executed for any political crime. In fact, the first political execution 
tor political belief was that carried out by Afrifa’s colleagues when 
they summarily condemned and killed General Barwah because of 
his political view as to his duty to the State. The only even arguable 
case o a po ideal execution under Dr Nkrumah was the hanging of a 
0 ice consta e who was convicted of having shot his senior officer 
c mry t0 , an attem P t on Ae President’s life. In contrast to 
.1 • 6 rs t act of the rebel regime had been to kill in cold blood 

PYemip't^ omma nder-in-Chief and later they were publicly to 
How f W ° ' ° Un c °®cers who attempted a counter coup. 
rpntr „ „ ar " as . the coup inspired from abroad? In a two-column 
Afrinn Page artlcle as hmg previously as the 21st June 1961, the 
revolt- Jr° rres P on ent °f the London Times had predicted the 
e transfer of K. A. Gbedemah from the Ministry of 



THE NON-POLITICAL ARMY 4 7 

Finance to that of Health had, he said, ‘filled 

gloom’. According to him the army was, even a -was’ already 

point of mutiny against Ghana’s foreign P^y ^ ^ tribal 

thinking in terms of martial freedom . Y 

conspiracy being organized: 

‘Humiliated by President Nkrumah’s pohcym ^ f ue l has been 

also suspicious of his designs on its own command. Wo 

added by the transfer of Mr Gbedemah, ^ A J ra 

officers and men, is of the Ewe tribe ... ^ ^ Gbedemah and 

who weep for Ghana and are putting ^ P 

the army— a growing power in the lan . 

, i - j t am sure, without some 
He would not have written as he , remarks are of 

basic knowledge and, in light of latter ev > a dominant 

considerable interest. The 

group m the army. Their strength,! £ a ble to forward 

in 1961, an Ewe conspiracy existed “"” theheado f the Special 

it would have been John Harlley, at a . y et w hen four 
Branch and Antony Deku at that time , j ts leader was an 

and a half years later the coup m lac 0 wb0j according to 

obscure Colonel who was not only an , „f putting his tribal 
Afrifa, had been accused by Genera esuc ce S s of the coup depended 

interests before his military dunes. , j ace Harlley stated, 

upon police planning yet after it a not telling the truth, 

and there is no reason to suppose were j n the plot. With 

that only he and Deku among t e p ^j^ah was only brought 

whom then were they in touch. other sen i or military officer 

m after it had succeeded. 1 ne any Afr jf a ’ s book, hesitated 

involved, Lt.-Colonel Ocran, it is c ^ tr00 p S U ntil he was certain 
to join the conspiracy or “ C We who subsequently came together 
of its success. Thus among those non -Ewe who had foreknowledge 
in the rebel government the on y ^ ;t wou ld appear he took no 

of what was taking place was merely acted as Kotoka’s 

independent part in its planni a 

assistant. . . un Hkely that the Ewes would have 

However this may be it is m j se 0 f support from someone else, 
acted on their own without a P , distrusted and isolated from 
As a tribal grouping they tended to o 



REAP THE WHIRLWIND 


428 

the Akans and the Northern tribes who together made up the bulk 
of the population. 

Afrifa’s book contains one curious passage: 

‘We had planned a full-scale military operation lasting for a con- 
siderable period and Colonel Kotoka had made all the necessary 
contacts and arrangements designed to ensure the success of the 
operation.’ 


According to him, the only Ghanaians who knew the details of the 
plot in addition to himself and Colonel Kotoka, were the two Ewe 
police officers. What was the nature of these ‘contacts and arrange- 
ments which would have ensured ‘the success of the operation’ even 
if it were to last for a considerable period ? The assumption pre- 
sumably was that a considerable part of the armed forces would not 
support the rebels and that therefore ‘a full scale military operation’ 
nould be necessary. Was it presumed that this would have outside 
assistance ? 


I did not originally think so. Until the attempted counter coup 
of the 17th April 1967 I took the view that the army was a hetero- 
geneous group, inspired by the motives attributed to them by Afrifa 
and ready to risk their lives in establishing what they genuinely 
thought was a better social order. The counter coup proved to me, 

at rf 1 ’ ^' at " as not t ^ c explanation of what took place. 

te events of the 24th February 1966 cannot be understood unless 
t ic) are interpreted in the light of the unsuccessful military revolt 
o t c 17th April 1967. In this counter coup a party of one hundred 
and twenty-five men under the command of two Lieutenants 
su en ) swooped on Accra. They had been stationed on the Eastern 
ronticr an rad to cover well over a hundred miles to reach the 
capita \ et no effort was made to intercept them. Without apparently 
sullering a single casualty they captured Flagstaff House which had 
m' n d“ n T VCr u d T mt ,° thc head quarters of Kotoka, the army Com- 
fitffmnrr" ° 1 ' C *’ c k ruar y coup, a year before, its garrison was still 
j?L , ° V ’ Cnt --"f° Ur hours !atcr - Now it surrendered to a small 
“ wthout a struggle. Equally small groups of rebel 
,T- ? C ^casting station, the airport and the central 
of British" ("■ i U '- i ln “i ^ SU ^ asde > former residence and centre 
Thf t-icti ° n,a ru c ''■here General Ankrah had his headquarters. 

c was a strongly fortified post and if its defenders had 



THE NON-POLITICAL ARMY 4 2 9 

any spirit they could easily have beaten off the smaU attacking force. 

die theory of a unified an^c B— j J 
army waiting merely for a lead to overthrow a ba( j n0 

mere propaganda. It may well have been a . m aiority of its 
tradition of loyalty to the state and that there o r Q f p 0We r, 

officers, though possibly opposed to for p^ e _ t Qnce it ha( j had a 
were unwilling to risk their lives in k»s the cou p was 

chance of success. But this is no expla _ intervention which 

attempted in the first place. Foreign intrigue and mtervent 

I, for one, was inclined to dismiss as 

whose political edifice had so sudden y t be seriously 

ously collapsed, must, in the light of after events, 

considered. France the United States, 

But intervention by whom Bnta , ’. c j ass i c detective 

Israel, the West German Federal Repu ^ each m ight by a 

story all of them had a motive and . , Q f „ndt. There is 
story book detective be represented as ev ^ place in civil 

however this difference. When an assassin ot h e r to establish 

life those who might be suspected vie wi anyone who might 

their innocence. When a state is mur b ; s possible involve- 
possibly be accused of the crime exaggerates his p 

merit. r „ nc i army officers who 

Britain, after all, had trained t e P° ^ j as t British Corn- 
carried out the coup. General i " ( T xa J 1 an interview to the press 
mander of the Ghana army, act1 ^ ^ D 0 fb c ers concerned were 
sympathizing with the mutiny. f P British security services 
those who had the closest hn Office it would seem, let 

and, after the coup, the Commonwea bac j happened. Yet was 
it be understood that they welcomea which cou i d not be 

there anything in this British c ; ous reaction of the British 

attributed to the reflex and suoc a ff a ir, certainly, the 

Establishment. At the time ot “ . dons an d however much the 
British police assisted m the ;inv d ^ been upset by the 

Commonwealth Relations . over die Rhodesian affair, I 
breaking off of diplomatic f ela . hich might prove British 
myself have never heard of anythin* 

involvement. to 0 av off against Ghana. When, 

France no doubt had old scores N 



REAP THE WHIRLWIND 


430 

immediately after Guinea had declared its independence, France was 
in a financial position to strangle at birth the new state. The Ghana 
loan of £10 million not only made it possible for Guinea to maintain 
its freedom but started off the process by which all other French 
territories in Africa demanded sovereign status. Ghana was sur- 
rounded on all her land frontiers by states susceptible to French 
influence and their rulers were in consequence hostile to Dr 
Nkrumah. Yet once again, while France like Britain, might welcome 
the coup once it had taken place there is no evidence that it was 
the consequence of any French plotting. 

How far then was the United States involved ? Proof in so far as 
it exists consists in the main of what would be admitted in an 
English criminal trial as ‘evidence of system’. In order to show an 
individual, say, murdered his new bride in a bath, it is permissible 
to call witnesses to establish that his two previous wives had 
drowned in their baths though in both cases it had been previously 
assumed that the similarity of their deaths was coincidental and 
that the two events were accidents for which the husband was in no 
way responsible. 

Now, the Patrice Lumumba Government in the Congo had been 
overthrown through United States intervention, if one accepts the 
account given by Mr Andrew Tully in his history of the CIA, 
Central Intelligence Agency. How true is his account of African 
affairs is a debatable point but he claims to have obtained his facts 
from the most exalted sources and at the beginning of his book he 
notes the considerable debt of gratitude’ he owed to the former 
White House Press Secretary, Pierre Salinger, to Alan W. Dulles, 
lead of the CIA from 1953 to 1961, Colonel Grogan, a leading 
member of the Agency, and Mr McGeorge Bundy, then Special 

sistant to the President of the United States for security matters. 

he CIA, Mr Tully points out, conceived it its duty to assist the 
ongo to avoid any ‘over indulgence in the excesses of freedom • 
fortunately, according to Mr Tully ‘in contrast to Laos, CIA came 

up with the right man at the right time The man’s name was 

Joseph Mobutu. ... It seems safe to say that Mobutu was “dis- 
covered” by CIA’. 

Unfortunately, according to Mr Tully, President Kasavubu 
ailed to act quickly enough on the CIA’s constitutional advice, 
fiis account of events continued : 


THE NON-POLITICAL ARMY 43 

‘It »as obvious that the indolent Kasa^bu was no p>at'h f or Lumum- 
ba, but CIA had the man to take charge m Kasavubu name. ^ewas 

of course, Joseph Mobutu, th '”'” sp ”* , '"^“ eBryo f State with- 

sergeant who had served Lumumba brie y . Army as a 

out portfolio. Mobutu left his Cabinet post to ^ 

colonel and chief of staff to General Victor Lundidm Now o b 

tember 14 (i 9 6 o)-Mobutu emerged as the Congo ^ta^ ^0 g 

man. WiAKasaUu’s wilhng acquiescence, f 

ousting General Lundula and assuming the role 0 

chief of the Congo state. „f nreserving civil 

Meanwhile, Kasavubu went throug with straight 

authority. . . . T he United States poa a lways been accredited 

face, by Ambassador Clare Timberlak . But now we will have 

to President Kasavubu and that has not changed. But now 
someone at government level to deal wit 

The Congo plot is paralleled by many dcSfhow 

examples cited by Mr Tully. He has exp famed ».« x 
die CIA intervened successfully in Guatemala, Jordan 

As he bluntly put it: . 

‘It is senseless, as some observers have written, Y ican o ^on 
overthrew Mossadegh all by themselves. It was 
from beginning to end.’ 

0 f United States 

Even allowing for a nationalist s exa °* e *L t rem ain impressive, 
influence on Mr Tully’s part his ac ?°V i j. ; ts secret services so 
If the United States had ^ n °„t in Ghana ? According 

effectively in so many other cou sQ Writing in 1962 and 

to Mr Tully they had every reason l fficial CIA view, he speaks 

stating what is, one might suppose, Nkrum ah’ and the 

of ‘Ghana’s Red-oriented Pr ^ lde " ld; rs » 

‘Red-loving Nkrumah’s Ghanaian s W ^ ^ Qnc simp l e formula. 

According to him CIA po ic y - m0St f amo us director and w ho 
Writing of the attitude of t e organization, he remarke . 

as Mr Tully said, left his stamp 

whenever someone questioned CIA s 
‘Allen Dulles had a ready an*' ;dcs ; n the internal affairs of a 
judgement in the matter of ^ out that CIA seldom looked 
foreign country. When the person p 



432 REAP THE WHIRLWIND 

deeper than to determine whether a would-be leader was anti-Com- 
munist, Dulles came as close as he could to turning snappish. “We 
support our friends,” he always said. “Do you suggest that we support 
our enemies ?” ’ 


There is no doubt that Ghana’s foreign policy did not always accord 
with that of the United States and Dr Nkrumah might well have 
given the CIA reason to think that some of his actions were hostile 
to American interests. In particular his visit to Hanoi, which the 
coup appeared timed to prevent, might have proved embarrassing. 
Dr Nkrumah would have been the first Head of State to visit North 
Vietnam. His policy in regard to the war had been to seek a compro- 
mise. He had, after all, agreed to be a member of Mr Wilson’s 
abortive Commonwealth Peace Mission and the fact therefore that 
he should not only have been invited but that his visit should have 
been elaborately prepared in advance through preliminary talks and 
visits between high officials on both sides may well have led United 
States ‘hawks’ to believe that he was about to launch peace proposals 
which would have upset their plans for mobilizing a more general 
world support for the American case. Ghana had, after all, taken 
the initiative in forming the committee of non-aligned states which 
produced the compromise which averted what appeared likely to 
become an open Sino-Indian war. To many in the United States 
administration there must have seemed a danger that he would now 
publicize a new peace plan calculated to undermine the United 
States position. Did the CIA then intervene? 

United States Ambassador Franklin Williams in Accra welcomed 
the military regime with the same enthusiasm as his colleague, 
Ambassador Clare Timberlake, had welcomed the overthrow of 
t e egitimate regime in Leopoldville. There was said to be a short- 
age of cutlasses which are used in farming in Ghana and in some 
miraculous way, immediately after the revolt, Mr Williams provi- 
entially found himself in possession of a stock of them which he 
presented to the farmers. When one realizes that the basic cause of 
t e up eaval in Ghana was the continually worsening terms of trade 
e tween the developing and the developed world, his action has all 
Uie charming irrelevance of the attempt of John D. Rockefeller, 
t f n . 10 r J P rove his opposition to the inequalities of wealth in the 

United States by handing a dime to every child he met. 



THE NON-POLITICAL ARMY 433 

Until Mr Tully, or some other writer with equal access to 
information, brings the history of United States fervent aonjp 
to date it is impossible to say more than there is a pm f 
that the CIA may have had a hand in the plot. e i_ nf ip r ev i- 

The possible involvement of Israel rests on settle- 

dence. Dr Nkrumah had always believed an wor general 

ment of the Arab-Israeli conflict. Ghanaian po cy -whether or 
based on compromise and acceptance of histonca • 
not, for instance, 'the European settlers were entitled to _be in East 

Africa, Rhodesia and South Africa, theyf e * f ^ n 
the Ghanaian view, this was a 

its present merits irrespective of whether , course of 

wrong. Ghana, for example, never propose a expelled On 
African liberation the European minorities should bcop^^ 

the contrary, the Ghana Governmem f f ‘ mu Iti-racial state’ 

guarding of their rights. It re ected the s minority equal 

on the ground tot 3 ns was a cover fa : 

rights with a large majority but, since G P * sUte j n Africa 
it would have accepted the existence o rni f eans comprised the 
if there had been any territory where t e u P w t b e Arab- 

great bulk of the population. Such reaso f n! l’ ew f s b peo ple were in 
Israeli problem, led to the view that, - ^ould be worked 

fact in Palestine, a final settlement accepting this should 
OUt. - ' J "dorir-P 


[t - Tcraeli. From independence 

Ghanaian policy was never anti- Ghana and Israel 

onwards Israel was recognized f r n !; S e S In particular the ‘Black 
entered into a number of joint ente p • ^ Ghanaian-owned 

Star Line’ which embraced, the w o e conse q U ence pro- 

merchant marine was Israeli- omcere . was n0 reason why 
hibited from using the Suez h anc j i t is therefore all 

Israel should conspire to depose , , circulate so widely. The 

the more curious that the accusation stems f ro m the 1956 con- 

supposed case against Israel no 0 Britain and France to 

spincy in which Israel attack on the UAR 

provoke the occasion for the financ ial arrangement by vhich 
The dependence of Israel upon States arc tax free under a 

Zionist contributions from i c p bv the United States must 
scheme which can be cance < U, influence. It is therefore not 
make Israeli policy subject to 



REAP THE WHIRLWIND 


434 

inconceivable that pressure might have been put on Israel to act as 
a go-between in some plot but again, rumours, however strong, 
should be disregarded in the absence of any positive evidence. 

The case against Federal Germany is more substantial. Ghana 
was as much attacked in the West German press as it was in the 
British. Dr Schatten’s book reveals the full extent of German fears. 
‘Some observers,’ he wrote ‘have suggested . . . that Ghana or Mali 
might ultimately play the role ... of a Soviet bridgehead distri- 
bution centre for agitation and propaganda and for a base for 
infiltration in West Africa. Taking the long view, such fears, though 
they may seem exaggerated at the moment, are by no means without 
foundation.’ To him it was deplorable that apparently Dr Nkrumah 
had succeeded in ‘flattening out . . . regional, tribal and ethnic 
differences’. It would seem indeed that while he was prepared to 
charge Dr Nkrumah with Communism his real complaint against 
him was his attempt to organize the African continent against neo- 
colonialism. Dr Nkrumah had, he said, ‘replaced the slogan 
Workers of the World Unite!” by the slogan “Peoples of Africa 
Unite! ’ ’ ‘This new slogan,’ he pointed out,‘ embraces the peoples 
of all colonial territories’. If the views of the head of the foreign 
department of the West German Broadcasting system are typical 
of official thinking in the Federal Foreign Office then the real 
danger which Dr Nkrumah represented was not as a spearhead of 
Communism but as the challenger of the principles of the Berlin 
Conference of 1884-85 when, on the initiative of Bismarck, 
frica was partitioned among the countries of Western Europe 
with the benevolent agreement of the United States. 

Since Germany lost her African possessions as long ago as 1918 
it is hard to realize that there still exists in Germany a strong feeling 
that if she can no longer hope for African Colonies she has a right 
t iroug er long connection with the Continent to be among the 
foremost of its neo-colonial rulers. It is, at least, of interest that, in 
Mr bzamuely’s preface to Afrifa’s book, he should compare the 
mi jtarj conspirators who overthrew Dr Nkrumah’s government 
with the military conspiracy against Hitler and should lament its 
ai ure in Germany. The old German army was in his view ‘the only 
0 - “PaWe of fostering resistance to tyranny’. Underlining this 
argument he went on, ‘the events of the 24th February have once 
again exposed the threadbareness of the hoary liberal shibboleth of 



THE NON-POLITICAL ARMY 


435 

I _H.il iNUIN — X- VW* * * 

government by politicians being per ^^[^^nourcentury shown 
ment by the military. This belief . • • has, , 
itself to be a dangerous fallacy in many P ar ® 0 .. j j linkers for 
Added to this natural preference by I 1 » Federal 
military regimes there was still a n . & , Ghana contained 

Germany for their old Wear Africa ^tnesand ^ of 

nearly one half of former German Tog French mandate and 

their former colony (which became m 1920 ~ ■f 0 ry') became 

after the Second World War a French Trust * 

independent, the West German Governmen^ Gove ’ rnor w ho had 

delegation at the celebrations, the age t j ie brst allied 

been driven out by Gold Coast forces in ^ p rove d to be, 
victory scored by British arms in the 1914 ' • To the Ev/e 

by far, the most popular of the artificial frontiers which 

people longing for unity but split y an( j Fra nce after the 

had partitioned their territory betwee golden age. When, 

First World War, the German era seeme ^ ^ organized rising 
immediatelv after independence t ere , written to each 

among the’ Ewes in Ghana, the conspirators had 

other in German. „,„Wed bv any outside power 

In short if Ewe nationalism was em P^ ^ment would be the 
to ferment a revolt the West < ^ er ? ia . n w hen all the possibilities 
most likely to be involved. Nevert ® e ’ at the time of writing, 
of foreign intervention are reviewed, it is stm, 

too early to make a positive judgement. ^ fictio nal detective 
However, applying the typ e ° a se ts out half-way through 
generally is portrayed as usm D sa fo to be established, 

the book to list certain facts whl , c First as the counter coup of the 
various points at least can be note ■ ’ nQ mea ns united and the 

17th April 1967 proved, the arm y , loya ity among the rank and 
rebel officers commanded n ° S er S would have hesitated to move if 
file. It seems likely the mutmee thrQUgh some outside pressure 
they had not been persuade °^j r jf a ’s statement that ‘Kotoka had 

or promises and for this reason true and it can be reasonably 

made all necessary contacts 1S ! P . ded foreign intelligence agencies. 

assumed that such contacts 1 conS pirators were Ewe and did not 
Secondly, the fact that the ma ^ ^ least a pointer to outside exploi- 
represent major tribal fee Thirdly, the Western powers 

ration of minority nationalist fcelmg 


REAP THE WHIRLWIND 


436 

in general had already intervened against other African regimes by 
force, either to remove left wing governments or to prevent the 
overthrow of right wing ones. Fourthly, intelligence services like the 
CIA were quite capable of acting independently of the governments 
they nominally served. Finally the way in which the revolt was 
greeted and the mutinous regime subsequently assisted by the 
Western powers in general, at least, shows that they all welcomed 
the change. 

Taking all these factors into account it would seem probable that 
the plot began with the Ewe police officers, Harlley and Deku, and 
not with the army and that Colonel Kotoka, as the senior Ewe army 
officer, was only brought in much later. One or more of the countries 
I have mentioned, either on a governmental or on an intelligence 
level, promised the mutineers diplomatic and financial support if 
they were successful or in the event of their being able to provoke a 
civil war. On existing evidence the most likely foreign participants 
were either the CIA or the Federal German Intelligence service or 
the two acting together. It seems almost certain that the French 
Government had no part in it and it is unlikely that British Intel- 
ligence actively participated. Beyond such generalizations as this 
it would be unsafe to go. 

Like everything else that had taken place in Ghana the nature of 
the cuup was misunderstood in the West. Over a five-column spread 
the Sunday Times announced ‘Ghana given free election pledge’. In 
act the revolt had been organized by the Ghanaian section of the 
old \\est African Frontier Force. A year later its Sierra Leoneian 
contingent was equally ready to intervene on the excuse that, there 
ming been a free election, it had produced such instability that the 
0I ? ^ a hernative was military rule. The British army tradition with 
v uc t \\ cst Africa had been endowed was authoritarian and not 
emocratic. It would however be wrong to regard all military 
revolts in the former British West African Colonies as following the 
same pattern. 

' ^\* 3 cr * an C0U P d'etat which, no doubt, by its example, 

in uenced what was later to take place in Ghana, was of a quite 
1 erent nature to the revolt against the Nkrumah Government. In 
1 lgcria end war had for all practical purposes broken out. Through- 
out t e estern Region and even into the suburbs of the capital, 
-ago:,, there was rioting by day and night and open murder of 



THE NON-POLITICAL ARMY 437 

political opponents. The military insurrection was s P a _ r ^^ j 
the resistance of the ‘Sandhurst Majors to e use o ... 

forces by the Civil Government to put down this anarchi 
which could no longer be controlled without army j 

These ‘Sandhurst Majors’ included men with left P tQ 
theories who wished to end the feudalism of the Nor 
destroy the tribal divisions of Nigerian society. - an( j 

Th/Nigenan senior. 

were thus the first victims of the revolt q counter _ revo l ut ion 

revolution in two stages took place. In th come to 

the remaining senior officers ami the po ce ™ere^ pQWer wit h 
terms with the revolutionary officers an preserve 

the object of establishing a unitary state w c w ^ ^ ^ second 
intact the army, which was on a mixed themselves and the 

counter-revolution, tribal influences wf* ^ ofthc first revolt 
army itself split up on a tribal basis. T mrhority as were 

were either killed or removed from positions of authority, 

those who had led the first counter-revolution nature . In 

The coup d’etat in Ghana was of S action . In 

Nigeria popular feeling influenced an o a vacuu m. The 

Ghana the impression was of the army a o ^ n0 thing to 
essential feature of the coup was its wr e eva • was pure ly 

solve any of the problems which existed and its purp 

anarchic and personal. _ , , r „ nrm i ar counter action? 

Why then was the coup not defgj ?^en un-ares and, in 
In the first place, no doubt, the Ur tQ som e extent, 

existing circumstances, lacked the organiz nigral reason than this, 
even the will to resist. But there was a m 1 » g s fi 0W n, the man 

In the world today, as the examp e o ^ por a p er ; 0 d, assert his 
behind the automatic weapon can, a ^ narmed opponents. One 
authority however numerous are Qj iana cou p, those who had 
hundred and eighty years before jjad realized the danger to 

established freedom in the Unite ^ came to frame their 
liberty of a professional arm} an .j t fi e famous provision: 
independent Constitution they m ^ ^ security of a free State, 

‘A well-regulated militia beir^ nea , " arrns shall not be infringed. 

the right of the people to keep not possess the means t 0 

The unarmed people of 



438 REAP the whirlwind 

resist. Ultimately however, military dictatorship in Africa has no 
chance of success in that it is from its nature bound to breed a 
counter-resistance of a type for which the African terrain and social 
conditions are far more suited than in most other parts of the world. 
Once force is met with force any army constructed on a rigid 
European pattern will go down before the guerrillas based in the 
bush and succoured in the village. Neither in numbers, equipment 
or training are the forces which have taken charge in West Africa 
equipped to maintain their rule. And then, what will the future 
bring? 



CHAPTER THIRTEEN 


THE HARVEST 


‘The wind of change’— the graphic phrase ^“^^^the 
and he used it when, as British Prime i mi > Africa. A 

still Commonwealth Parliament of the ni , ^ African 

wind of change, he told them was ^ 

continent but who had sowed that win ^ a p ; ts harvest 

nor did he tell his listeners whom he thought would reap 
or what indeed that harvest was like y to e ' t 0 f post-war 

h a sense it ms the Conservative Party 

Britain who had sowed this wind. _. was som ething 

left office in 1951 the independence 0 a r Qdonial Africa 

still on the far horizon. Within mne year ^ , terr i tor y and there 

south of the Sahara had ceased to e o independent 

had been created a vast quantity osm, stable and certainly 
states, all of which were potential y p . , j7 m pj r e in Europe 

not economically viable. As with t e 0 . - n t ji e twentieth; a 

in the nineteenth century, so now wi tQ divide the liberated 

dubious principle of nationalism w as ^ whose existence, it was 
territories into small competing en 1 • ’ s , V orld balance of power, 
presumed, could not threaten the P re European stability m 

The division of Africa thought essenml to ^ by other 

the previous century was to be con 

- r flno ctitTf it 

means. 


...cans. , , pi,.,,. W as that from the start it 

The importance of Nkruma s tQ repe at in the present 

challenged this attempt by t e one _ Ninety years ago a 

century its mistakes of ^the pr ^- lizin(T policy and yet, _ within three 

kanization was conceived as as , u “ e( j t he issue which provo e 

decades of its establishment, a saw , more clearly . an 

the First World War. Kw ?™. e fragmentation contained within 
any other statesman, that , Af " ? s He'understood and pointed out 
itself equally dangerous elernen ^ ^ surface had provoked the 
that the racial tensions which for the First World War, 

Sarajevo murders and thus the occas 

439 



44 ° REAP the whirlwind 

were only capable of so doing because the external pressures of the 
developed world were projected into Balkan politics. 

Dr Nkrumah’s greatest contribution to ultimate international 
understanding was that he saw that world peace and African unity 
were linked and the one was impossible without the other. His 
cardinal mistake was that he attempted to achieve both by a policy 
of conciliation and argument in a world which did not wish for the 
one and would not listen to the other. 

Ghana’s plan for an African union was based on the theory that 
the existing leadership of the other African states would be converted 
in the end, if one had patience enough, to the obvious necessity for 
African unity. The case for it was so strong that it scarcely seemed 
necessary to urge it by detailed examples. Obviously no African 
state could hope to become developed or prosperous until it began 
to industrialize. Industrialization was impossible without a market 
broad enough on which to base it. No African state south of the 
Sahara, except South Africa, was so constructed. Even Nigeria was 
not big enough to sustain unaided the type of development achieved 
in Europe, the United States and Japan in the previous century. 
If, even in Europe, it was argued that national units were 
no longer a sufficient market and progress depended on as 
many European states as possible entering a common market, how 
much more necessary was it to establish a common market in 
rica. Even the most flexible of common markets demanded the 
creation of some sort of super-national authority but a body which 
t e European nations were very willing to establish in their own 
continent, they shrank from encouraging in Africa. 

Dr Nkrumah’s own contacts in the days of the West African 
ational Secretariat with leaders of the French African states, such 
as Senghor and Houphouet-Boigny, led him to hope that the old 
1 ° P ur P ose which had existed between leaders in the French 

an ritIS “ African Colonies in the immediate post-war years could 

some ov, be revived. He struggled to secure this long after there was 
an) practical hope for success. His campaign for African unity can 
c criticize on the grounds that he failed to convince the ruling 
c asses in most other African states that they had nothing to lose 
,v, 0n ri UI i lt ' ’ H,storicall y> however, such a failure is as transitory as 
e c \ tenure of power by those who resisted his arguments, 
oo - e at in a short-term prospective, Mazzini’s establishment of 



the harvest 44 1 

the Roman Republic and Garibaldi's ^^Nw^S^rStong- 
cally inept and militarily doomed t0 ^ - of j ; taly an d t0 convert to 
term effect was to make certain the unity y c UnDO rted 

that course the Italian ruling class which had unt.1 then supported 

Italian partition. , t her African Government 

When Ghana became Independen * hter , and, though 

spoke of an African union. Mow, ei y t r oower 

Kwame Nkrumah himself has been for v y force( j by his 

there is no African Head of J vice to the concept. Dr 

own public opinion at home to pay P ^ cont i ne nt upon the 
Nkrumah has inscribed the union of Ghana or anywhere 

agenda of history and no subsequent ruler m u 

else in Africa, or indeed in the ’Continent did not first blow 
The wind of change on the Afric p t t hat part of the 

from Nkrumah’s Ghana. It sprang up ^ me 0 f Alexander 

African continent which traditional y, r ° extension of Europe, 
the Great on, had been regarded * • under Gamal 

The rise to power of a popularly p as it was at least, 

Nasser should have been understoo y . ^ a neW departure, 

if too late, by the United States, as e e D ^ po wers of the 

Instead, almost by reflex action, th ~, nn ded with the Suez war. 
African continent, Britain and France, re ^ 0 f the Sahara the 
Kwame Nkrumah only later continn Nasser he forged 

process of change begun in Egypt- 1 universal support and 

a popular movement commanding a 0 id anti-imperialist 

this, unlike in Egypt, not in a u c0 .' i ? , beerL regarded hitherto by- 
traditions but within a colony w ic as < t he model colony . 

Britain, in Governor Burns’ words national independence m 
Kwame Nkrumah stood for g e r e-negotiation not on y o 

Africa, which of necessity ,nv0 v „ Nevertheless he presente 
political but of economic ties as wei • ity to redress the 

both to Britain and to France a umq by the fadure of 

harm done to their prestige and pos 

the Suez war. , m atte mpt to develop Ghana within 

Dr Nkrumah was prepared t k ^ eft behind by the colonial 
the economic and political framei ^ strokC; destroyed British 
regime. The Suez conflict had ^ of Africa where, above 
financial and political in i! e nS acentury been thought to be vital to 

all, the British presence had tor 



REAP THE WHIRLWIND 


442 

Commonwealth survival. Even the description today of British 
military strategy as ‘the East of Suez policy’ contains the echo of 
these old pre-suppositions. Yet despite the failure of Britain and 
France to impose their objectives in North Africa by force, the 
opportunity offered by Dr Nkrumah for a new start by way of 
peaceful cooperation was contemptuously rejected and Dr Nkrumah 
was, from the moment of Ghanaian independence, as much a 
subject for ridicule and vilification in the British press as was 
President Nasser. Nevertheless this attempt at co-existence with 
the former Colonial power and with other developed nations 
contains perhaps the most important of all lessons for the future 
which the history of Ghana under Dr Nkrumah provides. 

Was the failure of British Parliamentary democracy in Ghana the 
result, as Professor Bretton argues and Mr Dennis Austin implies, of 
Kwame. Nkrumah being an autocrat or was it due to Colonial 
and African political traditions being joined with external pressures 
which would have made it impossible for anyone to have made 
it work? The antithesis is false. Dr Nkrumah’s experience of 
cstern democracy derived from his ten years in the United States 
rather than his thirty months in Britain. His support for British 
ar lamentary institutions was merely one of the by-products of his 
belief m the Commonwealth. 

This typically British grouping, with its informal consultation, 
its common language, its identity' of institutions and its membership 
*' 1 c e tween the developed and the less developed countries 

seeme to him, as it did to Pandit Nehru, a possible pilot organi- 
zation t irough which practical ideas for solving the latent conflict 
etween the v’ealthy and the poor nations might be tried out more 
United N p ' ^ * n t ^ le ^'^ use ar *d polyglot atmosphere of the 

tti r ^! ros P cct Ghanaian experience has exposed the hollowness of 
r *^ C • onu n°nwealth hopes. Its Members were expected, as part 
leir credentials for joining the ‘club’, to follow British principles 
fimnnM° CraC ^ anC ^ i ust * ce - Yet the combined Commonwealth 
crrmniv!' rCi0 . urccs " cre never sufficiently deployed to avert the 
threaten - 1 C n SC \Ti "h* c h these principles were continually 
1 r 1 ru mah s Ghana, as has been earlier pointed out, 

cocm r C C , C , n ? avcd concerted Commonwealth action on 
11c would m no way have overtaxed Commonwealth 



the harvest 443 

resources. Yet no such effort was made. 

initiative to obtain disarmament or to orga concrete 

Vietnam were taken for granted but *7 “ de which 

planning to deal with the continually worsenmgjermsc mem _ 
automatically depressed the standards o Common- 

bers however much they increased their P r ? ’ e paragraphs in 

wealth action was confined to dep ormg i p rirae 

the final commumques of the ann niation. 

Ministers’ Conferences, the unjustness o Commonwealth 

All the same it was this desire to quahfy for the be _ 

‘club’ by following the British Parliamentary t _ UntiI 

devilled from the start Ghanaian con^ 1 ‘ cou ld somehow 
far too late it was presumed that the British was in 

be got to work and the alternative o a cat j on s. Because the 

consequence never thought out in a 1 . one -party govern- 

West never confessed to practising on oc ^ a ^ have taken 

ment the varied forms which a one-P^ty attempt was made to 
were never considered and the model wluchan "™Lrope. 
follow was that of the Sociahst countries -phe 0 ne-party 

For such a departure the prerequisi e an eXC lusive, ideo- 

state in the USSR, for example, is baseu F cpp was an organ 
logically trained and carefully chosen p . , test. Its value 

of mass opinion, open to all wi o achieving compromise 

depended upon its internal mec am social and economic 

between the most varied approac e a developing society, 

problems continually being t own state was, in essence, a 

The demand in Ghana for a j . 0 " e 'f? CO ns piracy from the days 
negative reaction to the long huwy „° d Apaloo, in the Awhaitey 
of the opposition MP’s, Amp ; nvo lvement in the terrorism 
affair to the MP, R. B. 0tch f ^ S ‘"'stppTessed not in _ accordance 
later days. The two-party sy s e because the existence o * 

with any scientific theory, but SI ^ ovcr f or the organization of 
second party appeared t c , r , 

unconstitutional violence. . « . m ieht have been tic ra 

_F„ r Ghmc, the evump e » * Ga «« mom »mph- 


For Ghana, the cxai»F*~ - , . Germany or uk. » . 

Coalition’ now in power m ‘ which exists m the nom 
cated form of the foreign and home 

two-party United States, " Q] v ana in 1965 "as .1 ar 1a e 
policy. What in fact was nec 



REAP THE WHIRLWIND 


however chosen, elected or nominated, which contained representa- 
tives of the various sources of power; the farmers and trade unionists 
naturally but also the army, the police, the civil service, the intel- 
lectuals and ‘the Domos’. From the one-party Parliament, as 
chosen in 1965, these last elements all were lacking. Whether if they 
had been all represented it would have prevented a combination of 
some, of them getting together to dispossess the others, must 
remain an open question. Certainly what is true is that the one-party 
Parliament, as chosen in 1965, was as unsatisfactory a method of 
representing the people as had been the old two-party Parliament 
which was part of the colonial legacy. 

However, the constitutional side of Ghanaian history during Dr 
Nkrumah s period of office is meaningless unless interpreted in the 
light of contemporary economic events. It can be argued that some 
other better constitutional set-up might have avoided, or at least 
postponed, the establishment of a military dictatorship; though the 
experience of Sierra Leone suggests otherwise. A rigid adherence 
to t e two-party system in Sierra Leone merely accentuated the 
na crisis and provided a valid excuse for the establishment of a 
military dictatorship. 

The conclusion is that no logical answer can in fact be given, 
nee economic pressures mount to a certain point the existing 
regime will be overthrown, irrespective of whether it is democratic 
or lctatonal. Dr Nkrumah must therefore be judged ultimately on 
te po icies he pursued to prevent these pressures within Ghana 
reac nng explosion point. Overall his policy was one of co-existence 
n co operation with the industrialized world of which the Volta 
_ 1S P. er a P® t ) le best example. This policy failed because the 
^ na 10 ^ the world were not, in the last resort, prepared to 
flip .^ erate 'V a 'T Hss developed state which challenged effectively 
the inequalities of the existing global society. 

shnrirnm' 11 1S ™P° ss 'H e to evaluate either the achievements or the 
with the 'T ° lana under Dr Nkrumah unless one compares it 
which c,m C 1 leve ™“ t > or lack of achievement, of the military regime 
It shnnM / S S overnme nt. This the West has refused to do. 
There cm u 1Ve , een . *" or t ^ lem a particular moral responsibility, 
following fo.kkf 1 ?! °i U ^ t tdlat Ghana under its military regime is 
tan' Funrf th iu' th e Ptogtamme which the International Mone- 
0 1 Und ’ 1116 World Ba nk and Western countries generally have 



THE HARVEST 

proclaimed as the universal panacea. Their is was> 

its success in Ghana. The legacy left them y , under his 

judged by any standards, impressive, ^a hadac ^ ^ and 

rule compulsory and universal P nma ^ e services it was ahead 
harbours, its telecommumcations and its h countries It 

of most and indeed probably aU of the less 

has, thanls to him, the one prerequisite d a|nms[ any _ 

electrical power which is produced mor P ^ cannot de- 

where ej in the world. If orthodox W«»™fin»nce 

velop Ghana with these advantages wh 

world can its recipe for progress P rov ®^ c ““ ' “ tf^t their schemes 
It is, at the time of writing, impossib C ess so far there 

may rnt sneeeed in the end but of then bek of Ghana 
can be no doubt. Despite a far hitter wo ^ crop in its 
under its military regime was only ao million 

first year of office, for £51.5 million as cornpa ^ ^ been so id during 
in 1965, roughly the average figure a Qold sales declined by 

the last three years of Dr Nkrumah • b y a bout the 

£1 million and diamonds, sawn timber an o million, 

same amount. The total exports tor 19 g^gh Business Mission 
their lowest since 1957- According to e ductbve capacity was 
which visited the country in April J 9 7 A. nvent y-five per cent’. 

then being utihzed only to the extent o they reported, ‘have 

The measures taken to stabilize the eco j military regime had, 
resulted in considerable unemployment • ^ ^ lower than any 

they said, been forced to ‘restnet import* ^ ^ the population 
time in the last ten years although aun * and the need for raw 
has increased, food production as ^ p ro duction of cocoa 

materials has built up’. Noting e ^ comment that it is a 
and its vital importance to the e 5 °°Qj iaIia m ay simply not be able 
somewhat frightening thought mat sufficient insecticides to 
to afford the foreign exchange s0 largely rests . 

protect the crop on which t “ eir e ac of foreign exchange the IMF 
Yet despite this acute s ^ rt S f or exporting profits. Invisible 
policy has been to liberalize e ones ar e decreased. A thirty 

imports are to be increased w 1 further reduced the standard of 
per cent devaluation in June 19 *j ose( j an d all welfare services were 

living. Secondary schools were m ffitary re gime Government 

cut back. In the first year 0 



44^ REAP THE WHIRLWIND 

development expenditure was cut from £70.9 million to £ 3 2 4 
million. In one item alone is there to be an increase in spending— 
the army. Its cost is going up from £13.5 million to £17.5 million 
an increase of twenty-nine per cent in one year. In every aspect, 
including the increase in military expenditure, the policy pursued 
is one of classical neo colonialism. 

How far then has it succeeded up to the time of writing, two 
years after the coup ? From a Western point of view the significant 
feature is not that the comments of persons such as myself on the 
likely failure of its neo-colonialism should be ignored but that the 
sober warnings contained in such journals as Barclays Bank DCo’s 
Overseas Review should be so completely disregarded. Discussing 
the consequences for the less developed world of the agreement 
reached at GATT on the ‘Kennedy Round’ of talks on lowering 
tariff barriers, it pointed out that the high tariffs in many countries 
against the products of developing states like Ghana still ‘practically 
rule out any serious attempts by producing countries to establish 
processing industries for export’. If technical, climatic or transport 
conditions mean that processing is most effectively carried on in a 
consuming country, the Review asks, ‘what justification can there 
be for inflicting a tariff — in one instance as high as 136 per cent — on 
a processed consignment which arrives from, say, West Africa or 
Brazil? In an earlier issue, the Overseas Review had made the same 
point with equal clarity. The developing countries of the past, of 
which the United States was itself an example, were able to service 
their capital imports ‘out of a rising tide of exports until ultimately 
t ie debts were painlessly repaid’. No comparable opportunity, the 
Review pointed out, was today open to such countries as Ghana. If 
tey increased their primary produce exports world prices dropped, 
1 t ey turned to industrialization the industrialized nations took 
steps to place a limit to their imports of processed goods. ‘It might 

e t ought that the wealthier countries do not even want their loans 
repaid.’ 

Have there at least been any compensations in other fields ? So far 
as curing corruption is concerned Western influence docs not appear 
to have had any profound effect. On the 16th October 1967, more 

tan a > ear and a half after the coup, the Government owned 

tanatan tines in a leading article said of ‘bribery and corruption’ • 



THE HARVEST 447 

% both high and low places ... has become 

our national life . . . indisputable, disfconn ng > tnd m„M dtst « ^ 
ing . . . so serious that one wonders whether this so 
be cured’. 

Press freedom and civil liberty have not ^ Liberation 

On the 26th May 1967 all members of Ac t National Ltbe ^ ^ 

Council attended a press conference to w ^ ^ blicize 

Ghanaian correspondents were invited, lhe oDjeci the 

an official statement ‘on the role of the press r ounc ih bitterly 
new regime. General Antaah, on behalf of to the 

criticized Ghanaian newspapers for giving Ghanaian news- 

Arab-Israeli confhct. According to the prrnc 
paper The Daily Graphic : 1 

‘Lt.-Gen. Ankrah violently criticised ^ ^^^onalism and over- 
that if the press did not refrain from c p piper, will have to 

dramatising trivial events, then one w o P a ^ ^ forget that it is the 
call the tune”. He reminded the p«ss • who was speaking on 

government that pays their stans. attitude of some or 

'•d,c,„Uofd,cpL«ndmdi.'M»^nmdo.«theam tmnBs 

the local daihes for giving proimn dailies devoted its entire 

He cited an example in which one of the daihes 

front page to the Middle East crisis. at the pre ss 

Though presumably British correspon freedom, which 

conference this remarkable d b ii„ made in Dr Nkru- 

would have been front page news 1 1 British newspaper, 

mah’s time, was not commented upo y 1967, wrote, ‘Ghanaians 
The Daily Telegraph on the 28th Feb ry 9 J which followed this 

now walk without fear.’ Yet m the threem^ ^ ^ protective 

observation, more new arrests N prisoners in preventive eten 
Custody decree than there had l been p ^ ^ * u o weeks 
tion in the last days of Dr. 1 , , j an editorial, thus described 

previously the Ghanaian T tm Region which contains Cape 
conditions in Ashanti and jst lawabiding p art °I d* e country. 

Coast and was once the mo Central Region, and, indeed, in 

‘Reports coming from Ashanti and . give cause for 

some other places in sc3tter ^ plages in these areas of the country are 
serious concern. Towns an 



REAP THE WHIRLWIND 


448 

being subjected to a wave of terrorism and dacoity unparalleled in the 
history of this country. Fear stalks the land ... In many homes 
there is not a wink of sleep for man or woman.’ 

and the next day the Ghanaian Times followed this up by saying: 
‘Armed robbery is showing an upward surge’ because of the ‘low- 
ebbing relations between the public and the police.’ West Africa on 
the 25th November 1967 reported: 

‘Armoured police cars are now being deployed in Accra as a “strike 
force” to deal with violent robbery. Each car will he manned by armed 
police trained in combat techniques. This is one of the measures being 
adopted by the police to halt the activities of rings of violent robbers 
and thugs.’ 

In face of all this, a protective cloak of Western silence has been 
thrown over everything which the military regime has done in the 
first two years of its existence. Yet not only was the freedom of 
the press restricted to playing the tune which the payer of the 
piper had called but anyone saying anything which might cause 
dissatisfaction with the new regime’s policy committed under one 
of its new laws a criminal offence. All political activity was pro- 
hibited. For the one-party state of the last days of Dr Nkrumah’s 
Government, there was substituted, not the two-party state of 
present British democracy but the no-party state of police and army 
rule. Even to belong to a political party was decreed to be a crime 
punishable by imprisonment. For ‘Preventive Detention’ there was 
substituted Protective Custody’, the only difference being that 
with Protective Custody’ the person detained could make no appeal 
against his detention and it was not necessary even to tell him the 
reason why he had been sent to prison. By September 1967 there 
vere over twice as many political prisoners held in ‘Protective 
Custody’ than there had been in Dr Nkrumah’s time in preventive 
detention. 

The seventeenth-century Petition of Right, Afrifa’s guideline 
commented upon by Mr Szamuely, prayed for the discontinance 
o die raising of taxation without Parliamentary consent and against 
t e trying of civilians by military tribunals. The National Liberation 
Council has not only dissolved the existing Parliament but also has 
not summoned another. They even made the fact that anyone should 



REAP THE WHIRLWIND 


450 

The importance of Dr Nkrumah’s period of rule from 1957 to 
1966 was that it is likely to prove to have been the last attempt by a 
developing country to achieve its development on the basis which 
was so highly successful in the mid-nineteenth century and was 
employed by two then such poor agricultural countries as Japan and 
Sweden. His attempt failed, in part of course, through local weak- 
nesses and mistakes but in the main because the Western world was 
determined it should not succeed. 

The wind of change has altered direction. The policy, half- 
embarked upon by the developed world, of cooperation with African 
states striving for real independence has been abandoned in favour 
of a return to the support of only such African Governments as will 
maintain the old colonial relationship. This, it has been the argu- 
ment of this book to show, is a dangerous wind to loose. Those who 
have sown it will reap the whirlwind. For the emerging African states 
its crop has no stalk. For a time no doubt it will yield some produce, 
though strangers will swallow it up but no military Government or 
other constitutional device can suppress the latent conflict between 
the many poor nations of the earth and the wealthy few. Before the 
last war Sir Winston Churchill, a conservative and detached 
observer, could read the signs of the times and see clearly the 
inevitability of the international conflict which must arise out of the 
theory of a master race and the appeasement of a Germany which 
wished to exploit a balkanized and under-developed Eastern 
Europe. Today another statesman, like Churchill a believer in 
traditional values and the preservation of existing order, has seen 
the present danger in its wider world scale and has warned as 
strongly as did Sir Winston. In his encyclical Populorum Progressio, 
issued in March 1967, Paul VI, wrote: 

If today s flourishing civilisations remain selfishly wrapped up in 
themselves, they could easily place their highest values in jeopardy, 
sacrificing their will to be great to the desire to possess more. To them 
we could apply also the parable of the rich man whose fields yielded an 
abundant harvest and who did not know where to store his harvest: 
God said to him, “Fool, this night do they demand your soul of 
you . . ’ 

Will this warning by the Pope be any more heeded by the Western 
World than that of Churchill thim, vnnrp /irrn ? 



APPENDIX 


The document set out overleaf is reprinted from a proof copy of the 
original. It was drafted in September and October 1956 and it had been 
intended by the Gold Coast Government to publish it the following 
month. This was never done. The value of reprinting it now is that it 
provides proof that in the period proceeding independence Dr. Nkrumah 
did everything possible to get the British Government to approve a 
Constitution for Ghana based on that of the older Commonwealth 
countries. 

The document was printed in limited numbers and sent to the United 
Kingdom Government with a covering dispatch by the Governor, Sir 
Charles Arden Clarke, saying that the Gold Coast Government would, 
for the reasons set out in the document, propose that the draft Constitu- 
tion it contained should be adopted at independence. The British Govern- 
ment in a dispatch in reply made it clear that the United Kingdom 
Government were not agreeable to the Gold Coast becoming inde- 
pendent on the basis of this proposed Constitution. 


4Si 



Draft Proposals for a Constitution for Ghana 


PART I 

GENERAL PROVISIONS 

1. Ghana a Member of the British Commonwealth 45 6 

2. Citizenship of Ghana 45& 

3. The Parliament of Ghana 457 

4. The Executive Government of Ghana 457 

5. The Governor-General 457 

6. Power of the Governor-General 45 ^ 

PART II 

FUNDAMENTAL RIGHTS 

7. Provisions for Ensuring Personal Liberty 459 

8. Provisions for Ensuring that Dwellings are inviolable 459 

9. Provisions for Ensuring Freedom of Religion 460 

10. Provisions for Freedom of Opinion and Assembly 460 

11. Provisions against Appropriation of Propterty without 

Compensation 460 

12. Provisions against Retrospective Laws and Double Punishment 

and against Forcing Persons to Incriminate Themselves 461 

13. Provisions against discrimination of any type 461 

PART III 

THE EXECUTIVE 

14. The Prime Minister 462 

15. Appointment of the Prime Minister 463 

16. The Cabinet 463 

17. Appointment and Removal of Ministers and Parliamentary 

Secretaries 464 

18. Ministers and Parliamentary Secretaries to quit office with the 

Prime Minister 465 


452 



INDEX TO APPENDIX 453 

19. Ministers and Parliamentary Secretaries to be Members of 465 

Parliament 

20. Appointment and Dismissal of Public Officers 466 

21. Command of the Defence Forces 466 

PART IV 

PARLIAMENT 

22. Power of Parliament to make Laws 466 

23. Membership of the National Assembly 467 

24. Proceedings in the National Assembly 467 

25. Summoning, Adjourning and Proroguing a Parliament 467 

26. By-Elections 468 

27. The Method of Deciding Questions in the National Assembly 469 

28. Control of Finance by Parliament 469 

29. The Consolidated Fund 470 

30. Special Provision as to Bills Imposing Charges on the Public 

Revenue 470 

31. The Auditor-General 470 

32. Responsibility of the Government to the National Assembly 471 

33. Proposals for Laws 471 

34. Special Provisions for Urgent, Secret and Consequential Proposals 

for Laws 474 

35. Passing of Bills 475 

36. Assent to Bills 477 

37. Validity of Laws 477 

38. Dissolution of the National Assembly 477 

39. Provision for General Elections 47 3 

40. Constituencies to return Members to Parliament 479 

41. Persons Entitled to Vote at Elections 479 

42. Method of Holding Elections 480 

PART V 

THE JUDICATURE 

43. The Supreme Court 480 

44. The Appeal Court and High Court of Ghana 481 



INDEX TO APPENDIX 


454 

45. Appointment of Chief Justice and Judges 4 ^ 2 

46. Salaries of Judges 4 ^ 2 

47. Removal of Judges 4 ^ 2 

48. Retirement of Judges 4^3 

49. Independence and Supremacy of the Civil Courts 4^3 

50. Power of the Supreme Court to Enforce Part Two of the 

Constitution 4^4 

51. The Attorney-General 4^4 


PART VI 


TRADITIONAL AUTHORITIES AND REGIONAL ORGANISATION 

52. The Office of Chief Guaranteed 4^5 

53. Constitutional Commissions for Traditional Matters to be set up 486 

54. Ghana to be divided into Regions 486 

55. Powers of Regional Assemblies 487 

56. Houses of Chiefs to be established 489 

57. Powers of the Houses of Chiefs 489 


PART VII 

TRANSITIONAL PROVISIONS 

58. Transitional provisions for Ghana citizenship 490 

59. Present Ministers to remain in office 490 

60. The Service of the Public Officers to continue 491 

61. The present Legislative Assembly to become the National 

Assembly 491 

62. Bills introduced into the Legislative Assembly and passed after 

Independence to be Acts of Parliament 492 

63. The Auditor-General and Clerk and other Officers of the 

Legislative Assembly to continue in office 492 

64. Transitional provisions for the Ghana Appeal Court and High 

Court 493 

65. Transitional provisions in regard to the retirement of Judges 493 

66. The Attorney-General to continue in office 493 

67. Magistrates and other Judicial Officers to remain in office 494 



INDEX TO APPENDIX 


455 


68. Extent to which Existing Law continues 

69. Enactment of Constitutional Acts 


494 

495 


PART VIII 

AMENDMENT OF THE CONSTITUTION 

70. Method of amending the Constitution 


495 



Proposals for the Constitution of Ghana 


Ghana to be 
a Member 
of the 
Common- 
wealth. 


Citizenship 
of Ghana. 


PART I 

GENERAL PROVISIONS 

I 

Ghana is a free, sovereign and independent state within the Common- 
wealth. 

Note: This Article follows the words of the resolution on Independence 
passed by the Legislative Assembly on 3rd August, 1956. 


II 

Every person domiciled in Ghana at the time of the coming into force 
of this Constitution and either of whose parents was born in Ghana 
shall be a citizen of Ghana. Notwithstanding this provision, it may be 
provided by law that persons who are citizens of Ghana and of some 
other State may be required by law to choose which citizenship they 
will accept. The provisions of this Article notwithstanding provision 
may be made by law for the giving of Ghana citizenship to persons 
who would not otherwise be Ghana citizens and provision shall be 
made by law in regard to the citizenship of persons born in Ghana 
after the coming into force of this Constitution. 

Note: It is proposed that a Ghana Nationality and Citizenship Act shall be 
passed which will provide, in far greater detail, for Ghana citizenship. How- 
ever, it is desirable to outline in the Constitution who may be Ghana citizens. 
On the coming into force of the Constitution, any one in Ghana who has 
made his permanent home in Ghana and whose father or mother had been 
born in Ghana is automatically a Ghana citizen. However, if a Ghana citizen 
has also another nationality, Parliament may provide by law, that he must 
choose whether to continue as a Ghana citizen or take the advantage of his 
other nationality. Until such a law is passed, Ghana citizens with another 
nationality will be entitled to have a dual citizenship. The Ghana Nationality 
and Citizenship Act will provide for the case of all persons born after the 

456 



APPENDIX 


457 

coming into force of the Constitution and for all other details about natura- 
lization and nationality generally. 


Ill 

The Legislative power of Ghana is vested in the Parliament of Ghana The Parlia- 
which shall consist of the Queen and a National Assembly. went of 

Ghana. 

Note: As it is proposed to set up Regional Assemblies, it has been decided 
to give the name of ‘National Assembly’ to the House of Parliament of 
Ghana. Article Twenty-Three provides that the Members of the National 
Assembly shall be known as Members of Parliament. 


IV 

(1) The Executive Government of Ghana is vested in the Queen and The 
may be exercised by the Queen or by a Governor-General as Her Executive 

representative. ment of 

(2) The Governor-General shall be appointed by the Queen on the fi llan q 
advice of the Government of Ghana. 

Note: This Article is based on the general practice in the Commonwealth 
and provides that the Ghana Government shall be carried on in the name of 
the Queen. Thus writs issued from the Supreme Court will continue to run 
in the Queen’s name and the proclamations summoning and dissolving Par- 
liament will be similarly made on behalf of the Queen. 


V 

There shall be payable out of the Consolidated Fund such sums as The 
Parliament may determine to provide for the salary of the Governor- Governor- 
General and such salary shall not be diminished during his con- General, 
tinuance of office. 

Provision shall be made by law for the appointment of an Acting 
Governor-General to act in the absence of the Governor-General and 
for determining the salary of the Acting Governor-General and of 
members of the Governor-General’s office and his personal staff. 

Note: This Article is based on the general practice in the Commonwealth. 

It has become traditional in Commonwealth Constitutions to provide that 
the Governor-General’s salary shall be paid from the Consolidated Fund and 



APPENDIX 


Power 
of the 
Governor- 
General. 


458 

not diminished during his continuance in office. Historically, this was done 
to prevent parliamentary discussion of his conduct which would have been 
possible if his salary had to be voted each year by Parliament. It has been 
thought desirable to retain the traditional form of words. It is intended to 
have a Governor-General ( Civil List) Act which will contain the detailed pro- 
visions for the Governor-General’s and the Acting Governor-General’s 
salary and for the salaries of their staff. 

VI 

All powers, authorities and functions vested in the Queen or the 
Governor-General shall, subject to the provisions of this Constitution 
or of any other law for the time being in force, be exercised as far as 
may be in accordance with the constitutional conventions applicable 
to the exercise of similar powers, authorities and functions in the 
United Kingdom by the Queen; provided always that no Act or 
omission on the part of the Queen or of the Governor-General shall 
be called in question in any court of law on the ground that there has 
not been compliance with the foregoing provisions. 

Note: This Article is taken from section 4 (2) of the Ceylon (Constitution) 
Order in Council, 1946. The older Commonwealth countries, with the excep- 
tion of Ireland, moved from Colonial to Commonwealth status by a slow 
process of evolution and, therefore, constitutional conventions of various 
sorts grew up. In Ceylon, however, it was drought better formally to enact 
the conventions of the British Constitution as part of the Ceylon Constitu- 
tion. This follows the practice which was adopted in South Africa in 1934 
when it was felt that, because the position of the Crown had been left un- 
explained in law, it was often misunderstood. The equivalent provision in the 
South African Constitution is: 

‘(1) The Executive Government of the Union in regard to any aspect of 
its domestic or external affairs is vested in the King, acting on the advice 
of his Ministers of State for the Union and may be administered by his 
Majesty in person or by a Governor-General as his representative. 

‘(2) Save where otherwise expressly stated or necessarily implied, any 
reference in the South Africa Act and in this Act to the King shall be 
deemed to be a reference to the King acting on the advice of his Ministers 
of State for the Union.’ (Status of the Union Act, 1934 Section 4 (1) 
and (2) ). 

The Ceylon wording has been chosen as it is thought to be simpler 
and clearer. 



APPENDIX 


459 


PART II 

Fundamental Rights 


VII 


The liberty of the person is inviolable and no person shall be deprived 
of his liberty except in accordance with law. Upon complaint made by 
or on behalf of any person that he is being unlawfully detained any 
Judge of the Supreme Court of Ghana may forthwith enquire into the 
same and may make an order requiring the person in whose custody 
such person is detained, to produce the person so detained before such 
court or Judge without delay and to certify in writing as to the cause 
of the detention and such court or Judge shall thereupon order the 
release of such, person unless satisfied that he is being detained in 
accordance with the law. Provided however that nothing contained in 
this Article is invoked to prohibit, control or interfere with any act of 
the Government of Ghana during the existence of a state of war, or 
when an emergency has, in accordance with law, been proclaimed. 


Provisions 

for 

ensuring 

personal 

liberty. 


Note: This Article is taken in a somewhat simplified form from Article Six 
of the Irish Free State Constitution. The same principles are set out in 
sections 21 and 22 of the Indian Constitution. Its object is to make part of the 
Constitution the historic remedy against arbitrary imprisonment, the writ of 
‘habeas corpus’. 


VIII 

The dwelling of every person in Ghana is inviolable and shall not Provisions 
be forceably entered except in accordance with law. for 

ensuring 

Note: This Article seeks to enact an old established principle of British * hat . 
liberty— ‘that every man’s home is his castle’— and that no one is entitled to dwelIu >gs 
force himself into the home of another. It provides a provision against arbi- ? re . 
trary searches by the police. The wording follows Article Seven of the Irish umoIaWe - 
Free State Constitution except that the words ‘every person in Ghana’ have 
been substituted for the words ‘every citizen’. The object is to give the same 
protection to aliens as to citizens. 



460 


APPENDIX 


Provisions 

for 

ensuring 
freedom of 
religion. 


Provision 
for freedom 
of opinion 
and 

assembly. 


Provision 
against 
appropria- 
tion of 
property 
without 
compensa- 
tion. 


IX 

Every person in Ghana is equally entitled to freedom of conscience 
and the right freely to profess, practise and propagate religion, subject 
to public order, morality and health. 

Note: This Article again reproduces principles common to many Common- 
wealth Constitutions; but its actual wording is drawn to follow paragraph 43 
of the Government’s ‘Constitutional Proposals for Gold Coast Indepen- 
dence’ adopted by the Assembly on 22nd May, 1956. 

X 

The right of free expression of opinion as well as the right to assemble 
peaceably and without arms, and form associations or unions is 
guaranteed for purposes not opposed to public order or morality. 

Laws may be made regulating the manner in which the right of 
forming associations and the right of free assembly shall be exercised. 

Note: This Article is based on section 19 (t) of the Indian Constitution and 
upon Article Nine of the Irish Free State Constitution. 


XI 

(i) No person shall be deprived of his property except in accordance 
with law. 

(ii) No property, movable or immovable, including any interest in, or 
in any company owning any commercial or industrial undertaking, 
shall be taken possession of, or acquired for public purposes under any 
law authorising the taking of such possession or such acquisition 
unless the law provides for compensation for the property taken pos- 
session of or acquired and either fixes the amount of the compensation, 
or specifies the principles on which, and the manner in which, the 
compensation is to be determined and given. 

Note: This Article is taken from section 32 (1) and (2) of the Constitution of 
India. It is based upon the same principles as section 36A. of the Gold Coast 
(Constitution) Order in Council, 1934 as amended. The wording of the Gold 
Coast Order in Council was, however, considered too elaborate and too com- 
plicated to be put into the Constitution. Simpler provisions have been drawn 
up based on the Indian model. 



APPENDIX 


461 


XII 

(i) No person shall be convicted of any offence except for violation 
of the law in force at the time of the commission of the act charged 
as an offence, nor be subjected to a penalty greater than that which 
might have been inflicted under the law in force at the time of the 
commission of the offence. 

(ii) No person shall be prosecuted and punished for the same offence 
more than once. 

(iii) No person accused of any offence shall be compelled to be a wit- 
ness against himself. 

Note: This Article is based on section 20 of the Constitution of India. It sets 
out in general words what are the accepted principles of English Constitu- 
tional practice and law. 


XIII 

Subject to the provisions of this Constitution every citizen of Ghana 
and every other person in Ghana is entitled to all the rights and free- 
doms provided in this Constitution without distinction of any kind, 
whether on the ground of race, colour, sex, language, religion, political 
or other opinion, national or social origin, property, birth or other 
status. 


Note: This Article is based on Article Two of the Universal Declaration of 
Human Rights adopted by the United Nations on the roth of December, 
1048. Its object is to expand the provisions against racial dacninination con- 
tained in the present Constitution (see section 3 (2) o e old Coast 
(Constitutional) Order in Council, i 95 4 ■) Persons who are not Ghana citizens 
are not, under the Constitution, entitled to certain rights of a political nature, 
for example, serving in Parliament or voting at elections. For tins reason, the 
Article is prefaced with the words ‘subject to the provisions of this Consti- 
tution’. Except, however, for such limitations as these, aliens m Ghana are 
given the same protection and the same guarantees of freedom as are the 


citizens of Ghana. 


Provisions, 
against 
retrospec- 
tive laws 
and double 
punishment 
and against 
forcing per- 
sons to 
incriminate 
themselves. 


Provisions 
against 
discrimina- 
tion of any 
type. 



462 


APPENDIX 


PART III 
The Executive 


XIV 

Tlie Prime There shall be a head of the Government called the Prime Minister, 
mister. w ho shall be appointed by the Governor-General and who shall con- 
tinue in office until the day after the day fixed for the first meeting of 
Parliament following upon a General Election provided always — 

(1) that by notice in writing to the Governor-General the Prime 
Minister may at any time resign his office, and 
(ii) if at any time the National Assembly shall pass a motion in 
express words of no confidence in the Government, the Gover- 
nor-General shall terminate his appointment as Prime Minister 
unless the Governor-General shall be advised, in accordance 
with the provisions of Article Thirty-Eight, to dissolve the 
National Assembly. 


Note This Article in the first place provides that the Prime Minister shall 
, .™ a A y d 0ffiC ® at the commcncemcn t of any new Parliament. 

orW M El ® ht “ n Pf ovldes *at when the Prime Minister leaves office, 
PrinS ^ d ° J jkewl ^’ 11113 P rovi sion is of considerable value in giving 
aftCr a o G ? neral Election a c hance, if he wishes, to recon- 
M nU VCrnm f Subsection (ii) must be read together with Article 
fecondlvIZv- Un ei } actul S British Constitutional practice and, 

the Governme^ 5 “^tely ^ ear the circumstances in which a vote against 
vote?ZvT m As T bly amounts 10 a vote of no confidence. Other 
L that c l r, U r C ’ made ma ? erS ofcoilfide nce by the Government, but 
what coura- ?°."T ent and not the Governor-General would decide 
wou d either lf l a ey Were defeated in 1116 Assem bly. Normally, they 

whh a v rv rVr -H "• adn f 3 dis3ol «ion- Subsection (ii) is intended m deal 
Assemblv y an H v ? n When the Gov ernment has lost the confidence of the 
Prime Minister^ ^ 11563 l ° re ^ n ’ Article Thirty-eight provides that a 



APPENDIX 


463 


XV 

Upon a vacancy occurring in the office of Prime Minister the Appoint- 

Govemor-General shall appoint as Prime Minister ment of the 

Prime 

(а) If the outgoing Prime Minister advises him to appoint any Minister, 
person, that person, provided always that such advice is ten- 
dered in accordance with Article Six of this Constitution; and 

(б) If he has received no advice from the outgoing Prime Minister, 
then such Member of Parliament as he may, in the exercise of 
his discretion in accordance with Article Six of this Constitution, 
think fit to appoint. 


Note: The Article provides that the outgoing Prime Minister may, as in the 
United King dom and in other Commonwealth countries advise on a suc- 
cessor. No doubt, this would be the normal way in which the Governor- 
General would be advised in regard to the new Prime Minister. The British 
convention is that upon defeat in a General Election, the Prime Minister 
should resign and advise the Crown to send for his successful rival. It is 
hoped that this convention will be accepted in Ghana. Similarly, if a Prime 
Minister desires to retire his party will have normally chosen a successor and 
he should be entitled to recommend him to the Governor-General. It will be 
noticed that it is not absolutely mandatory to the Governor-General to 
accept the Prime Minister’s advice. The effect of the proviso to paragraph (a) 
is only to compel the Governor-General to accept the advice, if this is the 
advice which would, by convention, have bound the Crown in Great Britain 
if it had been offered by a British Prime Minister. Paragraph (b) provides 
that the Governor-General shall, if he has had no advice from the outgoing 
Prime Minister, appoint such Member of Parliament as he sees fit. A dis- 
tinction has purposely been made here. The outgoing Prime xMmister is 
entitled to advise as a new Prime Minister someone who is not a member of 
the House, but for whom no doubt a seat could be quickly found at a hr. 
election. It is contrary, however, to British Constituuonal convention fo the 
Crown, acting at its own discretion, to choose as a Prime Minister someone 
who is not a Member of Parliament. 


XVI 


There shall be a Cabinet of not less than eight and not more 
fifteen persons who shall be charged with the general direction s - d 
control of the government of Ghana. The members of 
shall be known as Cabinet Ministers and shall be app omted ^ 
be removed from office by the Governor-General acting o a ^ 


The 

CafcLee 



APPENDIX 


464 

of the Prime Minister. If any Cabinet Minister at any time informs the 
Prime Minister that he wishes to be relieved of his membership of the 
Cabinet, the Governor-General may, on the advice of the Prime 
Minister, accept his resignation therefrom. 

Note: The words ‘who shall be charged with the general direction and con- 
trol of the government’ are taken from section 46 (1) of the Ceylon Order in 
Council, 1946. Otherwise the drafting is new and intended to reproduce 
existing British Constitutional practice. The present Gold Coast Constitu- 
tion (section 4 of the Gold Coast (Constitution) Order in Council, 1954) P r0 ~ 
vides that the Cabinet shall be composed of not less than eight persons. It is 
thought possibly desirable to retain some legal limitation on the size of the 
Cabinet. The method of resignation through the Prime Minister again con- 
forms to what is the actual practice in the United Kingdom at the moment. 
Letters of resignation are always exchanged between the Prime Minister and 
the retiring Ministers and for all practical purposes, a Minister tenders his 
resignation to the Prime Minister. In fact, in strict Constitutional theory, he 
invites the Prime Minister to ask the Queen on his behalf whether he may 
retire from office. The form of words here adopted sets out this convention. 


XVII 

Appoint- The Governor-General may on the advice of the Prime Minister 
ment and appoint a Cabinet Minister or other person as a Minister to administer 
removal of each of such Ministries as may be established and may also on the 
aniTpariia a< ^ ce P r ™ e Minister appoint one or more Parliamentary Secre- 
mentary tar ‘ es t0 assist suc h Ministers. Such Ministers and Parliamentary 
Secretaries Secretaries may be removed from office by the Governor-General on 
the advice of the Prime Minister. If any Minister or Parliamentary 
Secretary at any time informs the Prime Minister that he wishes to 
be relieved of his office, the Governor-General may, on the advice of 
the Prime Minister, accept his resignation therefrom. 

Note: Under the present Gold Coast Constitution, the Prime Minister can 
create such Ministries as he chooses and it is proposed at any rate for the 
time being to continue this provision. It may well be however that the 
British practice, where there is one Minister and a number of Parliamentary 
Secretaries dealing with different aspects of the Ministries’ work, may be 
found at times preferable and therefore the provision in the present Consti- 
tution which restricts the number of Ministerial Secretaries who may be 
appointed, is omitted. There is naturaEy a danger that the back-bench 
element of the Government party may be weakened by too many Ministerial 
posts being created. In Great Britain, there is a statutory limitation placed on 



APPENDIX 


465 

the number of Ministers and Parliamentary Secretaries who may sit in the 
House of Commons and it is proposed to enact a Ministers Pavers Act which 
will define the position of Ministers and will provide against any abuse of 
unduly increasing the numbers. This, however, is a matter of detail which 
should not be included in the Constitution. It will be noticed that the name 
of Ministerial Secretary has been changed to Parliamentary Secretary as 
more appropriate in the conditions of independence. 


XVIII 

If the Prime Minister dies or quits office, irrespective of whether he Ministers 
be reappointed or not, the appointment of all Cabinet Ministers, other ar *d Parlia- 
Ministers and Parliamentary' Secretaries shall terminate upon the !? entar - v . 
appointment of a new Prime Minister or upon the reappointment of t0 - t 
the retiring Prime Minister, as the case may be. 0 fg ce w ; t jj 

the Prime 

Note: This Article reproduces a standing Commonwealth Constitutional Minister, 
practice. It enables an in-coming Prime Minister to choose his own Govern- 
ment and enables a Prime Minister at any time to reconstruct his Govern- 
ment by resigning and advising the Governor-General to appoint himself 
again. The provision that the Ministers shall remain in office till the new 
Prime Minister is appointed is obviously necessary where a Prime Minister 
dies or where there is doubt as to his successor. 


XIX 


No Cabinet or other Minister (including the Prime Minister) or Parlia- 
mentary Secretary shall hold office for a longer period than three 
months unless he is or becomes a Member of Parliament. 

Note: The present Gold Coast Constitution provides in sections 8 (2) (a) 
and in 19 (3) that all M inis ters and Ministerial Secretaries shall be members 
of the Assembly. It is always possible, however, that a Minister might be 
defeated at a General Election but the Government might wish to continue 
him in office, finding him another seat at a by-election. For that reason, this 
provision, which is adapted from section 64 of the Australia Constitution 
Act, is suggested in place of the existing provision of the Constitution. 


Ministers 
and Parlia- 
mentary 
Secretaries 
to be Mem- 
bers of 
Parliament. 



466 


APPENDIX 


XX 

Appoint- Until Parliament otherwise provides all executive powers relating to 
ment and public officers (including Judicial Officers other than the Chief Justice 
“ saIof and other Judges of the Supreme Court) and the Public Service 
Officers generally shall be vested in the Governor-General acting on the 
advice of the Cabinet. These powers may be delegated by the 
Governor-General acting on the advice of the Cabinet or by law. 

Note: Under the present Constitution, appointments to, and the control 
generally of transfers, promotion and dismissals from the public service are 
vested in the Governor acting on the recommendation of the Public Service 
Commission. It is proposed to enact a Public Services Act to regulate the 
manner in which these powers will be exercised. 


XXI 


Command 
of the 
Defence 
Forces. 


The Command in Chief of the Defence Forces of Ghana is vested in 
the Governor-General as the Queen’s representative. 

Note: This Article reproduces section 68 of the Australia Constitution Act. 
Its effect is to place the supreme control of the Ghana Defence Forces under 
the Governor-General acting on the advice of the Cabinet or the Minister 
responsible for Defence as the case may be. 


PART IV 
Parliament 


XXII 

Power of Subject to the provisions of this Constitution, Parliament shall have 

P ower t0 ma ^ e l aws f° r the peace, order and good government of 
laws. Ghana ' 

Note: This form of words is found in all Constitutions based on the British 
model. They have been interpreted as conveying powers ‘as plenary and as 
ample as the Imperial Parliament in the plenitude of its power possessed or 
could bestow’. 



APPENDIX 


467 


XXIII 

The National Assembly shall consist of a Speaker who shall not be a 
Member and so many Members, called Members of Parliament, as 
may be determined from time to time by law. Until Parliament other- 
wise provides, the number of Members of Parliament shall be one 
hundred and four. 

(2) The method of choosing a Speaker shall be determined by law 
and until it is so determined, shall be the method used in electing the 
Speaker to the Legislative Assembly upon the last occasion when a 
Speaker was so elected before the coming into force of this Con- 
stitution. 

Note: This Article reproduces the position as it exists under the present 
Constitution. The Gold Coast Constitution is unique in having a Speaker 
who is not a Member of the Assembly. This provision is retained in the new 
Constitution. The wording of the Article does not prevent a member stand- 
ing for the office of the Speaker, but it would result in his automatically 
vacating his seat if he was elected. 


XXIV 

Subject to the provisions of this Constitution, the proceedings of 
Parliament shall be regulated by law, but the National Assembly shall ; 
have power to make its own rules and standing orders with power to 
attach penalties for their infringement, and shall have power to ensure 
freedom of debate, to protect its official documents and the private 
papers of its Members and protect itself and its Members against any 
person interfering with, molesting or attempting to corrupt its Mem- 
bers in the exercise of their duties. 

Note: This Article reproduces the normal powers which a Legislative 
Assembly should possess. The form of words chosen follows those of Article 
Twenty of the Irish Free State Constitution. 

XXV 

(1) The Governor-General, acting on the advice of the Cabinet, shall 
in the name of the Queen, summon Parliament to meet in session, 
upon any date he thinks fit within four months of the date of the ter- 
mination of the last session of Parliament, and shall then declare to 
the National Assembly, as soon as may be after the meeting thereof 
the reasons for summoning Parliament. 



APPENDIX 


468 

(2) Parliament shall thereafter continue in session until such time as 
the Governor-General, acting on the advice of the Cabinet, shall, in 
the name of the Queen, prorogue Parliament, provided always that 
the National Assembly may, on its own motion, adjourn its sittings for 
a period not exceeding four months at any one time, and that no 
session of Parliament may continue for a period exceeding eighteen 
months. 

(3) If at any time the National Assembly stands adjourned or Parlia- 
ment is prorogued for a period exceeding one week, the Governor- 
General, acting on the advice of the Cabinet, may, if the public interest 
requires it, recall the National Assembly or summon Parliament, as the 
case may be, to meet on such date as seems to him fit. 

Note: Under British Constitutional practice, the time of Parliament is 
divided up into sessions which are opened by a speech from the Queen or the 
Governor-General and are closed by an official Act known as prorogation. 
This system, which is in force in the Gold Coast under the present Consti- 
tution, has been retained. The object of the Article is to provide that Parlia- 
ment shall meet once at least every four months. This subsection (t) prevents 
Parliament being prorogued for more than four months and subsection (2) 
prevents the National Assembly adjourning for more than four months. It has 
become usual in Commonwealth Constitutions to provide that there should 
be a session every year. This provision would be inconvenient under the 
Ghana Constitution where certain delays are necessary before bills can be 
introduced and time has to be given for reference back to the Houses of 
Chiefs of questions affecting Chiefs. For this reason, the maximum length of 
the session has been fixed at eighteen months. The Governor-General, acting 
on the advice of the Cabinet, is empowered to recall Parliament in an emer- 
gency. In theory, when the House is adjourned, it should be recalled, not 
by the Governor-General, acting on the advice of the Cabinet, but by the 
Speaker. It is more convenient, however, to provide that the Governor- 
General, acting on the advice of the Cabinet, shall summon the House on 
cither occasion. The practice in the Gold Coast of adjourning sine die leads, 
in fact, to the date of the re-assembly being chosen in any event by the 
Government. 


XXVI 

By- Provision shall be made by law for a Member to resign from the 

Elections. National Assembly and upon such resignation, or if a Member dies 
or is disqualified by law the vacancy thus created shall be filled by 
election in the manner determined by law. 



appendix 


469 


Note: It is proposed that most of the detailed provisions necessary for the 
running of Parliament should be contained in * lament Aet^Tte pro- 
vision, in fact, could easily have been put in such an Act. However, as it is 
usually found in Constitutions, it has been included here. 


XXVII 

All matters in the National Assembly, save as otherwise provided by 
this Constitution, shall be determined by a majority of the votes of the 
members present and voting subject always to such provision as 
may be made by law for a minimum number of members necessarily 
present or voting in order to constitute a majority within the meaning 
of this Article. The Speaker shall not have the right either to 
original or to a casting vote. 

Note: The object of this Article, which is based in part ® 

two of the Irish Free State Constitution, is to provide in a ‘ 

majority decisions in Parliament. It will, however, be £ 

J„ Z male if 

constitute a qu°™d ttarcte S™ ^ ^ provision against 

a quorum is not present, it is also ve y fraction of the mem- 

snap votes when a matter might be ram y . . ^ Parliament 

KSSS SSS « S ta no, been b, . 

majority. 


XXVIII 

Money shall no, be appropriated by vote, rea.lnnon or to by MV 

ment unless die pnrposs of , hc Governor-General, 

aedngonthe advice'of Cabinet, in die manner provided by to. 

.. 1 Article Thirty-seven of the Irish Free State 

Note: This Article, taken fro Rritish Constitutional provision that 

Constitution, expresses the « dl “r^Bnnsh Co* ^ ^ rf 

no supply shall be granted necessary for the Government to lay 

this in modem practice, is : o ak bcforc they ran ask for a budgetary 
detailed estimates before the Assem y 
provision to be made. 


The 

method of 

deciding 

questions 

in the 

National 

Assembly. 


Control of 
Finance by 
Parliament. 


470 


APPENDIX 


The Conso- 
lidated 
Fund. 


Special 
provision 
as to Bills 
imposing 
charges 
on the 
public 
revenue. 


The 

Auditor- 

General. 


XXIX 

All revenues of Ghana from whatever source arising, shall, subject to 
such exception as may be provided by law, form one fund known as the 
Consolidated Fund, and shall be appropriated in the manner and sub- 
ject to the charges and liabilities imposed by law. 

Note: This Article again is common to most Commonwealth Constitutions 
and the wording here is taken from Article Sixty-one of the Irish Free State 
Constitution. At present, there are in the Gold Coast, a number of other 
funds, particularly, the Development Funds which would not, under this 
Article, form part of the Consolidated Fund. However, in order to provide 
for the normal method of Parliamentary control over finance, it is necessary 
to have a Consolidated Fund. It is proposed to enact a Finance and Audit Act 
which will set out in detail the method by which this financial control is 
achieved. 

XXX 

No Bill or Motion authorising the disposal of, or the imposition of, 
charges upon the Consolidated Fund or other funds of Ghana or the 
imposition of any tax or the repeal, augmentation or reduction of any 
tax for the time being in force shall be passed by the National Assembly 
unless the assent thereto of the Governor-General, acting on the 
advice of the Cabinet, has been signified in the manner provided by 
law. 

Note : This Article is based on section 69 of the Ceylon (Constitution) Order 
in Council, 1946, but it has been redrafted so as to make the law conform 
more closely to that of Great Britain. The object of the change is to permit 
Private Members’ Bills to be introduced, and if necessary read a second 
time, even though they may, as almost all legislation does, involve some small 
consequential charge on Government funds. Where the Bill proceeds further 
it is then up to the Government to decide whether to give the assent of the 
Crown. By allowing the Bill to go to a second reading the views of the 
Assembly can be ascertained before a decision is made whether to allow the 
Bill to proceed. 

XXXI 

The National Assembly shall appoint an Auditor-General to act on 
behalf of Ghana. He shall control all disbursements from the Con- 
solidated Fund and from such other funds of Ghana as may from time 
to time exist and shall audit all accounts and money administered by. 



APPENDIX 


47 * 

or under the authority of Parliament and shall report to the National 
Assembly at stated periods to be determined by law. 


Note: This Article follows the words of Article Sixty-two of Irish Free State 
Constitution. The present Constitution provides in sections 67 and 68 for an 
Auditor-General but the provisions there contained are thought too detailed 
for a Constitution. The proposed Finance and Audit Act will deal m detail 
with the Auditor-General’s duties. The present Constitution provides that 
the Auditor-General shall be appointed by the Governor after consultation 
with the Prime Minister. As however the Auditor-General is constitutionally 
the principal financial officer of the National Assembly it has been thought 
better formally to place the appointment in their hands. 


XXXII 

The Government (comprising the Prime Minister, other Ministers 
and the Parliamentary Secretaries) shall be collectively responsible to 
the National Assembly. 

Note: The present Constitution provides section 5 (2) that ‘the _Mmste rs 

to implement this provision. This Article is pern p , 
strictly necessary. The Government however, consider ffiat it ^ ™ st 1 
portant that the principle of collective ^responsibility of The Governments 
emphasised and the Article has therefore been include . i m the P*t . A h 
Constitution dealing with Parliament m order to ^^P^god by 
lutely clear. Subsection (2) of Article Fourteen provides for the meffiodby 
which this responsibility ultimately can be enforced. I 
fidence is passed the Prime Minister must resign or mimediately advise tn 

Election or a change of Government. 


XXXIII 

(1) Any proposal for a Maw may be ^ ^ 

ment to the and ft statement ^ 

the Bill Proposed for « Y^ Attorney . General shall examine 
the reasons and objects ther ^ scope ofthe BiU is sufficiently 

the proposal and if he cons * and ^ m ; s drafted in 

described m the . rC “° s ii J a w its objects and conforms to any 

language appropriate to exp 


Responsi- 
bility of the 
Govern- 
ment to the 
National 
Assembly. 


Proposals 
for Laws. 



APPENDIX 


472 

provision of the law in regard to the form of words to be used in Acts 
of Parliament he shall cause the proposal to be published in the man- 
ner provided by law. Otherwise he shall return the proposal to the 
Member submitting it with his observations thereon and a statement 
of his reasons for declining, under the authority of this Article, to have 
the proposal published. 

(2) At any time within thirty days from the date of publication any 
person may in the manner prescribed by law, make a representation 
to the Attorney-General in regard to the proposal. After taking into 
consideration such representations, the Attorney-General shall, not 
earlier than thirty r days and not later than forty days from the first 
publication of the proposal, issue to the Speaker either a special or 
general certificate in regard to the proposal and cause the same to be 
published in the manner provided by law. The special certificate shall 
certify that the proposal seeks in a manner, which shall be specified, 
to amend the Constitution, or to alter the boundary of a region or 
to affect the traditional functions or privileges of a Chief or to alter 
some provision of the law in regard to a Regional Assembly, or a Con- 
stitutional Commission. The general certificate shall state that the 
proposal does not seek, in any way, to amend the Constitution direcdy 
or indirecdy or to alter the boundary of a region or to affect, in any 
way, the traditional functions or privileges of any Chief or to alter the 
law in regard to any Regional Assembly or any Constitutional Com- 
mission. 

(3) The National Assembly shall not proceed with any proposal for a 
law to which the Attorney-General has attached his special certificate 
except in the manner provided in Article Thirty-five or in Articles 
Fifty-three or Fifty-five of this Constitution, as the case may be. 

(4) On receipt by the Speaker of a proposal for a law to which the 
Attorney-General has attached his general certificate, the Bill con- 
tained therein shall be deemed to have been read a first time by the 
National Assembly. 

(5) Where the Governor-General acting on the advice of the Cabinet, 
or not less than twenty-five Members of Parliament or any Regional 
Assembly, or any Chief directly affected, or any other body or person 
declared by the Supreme Court, in the manner provided by law, to be 
affected, is dissatisfied with the certificate issued by the Attorney- 
General or any provision therein, one or more of them may, within 
seven days of the publication of the certificate, apply to the Supreme 



APPENDIX 473 

Court in the manner provided by law. The Supreme Court shall forth- 
with determine whether the certificate is properly and correctly ren- 
dered and whether any, and if so what alteration to it should be made 
and the decision of the Supreme Court thereon shall be communicated 
to the Speaker and shall for all purposes be treated as though it were 
included in the certificate of the Attorney-General, or took the place 
thereof, as the case may be. Provided always that in any matter o 
exceptional difficulty, the Supreme Court need not determine e 
matter forthwith, but may adjourn the hearing thereof and thereaft 
may further consider it and may in such case grant special leave to 
any party aggrieved by their decision thereon to appeal to the Qpeen 
in Council. When any proceedings are pending m the Su P re ® e 
or have been referred to the Queen in Council, the National Assembly 
shall not meanwhile proceed with any Bill directly affected ther y. 

Note: This Article and the wo following, AiU'cIk 

five, provide the Constitutional check on Inedal^timi 

Constitution or affect Member of Parliament’ used in 

provisions have been made. The term any , emphasise 

subsection (i) includes any Minister. It is u / e f, f^ a J^ semb L arise 

that many of a Minister’s powers in relation o three Articles intro- 

through his being a member. The procedure which the three Articles 

duce can be summarised as follows: 

(i) A Bill starts its career as ‘a proposal foi ■ ! SS 
Order 5 a (i) of the Legislative Assembly every ^ a 

be published in two successiveissu^^^^^ ^ days ; n accord- 

delay of at least cight daysNT ^ .Constitutional proposals 

rGoircSVe^^ 

Government BiU must ^ 1 ^ for a W has been adopted as 

Attorney-General Theterm P^ ^ accompanied by lts reasons 

a convenient method of de * , Attorney-General to the reasons and 
and objects. The signature o necessary but the Article con- 

objects is, under the Artie e, no Member of Parliament is 

timies his duty to examine the BdL bir Members , business) en . 

(subject to the h "° n cssentia l that tliere should be legal provision 
titled to present a Bill, it nhiects adequately describe what the 

for seeing that the reasons “ d ^“^he examination of Bills 

Bill in fact does, bv P Houses of Chiefs would be quite m- 

bv Regional Assemblies and by ^ contained in _ 

effectual if the Bld 7^. Themost important part of the Attomey- 

GenS"S“owever! is to check against any Constitutional changes 



474 


appendix 


Special 
provisions 
for urgent, 
secret and 
consequen- 
tial propo- 
sals for 
laws. 


being made cither directly, or indirectly. 1 he question of indirect 
amendment of the Constitution lias been one of the great Consiitu- 
tional problems in Australia and other Commonwealth countries and 
this Article is drawn with the hope of being able to avoid some of these 
difficulties. 

( remainder of the note on this Article is missing from the proof copy from 
which this text is taken) 


XXXIV 

(i) The provisions of the preceding Article notwithstanding, a propo- 
sal for a law may be submitted to the Attorney-General by a Minister 
together with a statement by the Governor-General acting on the 
advice of the Cabinet saying that — 

(a) it is not in the public interest that the text of the proposal be 
published before it is introduced into Parliament, or 

(b) that it is in the public interest that the proposal shall be imme- 
diately introduced into Parliament; 

in which case it shall not be necessary for the proposal to be published 
and the Attorney-General shall render his special or general certificate 
as soon as may be, provided always that if the Attorney-General 
renders a special certificate the provisions of this Constitution in re- 
gard to a proposal for a law accompanied by special certificate shall 
a P ply - 

(ii) In the case of any proposal for a law introduced under this 
Article, twenty-five Members of Parliament, any Regional Assembly, 
any House of Chiefs or any Chief directly affected, may move the 
Supreme Court at any time up to forty' days after the Bill has been 
read the first time to require the Court to enquire into the correctness 
of the Certificate rendered by the Attorney-General in relation to the 
proposal, notwithstanding that the Bill may have, meanwhile, been 
passed into law. During the consideration by the Supreme Court of 
any such application, any law in relation to which it is made shall 
remain in full force and effect and any Bill in relation to which it is 
made shall be proceeded with by the National Assembly' in the normal 
manner. If the Supreme Court shall determine that any’ provision of 
the law in question should have been subject to a special certificate 
by the Attorney-General, that law shall cease to have effect to the 



APPENDIX 


475 


extent of the provisions which should have been, in the opinion of the 
Supreme Court, specified in the certificate, and the Supreme Court 
shall state in their judgment which provisions of the law are, as a 
result of their judgment, of no further effect. Any Bill whic t. e 
Supreme Court shall determine should have been subject to a special 
certificate, shall only be proceeded with farther by Parliament in 
accordance with the provisions of the Constitution dealing wit 
accompanied by special certificates. 

(iii) If a proposal for a law is submitted to the Attorney-General by a 
Minister and it appears to the Attorney-General that the only reason 
and object of the proposal is to effect some formal or consequents 
change in the law, he shall so certify to the Speaker and none of the 
provisions of the Constitution in regard to the publication o a propo 
for a law or for delay before the National Assembly considered the 

Bill contained therein shall apply. 

Note: This Article provides for urgent and budget matters winch ™t be 

dealt with under the procedure of the previous Ardce Unless this 

an appeal is allowed to the Courts after the BiU has b^^^™ 
is done there will, in fact, be no check on the 

measures. The Article also contains the method of dealing with formal 
consequential proposals. 

XXXV 

(i) After a Bill accompanied by a general certificate h “ be ^ rea ^ ofBilk. 
in the National Assembly a first time it shall Rafter £ 

second time, examined in detail in the manner proved by aw 
or in such manner as the National Assembly may provide, and 

then read a third time and passed. ■ i certificate 

(ii) After a proposal for a la ^ XXmL of Parlfament in charge 
r e “eSd to move * ***£** 

shaft be read a first ^Accompanied by a special certi- 

(iii) In regard to a proposal fo amend the Constitu- 

ficate stating that th read a g rst time unless 

''""’rw'/'oftlic Members of Perliament present and voting 
nvo-thirds of the iV ft h Bill ma y be read a second 

vote in f»”“f““ f ^The manner provided by law or in 

S — Se NaLa, Assembiy may provide and then 



476 APPENDIX 

read a third time and passed but no such Bill shall be deemed 
to be read a third time unless the number of votes cast in favour 
thereof amounts to not less than two-thirds of the whole number 
of Members of Parliament. 

(iv) In regard to a proposal for a law accompanied by a special certi- 
ficate stating that the Bill therein seeks to amend the boundary 
of a region, or that it affects the traditional functions or privi- 
leges of a Chief the Bill shall be deemed to be read a first time if 
a majority' of the Members of Parliament present and voting, 
vote in favour thereof but after the first reading all proceedings 
in Parliament in regard to the Bill shall stand adjourned for 
three months and the Bill shall be submitted by the Speaker, in 
the case of a Bill to amend the boundaries of regions, to such 
Regional Assemblies as may be concerned and in the case of a 
Bill affecting the traditional functions or privileges of a Chief 
or Chiefs to the House of Chiefs in the Region where the Chief 
or Chiefs concerned exercise their functions. Three months after 
the submission thereof the Speaker shall inform the National 
Assembly that no opinion has been expressed on the Bill by the 
Regional Assemblies affected or by the House of Chiefs affected, 
as the case may be, or that they have expressed an opinion, in 
which case he shall acquaint the House therewith. Thereafter 
Parliament shall proceed with the Bill as though it were con- 
tained in a proposal for a law accompanied by a general certi- 
ficate. 

(v) No Bill shall be presented to the Queen for Her Assent until the 
Attorney-General shall have certified that no provision has been 
added thereto or change made therein which made an amend- 
ment to the Constitution, an alteration to the boundary of a 
region or which affected the traditional functions or privileges of 
a Chief in a way which was not specified in the certificate which 
accompanied the original proposal for the law. 

Note . The provision that a Constitutional amendment must get the support 
o tv. o-thirds of the members present and voting when introduced, is in- 
tcn e to prevent the detailed consideration by Parliament of Constitutional 
matters which have no chance of being passed. In the same way, the pro- 
'^ S * v. n ^ j 1 tlerC must ke a majority for the first reading of a Bill dealing with 
the boundaries of regions for the functions of a Chief is intended to safeguard 
Regional Assemblies and Houses of Chiefs from having to consider proposals 



APPENDIX 


Provision 

for 

General 

Elections. 


478 

in the Government, then the Governor-General shall dissolve Parlia- 
ment if the Prime Minister forthwith shall so advise him and in such 
case the Prime Minister shall, notwithstanding the provisions of 
Article fourteen, remain in office until such time as the new Parlia- 
ment shall have met. If after the passing by the National Assembly of 
a motion of no confidence in the Government, the Governor-General 
does not, widiin three days receive advice from the Prime Minister to 
dissolve the Assembly, lie shall appoint a new Prime Minister in 
accordance with the provisions of Article Fifteen. 


Note: There has been much constitutional controversy in the Common- 
wealth as to when the Governor-General is, in fact, entitled to grant a disso- 
lution of Parliament to a Prime Minister who has been defeated. The only 
Commonwealth Constitution which has up till now attempted to deal with 
this matter was that of the Irish Free State which provided, in Article Fiftv- 
thrcc, that the Irish Parliament should not be dissolved on the advice of the 
Cabinet after that Cabinet had ceased to retain the support of a majority in 
the House of Commons. The opposite principle has been adopted here. In 
t le present stage of political development in the Gold Coast the Government 
consider that it is better to give a Government defeated in the Assembly an 
opportunity to appeal to the Country. 


XXXIX 

Any Proclamation dissolving the National Assembly shall name a 
date or dates not less than thirty-five days or more than fifty' days 
after the dissolution of Parliament upon which a General Election 
s all be held and the Proclamation shall also provide for the summon- 
ing of the new National Assembly not later than ten days after the last 
date fixed for die General Election. 


Note. The time within which the General Election shall be held is defined 
with more precision than is it in other Commonwealth Constitutions. Ev- 
penence has shown that a Government in povv cr can gain an unfair adv antage 

Hr 1 r CCt T, 0n .. W U C| on t ^ lc °dier hand it is necessary to provide (par- 
nculariy when Parliament may be dissolved follow ing upon the defeat of the 

fi f?r T - tha£ ™ electl0n is hdd ' m a reasonable time. The leeway of 
will T L S lnt f dcd ‘° ena ble a convenient date to be fixed and one which 
will not clash with public holidays, festivals or the like. 



APPENDIX 


479 


XL 

For the purposes of elections to the National Assembly, each region of 
Ghana shall be divided into constituencies and there shall, m all 
Ghana, be as many constituencies as there are Members of Parliament 
and each constituency shall return one Member to the National 
Assembly. As far as possible, every constituency shall contain a popu- 
lation of the same size. The size of the population of each constituency 
shall be re-examined at such times as may be by law determined and 
where necessary, the boundaries thereof shall be withdrawn so as to 
provide that each constituency conforms in size to the provisions ot 

this Article. 


Note: This Article is designed to carry out the principles bud down m the 
Government’s Proposals for Constitutional Reform which were adopted by 
the Legislative Assembly in July, i 9 S3, and to write mto the Consonmon 4e 
principles upon which the Van Lare Commission dmded up the presen 
constituencies. It will be for the Representation of, be Pe0 Pi e f’^^[ 
machinery for revision of the botindarics of consaruencie 3 . . 

have in mind a provision for providing for a general rcd.stribuuon follmun 
upon each census. Occasionally, as for example when the new town of Tema 
is built, it may be necessary to provide for an 
Assembly or to redraw the boundaries of neighl ^ ™ 
from any general redistribution. This will be dealt with in the Represent,,,, 

of tbe People Act. 


XLI 

Subject to the provision, of Article Fifty-eight the 
to sL in any constituency at any elecnon to return member to 
Parliament shall be citiaens of Ghana, of full age and “*1“ “ "° f 
legal incapacity and avhose names are mclndcd on a Reg, star 

Electors. - r t h c Register for Elections shall 

b N °^fT'?i?'tan^^S«ciM».b S »nn a lly*onum. 
be made which shall have ^ ee thereon'below thc number en- 

ber of persons entitled to be ^ ^ immediately 

tered thereon at thc time ol t 
before the coming into force of this onsntu 10 

N^nEiThedetailsofdiequaUfTCutimiofcl^orcandofpropcrryand residence 

qualifications and the exact methods of com, .din, . 


Constituen- 
cies to 
return 
Members to 
Parliament. 


Persons 
entitled to 
vote at 
elections. 



480 . APPENDIX 

the proposed Representation of tie People Art. Until a Ghana A ctionahly aid 
Citizenship Art is in full effect British subjects and Protected Persons '■'.ill, 
irrespective of whether or not they arc likely to qualify as Ghana citi/.ens be 
entitled to vole under the provisions of Article Fifty-eight. 

XLI1 

Method of Election to the National Assembly shall be by secret ballot and pro- 
holding vision shall be made by law for the impartial supervision of all matters 

elections. rc i at ; n g t0 elections including the compilation of the registers, the 

examination of the qualifications of candidates and the provision of 
facilities for the candidates to speak to, or otherwise make their policy 
known to, the electors. 

Note: This Article is complementary to the previous Article. It writes the 
secret ballot into the Constitution and would make unconstitutional any law 
which was biased in the provision it made for the supervision of elections. 
The ‘qualification’ of candidates includes all provision for nomination 
papers and the like. Generally speaking, of course, whether a person was 
qualified as a candidate is not enquired into unless that person is elected and 
therefore ‘qualification’ as a candidate nearly always means in practice ‘quali- 
fication’ as a Member. The detailed provisions of this will be contained in the 
Parliament eld. Otherwise the detailed election law will be contained in the 
Representation of the People Art. 


PART V 
The Judicature 

XLIII 

The The judicial power of Ghana is vested in a Supreme Court and in such 

Court" 10 0ther courts as may 130 ky law prescribed. The Supreme Court shall 

consist of a Chief Justice and so many other judges as Parliament may 
from time to time prescribe. 

Note : This provision is in common form. The wording is taken from section 
71 of the Australia Constitution Act. The Government’s policy in regard to 
the appointment of judicial officers was contained in an amendment moved 
by the Government to their ‘Constitutional Proposals for Gold Coast Inde- 
pendence’ and made by the Legislative Assembly in the course of the debate 



appendix ^ 

of the 22nd May, 1956. The Government proposals as amended in the 
Legislative Assembly were: — 

‘27. It is the view of the Government that u: Qovenior-General on the 
the Chief Justice should be appointed y r s hould be appointed by 

advice of the Prime Minister; Justices 0 PP , ^ • a f ter co nsulta- 
the Governor-General on the advice of the Prime Minister 

tion with the Chief Justice.’ o prv ; re Commission should con- 

‘28. It is proposed that the Judicial Service Ummis ^ rf 

tinue to exercise its present functions, butthatitshOfUldppe^^ ^ ^ 

the Chief Justice (as Chairman), the e Commission and a per- 

ney-General, the Chairman of the Pu Supreme Court, appointed 

son who is, or shall have been, a Judge of the Supreme 

by the Governor-General.’ ^ 

It is proposed that the present law contained ^ *y C rontinue ; n force until a 
Coast (Constitution) Order in Council, : uc Wships, however, after 

Judicature Act is passed. All new appointments J d P Govemor- 

4 e coming into force of the Consultation with 

General, acting on the advice 01 the 
the Chief Justice. 


XLIV TheAppeal 

The Supreme Court SfE 

ssMfM -?• ° fGto “- 

assigned to it by law, and the o er 0 exerc ; se suc h appellate and 
Court of Appeal of Ghana, sha * law . Until the jurisdic- 

other jurisdiction as may be assigned to y ^ detennine d by 
tions of the High Court and the Co - ^ dict i 0 n as was, before 

law, the High Court shaU exerm^all such by ^ Supreme 

the coming into force of tin Court of Appeal shall exercise m 

Court of the Gold Coast and g er cised by the West 

Ghana all such jurisdiction as vv p J shall be deemed to 

African Court of Appeal No^gm^Ar^ ^ ^ of 

affect any right of appea to ^ before coming into force 
appeal to the Queen ” m W force and effect until odter- 

of this Constitution shall connnu 
■wise provided by law. 

• , 0 (,) of the Government of 

Note: This Article is based meet paragraph 26 of the Govem- 

IrelandAct,i92°. andltlsCleSS 



APPENDIX 


merit’s Constitutional proposals. The latter part of the Article is new and is 
designed to carry out paragraphs 31, 32 and 33 of the Government’s ‘Con- 
stitutional Proposals for Gold Coast Independence’. The title of the Appeal 
Court judges and other similar matters are left to the Judicature Act. 


Appoint- The Chief Justice of the Supreme Court shall be appointed by the 

ment of Governor-General, acting on the advice of the Prime Minister. Every 

nd J ud S e Supreme Court shall be appointed by the Governor- 

Judges al * General acting on the advice of the Prime Minister, after the Prime 
Minister has consulted with the Chief Justice. The Chief Justice and 
every Judge of the Supreme Court of the Gold Coast appointed before 
the coming into force of this Constitution and in office on the day 
upon which this Constitution comes into force shall continue in office 
as if such Chief Justice or Judge had been appointed in accordance 
with the provisions of this Constitution. 

Note: This Article is based upon subsections (1) and (5) of section 52 of the 
Ceylon (Constitution) Order in Council, 1946. 

XLVI 

Salaries of The salaries of the Chief Justice and other Judges of the Supreme 
Judges. Court shall be determined by Parliament and shall be charged on the 
Consolidated Fund and the salary payable to any such Chief Justice 
or Judge shall not be diminished during his term of office. 

Note: This Article is based on section 52 (4) and (6) of the Ceylon (Con- 
stitution) Order in Council, 1946, and upon section 60 (6) of the present 
Constitution. 


XLVII 

Removal of The Chief Justice and the Judges of the Supreme Court shall hold 
Judges. office during good behaviour and shall not be removable except by the 
Governor-General on an Address of the National Assembly praying 
for the removal of any Chief Justice or Judge on the ground of mis- 
behaviour or of infirmity of body or mind. Such an Address shall be 
endorsed by the Speaker with the number of votes cast in favour 



APPENDIX 


484 

committed in time of war or armed rebellion. Such jurisdiction shall not 
be exercised in any area in which the civil courts are open or are cap- 
able of being held and no person shall be removed from one area to 
another for the purpose of creating such jurisdiction. 


Note: This Article follows closely the provision of Articles Sixty-nine and 
even ) o t e Irish Free State Constitution. It is designed to prevent cither 
military rule or the setting up of special police tribunals. 


Power of 
the 

Supreme 
Court to 
enforce 
Part II 
of the 
Constitu- 
tion. 


L 

Subject to the provisions of Article Thirty-seven the right to move the 
Supreme Court for the enforcement of the rights contained in Part II 
of this Constitution is guaranteed to every citizen of Ghana wherever 
he may be and to every other person while in Ghana, and the Supreme 
Court shall have power to issue appropriate directions, orders or writs 
for the enforcement of the rights conferred therein. 


Indian Constitution ve . rsion of scction 32 (0 and (2) of the 

“ ' Vh '" ™ actually in Ghana. A d,i- 


The 

Attorney- 

General. 


Theta shall be an Anorney-Gonoral for Ghana who shall bo appoinicd 

ah ? a U at «. r nTi ° n ,h ' rf P ' i ™ Minted who 

shall have general supervision over the administration of the law The 

2“"“rh" d b raw o,h ' r fnnc,i °“ * s f »” -■ - * 

2Sw >“ • pocitiun 

' W Sah“'S°a 2 f" b - tcponaibilh, for .ho 

> and discontmuance of prosecutions for criminal 


APPENDIX 4^5 

ofFcnccs triable in Courts constituted under the provisions of the 
Courts Ordinance or any Ordinance repealing and rc-cnactmg with or 
without modification, or amending the provisions of that Ordinance 
(2) The assignment to a Minister of responsibility for the department of 
the Attorney-General shall confer responsibility only for submitting 
to the Cabinet questions referring to that department and conducting 
Government business relating to that department in the Assembly, 
and shall have effect without prejudice to the provisions of sub- 
section (1) of this section.’ 

The Government’s proposals adopted by the Assembly on the 22nd May 
T 95 6 did nTdeal specifically with this provision tat -theydid £ 

the post of Attorney-General shall continue to be a post >n the PubheSer^ 
vice’. The Government consider that it ns as far as possi ble from 

lished which divorces the administraho j 

political control. They whkh ntus. come .boot on a 

continue subject only, of course, to the o Attorney-General 

result of independence. Previously m the to tQ ^ Gover _ 

was responsible to the Govxrnor. He wdl now be p t0 put 

nor-General. The Government do not ^ s£Ction l8> an(J 

into the Constitution the provisions at p authority of the Attorney- 

they think it best that the future been more £ x- 

General should only be defined more under conditions of inde- 

perience of the working of the present system under 

pendence. 


PART VI 

Traditional Authorities and Regional Organisa 


LII 

„ . ~ existing by customary law and 

The office of a Chief m Ghana as existing y 

usage, is guaranteed. 

the views of Sir Frederick Bourne, the 
Note: The Article is drafted to me Recomm endations (paragraph 3) 
Constitutional Adviser, who saio 1 okesme n of their own people but 

that ‘Chiefs are recognised as iatne excep t in so far as t h ey ran 

remain unrelated to the people ° to f tical experience for the good of the 
contribute to the common st0 . c . t ^ e country is based on tradition and 
Region as a whole. Their posi thing which is best left to develop 

not on Statute. Tradition is a 1 b d in detail to define the func- 
naturally. I. w.-U 
tions and privileges of Ln 


The Office 
of Chief 
guaranteed. 



486 


appendix 


Constitu- 
tional Com- 
missions for 
traditional 
matters to 
be set up. 


Ghana to 
be divided 
into 

Regions. 


LIII 

There shall be established by law Constitutional Commissions to aid 
an a use t e Governor-General. The Constitutional Commissions 
shall enquire into and report to the Governor-General in regard to any 
matter concerning the relation of States or Chiefs one to the other or 
in regard to any matter of traditional custom or law which shall be 
re erred to them and the Commissions shall exercise such other func- 
s as may e from time to time assigned to them by law. Once the 
unctions of any Constitutional Commission have been established by 
law no change shall be made therein unless the Bill making the change 
is earned at its third reading by a majority of two-thirds of themembers 
oftheNatronaAssembly present and voting. No general certificate 
shall be granted by the Attorney-General in respect of any proposal 
t;*, p W Whlch ’ after the establishment by law of a Constitu- 
ent v miSS10n ’ SCekS t0 3lter any P rov isi°n of that law as to the 
composition, powers or functions of that Commission or Commissions. 

decided^bv^thp t f' hW ^ f01 ? e at prcsent local constitutional matters are 
coSer clas unsad^er disc ™- This has been generally 

the 3SS 1 “I m ^ Govemor ’ s s P-ch, on the opening of 

lation for the determinatinn nfln , G ™ n ? nt P ro P°se to introduce legis- 

the Governor actLgThis ° therWiSe *“ by 

Achimota Conference In f ' , dl = c,slon was accepted by the 

by the Assembly on the 22nd May^eT' S proposals wluch were accepted 
vision should be made in the new 4 ° provlded <that P r0 ‘ 

made to the compositionnnw'= f that n ° amcndmcnt should be 
stitutional Cot^SXTXtt“ ft* Pr ° P ° Sed LoCal C ° n - 

there may be more than one ConstimtSSt^"" 11 ™ S ° ^ 


LIV 

SEJS 1“ e,ct E ' sion sh> " hm 1 

thereof shall be determined hv 1 ? ^ 3nd the boundanes 

boundary of a Revinn g g ' aw ’ P rovided always that once a 

cep. icIitoS “ !l “" ^ ■l«ed «. 

P accordance wnh ,he provisions of this Constitution. 



appendix 


487 


Note: This Article goes considerably further than the Government’s ‘State- 
ment on the Report of the Constitutional Adviser and the Report of the 
Smota Conference’ in that it provides that ^ 

the Acts establishing the individual prop'osiTto tiS 

SSly n tSthey arc ^idSby’the adviceof Sir Frederick Bourne who 
said in paragraph 5 of his recommendations. 

‘I suggest that the establishment £ wTulThaw to be 

be effected by a separate Governmen ained at the centre but 

made clear that the su P*T'S£StSd in the previous clause, Govem- 
that in order to carry' out the objects sta . necessarv for the 

ment would transfer to regions the powers an h N L M > s 

purpose. This is the revise 1 of the 1 systen^ aU 
Federal Scheme, whereby thecentrc spiers ar form of Federa _ 

residuary powers are to rest wlth the e d intro duce an intolerable 

tion would, I believe, slow down development ana u 

handicap to the administration of the country . _ 

This recommendation was accepted by the Assembly should be 

ther recommended in regard to it that f^^Assemblies should 
established by a separate Ordinance an °, ^ ^ government’s 

be established simultaneously so far as possi e - • Conference, 

intention to carry out this recommendation of the Achimota 


LV 

Provision shall be made by to for .be «*»*. 

of the Regional Assemblies. These P°wersj> ^ Government, 

rity ofParUament, include authonty to e Commun i ca . 

Agriculture, Animal Health an J^ Vorks> Town and Country 
tions, Medical and Health Servic , as p ar ii a ment may from 

Planning, Housing and all such ot er ^ ^ nQ Bill abolishing or 

time to time determine; P rov ’ g™, any change in its corn- 

suspending a Regional Assem y j t j s carried out at its third 

position or powers shall be passe ^ ^ mem bers of the National 
reading by a majority of tno-t ir ^ cgrtificate shall be granted 
Assembly present and voting, i o ^ pr0 posal for a law which, 
by the Attorney-General m r P Reg - onal Assembly, seeks to alter 
after the establishment by aw ^ ^ abo h s h or suspend the Regional 

any provision of that law so coinpos ition or powers. 

Assembly or to make any c 3 S 


Powers of 

Regional 

Assemblies. 



4^8 APPENDIX 

Note. Paragraph 27 of the Government’s ‘Statement on the Report of the 
Constitutional Adviser and the Report of the Achimota Conference’ which 
was accepted by the Legislative Assembly on the send May, 1056, was as 
follows: — 


27. The Government accepts the recommendation that the following 
broad principles, laid down by the Achimota Conference, should be 
adopted: 


(a) All powers and functions under the Local Government Ordinance, 
except such as in each Regional Assembly Ordinance may be reserved to 
the centre, will be constitutionally transferred to the Regions. 

(b) It will be obligatory under the Constitutional Instrument for 
government to provide in each Regional Assembly Ordinance for the 
transfer of some degree of responsibility under: 

Agriculture, Animal Health and Forestry 
Education, 

Communications, 

Medical and Health, 

Works, 

Town and Country Planning, and 
Housing. 


the C) Cen?rTr r rcsponsib!litics are transferred to Regions it will be for 

resnoiSr.vJ °. verl ™“ t u t ° ensure that adequate staff to meet such 
responsibilities is established in the Regions. 

made T l UCh furt!lCr trj “ fers of responsibilities will be 

made as may be found to be practicable and expedient. 

in the Constitutin 'T/ 0 trans ^ erreci ’ a P art from the minimum laid down 
by amendment ofH b <= increased or diminished only 

mww? r . elevant Regional Assembly Ordinance 

Assembfe shffTbr itS ° f responsibilities transferred, Regional 
subject to their hein emP °' V T d t0 J make isolations, bye-iaws, etc., 

- w *. - 

1956, provided : P d by * Le S IsIatlv e Assembly on the 22nd May, 

Constitution tlm^cxcepTwi* provislon _should be made in the new 
the Members of Parliament * “n^nt °f a majority of two-thirds of 
be abolished or suspended a^dthar ^ I 01 ” 5 ’ ?° Rc?ionaI Assemb ly shaU 
position or powers mSSSSS? ^ “ **“ ^ 

P-dples “ a general way. 

unptementation will be left to the Regions of Ghana Act or Acts. 



appendix 


489 


LVI 

In each Region there shall be a House of Chiefs. Houses of 

Chiefs to be 

Note: This proposal again goes considerably further than the Government’s established. 
‘Statement on the Report of the Constitutional Adviser and the Report of the 
Achimota Conference’ in that the establishment of a House of Chiefs is no 
longer made dependent on the agreement of a majority of the State Councils 

in the Region. ... 

It is proposed to enact a Houses of Chiefs Act to carry out this Article. 


LVII 

A House of Chiefs shall have power to consider any matter referred to 

it by any Minister or by the National Assembly maccor ance ^ 1 e 

provisions of Article Thirty-five. A House of Chiefs shall be em- 
powered to offer advice at any time to any Assembly t0 offe ; 

time required by any Minister or by th N ^ consti . 

advice m regard to any matter concerned w r pt.- r„ 

tutional conventions of the States re P r ““« customs and 

or generally, or in regard to matters tel a implementation 

customary law. Provision shah be made by lav »r p 

of this Article. 

npnort of the Achimota Con- 
Note: The Government’s statement on the Rep 

ference said in paragraph is that: ^ ^ exercised by , 

c The Government considers that 

House of Chiefs should be: Government to a House of 

(a) consideration of matters referred by 

Chiefs in its consultative and deli e ” g C ; a [ customs; 

(b) advice on matters relaung to ^^tomary law; 

(c) advice on matters relating traditional nature; 

(d) advice on constitutional ma . t Government in matter 

(e) the power to make recommendations 

under sub-clauses (b)-(d) ; and jj 0US e of Chiefs to consider a Bill 

(f) the power, on notice given, p or a period not exceeding 0= . 

affecting its functions and teexK con5 idered that such a Bill hadpy- 
month; and where a House 0 Tj ouse may recommend that the Bill 
ticular regional importance, , i d be referred to a Select Cc~_ 

after receiving its First Rfdmg, Jom 

mittee of the Legislative Asse . • rov y 0 n in a general 

The object of .hi s Arid, is » P 

1 caring the details to subsequent c- 


Powers 
of the 
Houses of 
Chiefs. 



49 ° 


APPENDIX 


Transi- 
tional 
pro\ isions 
for Ghana 
Citizenship 


Present 
Ministers 
to remain 
in office. 


PART VII 

TltANSmON’Al. PltO\ ISIONh 


LVI1I 

Parliament shall, at such time as is convenient after the coming into 
force of this Constitution, determine the date upon which the pro- 
visions of this Constitution which restrict the right to tote in elections 
to citizens of Ghana and which directly or indirectly give privileges to 
Ghana citizens not enjoyed by other persons in Ghana, shall come into 
effect. Until Parliament shall so determine, any person domiciled in 
Ghana w ho is a British subject or a Commonw ealth citizen or a British 
protected person shall be deemed to be a citizen of Ghana for the pur- 
poses of the provisions of this Constitution. 


Note: It may well be impossible for the Ghana Nationality anJ Citizenship 
Act to have been passed by the time the Constitution comes into force. Even 
if die Act is passed it w ill take some time for the appropriate machinery to be 
devised for restricting the names on electoral registers to Ghana citizens, and 
therefore, it is desirable to provide that until Parliament determines on a 
date, British subjects and Commonwealth citizens and British protected 
persons shall be deemed to be Ghana citizens. Who arc British subjects or 
Commonwealth citizens is determined at the moment, so far as the Gold 
Coast is concerned, by an Act of the United Kingdom Parliament, the British 
Nationality Act, 1948. This makes a citizen of the United Kingdom and 
Colonies anyone who would be, under the new law, a citizen of Ghana but it 
also includes, naturally, a number of people who would not necessarily be 
Ghana citizens under the proposed Ghana Nationality anti Citizenship Act. 


LIX 

The Prime Minister, all other Ministers and Ministerial Secretaries in 
office on the date of the coming into force of this Constitution shall 
continue in office as though they had been appointed in accordance 
w'ith the provisions of this Constitution, and any Minister who on that 
date is a member of the Cabinet, shall become a Cabinet Minister in 
accordance with the provisions of this Constitution. On the coming 



appendix ^ 

into force of this Constitution, a Ministerial Secretary shall be kn 
as a Parliamentary Secretary. 

Note: This is in common form and is obviously necessary to affect a smooth 
change over. 


LX 


* * 

All public officers of Ghana in office on the date annointed Service of 

force of this Constitution, shall be deemed to ha ve been appo.n , 

under this Constitution and shall condnue tn 0^0^^ ^ . q force _ ° on C " ue . 
visions thereof and of such laws as may be 


Their con- 


Note: This Article continues the service of -a f as amended) and the 

ditions of service are at present regulated b v sec ?r ons titution) Order in 

Third Schedule (as amended) of the Gol p u blic Service Act the 

Council, 1934, Until the ‘ffaffSoSd, . 954 , 

provisions of Gold Coast (Constitution) Order m 

tinue in force. 

LXI 

• .’n this Constitution, the Legis- 

Notwithstanding anything contained f rC e of this Constitution, 

lative Assembly in being on the comm J^ n ” ^ nal Assembly until the 
shall continue in being thereafter as , w t he Governor- 

Thirtieth day of July, 1961, unless sooner 1 Alembers of the 

General on die advice of the Prime «er. The^ ^ rf ^ 
Legislative Assembly who were mem ers j eeme d to have been 
coming into force of this Constitution 1 * V- on and t0 have taken the 
elected under the provisions of this 0 with any provsion of the law 

oath required and have otherwise p ar ii a ment. 

relating to the qualification of Me 

icnrv dissolution of the first 
Note: The date here given for the feting of the present Le ^P^ 

National Assembly is fixed b >’* e 1 ^ IQ ^6. Under the present ConsntuUon, 

Assembly which was on the 30 t J ?. ^ at four years but e 

the maximum life of the Assembly * ^ h I9 , that the life of 

mentis Constitutional Proposals pro^e^ ^ it was provided ttot 
Parliament should be increase v e Assembly electe in J » 

this would not apply to the Le^lanve ^ s ^ m June 1956 ^d 

fact, of course, this Indorsed at the general election the 

since the Government’s propo 


The 

present 
Legislative 
Assembly 
to become 
the 

National 

Assembly. 



appendix 


493 


sponsible to the Assembly and not to the Government for their 

and they are therefore not included among the officers of the Esecutrv 

Government. 


Transi- 
tional 
provisions 
for the 
Ghana 
Appeal 
Court and 
High 
Court. 


LXIV 

Article Forty-four (which provides for the setting up App 

Court and the High Court of Ghana) shall come into °P^on at such 
time after the coming into force of this Constitution as 
General acting on the advice of the Cabinet, may presc 

Note: The object of this Article is *op r °« fndepe^den^for the temina- 
Snfi fc SI Curt of Appeal and for .hr up 

of the Appeal Court and the High Court. 

LXV 

,. nril such time as Parliament shall Transi- 
Any existing law notwithstanding, u Chief Justice and other tio nal 

make further provision for the age at w ^ the advice of the provisions 

Judges shall retire, the Governor “ G ®. fT forjudge for any such re = ard t0 

Cabinet, may continue in office ^ny ChJJ ^ to him des irable, any fflen * f °- 

further period or Penods of om notwithstanding . Judges, 

provision of the law as to a retiring a 

. . . pnrfv-eiaht, the composition of the 
Note: As noticed in regard to Article who serve for a fixed time 

Judiciary is changing from that ot 0 Kingdom type of a Bench of 

and then retire on pension, to the Q f t jj e Bar. In such a case, the 

Judges appointed from practising me j ud ges are not in any way 

age limit arrangements suitable unt ji the matter is finally settled 

applicable and, therefore, it is P r °P° mad e for inviting Judges to remain at 
by new legislation, provision s a . d t he retiring age of 62 specified 

their posts though they may hav 
under existing law. 


LXVI 


The Attorney-General in o ce 
this Constitution shall COI J tna J' 
appointed under this Constitu 


the date of the coming into f 0rceo j. 
in office as though he had been Attorney 

Gener^ r 


confiy 

ino^ 



494 


APPENDIX 


Magistrates 
and other 
Judicial 
Officers to 
remain in 
office. 


Extent to 
which 
Existing 
Law 

continues. 


LXVII 

Any Magistrate or other Judicial Officer in office at the date of the 
coming into force of this Constitution shall continue in office subject 
to the provisions of this Constitution and of any law from time to time 
in force. 


Note. The object of this Article is to continue pending the introduction ofa 
**?"*!* existing appointments, together with the existing law under 
winch Judicial appointments and promotions arc made by the Judicial 
service Commission. 


LXVIII 

Any Act of Parliament of the United Kingdom, Ordinance of the 
Oold Coast, or any other law, rule or regulation whatsoever in force 
m , . , a ? a 011 1 e datc the coming into force of this Constitution and 
which is repugnant thereto shall, to the extent only to which it is 
repugnant thereto, be null and void and of no effect. All other Acts of 
arhament of the United Kingdom, Orders in Council, Ordinances, 
aws, rules and regulations which were in force in Ghana immediately 
e ore the coming into force of this Constitution shall continue in full 
orce and effect. Provided always that the Governor-General may, 
before the expiry of one year from the date of the coming into force 
this Constitution, by Proclamation, make such provision as is 
"S' eXP . f lent m consec l ue nce of the provisions of this Con- 
in whate ° r m ° ' ^ d ' n & t0 > or adapting any law which refers 

or Other f m t t0 the Governor or to any public officer or authority 

this ConlriH ?" r T nSany laW int0 accord ™th the provisions of 
^Constitution or for giving effect to the provisions of this Consti- 

which are'remmnam r r Ser I eS r? exl5t i n S ^ aws f° r die moment, except those 
Courts ^o pronounce ** CoMtitution - * is therefore possible for the 
British Parliament or any law enacted either by the 

Assembly. The limitation on^the o° Undl 0r r by * e GoId Coast Lc S isla,ivc 
unconstitutional o™v extend, * e , Supreme 9° mt s P°"’er to hold an Act 

accordance with Articles Thirty-sevta^dlhS " 



appendix 


495 


LXIX 

Parliament may provide drat any Act of Parliament intend I <0 carry 

into effect ^Conadtndon -"S^e'voteTS 
into force thereof and passed at its Thir ° Parliament 

lea, dran pr o-thirds of the tvhole number of Memb«a of 
may be deemed to he a part of this Conshtudon and « * 
only be repealed or amended in a manner prescribed for amendi g 

Constitution. 

Note: The object of this Article is to 

Acts which it is intended should be intro u 5 - y d pur poses, a part of the 
they can become, in whole or in part for all intents ana p v 

Constitution. 


part VIII 

Amendment of the Constitution 


LXX 

rled bv a Bill at the Third 
This Constitution shall only he amen ^ avour thereof amounted 
Reading of which the number of Votes ras of Members of 

to not less than two-thirds o ^ d in acc0 rdance with 

Parliament and that otherwise Constitution, 

the provisions of Article Thirty-five of this Consti 

, but it is usual and convenient to 
Note: This Article is not stri , cdy "^ffg.nstitution, the conditions under 
set out formally as the last Aroc even though, as in the case of these 
which a Constitution may be an ^ , . ar p er Articles, 
proposals, these are already contamed 


Enactment 
ofConstitu- 
tional Acts. 


Method of 
amending 
the Consti- 
tution. 



INDEX 


Abbensetts, John (d. 1966), 240-241 _ 
Aborigines Rights Protection Soacty, 
Gold Coast of. 

Chieftaincy and, 45, 59, 81, 89, 92 
Coussey Committee, and, 113 
Delegation to London, 43-46. 73 
Grant, George A. and, 90 
History of, 52, 59, 61, 73. 81, 29°. 3*°. 
413 

Neo-Colonialism and, 87 
Nkrumah, Dr Kwame and, 46, i*5 
Academic Freedom, 351-353. 3^°> 3 & 5> 

Accra. ( Capital of Ghana and Capital of 
Gold Coast since 1877) 

Description of, 61, 398-399 
Elections in, 102, 103, 298, 4i3 - 4*4 
Ga Shifimo Kpee and, 247-248 
History of, 53, 62, 117, 247 
Intellectual and professional classes 0 , 
*57, 193 

Terrorism in, 22T, 273, 339. 4°9 
Otherwise mentioned, 211-212, 223, 
248, 339. 398, 399 
Accra Turf Club, 62, 120, 254 
See also National Liberation Council 
Achimota Conference 1956. 486-4 9 
Achimota School, 83, 166, 35° 

Ackuah III, Nana Ayirebi, 4*3-4*4 
Adamafio, Tawia 

Arrest and trial of, 410-412 
Career of, 103, 104, 234, 407-409 
Dawn Broadcast and, 407, 4°9"4 
Addis Ababa, 398 
Addo, Eric A. Akufo 
Afrifa, Brig. A. A. on, 308 
Atta, Nana Sir Ofori and, 93 
Career of, 102, 104-10S 
Treason Trial and, 4**-4* 2 - 414 4 5 
University of Ghana and, 3 5 

Career of, 103-104, 4*4 
Coussey Committee and, ii3 
Imprisonment 1948 °1> 2 

Joins CPP, 155 00 

Judges expatriate and, 3°° 

Treason, trial for, 339. 4 1 4 


Adu, A. L. (Sec. to Cabinet I9S7-*9 6i )> 

’183,364 1XT , 

Aferi, Major-General Nathan 

Afrifa, Brig. A. A., comments on, 423 
Awhaitcy case and, 241, 259 
Commander, Armed Forces, appomted, 

423 . r 

Southern Rhodesia and, 

A r ric a: Britain's Third Empire , George 
1 Padmore (Dennis Dobson, London 

*949) 

Quoted 131-13* 

See also Padmore, George 
Africa, Union of, 19, 96. 373. 394. 4*7 4*8, 

C j^fc^Nkrumah, Dr Kwame 

Organization of African Unity 
African National Times, 103 
See also Adjei, Ako 

African Tightrope, Major-General H. . 
Af Alexander (Pall Mall Press, London 
1963). Quoted, 336, 4*6, 422 
Africanus, Leo, 244 

^B^fSor-Gencra 1 Charles, mur- 
der of, and 240 
Busia, Dr Kofi and, 15& 

Education and, 37° 0 

Election, General i 9S 6. on. 

Nlrumah, Dr Kwame, on 308,370 
The Ghana Coup, by, quoted and men- 

2 tioned, 307-308, 42°, 422-426 

Aggrey, Dr J.E.J.(f- *927), 83 

A GSiiTh, no-***. 151, 3S3-354, 

Less-Developed World, in, 332-333, 

353-334 
See also. Cocoa 

Aid 

British, technical, 319-320 
Developing Countries to, 28 

Akans, 

Gas and, 53 

Traditional Constitutional system of, 
86, 9*. 283-284, 291 
See also Ashantis, Brongs, Fantis, 
Nzimas 

497 



49 8 

Akenten III, Nana Owusu 
See Bonne III, Nii Kwabena 
Akim Abuakwa, 

Corruption, in, 406 
Ritual murders in, 48-50 
See also Atta, Kofi Asante Ofori, 

Atta I, Nana Sir Ofori, 

Atta, William Ofori, 

Danquah, J. B. 

Akoto, Bafuor Osei ( Chief Linguist of the 
Asantehene), 159 
Alexander the Great, 441 
Alexander, Major-Gen. H. T. cb, CBE, dso 
Coup d’etat, atdtude to, 429 
Ghana Armed Forces and, 416-420, 
422-423 

Quoted, 336, 416, 422 
See also African Tightrope 
Algeria, 273, 415 
Aluminium, 

Gold Coast and Ghana production of, 
392-395 

Amenyah, Lt. E. R. 

Evidence in Awhaitey Case, 250-252, 
257, 264 

Ametewee, Constable 
Attempted assassin of Nkrumah, Dr 
Kwame by, 274, 387, 426 
Amissah, Austin, 410 
Amnesty International, 269-270 
Ampensah, Reginald Reynolds (Opposition 
MP 1936-1959) 

Awhaitey Case and, 239, 250-253, 
256-257, 259-260, 263, 264-265, 443 
Joins Opposition, 153 
National Liberation Council and, 240 
Preventive detention of, 244, 265, 
267 

Andoh, Nana Kweku (Chief of Elmiita), 
Boy Scout Movement and 163 
Anderson, David, 183 
Anglican Church, 52, 127, 351 
See also Christianity 
Missionaries 
Animism, 128-131, 134 
Ankrah, Lt.-Gen. J. A. 

Afrifa, Brig. A. A. on, 422, 424 
Author rents house of, 160-161 
Awhaitey case and, 240-241 
Career of, 381-382, 397 
Coup d’etat and 427-428 
Press Freedom, views on, 447 


INDEX 

Retirement from armed forces of, 
422-424 

Anlo South Constituency, Elections in, 
296-297 

Anokye, Okumfu, 132 
Apaloo, Modesto K. ( Opposition M P 

I954-I9S9) , , , 

Amnesty International and 269-270 
Awhaitey case and 250, 251, 256-2571 
263, 264-265, 443 
Ga Shifimo Kpee and, 248 
Preventive detention of, 244, 252 
Apitliy, Ex-President Sourou-Migan (Da- 
homey), 97 

Appiah, Joseph E. ( Opposition MP 
1956-1961) 

Awhaitey case and, 266-267 
Joins Opposition, 153 
Arabia, 18, 169 
See also Middle East 
Ardcn-Clarke, Sir Charles Noble ( Gover- 
nor Gold Coast 1949-1957 . Governor- 
General Ghana 1957. d. 1965) 

British Government and, nr, 143 
Communism and, 138 
CPP’s Proposed Constitution and, 193 
Independence celebrations and, 193 - 
194 

Policy and Career of, 167-169, 209-210 
Succeeds Creasy, Sir Gerald, as Gover- 
nor, 50 

Aristotle, 342-344 

Army, Ghanaian, 381-382, 416-421, 
422-429, 445-446 
See also Gold Coast Regiment 
Arnold, Dr Thomas, 341, 348 
See also Rugby School 
Asafo Companies, 

Edusei, Krobo and, 122 
Mensah, John Sarbah on, 60 
See also Akans 

Asafu-Adjaye, Sir Edward, 44 
Asante-Kotoko Union, 132 
Asantehene, 

See also Dua III, Kwaku 
Prempeh II 
Tutu, Osei 

Asanteman Council, 134, 155 
Asantewa Yaa, 132 

Asare, F. Y. ( CPP MP 1951-19 6J 
Minister of Agriculture 1958-1960), 
403-404 



INDEX 


Ashanti, 

Annexation of, 81 

Colonial Administration of, 82, 84, 88, 
201, 218, 283, 299-300 
Conditions in, under NLC 447-448 
Confederacy of, 88, 121, 155 
Corruption in, 406 
Elections in, 298, 308 
Kingdom, Independent of, 80-81, 

t32-i35» i6 5 
Opposition and, 196, 197 
Political significance of, 121 
Ashanti Gold Fields Corporation, 38. 397 
See also Spears, General Sir Esward 
Ashanti Pioneer 

Mentioned, 157, 220-221, 223, 224, 220 
Quoted, 303-304 

Ashby, Sir Eric, Godkin Lectures ot, 
quoted and mentioned, 347, 35 1 . 355. 
357. 358. 36°. 362, 36-b 3 66 >_3 8 3 _ 
Asquith Commission, 350-355. 35". 359 
Association of West African Merchants, 
93. 100 

Atta, Kofi Asante Ofori (Aaron), 

Career of, 120-121, 

Defeats Danquah, Dr 1954 Electron, 
105 

Atta I, Nana Sir Ofori, . 

Aborigines Rights Protection Society 
and. 45 

Akim Abuakwa Ritual murder, at 
funeral of, 48-50 . 

Colonial Government, co-operauon 
with, 87-88 , - 

Relatives, political connections o , o » 
91, 93, 104, 120, 142 
Atta, William Ofori, 

Afrifa, Brig. A. A. on, 308 
Atta, Nana Sir Ofori and, 93> I0 4» 
Career of, 102, 103, 105 
Coussey Committee and, 11 3^ 
Ntrumah, Dr Kwame on *°5 
Attlee, Earl, Clement Richard, . 
Appoints Author Junior Munster, 

Government of, 126, 222 . - 0 f 

Nkrumah Dr Kwame, organi^iou 
UGCC based on plans of. 

Attorney General 105-198 

Author’s appointment: as, j ’ ^ s ; ons 
CPP Proposed Constitutio • P 

in regard to, 471-474. 4S4 


499 

Office in Gold Coast and Ghana with 
Britain compared, 142, 204-206, 
208-210, 338 , n 

Powers of under Lennox-Boyd Con- 
stitution, 197, i 98» 206-208, 223 
See also Amissah, Austin (Actrng AG 
1966) 

Mill-Odoi, George (AG 

1961- 1962) 

Owusu, Victor (AG 1966-) 
Paterson, Sir George (AG 

I 954 _I 957) 

Swanzy, Kwaw (AG 

1962- 1966) 

Atwina Nwabiagyia Constituency, elec- 
tions in, 298 
Atviah, Patrick, 3 20 

Auditor General, 385, 407, 47^4/ > 493 
Aurelius, Marcus, 342-343 
Amtin Dennis (Sen., Research Fellow Inst. 
' Commonwealth Studies London Um- 
versity ) 

Election I95 6 . on > 3° b 

Neo-colonialism, on, 32 

Nkrumah, Dr Kwame on, 16, 17, 

442 

Treason Trial, on 4ii-4 12 

See also Politics in Ghana 1946-1960 

and wife refugees in High 
Commission of, 20 

Sp a p a roposeTconstimtion, referred 

to, in, 466. 480 

Ghanaian ‘independence Celebrations 

and, i 93 -i 94 . 

See also New Guinea 
A.feria compared with Ghana, 12, 399 
Avendia Hotel, Author’s Stay at, 52, 58, 

73-74. 78, 1! 4. l }~' } 20 
Awhritey,M2i orBenjamm, 

Arrest of, 242, 250 

Court Martial of, 239-241, 250-252, 
253, 263 

Granville Sharp Enquiry and, 257-^65, 
407, 443 

Preventive detention of, 265, 267 
Awooner-Williams, Francis 

Pre-Independence Opposition and, 62, 
9 1 . j 58 

Quoted, 62-63 



INDEX 


500 

Axim, 

Decay of, 44, 90 
See also Grant, George A. 

Wood, Samuel R. 

Ayeh Kumi, Emmanuel 
See Kumi, Emmanuel Ayeh 
Ayensu, K_ B. (Clerk of the Legislative 
Assembly and of National Assembly 
1955-1966), 193-194 
Azar, Halaby case and, 64-65 
Azikiwe, Ex-President Benjamin Nnamdi, 

43 

Baato, Kofi ( Minister of Information and 
afterwards of Defence) Preventive 
Detention, opposes, 246 
Baba, Alhaji Amadu, 218-223 
Bacongo, 12 
See also Congo 

Biden-Powell, Major Robert S. S. (Lord 
Baden-Powell), 163, 228 
Badges and Equipment shop, of London. 

Awhaitey case and, 256-257 
Balance of Payments Ghanaian, 148, 
391 - 39 *. 395 - 400 . 445-446 
Balfour, A. J., quoted, 16 
Balkanization — Africa in, 34-35, 439- 
440 

Balme, Dr David Mowbray ( Principal of 
the University College of the Gold 
Coast 1948-1957), 356-358 
Balogh, Dr Thomas, 146, 151-152 
Bankruptcy, 

Gold Coast and Ghana, problems of 
legislating for, in, 38, 281-282, 
319-320, 329-330 

Banncrman, Lieutenant-Governor James, 
62, 381 

Banncrman, C. E. Woolhouse, 381 
Barclay’s Bank DCO 

Overseas Review of, quoted 446 
Sterling Exchange Standard and, 148 
Barwah, Major-General Charles 
Career of, 239-240 
Kotoha, General and, 427 
Murder of, 418, 426 
Basel Mission, 53-55, 127, 369 
See also Commonwealth Trust 

Union Trading Company 
Basner, H. M., 372-373 
Battcock, Hilary, 384 
Bauer, Peter Thomas, 138-140 


Bauxite, 392 

See also Aluminium 
BBC 

See British Broadcasting Corporation 
Beaverbrook, Lord, William Maxwell 
Aitken, 236, 334 
Bechuanaland 
See Botswana 
Belgium, 

Colonial Policy of, 19. 25-26, 35 . 
3*9 

Savundra, Dr Emile and, 212 
Benin, 12 

See also Nigeria 
Bennion, Francis, 310, 320 
Berlin, Conference of 1884-1885, 34 - 35 > 
434 

Bermuda, 205, 227 
Bernal, Prof. J. D., 362 
Bevin, Ernest, 26, 28, 34-35 
Quoted, 25 

Bevanite Group, 26, 160 
‘Big Six’ of UGCC, 101-105, 113, 155 . 
411 

See also Addo, Eric Akufo 
Adjei, Ako 
Atta, William Ofori 
Danquah, Dr J. B. 

Lambtey, Obetsebi 
Nkrumah, Dr Kwame 
Biney, Pobee, 142, 408 
Bing, Mrs Eileen Mary (Teddy) 

Coup d’etat and, 20-21, 249 
Marriage with Author, and, 162, 
165-166, 170, 187, 299, 423 
Nkrumah Family, and, 337-338 
Savundra, Dr Emil and, 215 
South Africa and, 326, 328-329 
Timbuktu, visit to, 241-244 
Bing, Patrick Adotey 

5 ( dedication ), 166, 254-255 
Binns, Joseph, MP, 42 
Black Star Line, 433 
Blay, R. S., UGCC, a founder of, 91 
Blyton, Lord, William Reid, MP P re " 
ventive Detention and, 246 
Boateng, Kwaku 
Career of, 254-255 
Edusci, Krobo, dispute with, 290 
Bobo-Dioulasso, 243 
Bond, Dr Horace Mann, 362 
Bond, The of 1844, 79 



INDEX 


501 


Bonne III, Nii Kwabena (Kwamina 
Taylor) 

Autobiography of, 99, 101 
Boycott, 1948, organizes, 99-102, 121 
Busia, Dr K. A. and, 135. ^ 

Labour Party, Royal, proposes, 135 
Legislative Assembly, in, 136 
Watson Commission and, no 
Bomholdt, Miss L. A., 362 
Bossman, Kofi Adumua, I55> 4*4 
Botsio, Kojo, 

CPP Leadership and, 1 19. 4°5> 4 o8 > 4°9 
Education and, 362 . , 

West African National Secretariat ana, 

97.409 

Botswana, 328 . 

Bourne, Sir Frederick Chalmers ( otis t 
tional Adviser in the Gold Coast igSah 
171,483,487 
Brazil, 163, 398 
Bretton, Prof. Henry L. 

Author, comments on, 38-39, ta4 j>o 
Civil Service comments on, 3°9> 4°a 
Cocoa Price and, 389-39°. 4°5 
Drevici, Dr Noe, comments on, 3°-jy 
Election, General, 195b. 

Jackson, Lady (Barbara Ward), 
ments on, 38-39 

Negroes, on, 39 g 

Neo-Colonialism, on, 389-392, 39 
Nkrumah, Dr Kwame, comments on, 

38-39. 307. 3b3. 39^391.44^ Th 
Rise and Fall of Ktvame 

quoted and mentioned, 3 . 

388-390. 392 . comments 

Spears, General Sir Edward, co 
on, 38-39 

Brew, James, 237-238 
Britain, w o 396 

Attitude to Ghana in, *4* ’ * 374- 

Comparison with Ghana, n, 

373 30O, 4 21 *. 

See also British Goverrunent^^ 
Britain China Friendship 

Robertson, IS 1 ,q 2 

British Aluminium (//ro-Bani of 

British Bank of West Afnca ( 

West Africa), 147 to Ghana, 

British Business Mission, 9 

445 


British Broadcasting Corporation, 244, 
268 

British Constitution, 

Colonial Constitutions generally, com- 
pared with, 202-206 
Judiciary, position under, 204 
Republican Constitution, Ghana of, 
compared with, 205-206 
British Government, 

African Policy of, 439 
Chieftaincy and, 112, 14Z 
Cocoa, policy in regard to, 173-175 
Colonial Education Policy, of, 347-355, 

Compensation, British Colonial Civil 
Servants, for, 180-184 
Constitutions of Gold Coast and 
Ghana, and, 167-168, 169 
Coussey, Committee, on, 1 14 
Ghanaian Independence, preparation 

for, I47- I 4 8 , t8 z , 2 78-^90 

Ground Nuts, sale and production of, 

MoneS^ Policy, Gold &>ast and, 
1.18-150, ist-ts 2 , 395-396 
Possible involvement in Coup d'fta't 
discussed, 429, 43& 

Preventive Detention, Support for, 222, 

South Afrimltd/iVt S, 328 

Southern Rhodesia, and, 417-426 
Watson Commission, on, m-113, 126, 
^23,282,368-370,382-383. 

S ee also Parliament British 
British National Export Council, 3W 
British-Rumanian Friendship A'vxia- 
tion, 233, 234 

Brockway, Lord, Archibald Fen- 449 
Brongs, 88, 99, 283 

Sn also Akans 
Brown, George, MP, 42 
Bundy, MacGwrge, 43, 

Burke, Edmund, 92 344-^- 

Burma, 146, W9, 25 7255 

Burns, Sir Alan Cmhbert fCrzrrr ” 

Coast 1941-1947) 

Arim Abuakwa Rita! * 

49 - 5 ° 

Bums, Emile arri, 

Chieftaincy and, so „ 2 

Cocoa bxasf 
i 74" i 75 



INDEX 


502 


Bums, Sir Alan Cuthbert ( cont .) 
Constitution 1946 and, 47-48, 253, 413, 

441 

Moore, George E., and, 88 
Bums Constitution 1946, 47-48, 50, 83, 
92-93, 109, no, 282, 289, 303 
Bums, Emile, 93-96 
Busia, Dr Kofi A. 

Afrifa, Brig. A. A. and, 156, 420 
Awhaitey case and, 256, 264, 266-267 
Bonne III, Nii Kuabena, on, 135 
Career, Political of, 155-156 
Chieftaincy and, 134, 136, 155-156, 
159, 406 

Gbedemah, K. A. and, 153 
Opposition, Parliamentary, and, 102, 
N 2 , 159 , 309 

Quits Ghana clandestinely, 267 
Quoted, 134, 156, 159 
Butler, Lord, Richard Austin, MP, 145 


Callaghan, James, MP, 4 2 
Camp Bird Ltd., 212-213, 215-216 
Canada, 45, 314, 361 

Cape Coast ( Capital of Gold Coast until 
‘877) 

Conditions in under NLC 447-448 
History of, 52, 162-163 
Political influence of, 44, 62, 153 
Carmichael, David, 363 
Casely-Hayford, Archie 
Career of, 117-20, 409 

Compensation of British Civil Servants 
on, 183 

Caselj-Hayford, Joseph, career and 
policy of, 96, 118-119, i2o, 340 
Castro, Fidel, 12 r 

Cawston, 0)1., 

Colonialism and, 61, 141 
Halaby trial and, 51-52, S5i 65-66 
" atson Commission and, 56, 71 
Central Intelligence Agency, USA 
Africa in, 388-3S9 

Nkrumah, Dr Kname, criticism of, by. 


Possible intohement in Coup d’etat 
Cetlm CUSSCd ' 43t> ~ 433 ' 436 
Constitution of, model for Ghana 180 

48C483 I93_I94> 438 ' 464 ’’ 4 ^ 
Savundra, Dr Emil and, 212, 214 


Challenge of the Congo, Kwame Nkrumah 
(Nelson, London 1967), 425, 449 
Chamberlain, Joseph (Sec. of State for 
Colonies 1895-1903), 27, 59, 62, 63, 
87, 106, 109, 380 

Chapman, Daniel (Sec. to the Cabinet 
i 954 -’ 957 ), 170-171. 181-182, 301, 
362-363 

Charles, Mr Justice Maurice. Granville 
Sharp Commission and, 253-254, 265 
Chief Commissioners. 

See Regional Commissioners 
Chief Justice, 

Comparison position in Gold Coast and 
Ghana with England, 204-206, 
3(0-311 

Duties of, 292-293, 357, 412-413 
See also Korsah, Sir Arku 
Wilson, Sir Mark 

Chieftaincy, Gold Coast and Ghana in. 
Aborigines Rights Protection Society 
and, 45 , 59 , 81,89, 92 
British Government’s attitude to, 82, 
137 , 141, 169, 348, 3 SO- 35 I 
Colonial Administration and, 1 12, 124 
Coussey Committee and, 283-284 
Danquah, Dr J. B. and, 91-94 
Guggisberg, Sir Gordon and, 85 
History of, 86, 128, 1 64, 283-284 
Houses of Chiefs, Constitutional Pro- 
visions for, 191-192, 485-486, 489 
Indirect Rule and, 87-89, 120-121, 
128 

Lennox Boyd on, 141 

Military Revolt and, 424 

Nkrumah, Dr Kname and, 93-94, 

0 1 . 14 > ” 5 . J 34 , 424 

political Parties support for, 120-121, 
157-159 

UGCC and, 92-94, 112 
See also Atta, Nana Sir Ofori 
Bonne, Nii Knabena 
Darku IX, Sir Tsibu 
Joint Provisional Council of 
Chiefs 

Nketsia IV, Nana Kobina 
Chieftaincy — Nigeria in, 84-87 
Chilembwe, John, 128 
Qnna, People’s Republic of, 29, 212, 432 
Chocolate, n, 376—377 
Manufacturers of, and Ghana, 396 
See also Cocoa 



INDEX 

Christianity, 

Education and, 341-346. 34§_ 

Relationship with African Religions, 5 2 , 

112, 127-129, 131, 164, 165 
Religion of revolt, as, 125-128, 345 
Christiansborg Castle, 53, 55. 99. 10I > 

19°, 337-338. 428-429 
Churchill, Sir Winston, 43, 322 
Akim Abuakwa Ritual Murder on, 
48-49 

Pope Paul VI and, 450 
CIA see Central Intelligence Agency 
Civil Service, Gold Coast and Ghanaian 
Africanization of, 313, 380-384 
British compensation of, 180-184 
Elite and, 318, 343-346. 350-352. 3 °> 

365 . / 

Expatriates, employment in 102, 23 , 

313, 363 o - n 

Limitation of training of, 378-379. 

385 - 386 , 397-398 ... 

Organisation of, 278, 299-303. 4°3> 4 3 
Political Officers of, 285, 299, 302-3°3> 

Pubfic Service Commission and, 188- 
igo, 285-288, 466 0Q 

Shortage in the, 183-184, 385-3 > 3 
Clark, Douglas, 

Author, article about, 37—38 
Clifton College, 342 
Cocoa, 


5°3 


" Bretton, Prof. Henry L. on, 389-39° 
British Government policy and, 89-9 > 

I 73 _I 75 , „_ T - Q I7 a 

CPP Policy in regard to, 1 a/ w* 
Delegation to London, 1945. 0I *’ „ 0I 

Farmers of, 122-124, 

Financial Times on, 375 37 * ^ 1^3, 

Ghana’s dependence on, «. * 88> 

147, 176-177. 374. 378-379. 

390, 400 

Holdup of, 1937-W38. W4 
Introduction of, 53. 122 I Z I - 6 , 316 
Mortgaging farms of, 173 '" g 

Seers-Ross Report on. 147 I?3> 

’Swollen Shoot’, disease 

177-178, 39°-39t I73-H4 

World Price of, 89, ^ 5 

339, 373-3/ 8 " Boar d 

“ Cocoa Phasing C ° mPany 
Tansley, Sir Enc 


Cocoa Marketing Board, 105, 158, W°- 
Cocm Purchasing” Company, I 7 °-W 9 
‘comn^htri 9 ^!). Commissioner 
Colimbiitchristopher, 163, 228 
^Gn^tiwted as Crown Colony, 81 

gemISirRui; in, 87-88, iox. 
^V^Provincial Council of 

Colv£tn,22i,223,228,230 

Commonwealth, 2 g 

feffc as-— 

328, 339 > 4 443 g- 

Commonwealth Trust, 34 33, 93 

See also Basel Mission 

Communism, about, 227 

Allegations, Authot b ^ Ghana 
Allegations, Gold G lo5 -no, 

politicians against, 3a, 1 

138,227,233.431,434 

See also Cold war ^ Schatten 
Communism ’ n ^-' London, 1966). 
&tid U Sned, 35 , 38 , 3 ° 9 , 

434 r Rni-al Adventurers of Eng- 

“S’Sfsr 

See also James Fort Vnson 

Congo (Lcopo ' 128 

Repuhlicof°ii, 328-329, 336 , 4 t 6 , 4 t 8 . 

Constitutions. GoVcoast and Ghana 
See Bums Constitution 1946 
Cousscy Constitution 195° 

Interim Constitution 1954 
Lennox-Boyd Constitution 1957 
Republican Constitution i960 
See also National Liberation Council 



S°4 


INDEX 


Constitution of Ghana 1956, draft by 
Nkrumah Government, 185-186, 
193, 278, 451-495 

ConstitutionalReferendum 1964, 304-306, 
415 _ 

Convention People’s Party, 

British Civil Servants, Compensation 
of, and, 183 

Chieftaincy and, 112, 134, 142 
Cocoa Policy of, 89, 158-159, 172, 176, 
178 

Corruption and, 405-406 
Coup d’etat and, 437-438 
Coussey Committee and, 74-78 
Education and, 366-371 
Foundation of, 62 

General Election 1951 and, 280, 300, 

414 

General Election 1954 and, 155, 157 
General Election 1956, 169-170, 307 
Independence and, 74-76, 153 
Jacobins, comparison with, 117-131 
Jibowu Commission and, 170-172, 
177-179 

Multiple, one, two Party States, attitude 
to, 157, 291, 443-444 
National Democratic Party and, 413- 

415 

Nkrumah, Dr. K. and, 14, 113, 413 
Opposition and, 154, 196, ig 7 , 306-310 
Peasants and farmers and, 122-126 
Policy, general, of, 125-126, 147, 

*SZ-lS 3 . 157, 196,217,280, 284-285’ 
387-388 

Referendum, Constitutional 1964, and 
305-306 

Tribalism, opposition to, 97 
UGCCand, 63, 94, 105, 113 ,121 
Corruption, 

Busia, Dr K. A. in Ashanti, on, 134 
159, 406 

Colonial Period during, aUeged, 60, 138 
406 ’ 
Ghana in alleged, 14, 339> 384 400 _ 
410, 426 ’ 

National Liberation Council, under 
_ 446-447 

Counter Coup of r 7 th April 1967, 230 
254428-429,435 

Coup ietat of 24th February, 1966 
20-22, 36-37, 38, 10S , 336, 37 2, 4 j 5 ; 
422-436,444-449 


Courts-Martial. Trial of civilians by, 
under military regime, 105, 448-449, 
Courts, Ordinance, 198-201 
Coussey Committee, 

British Parliament and, 141, 143 
CPP and, 74-78 

Members of, 46, 76-77, 113, 158 
Report of (Co/. No. 248), 48, 74-77, 
114, 124, 291 

Watson Commission and, 114 
Coussey Constitution 1950 (The Gold 
Coast (Constitution) Order in Council 
1950, SI 20 94), 142-143, 195, 206, 
282-283 

Coussey, Sir Henley, 113 
CPP See Convention People’s Party 
Crabbe, Coffie. Treason Trial and, 
411-412 

Craig, Captain (Lord Craigavon), 137 
Creasy, Sir Gerald Hallen (Governor 
Gold Coast 1947-1949) 

Bums, Sir Alan, succeeds as Governor, 
So, 107 

Communism in Gold Coast and, 102, 
105, 106 

Riots 1948, and, 101-102, 105-106, 
221-223 

Crichel Down debate in British Parlia- 
ment and Civil Service responsibility, 
188, 287-288 

Cross, Squadron Leader P. L. U., 241- 
243, 321-356 

Crossman, Richard, H. S., MP, 26 
Crown Agents, The, 210-21 1, 268 
Cuba, 

Compared with Ghana, 12 
Neo-Colonialism and, 33 
Curie, Prof. Adam, 360 
Currie, James, 347 
Curzon, Lord, 85 

Dagarti, Supt. Salifu, 274 
Dahomey, 97 
Dalgleish, Andrew, 106 
See also Watson Commission 
Daily Echo, 103 

Daily Express, Author, attacks against in, 
37-38, 226-237 
See also Clark, Douglas 
Delmer, Sefton 

Daily Graphic. Mentioned, 307. Quoted, 
447 



INDEX 


Daily Mirror, 307 
Daily Telegraph, The, 217-218, 221, 223, 
in. aafv 22R. Hunted. 216. 


ily Telegraph, The, 217-210, 221, 223, 

224, 226, 228. Quoted, 2x6, 217, 224, 
402-403, 447 
See also Colvin, Ian. 

Daily Worker, 232, 233 
Danquah, Dr J. B. (d. 2965) 

Aborigines Rights Protection Society 
and, 44, 92 

Afrifa, Brig. A. A. on, 308 
A Vim Abuakwa Ritual Murder and, 50 
Author and, 91, 311 
Awhaitey case and, 264 
Candidate for Presidency in i960, 295. 
297-298 

Chieftaincy and, 91-94, 113 
Coussey Committee, and, 76-77 
Death of, 273-274 
Detention of, 273-274, 408 _ 

Ghana, Academy of Sciences, ap- 
pointed to, 91, 364 f 

Legislative Assembly, membership , 
142, 155 

Nkrumah, Dr Kwame and, 50, 91, 93 
94, 98, 102, 115 . , 

United Gold Coast Convention an , 
91-94, 98, 103, 113, 4 T 3 
Watson Commission and, 9 1 
Darku IX, Nana Sir Tsibu 
Career of, 87-88, 309, 4° 8 , 

Granville Sharp Commission an , -a > 
26" 

NWiah,Dr Kwame and, 1 1 5. T 42. U3 
Davies, Harold, MP, 26 
Davies, Major E. H. C-, 266 
Dawn Broadcast, 406, 408, 4°9 
See also Nkrumah, Dr Kwame 
De Gaulle, General Charles, 41a 
Dei-Anang, Michael, 183, 2j5 r al ; 0 nal 
Deku, Antony (Member of 
Liberation Council), 

Coup d’etat and, 427-420, 4a 
Special Branch and, 249 
Deller, Charles Avon, , , Q^st in. 

Career, Hornchurch and Gow 

4i-43.6i,Mt-U2.aiS;'" 3>7 a 

HaUbv case and, 47. ’ 

See also Cawston, Co‘. 

Halaby, Nc'f 

Hornchurch 


Deller, Mrs Patricia, 230 
Delmer.Sefton.^a^ Europe con- 
Democracy » "j? _ 9 82, 156, ^ 

sidered, 14. j ”’^-443, 448-449 
163, 169, 193, 375. 442 443. « 

Denmark, { Gold Coast, S3. 

Colonial activities m 

62, 79. 86 > political clearance 

Veterinary surgeons, pou 

of, 3 2 4 2I7 218 

Deportation Ac “?| 7 Coast and Ghana 
Deportations, Go ^ 21 g, 221-223. 

from, 7 2 > *32. 213. 


230,231.237 , 3 

deRuyter, Admiral, 163.2 

Diaz, Bartholomew, 228 

Dicey, Prof., 294 ord Beaconsfield), 2 7 

Disraeli, Beniamin (L 

District ^“‘"“^““colonialism, 379, 3 82 

Africans as under on> 209-210 

BuS'S r K. , A.,aPP° i “ KdASSt - D ’ 

Independence, after, 3 3 enG 

&%£*««***** 

Di &a^aPurchasin ? Company 

D °(S»f, and Awhaitey case, 25‘. 

262-263 . 

Goldsmiths m, G ^ iUc sharp Com- 

D ° m ^|“ NariS^“f * 

tskjrpsp*** 

Association 

^ 88, 132> 

'33- ° fS!3,e C ° , °' 

D “ s S%'SS£-'& ow 

pugdale, = (Minister of Agriculture 
Cr3th0 n .i Responsibility for Civil 
igyt-WaV- ' s o 
Servants, and, 188 
rmn^AbnW.. 430-432 
S ~!o Cameron, 41S-419 
Dumh^ th " bnd % 

DutriRajani Palme, 93-96 



INDEX 


105. -47. 4°7. 


Gardiner, Robert, iSt 
Garibaldi, Giuseppe, 441 
Gas, 

Accra and, 33, 61, 10: 

410 

Chieftaincy and, 86 
Gbedemah, K. A. 

Army and. Tints on, 4:6-427 
Career, political of, 132-133, 4°5. 4°S, 

409 

Geary, Sir William Ncvill, Nigerian Cisil 
Service, on, 384 

General .Assembly of the United Nations. 

See United Nations. 

General Legal Council, Ghana of, 317 
Geneva, Accra compared with, 399 
Germany, 

Federal Republic of, 244, 37S, 443 
Possible cnvolvcmcnt in cotip d'etat, of, 

257, 434-435. 436 
Imperial regime, 83 
Hitler regime, 273, 434, 435 
Prussian Forts, Gold Coast in, 70 
See also Berlin, Conference of, 

Togoland 

Ghana Academy of Sciences 
Author and, 91, 354, 361 
Edinburgh, Duke of, President or, 3 4 
Membership of, 363-364 
Study of Contemporary Ghana, or 
ganized by, 370-371 
Ghana Airways, 328-329, 397 _ 4 00 
Ghana Congress Party, 

Busia, Dr K. A. and, 102, 155 
Danquah, Dr J. B. and, 94, T 55^ 
Formation and policy of, 1 5 5 - " 1 57 
Ghana Coup, The, Brig. A. A. 

(Frank Cass, London, 19 66 ) 
Mentioned, 420, 425-426 
Quoted, 307-308, 422-424 
Ghana Minerals Corporation, 2 - atne 
Ghana — The Autobiography °J , 
Nkrumah (Nelson, London 19311 
Atta, William Ofori on, q uoK . a, . 0 
Danquah, Dr J. B. on, quote ,3 
Ghanaian Times, quoted, 249. 

447 448 ,. 1,. — q 414 

Ghartey IV, King of Wrnneba, 79. * riceS; 

GiU and DuSus, Index of Cocoa 

376 , ,, 

Gillman, Dr Joseph, 3°4 
Gladstone, William Ewart, 07 


5°7 

D , Awhaitey case, and, 256 

Gold, . 

Culture. 5*. 3J2> 37 6, 395 

Mining of, 1-, \3< - 4 

See also Ashanti Gold 1 icws 
Corporation 

State Mining C° r P or:,t,on 

Savundra, Dr Emil 
Gold Coast Regiment, 

Politics and, 4 21 
Racialism in, 3« , g 2 

Gold Coast Youth Conference. 

■Golden Stool’, 122, I3 2 > *33 
Gollan, Sir Henry, 205 

Government Agents, 

Abolition of 303 lcs> on> 299 - 

Ardcn-Clarkc, Mr 


.',02 


of> 300-30;. 3 U. 3 S 7 




Rights Protection Society 


Seeaisv"-- „ 323 , 331 

Gower, L. C. B., 3^ 3 - 6 ) 

Grant, George A. (P2J,t _. nn 

Aborigines 

and, 9°. , , 0 8 

Afrifa, Brig A. A., om 3 
Chieftaincy and. 9^> & vent ion or- 
United Gold Coast 

ganizes, gi-94. 9 , qo-qi 

-sse::::: 

Grogan, Y^j^cf A and, 43° 

Grogan, If 1 - 

Ground Nuc, growing. 26 

British SchC j uc ri 0 n of, t38-U° 
Migerian proau 

Guardian, and, 274 

Anlo South by-el on> quoted. 

Counter coup, Iettc 


297 < CIA and, 43 1 

Guatemala, V 1 

Gueye, Lam gt; Gordon ( Governor Gold 


r , 3 l 6 , of, 84-85, 346-347 
Economic policy of, 39 2- 393 



INDEX 


508 

Guggisberg, Sir Gordon (com.) 
Educational policy of, 166, 349-350, 

36S ‘ ' 

Indirect Rule and, 87-88, 1 ia, 413 
Lugard, Lord and, 84-85 
Guggisberg, Lady (Dccima Moore), 85 
Guinea, 38, 430 


Habeas Corpus Proceedings, 

Colonial Government, prohibited by, 
221-223 

Ghana Government, proposals for, 
459. 461 

Preventive Detention Act allowed 
under, 271 


National Liberation Council and, 415 
Haileybury College, 341 
Halaby, Ncif 

Author and his appeal against murder 
conviction, 51, 53, 63-68, 70-72, 
131. 263. 372 

Syrian Community and, 6o-6t 
Proposed deportation of, 72, 218 
Halaby, Rafik. (Murdered June, 2949), 
63-68,70-71 
Hale, Leslie, MP, 26, 49 
Halm, \V. M., 121, 401-402 
Hammarskjold, Dag, 329 
Harlley, John (Commissioner 0/ Police 
and member of National Liberation 
Council). 

Author and, 318-319 
Coup d’itat and, 427-428, 436 
Special Branch of Police and, 249, 387 
Hausas, 84, 218-219, 221, 231 
Hawkins, Sir John, 227 
Hayford, Rev. Joseph, 118 
See also Fanti Confederation 
Heame, John, 321-322 
Herter, Christian, 331 
Heward-Mills, Albert (d. ig 63) 

Instructs Author in Halaby Murder 
Case 47, 51, 55, 57 _ 5 8 
Family of, 61-62, 73 
Racing Interests of, 57-58, 62, 254 
Hodgkin, Dr Thomas, 363 
Holland. See Netherlands 


Home, Sir Alec Douglas-, on Neo-Colo- 
malism, 31-32, 34 
Hong Kong, 349 
Hornchurch, 40-41, 160 
Horton, Dr Africanus, 348-349, 379 


Houphouct-Boigny, President Felix, 97- 
98, 440 

Houses of Chiefs, 191-192, 489 
House of Commons. See Parliament, 
British 

Howell, Sidney, 321 
Huguenots, 325-326 
Hutton-Mills, Alex (d. tg36), 381 
See also Temple House 
Hutton-Mills, Thomas, Jnr. (d. 195&) 
Career of, 120 
CPP and, 73, 116, 414 
See also Temple House 
Hutton-Mills, Thomas, Snr., 61, 99, 3^t 
See also Temple House 

Iceland, 29 
India, 46, 166 

Constitutional comparisons with, 460, 
461, 484 

Ghana otherwise compared with, 107, 
179, 184, 269, 341, 343 
United Nations and, 29, 363, 432 
Indirect Rule, 120, 130 
Aborigines Rights Protection Society, 
and, 45, 115 

British Government and, 83-S4, 89, 
133. 283-284 
Christianity and, 341-342 
Colonial Administration and, 88, 89, 
100-101, 121-122, 133-134, 136 
Guggisberg, Sir Gordon and, 88, 112 
Lugard, Lord, and, 84, 168-169, 204 
Nigeria, in, 84-87 

Perham, Dame Margery on, 345-346 
Indonesia, 164 

Interim Constitution (1954) ( Gold Coast 
( Constitution ) Order in Council 1954 
SI 3S3), 184, 190, 195, 288-289, 
461, 464, 465, 467, 481, 482, 483, 484, 
4 91 

International Brigade Association, 233, 
234. 

International Monetary Fund, 444-445 
Investment, External, Gold Coast and 
Ghana 

See Reserves, external monetary, of 
Gold Coast and Ghana 
Iran, 404, 431 
Ireland, Republic of 
Author and, 40, 358 
Compared, Ghana, 12, 87, 361 


INDEX 

Ireland, Republic of (reef.) 

Constitutions of, influence in Ghana, 

184, 314, 439, 460, 467, 469, 470, 478. 

481 

Ireland Bill, :94s 

Preventive Detention in, discussion of, 
143-146 

See also Parliament, British 
Islam, Influence of, 116-117, 164 
Israel. Possible involvement in 
d'etat discussed, 433-434 

My. 33. 399. 441 

Ivory Coast, 12, 98, 249, 291 


Coup 


Jackson, Lady (Barbara Ward) 

Criticized by Prof. Bretton, 3S-39 
Ghana Academy of Sciences and, 364 
Quoted by Wall Street Journal, 22, 23 
Jackson, Sir Robert, 38 
James Fort Prison, 53 
James II, King of England, S3, 449 
Jantuah, J.E., 153 _ 

Japan, comparison with Ghana, 79, 0 74> 

393. 43° . 

Jennings, Sir Ivor, Public Service 

mission, evils of, on, 190 
Jehovah’s Witnesses, 128 
Jesus, Society of, 343 . „ 

Jesus, The. British Slave ship, . 

Jibowu Commission. Cocoa P u 0 

Company and, 170-172, I77" I 79 
Jibowu Olumuyiwa, Mr Justice, 17° 

See also Jibowu Commission 
Johnson, Wallace, 43 . r OI 

Joint Provincial Council of Chiefs, 9 • 
Bonne III, NU Kwabena and, 101, 3 
British Government and, 89 

Nkrumah, Dr Kwame and, “a gf 

Jones, Arthur Creech, MP ( * * 

State for the Colonies 
Akim Abuakwa Ritual Murde 
Cocoa Price and, 89 

Coussey Committee on, Jb ^ ^ 

Economic planning, 

tude to, 143 . . criticism 

Watson Commission, ®u 

112-113, 222, 383 

Otherwise mentioned, r > 

Jordan, 

CIA and, 431 
Tourism and, 4 00 
Jowett, Benjamin, 343 


509 

Judicial Service Commission, 190. 494 
Judicial System, 

Colonialism under, 63, 67, 69-7- 
Independence, after, 3 l 3 _ 3 2 4. 3 s ->, 
3S7-3SS 

Kaiser Aluminium & Chemical Corp., 

KaIdor*Dr Nicholas, 4°5. 4°7-4°S 
Kano, 5°. »38-»39. - 3 1 _ 

Kisavubu, President, 423, 4 j°“ 43 i 
kS Left Group, 48. Pamphlet, 26, 27, 

KenfbuthJs of (Princes Marina). In- 
dependence Celebrations and, 194 

^'p'revcnti'af Detention in. 18, 276-277 

Civil Liberties), 4a 

^Somifco'nditions of Ghana, on, 

Fduratkm ■ in Ghana, on, 366-367 
Vote Hydro Electric Project on, 39a, 

Kilmmr, Lord (Sir ‘David Patrick Max- 

Comervarive Part}', Reorganization of, 

Indfpendence C ■**££?£%* 
Responsibility ° f 

KnowSr n ^. I ^'T% n 8a 1 S£t 

Id. 1967) . 

Career of, 310-3 11 . 4 3 
rhief Tustice as, 3 d 7 

Sle-ation to London 1933 on, 44 

Nkrumah, Dr Kwame and, I04 , 310, 

Shawcross matter and, 231 
Treason Trial and, 411-414 
TCotoka Major-General E. K. {Member 
National Liberation Council) (Mur- 
dered 1967) 

Barwah, Major-General Charles, mur- 
der of, and, 418. 4*7 
Coup d'etat and, 239, 418-420, 427-428, 
435 — 436 

Krobos. Boy Scouts and, 163 


of. 



INDEX 


5 10 

Kulungugu. Attempt on the President’s 
life at, 410-412 
Kumasi, 

Asantehene and, 88 
CPP and, 153, i S7 , i 59 
Deportations from, 218-219, 221, 
223-224 

Halaby Case and, 55 

Kumasi, College of Technology, 353-354, 
362 

Kumasi State Council, 132-135, 153, 406 
Kumi, Emmanuel Ayeh, 121, 401-402, 
408 

Labour Party, British 
African policy of, 25-26, 126 
Author and, 40-43, 160, 227, 244-245 
CPP Comparison with, 95, 97, 118, 
121 

Labour Party, Royal, 117, 135-136 
See also Bonne III, Nii Kwabena 
Lamptey, Obetsebi 
Afrifa, Brig. A. A., on, 308 
Career of, 102-103, 414 
Detention and Death of, 274-275 
Treason Trial and, 411-412 
Land Grant Colleges, United States of, 
relevance in Ghanaian situation, 340, 
352-353. 359. 361 
Lang, Prof. John, 323-324 
Laos. CIA and, 430 
Larbi, Koi, 97, 264 

Larden, Alhaji Othman Lalemie, 218-223 
Laski, Harold, 118 ‘ 

Law, 

African, 198, 210 

British as applied in Gold Coast and 
Ghana, 198-200, 315 
General theory of, 202-203 
Reform of in Ghana, 198-202, 322-323 
329-331,333-334 

Lawrence, American Jurist. Principles of 
International Law . Quoted, 32—'?'? 
Lawrence, Prof. A. W., 164 
Law School, establishment of, in Ghana, 
315.318-319,323-325 

Lawyers, Gold Coast and Ghana, in 
Colonial Regime and, 313-314 
Expatriate, use of, 387-388 
Training of, 314-319 
League of Nations, 84 
See also United Nations 


Lebanon, 51, 61, 68, 398 
See also Syrians 
Lee, Sir Frank, 319-320 
Lee, Frederick, MP, 26 
Legal Draftsmen. See Parliamentary 
Counsel 

Lennox-Boyd, Alan Tindal, MP (Lord 
Boyd of Merton) 

Accra, Visit to, 186 
Constitution 1957 and, 186-190 
CPP Proposed Constitution and, 187- 
190 

Election, General 1956 and, 166-167 
Preventive Detention in Kenya and, 
276 

Regional Assemblies and, 191-193, 
195-197 

Watson Commission on, 141 
Lennox-Boyd 1957 Constitution ( The 
Ghana ( Constitution ) Order in Council 
\ 9 S 7 ) (SI 277) 

British Civil Servants and, 180-184, 

187- 190 

Entrenched Provisions of, 190-192 
Method of preparation of, 179-180, 
186, 190, 193 

Ministerial control of Civil Service and, 

188- 190, 223, 302-303 
Parliamentary responsibility of Minis- 
ters under, 289-290, 294 

Regions and, 190-192 
Repeal of, 192-193, 278 
Speaker of National Assembly under, 
195-196 

Liberator. Thc t Quoted, 219 
Liberia, 12, 18, 120 
Licensed Letter Writers, 316-318 
Liebknecht, Wilhelm, 75 
Listowel, Earl of (Gov. Gen. of Ghana 
1 9 S 7 ~ I 9 ^o) > 337 

Livingstone, Dr David (1813-1873), 342 
Lome ( Capital of Togo ), 

Awhaitey Case and, 255, 257 
CPP opponents based in, 103 
Volta Hydro Electric scheme and, 394 
London County Council, 196 
Lugard, Lady (Flora Shaw), 238 
Lugard of Abinger, Lord Frederick 
Dealtry, pc, GCMG, cb, DSO (1858- 
•945) 

African Education and, 342, 347-349 
Career of, 84-85, 127 



INDEX 


5 11 


Lugard of Abingcr, Lord {coni.) 

Indirect Rule and, 86, 168-169, 204, 

346 

Northern Ireland and, 117. I3^ -I 37 
Lumumba, Patrice ( Murdered 1961), 3^> 
423. 430-431 

Lundula, Gen. Victor, 431 
Lynskey Tribunal. Granville Sharp Com- 
mission modelled on, 253, 255 

McCabe, James (Asst. Commissioner of 
Police) ( retired 19(a) 

Awhaitey, interrogates, 250, 251 
Ga Shifimo Kpee and, 248 
Granville Sharp Commission and, 

257-259. 266 . , B 

Preventive Detention and, 247 2 4° 
MacDonald, Alalcolm John 

Aborigines Rights Protection Society 
1935 Delegation and, 45-46. 88 
See also Moore, George E. 

Wood, Samuel, R. 
MacDonald-Smith, Sydney 

Author’s discussions with, 70-79. 
115-116, 300-301 

MacDougall, Miss Margaret, 335-330 
McLean, Governor George, 52, 79 
Macmillan, Harold, 330, 439 
MacWilliam, David, 328 
Madjitey, Eric R. L. 

Commissioner of Police, as, 3°7 
Granville Sharp Commission and, 200 
Malawi, 128 
Malaysia, 45, 150 
Mali, 241, 244 _ , 

Mallalieu, Joseph P. W., MP, 26, 246 

Manu, Yaw, . f 

Author accused of poisoning tea ot, 249 
Busia, Dr K. A. and, 267 
Treason Trial and, 4ii-4 12 . 4*5 
Margai, Sir Albert, 417 
Marie Louise, Princess, 228 
Markarios, Archbishop. Deportation ot, 

237 1 , 

Maronite Church, oi 
Marx House, 232, 233 
Maurice of Nassau, i6 3» 22 0 f Gold 
Maxwell, Sir William (Goterno J 
Coast 1895-1897)’ 59 
May, Alan Nunn, 3 2 4 
Mazzini, Gabriel, 44 £ *"44* 

Menson, Sir Charles Tachie, 4°7.4i3 


Methodist Church, 127, 131, 3 6 9 
See also Freeman, Francis Birch 
Mexico, 11 
Meyerovitz, Eva, 135 
Michel, Brigadier Joe, 423 
Michigan University Developing Areas 
Fund, 388 
Middle East, 26,447 
See also Arabia 

Mikardo, Ian, MP, 26 

Milner, Lord, Alfred (Secretary of State 
for Colonies 1919-1921), 85. 347 
Mills-Odoi, George, Career of, 254, 407 
Granville Sharp Commission and, 254 
Missionaries. Christian, 15, 52-54. 59. 80 
127-129, 34 6 . 369 
See also Basel Mission 
Christianity 
Indirect Rule 

Mobutu, President Joseph, 43°“43i 

Mollet, Guy, 98 , 

Monthly Review. On CPP and cocoa, 

Moore, Decima. See Lady Guggisberg 
Moore, George E., 

Bums, Governor Sir Alan and, 88 
Coussey Committee, member of 4 6 
On 1935 Delegation to London, 43 4» 
See alo Aborigines Rights Protection 

Society 

MoSo^HeSV (Lord Morrison 

of Lambeth), 287-288 

jSSlSTtoduffi Notes for the 

ritories, 300-301. QP° ted - 285-287 
Murray, Dr Keith (Lord Murray), 106 
See also Watson Commission 
Murray, Pauli, 321 
Musama Disco Christo (lurch, 128 
Mussidiq, Dr (Prime Minister of Iran 
ig$ 1-1953) CIA and > 43 1 
Mwana Lesa, 128 

Namasivayam, S., 320 
Nanka-Bruce,prFV 

Colonial Medical Service, refused 
entry, 3 8 ° 

Coussey Committee, member of, 113 
Delegation to London 1935, and, 44-45 



INDEX 


512 

Nasser, President Gamal Abdel, 441-442 
National Council for Civil Liberties, 
43-45 

See also Kidd, Ronald 

Moore, George E. 

Wood, Samuel R. 

National Democratic Party (Domos), 
413-415, 444 

National Educational Trust, 366, 370, 414 
National Liberation Council, 104, 119, 
365. 404 

Accra Turf Club and, 62 
Corruption under, 446-447 
Economic policy of, 444-446 
Law and Order under, 415, 447-448 
Press Freedom under, 447 
National Liberation Movement, 

Ashanti Interim Regional Assembly 
and, 195-196 

Chieftaincy and, 94, 158-159, 169 
Corruption and, 406 
Election, General 1956 and, 169-170, 
298, 307 

Formation and policy of, 102, 158-159, 
284 

Nehru, Shri Jawaharlal, 295-296, 442 
Neo-Colonialism, 

Austin, Dennis on, 32 
Author on, 354 

Bretton, Prof. Henry L. on, 390-392 
British assumptions, Ghana, regarding, 
280-281, 282, 284, 287 
France and, 86 

Home, Sir Alec Douglas- on, 31-32 
Lawrence’s Principles of International 
Law quoted on, 32-33 
Nkrumah, Dr Kwame and, 28, 34, 35 
392-396 

Page, Bruce, Sunday Times Corre- 
spondent on, 34 

Neo-Colonialism The Last Stage of Im- 
perialism. Kwame Nkrumah (Nelson, 
London 1965) 

Quoted, 22-23, 34 

'United States Government comments 
on, 33 
Nepal, 374 
Netherlands, The, 

Accra and, 53, 86, 372 
As a Western colonial power, 25 
Dutch Colonial endeavours in Gold 
Coast, 79, 86 


Elmina, Dutch Gold Coast, Capital of, 
163-164, 166, 379 
Royal Family of, 404 
See also Elmina Castle 

Ussher Fort Prison 
Newbolt, Sir Henry, 342 
New Guinea, 377 
News Chronicle, 41 
‘New Shrines’, 128-131, 214, 316 
See also Field, Dr Margaret 
Newspapers and Periodicals — British, 

See Daily Express 
Daily Mirror 
Daily Telegraph 
Daily Worker 
Economist, The 
Financial Times, The 
Guardian, The 
News Chronicle, The 
Observer, The 
Punch 

Sunday Times, The 
Times, The 
Venture 
West Africa 

Newspapers and Periodicals — Gold Coast 
and Ghanaian, 19, 290 
See also African National Times 
Ashanti Pioneer 
Daily Echo 
Daily Graphic 
Ghanaian Times 
Liberator, The 

Newspapers and Periodicals — United 
States 

See Monthly Review 

Wall Street Journal, The 
New Zealand, 202, 378 
Nicol, Dr Davidson, 362 
Niger River, 243 
Nigeria, 43, 50, 160, 165, 170, 182 
Comparison with Ghana, II, 169, 377> 
384, 388 

Coup d’etat in, 436-437 
Ground Nuts and, 139-140 
Home, Sir Alec Douglas-, addresses 
Parliament of, 31-32 
Indirect Rule in, 84-85 
Nikoe, Ashie, 97, 248 
Nkctsia IV, Nana Kobina, 112, 3*>3 
Nkrumah, Madam Fathia, 337, 4 02 



INDEX 


5’3 


Nhrumah, Dr Kwamc 
Aborigines Rights Protection Society 
ami, 46, 1 1 5 

Africa, Union of, and, 96, 373* -t l 7» 
439-441 

Allegations against, 15, 18-19. 3°®, 37°. 

396, 400-403, 426 
Armed Forces and, 417, 422-426 
Assassination, attempts on, 130, a39. 

249, 263, 272, 274, 387, 410, 426 
Austin, Dennis on, 16, 17, 44a 
Author's early meetings with, 46-47, 
73-74,116,12° 

Bretton, Prof, Henry L., comments on, 

38-39> 3°7> 3l>5. 39°. 44 s 
Candidate for Presidency i960, 295-290 
Career, early, of 46-47, 85, 94-96, 118, 
442 

Central Intelligence Agency, criticism 
of. 33 

Chieftaincy, and, 93-94, 10S-109, 114, 
115. 134, 4^4 

Christianity and, 1 24-1 25 
Civil Service and Public appointments 
of, 162, 164, 363 

Co-existence and, 21, 23, 36, 74“7^> 
280, 362-363, 373, 395 . 4 i 3“4 i 5> 442. 

45° 

Commonwealth and, 295-296, 33°, 
442-443 

Congo and, 425 f 

Convention People’s Party and, 4> * 

113, 121, 152-133, 4°9, 4*3 
Coup d’etat and, 430-432, 434 
Coussey Committee, and, 74“7 
Danquah, Dr J. B. and, 50, 9»> 93-94. 
102, 1 15 

‘Dawn Broadcast’ of, 406-409 
Deification, alleged, of, 14. 1 3 J 

Economic Planning and, 143, HS'M 6 , 

130,441-442,444-445 r Qtution, 
Ghana Independence Con 

ideas for, 183-187, 45 1_ 495 nc j 
Granville Sharp Commission 

Imprisonment of, 194**, 2 jl II 6 ; 

Imprisonment of, I95°- I 9a 

Lemiox-Syd^Constitution and.^87 

Natimid Democratic Party and, 4 1 3-4 x 5 


Neo-Colonialism and, 28, 34, 35, 

392-396 

Non-alignment and, 19, 24, 9;, 4‘ / 
Opposition Parties and, 115. «5 6 - 295 
Personality and private life of, 18S, 
188, 335-33S, 404-405 
Positive Action and, 74, t34, >5° 
Preventive Detention, atmude to, 246, 

273, 410-41 1 

Racialism, attitude to, 39, 5 6 . 237, 433 
Shaw cross matter on, 225, 231, 237-238 
South Africa and, 16, 17, 326-327 
Technical, Secondary and Primary 
Education and, 363-36S, 370 
Treason Trial and, 410, 412-415 
UGCC and, 62, 93-94, 98, H3, "4 
Univ ersitv of Ghana and, 324, 334, 3a > 
360, 361-364, 365-366 
Watson Commission and, 96, I0 7 11 
West African National Secretariat and, 

96-98, 44° 

Nkrumah, Dr Kwame. Works of, quoted 

C !aLt 7 ^[congo (Nelson, Lon- 

Ghana Autobiography) (Nelson, Lon- 

pfea-Cohnia’lism Ue Last Stage of 
Imperialism (Nelson, London 196a). 

Towards’ Mai Freedom (London 
1946), 75, 1 07-109, 126 
Non-Alignment, Ghanaian pohey of, 19, 
oi, qs 308, 4 I 7"4 1 ^ 
Northcote-Trevelyan Reforms, 343"344 
Northern Ireland, 185, 196 

Lugard, Lord, and, 117, ^37 
Preventive Detention in, 43, 2 44 2 4° 
Northern Peoples Party, 157 
Northern Rhodesia. See Zambia 
Northern Territories, 

Colonial rule in, 82-83, 84, 86, -01, 
239-240, 299-300, 35°, 3«i 
Opposition Parties and, 142, 157, 9 , 

Soldiers recruited from, 418-419 
Mnrwav 12, 399 - . 

Nowell Commission I93 8 Commission on 
the Marketing of West African Cocoa , 
Cmd 5845 (1938) 

Cocoa in Gold Coast on, 174 



INDEX 


5M 

Nubia, 164 

Njasaland. Sec Malawi 
Nzimas, 102, 283 


O’Brien, Dr Conor Cruise, 358, 364-365 
See also University of Ghana 
Observer, London Sunday, quoted, 31 1, 
418, 419 

Ocran, Major-General H. K. (. Member 
National Liberation Council), 2 to— 
240,427 

Ogmorc, Lord (David Rces-Williams, 
MP), Under Sec. of State for Colonies’, 
‘947-1950), 106 

Okoh, Enoch ( Secretary to the Cabinet 
1961-1966), 405, 408 
Oldham, J. H., 347 

Ollennu, Mr Justice Nii Amaa, 155, 414 
Omaboe, E. M., 371 4 

Opposition, 


Cocoa policy of, 171-172 
Coup d’etat and, 424-426 
Parliament attitude to, 284-285, 290-29 
I residential Election and, 295-290 
Press of, 219 

Regional Assemblies and, 191-192 
195-197 

See also Ghana Congress Party 

Moslem Association Party 
National Democratic Party 
National Liberation Movcmen 
Northern Peoples Party 
Togoland Congress 
United Gold Coast Con- 
vention 
United Party 
Orange Free State, 16 
Organization of African Unity, 397-798 
425-426 

Osci-Bonsu, Kwabena Gyima, 240, 260- 
201 

Osei Tutu, Asantehene, 132 
Osu Castle. See Christiansborg Castle 
Otchere, R. B., MP, Treason Trial and 
291,411-412,415,443 
Otu, Major-General Stephen, 

Afrifa, Brig. A. A. on, 423-424 
Avvhaitey arrests, 251 
First Ghanaian Commander of De- 
fence Forces, 381 
Retirement from Service, 422-423 
Ouagadougou (Upper Volta), 242 


Owusu, Victor, 

Attorney-General of National Libera- 
tion Council, 259 

Avvhaitey case and, 259-260, 266-267 
CPP and, 153 

Padmorc, George (d. 1958) 

Career and Policy of, 95 
Quoted, 95, 118-119, >37 _I 38 
Page, Bruce, Nkrumah, Dr on, 34 
Pakistan, 179 
Palcy, Sir Victor, 239, 416 
Pan African Congress 1945, 95 
Parker, John, MP, 40 
Parliament, British, 16, 47, 319, 35 2 
Colonial Constitutions and, 179-180, 
206, 279 

Cousscy Committee, and, 141 
Gold Coast situation discussed in, 
140-141 

Lennov-Bojd Constitution and, 187, 193 
Preventive Detention discussed by, 
245-246, 276 

United Nations, General Assembly of, 
compared with unreformed, 29-31 
Parliament, Gold Coast and Ghana, 
Legislative Assembly, 1951-1957. 
142-143, 159, 201, 206, 279, 281, 
288-290 

Legislative Council 1946-1950, 49, 144> 
*74 -I 75> 201, 282, 289, 382, 413 
National Assembly 1957-1966, 201, 
290-294, 310-311, 388, 412, 443-444 
Parliamentary Counsel, 187, 202, 209, 281, 
311-312, 320 

Parnell, Charles Stewart, 86 
Parry, Sir David Hughes, 323 
Party system of government in Gold 
Coast and Ghana, 

Multi-Party, 142-143, 157-158 
No-Party, 159, 448 

One-Party, 282-284, 304-305, 443-444 

Two-Party, 285, 292-297, 443-444 

Paterson, Sir George M. ( Attorney 
General Gold Coast and Ghana 
*95 4~i 957) > *97> 220 
Paul VI, Pope, Encyclical, quoted, 450 
Pembroke Labour Party, 40 
Perham, Dame Margery, Lugard (vol. 

1 ( J 956), vol. 2 (1960), Collins, 
London), quoted, 168, 20^ 218, 
345-346 



516 index 

Riots, 194&, iS, 56, 101-102, 104, 113, H 2 Senghor, President Leopold Sedar, 97 


Rise and Fall of Krpame Nkrumah , The, 
Prof Henry L Bretton (Pall Mall, 
London, 1967) 

Mentioned, 388-389 
Quoted, 38, 306-307, 390, 392 
Robertson, Sir Dennis, Britain and the 
World Economy, quoted, 151-152 
Rockefeller Foundation, 388 
Rockefeller, John D , Sen , 432 
Roman Catholic Church, 127 
Roosevelt, President Franklin D , 27 
Ross, C R , 144-146 
Rubin, Leslie, 324-325 
Rugby School, 341 See also Arnold, Dt 
Thomas 

Ruskin, John, 342 

Russell, Arthur Colin ( Chief Regional 
Officer of Ashanti, 1955-1957), 327- 
328 

Ashanti Interim Assemblj and, 303 
Author and, 300-302 

Russia — Tsarist Conference of Berlin, at 
34 

Sadler, Michael, 347 
Salinger, Pierre, 430 
Salmon, Administrator C Spencer 
Tanti Confederation, on, 81 
Racialism, on, 238 
Sarbah, John Mensah, 9 1 

Introduction to Rcdvvers Laws of the 
Cold Coast, quoted, 59-60, 138 
See also Aborigines Rights Protection 
Societv 

Savundra, Dr, Emil 212-216, 241, 254, 
3 2 3 

Schattcn, Dr Trite, 

Cold war and Africa, on, 35, 38 
Communism m Africa, quoted, 35, 309 
Nkrumah, Dr Kwame, on, 335, 434 
Presidential Election, on, 309-310 
Prcv entn c Detention, on, 273-274 
Scotland, educational system of, 35J, 361 
Search for Security M J Held (Faber S. 
Faber, London, i960) 

Quoted, 129,130 
Seal lew Hotel, 51-52, 53, 56, 61 
Security Council of the United Nations 
See United Nations 
Seers, Dudley, 144-146, 147-148 
Sccrs-Ross Report, 144-149 


440 

Sharp Gilbert Granville, QC, 

Awhaitey enquiry and, 253 
Career of, 253, 322 
Cross-examination of McCabe, Jam 
257^59 

Minority Report of, 265 
United Party, criticisms of, hi , 267 
Shaw cross, Christopher, QC, 224-225 
228, 229, 230, 237, 241 
Shaw cross. Sir Hartley W (Lord Shaw 
cross) 

Lynskey Tribunal and, 255 
Shepherd, PtoC C Y 

Report on the Economics of Peasant Ago 
culture in the Gold Coast (Gov 
Printer, Accra, 1936), mentioned, 17 
Sierra Leone, 380 

Coup d’etat m, 436, 444 
Silverman, Sidney, MP, 48-49 
Shilbeck, Dr Dunstan, 362 
Slave Trade, 15, 19, 53, 162, 22S, 372 
Smith, Mr Justice Franz, 379, 3®i 
Smith, Mr Justice N C , 219-220, 225 
South Africa, 440 
Apartheid and, 15-18, 433 
Britain and, 25, 439 
Citizens of, in Ghana, 324 - 3 2 9> 
372-373 

Southern Rhodesia, 17-18, 167, 339, 4 1 
425-426, 429, 433 
See also Zimbabwe 
Spain, 358, 397 

Spears, General Sir Edward, 38-39 
Stamton, A N , 320 
Slate Mining Corporation, 397 
Sterling Exchange Standard, 148, 153 
Stevenson, Adlai, 321 
Stewart, Michael, MP, 42 
Stockdale, Sir Frank, mortgaging coco 
on, 174 

Stonchouse, John Thomson, MP, 237 
Stoughton, Dr Rajmond Henry, 35 
35S-360 
Sudan, n, 347 

Suez War, 98, 167, 187, 433, 441 
Sunday Express Author on, quoted, 
334-335 

Sunday Times, quoted, 34, 436 
Swanzv, Kvvavv, 

Attorney General, appointed, 241 


INDEX 


5 X 7 


Swanzy Kwaw ( cont .) 

Awhaitey, defends, 241 
Imprisonment of, 241 
Taylor, Dr Kurankyi and, 241 
Treason Trial and, 412 
Sweden. Compared to Ghana, 12, 450 
Colonial Possessions in Gold Coast, 79 
Swingler, Stephen Thomas, MP, 26 
Switzerland, 

Compared with Ghana, 12 
Missionary endeavours in, 52-55, 127 
‘Swollen Shoot’. Cocoa tree disease. 
Colonial Government and, 173, 177 
Watson Commission and, 17S, 390-391 
Syrians, 51, 52, 68, 243, 398 
Part played in Ghana by, 58, 60-61, 
73-74 

See also Lebanon 

Szamuely, Tibor, 420, 434-435, 448 
Tansley, Sir Eric Crawford, 38 
Takoradi, 44, 85, 90 
Tamale, 116, 242, 301 
Tamakloe, B. K., 196, 197 
Taylor, Dr Kuranki, 153, 241 
Taylor, Kwamina. See Bonne III, Nil 
Kwabena 

Taymani, Fuad, 51-52, 57-58. 60, 73. 


141-142 

See also Deller, Charles A. 

Halaby, Neif 
Tema, 165, 247, 393 
Temple House, Jamestown, 61-62, 99> 
Tetteh, Sgt. Major, 130 
Thailand, 18 
Third Force, 19 

See also Non-Alignment 
Thomas, Hugh. Indirect Rule, on, 88 
Thomas, J. "H. ( Secretary of Stale Jor 
Colonies and Dominions 1929-1930), 
228 

Timberlake, Ambassador Clare, 43''4a- 


Timbuktu, 

Author’s Christmas 


holiday in, 24*- 


244, 24S 
Tim: The 

Corruption in Ghana, on, 4°- 
Coup J'iiat , predicted by, 4 2( pW 
Ghanaian conditions S cncrall> ’ ’ a^v 

Ghanaian external reserves, monetan 


on, 150 . 

Preventive Detention m 
Rhodesia, on, 276-277 


Southern 


Area included in Gold Coast and 
Ghana, 196, 201, 362 
Germany, Colony of, S3, 86, 435 
Republic of, 97, 255, 394. 4 11 
Togoland Congress Part}-, 157 
Torocheshnikov, Prof. N. S„ 362 
Touaregs, 244 

Tourism, Ghana and, 398-400 
Towards Colonial Freedom. Kwame 
Nkrumah (London 1946) 

Mentioned, 107-109 

Trade Union Congress, Gold Coast and 
Ghana, of, 74, 76 

Transvaal, 16, 342 , „ 

Truman, President Harry S., quoted. 2 0 
Tsiboe, John, r S 7- Sec also Aslunti 
Pioneer 

Tulley, Andrew, CIA, on, 43°"43 2 
Turkey, 35, 439 

Uganda, 127 

Union of Democratic Control 4- 
Union of Soviet Sociahst Republics, 
Africa and, 34, 9M7. 9°> 22 / 

Cocoa and, 378-379 
Ghana and, 33S> 36 2 
Party System of, 443 . .. 

United Nations, representation a -9 
Union Trading Company, 53 a4. 

United Africa Company, 1* 

United Arab Republic, a-8. 4°- ■ « 
United Farmers Council, 1- 
United Gold Coast Convention, 

Add^Eric Akufo and, 03. 

IO>, 414 . 

Am Wiliam Afori and, io* 

Awooner-Williams, Frances and, 91 

>r>;„ Six’ of, 102, t°5. I 3t> 

aJefs, policy, towa ; d5 t , 0 0 ;^ 4, 1,2 

Civil Service, attitude to, ,oo 

Cousscy Committee 2 nd, 1 *3 

CPP, 2nd, 04. I °a > 1 '■»* ‘ a 

Danquah, Dr J. B. and, 91-94, 98. 105, 

1X3.413 

Dissolution of, 155 
Grant, George A., and, 9.-94,98 
Neo-Colonial attitude, of. 280 
Nkrumah. Dr Kwame. and, 62, <;1 , 

qS, 107-no. ,, 3-'>4 



518 index 

United Gold Coast Convention (com) University, London, of, 3i9> 3*3 3 4 


Riots, 1948, and, 98-99, 102, 104 
Watson Commission and, 106-110 
United Nations, 17, 36, 328-329, 363, 399 
General Assembly of, 29-31 
Ghana policy towards the, 19, 339, 
417-418, 425 

Security Council of, 30, 410 
Universal Declaration of Human Rights, 

95. 4 6 i 

World Parliament, as, 29 
United Party, 

Awhaitey case and, 244, 267 
Chieftaincy and, 94 
Elections and, 296-299 
Formation and policy of, 103, 247, 291 
United States of America, 

Attitude to Africa, 34, 377, 388-389, 441 
Attitude to Ghana, 12, 14, 18, 378, 392, 
398 

Ghana, comparisons with, 27, 158, 177, 
206, 284, 293, 318, 351, 352, 359, 361, 
373. 393. 399. 4>4. 437. 443 
Government of, and Dr Nkrumah, 33, 
430-433 

Possible involvement in Coup d’etat 
discussed, 430-433 
Universities in, 340, 358, 362 
University College of the Gold Coast 
See University, Ghana, of 
University, Cambridge, of, 343, 350, 351, 
355-357, 360. 364 
University Ghana, of. 

Academic Standards and, 353-356, 357, 

367 

Administration of, 359-360, 362, 364- 
366 

Ashby, Sir Enc on, 357, 358, 360, 361, 
362 

Author and, 334-335, 340 
Balme, David Mowbray and, 356-358 
Brctton, Prof, Henry L and, 388-389 
Busia, DrK A and, 156 
Cn il Sen ice, training for, and, 378-379 
CPP and, 357 
Elite and, 351-353, 366 
International Commission on, 362-364 
Legal Education and, 318-319, 323-324 
Nkrumah, Dr Kwamc and, 324, 326, 
334. 358, 360, 361-364. 365 
O’Bncn, Conor Cruise and, 358, 364- 

365 


University, Oxford, of, 343, 345. 349 _ 35°> 
35 1 

Upper Volta, 241, 242, 410 
Ussher Fort Prison, 

Author imprisoned in, 5 1 . 37 2— 373. 4 
Conditions m, 273, 37 2 '373 
Halaby, Neif imprisoned in, 5 1 . 53. 
372 

Political Prisoners held in, 241, 255 
Valeo, 393 

Van Der Elst, Mrs Violet, 41 - 4 2 . 47. 5 1 . 
57-58 

Van Lare, Mr Justice J B , 41 1 , 4 I 4 - 4 I 5 > 

Venture, British Fabian Society Journal 
Author’s article m, 420 
Quoted, 32, 331 
Vereemgmg, Peace of, 15 
Vietnam, North, 398 

Nkrumah, Dr Kwame’s proposed visit 

to, 432, 443 

Vischer, Sir Hanns (i 1945), 347 
Volta Hydro-Electric Scheme, 337 . 39 2 ' 

395. 444-445 
Vroom, H , 87, 380 

Wall Street Journal, The 
Mentioned, 39 
Quoted, 22, 23 

See also Jackson, Lady (Barbara Ward; 
War on World Poverty , Harold Wilson 
(Gollancz, London 1953) 

Quoted, 22, 23, 377 
See also, Wilson, Harold 
Ward, Miss Barbara See Jackson, Lady 
Ward’s History of the Gold Coast (Allen 
&. Unwin, London 1948) 

Referred to, 228 

Watson, Andrew Aiken, K C , 48, 106 
See also Watson Commission 
Watson Commission, 

Africanization and, 383 
Agriculture on, no-111, 386 
Author’s attitude to, 48, 78-79 
Bonne III, N11 Kuabena and, 100 
British Government, reaction to Re- 
port of, 137, 369-370, 382-383 
Bums Constitution on, 110 
Cawston, Col and, 56 



INDEX 


Watson Commission (coni.) 

Chieftaincy on, no, 141 
Cocoa and, in, 175. *88 
Colonial administration in Gold Coast 
on, 78, 106, no-in, i47> I 5 2 > 3*4 
Communism on, 106-109, 233 
Corruption in Gold Coast and, 4°6 
Danquah, Dr J. B. on, 91 
Detentions by Colonial Government on. 


221-222 

Economic planning on, no, 143 
Education on, in, 33 °. 367-36S 
Gold Coast Government, views on. 


78-79 

Grant, George A. and, 90-91 
Housing on, in, 114 
Lennov-Boyd, Alan and, I4 r 
Membership of, 106 
New Constitution, proposals for, 120 
Nkrumah, Dr Kwame on, 96-98, 

107-110,221,233,236 

West African Secretariat and, 96-90 
Webb, Sidney, 379 
Welensky, Sir Roy, 327-328 
Wells, H. G., 370-371 
Wenchi, 154, 155 „ , 

Wesleyan Missions. See Methodist Church 
West Africa, quoted, 366-367, 44 s 

West Africa Currency Board, 148 

West African Examinations Council, 354. 


366 , 

West African Frontier Force, 43 » 

See also Gold Coast Regiment 
West African Lands Committee, n 

Tenure of Land in West African Colo- 
nies and Protectorates ( 19W ). *73 

West African National Congress, 1 1 > I_ 


West 3 African National Secretariat, 96-98, 

Wesf Afrtan Trade, P. T. Bauer (Cun- 
bridge University' Press I9a4)> 3 


Western Press, 14, 226-227, 237. 269, 

See^also Newspapers and Periodicals- 
British 


519 


Newspapers and Periodicals 
United States 
White, Mrs Irene, MP, 14° 

Wigg, George, AIP (Lord Wigg of 
Dudley Borough) 

Keep Left and, 26 
Nkrumah, Dr Kwame and, 141 
West African Adult Education and, 43 
Wilkes, John, 29 

Williams, Ambassador Franklin, 432 
Wilson, Harold, MP 
Author and, 42 
Bevanite Group and, 26 
Developing World and, 22—23, 37 / 37 » 


417 c , 

Government of, 10/ 

War on World Poverty, quoted, 22, 377 
Wilson, Sir Mark (Chief Justice Gold 
Coast 1948-1936), W-W 
Winterton, Lord, M.P. 

Communism in the Gold Coast, on, 106 
Wolseley, Sir Garnet, 228 
Wood, Samuel R. , 

Delegation to London, 1 93. 1 > » 

43—46 

Land Bill of 1897 and, 58 

Nkrumah, Dr Kwame, and, 40 
West African Unity and 94, 9& 

World Bank (International Bank for R 
construction and Development), 393, 

WorU^VWmit the Bomb Conference, 339 
Worswick, David, *45-146, 151 *3 2 
Wright, Richard, quoted, 130. *57 

D 1 VCD nfi 


Xavier, Francis, Saint, 166 


Young.’ Colonel Sir Arthur Edwin, 387 
Yugoslavia, Tourism and, 400 

Zambia, 128, 167, 197 
Zerikin Zongo, 218, 221-222 

Zimbabwe, 12 

See also Southern Rhodesia 
Zionist Church, 127-128