Compiled and analyzed by Bamba Mass (Human Rights Activist UK)
Legacies of the Nkrumah Ideology
Post-independence African history is instructive in understanding the scourge of the one-man, and the cur ... read full comment
History corner
Compiled and analyzed by Bamba Mass (Human Rights Activist UK)
Legacies of the Nkrumah Ideology
Post-independence African history is instructive in understanding the scourge of the one-man, and the curse of one-party rule in Africa but Ghana’s independence from colonialism as the first sub-Saharan African country in 1957, and the role played by its first prime minister turned President Kwame Nkrumah, is central to understanding the pervasive problem of civilian and military dictatorships in Africa.
Ghana was undoubtedly the most economically and socially advanced country in sub-Saharan Africa with an advanced educational system and relatively well-developed infrastructures when it gained its independence. Nkrumah was a role model for dozens of leaders of African countries that achieved independence in the 1960s and 1970s.
Despite Nkrumah’s status as the unrivaled champion of Pan-Africanism and strong advocacy for a united Africa, he was also responsible for casting the mold for the one-man, one-party dictatorship in post-independence Africa. Barely a year into his administration, the once fiery anti-colonial advocate of political rights and democracy had transformed himself into a power-hungry despot.
He enacted a law making labor strikes illegal and declared the right to strike “unpatriotic.” Paranoid about his opposition, he enacted a preventive detention act which gave him sweeping powers to arrest and detain any person suspected of treason without due process of law. He even dismissed the chief justice of Ghanaian Supreme Court, Sir Arku Korsah, when a three-judge panel Korsah headed acquitted suspects accused of plotting a coup. Nkrumah amended the constitution making his party, the Convention People’s Party, the only legal party in the country. He capped his political career by having himself declared president-for-life.
But he was then a man of two faces while he succumbed to two contradictory tendencies within Ghana at the time – the monarchical tendency, which increasingly turned him into a Royal figure, on the one hand, and the Leninist tendency towards the vanguard party and the single-party state, on the other hand. When the monarchical and the Leninist tendencies fused, they basically produced “a Leninist Czar” – a figure using sacred symbolism like Osagyefo (Redeemer) for himself, on the one side, and class-analysis for the rest of the society, on the other.
Kwame Nkrumah became increasingly aloof from the Ghanaian society while simultaneously bowing down to the applause of the rest of Africa. He was ironically characterized Africa’s hero but Ghana’s dictator.
The fundamental question that lingers in the minds of intellectuals is whether Mr. Nkrumah should be touted for being the originator of one-party state in Black Africa. As the first Black African country to win independence, Ghana had immense responsibility. And poor Kwame Nkrumah was the beast of burden on whom Africa had piled her weighty hopes. The rest of Africa looked to Nkrumah for a sense of direction. Some of us looked to him for immortal precedents.
Was it fair to Nkrumah?
For better or for worse, the two most historically significant Ghanaian heads so far have been Kwame Nkrumah and Jerry Rawlings. They both had enormous consequences for Ghana. While Jerry Rawlings started off as a brutal dictator and ended his career as a democrat, Kwame Nkrumah started his career as a democrat and ended it as a dictator. They were two sides of a coin.
Three factors led Kwame Nkrumah towards the one-party state. The first factor was the belief that the country was ethnically and regionally too dangerously divided for a multiparty system. Did he genuinely believe that the one-party state was the only way of integrating Asante (Ashanti) into Nkrumah’s Ghana? Was the one-party state the antidote to political tribalism?
The second factor which persuaded Nkrumah towards the single-party was the cultural argument that African political systems operated on the basis of a consensus. It was therefore better to look for manipulated consensus than allow for free dissent.
The third factor which moved Nkrumah towards one-partyism was Leninism. In his years as a student in the United States, Nkrumah acknowledged that the most powerful influences on his mind had been Marcus Garvey (a Black nationalist) and V.I. Lenin. In reality the Leninism in Nkrumah outlasted the Garveyism.
By the time he was overthrown in a military coup in 1966, Ghana had fallen from one of the richest African countries to one of the poorest. Indeed, Kwame Nkrumah, after he was overthrown, became more Leninist than ever.
Nkrumah’s ideologies in Francophone Africa
During Kwame Nkrumah’s day the francophone foil to Nkrumah’s Ghana was supposed to be the Ivory Coast of Felex Houphoet Boigny. Both countries entered into independence with apparently strong economies; both were led by strong and charismatic political leaders.
The big difference between the two countries was supposed to be ideological. Nkrumah had been moving further and further to the left, and had become increasingly alienated from the former imperial power, Great Britain. The Ivory Coast at the time appeared to be a model experiment in the free market economy and a hospitable environment for foreign investment and for friendship with the West particularly France. Nkrumah and Houphoet Boigny – are even supposed to have taken a wager between them – a bet as to which country would be ahead in a decade or two. The Ivory Coast won the bet at that end of stage. But Boigny’s styles of one party leadership was similar just that the difference with him was to allow economic growth.
For other West African Francophone country with which Ghana could be compared was Senegal. Both countries were cultural vanguards in an African context. Both had charismatic leaders – Nkrumah in Accra and Leopold Sedat Senghor in Dakar. Countries had a vision of Pan-Africanism – Nkrumah was committed to the dream of political Pan-Africanism, Senghor was committed to the vision of cultural negritude. As Aime Ceesay put it: “My Negritude, my Blackness is no tower and no cathedral”
Negritude was part of what Senghor considers the best way to control Africa into a united continent. Having come from a predominantly large Muslim country like Senegal with powerful religious leaders, and him being Christian, Senghor found out that trading with smartness was his only way of staying longer than a day as leader. He did it with mastery and stayed years and years even defeating Muslim opponents at elections. Having laid down a very strong foundation stone for Africa’s strongest multi party Democracy, He voluntarily retired from politics and stepped down from power and handed to his deputy Abdou Joof.
In Guinea Conakry Nkrumah’s friend Saihou Touray was a brutal dictator who ruled with impunity until death and the country fell into the hand of an army general Lansana Conte too rule with brutal force until death and the list goes on for Guinea until Capt. Musa Dadis Camara ruler after Gen Conte was shot by his own body guard and his assistant Saikouba Conate took over who led the country to first true multi party elections that brought a long time opponent professor Alpha Conde to power.
The Anglophone Africa suffered more with the Nkrumah Ideology:
Other African leaders followed in Nkrumah’s footsteps. Julius Nyerere became the first president of Tanganyika (Tanzania) in 1962 and announced his brand of African socialism built around rural folks and their traditional values in an ujamma (extended family) system. Millions of villagers were forced into collectivized agriculture. He modeled his constitution after Ghana’s and followed Nkrumah’s script. Nyerere established a one-man, one-party state around his Tanganyika African National Union, outlawed strikes, nationalized private banks and industries, duplicated Nkrumah’s preventive detention act to go after his opponents and greatly increased his personal power.
With the exception of a few countries, Africa had been incurably infected by Nkrumah’s one-man, one-party virus before the end of the 1960s. Most of the leaders of the newly independent African countries followed Nkrumah’s political formula by declaring states of emergency, suspending their constitutions, conferring unlimited executive powers upon themselves, and enacting oppressive laws which enabled them to arrest, detain and persecute their rivals, dissenters, and others they considered threats at will.
The economic and political outcomes of the one-man, one-party dictatorships by the end of the 1960s were dismal. Nkrumah’s program of rapid industrialization by reducing Ghana’s dependence on foreign capital and imports had a devastating effect on its important cocoa export sector. Many of the socialist economic development projects he launched failed. Similarly, Tanzania nose-dived from the largest exporter of agricultural products in Africa to the largest importer of agricultural products. The one-man, one-party state also proved to be ineffective in reducing ethnic tensions and preventing conflict. Civil wars, genocides, low level ethnic conflicts and corruption spread throughout the continent like wildfire.
In Zimbabwe, Multipartyism was supposed to be alien to African tradition. President Robert Mugabe said when he was interviewed by journalist. Maybe Comrade Sally Mugabe, the late and dearly missed Ghanaianwife of the President Mugabe, made a contribution to her husband’s cultural interpretation of the case or the one-party state. At any rate Robert Mugabe eloquently made the cultural case against the idea of a multi-party Zimbabwe. African indigenous traditions did not institutionalize regular opposition to its own rulers. The concept of a loyalopposition was, through African eyes, a contradiction in terms. Mugabe has since made such an African opposition increasingly difficult to remain loyal.
Kenneth Kaunda, of Zambia even earlier bought Nkrumah’s culturalcase for the one-party state. But Kaunda’s pragmaticcase was very different from Nkrumah’s. While Nkrumah had argued that independent Ghana was too dangerously divided to risk a multiparty system, Kaunda argued that Zambia was too happily united to afford the “absurdity” of an artificial multiparty system. He even argued that at independence the ruling party in Zambians virtually anonymous, came on board in unity. Why create an artificial opposition? But Kaunda was wise and only buying time his pragmatic argument was therefore fundamentally different from that of Kwame Nkrumah’s fear of Ghana’s disintegration. He eventually allowed multi- party democracy and rules for some time until he was finally defeated in an election and he willing gave back power when he bowed to the wishes of the electorates and lives with his dignity intact.
In Kenya, after the founding father, Jomo Kenyatta, Kenya’s Daniel Arab Moi was for so long only partially convinced by the Nkrumah ideology. He was described by some pundits that he was a giraffe that see danger from a long distance and he uses that more often than the Nkrumah theory. That is why Kenya’s one-party state was only de-facto (in fact) rather than de-jure (in law) from 1964 to 1982. Kenya was definitely not converted to Nkrumah’s Leninist argument of the vanguard party. But the cultural argument that Africans preferred consensus to competition was for a while sponsored by the ruling party.
The pragmatic argument in favour of the one-party state in Kenya arrived after the 1982-attempted coup against President Daniel Arab Moi. A constitutional amendment turned Kenya into a de jure one-party state for the first time since independence. Was Kenya at long last catching up with Kwame Nkrumah’s single-party legacy in its fuller ramifications? Fortunately the people of Kenya were already restless for a more representative political order. Multiparty politics returned to Kenya after 1992.
Sir Milton Magai and his brother Albert ruled with the same system for decades but through multi party democracy. Not until Sierra Leone’s Edward Siaka Steven come in. This man brought in a one party state into Sierra Leone and ruled with an Iron fist for decades before he finally handed over to his own handpicked Joseph Momoh who continued his legacies until the military coup led by Capt. Valantine Strasser.
Siaka Stevens destroyed all the infrastructure Sierra Leone was built in and brought in corruption at its very core with a complete different kind of Nkrumah style democracy. Political opponents were killed while many disappeared without trace. The state resources were being wasted on foreign investments for Siaka’s personal gains while the country plunged into severe poverty. As a result, Siaka Stevens in real terms is responsible for the civil war in Sierra Leone for at the time of the civil war, people were so much in pain.
Though in the Gambia there was tiny bit of multi party democracy when the then PPP regime that led the country to independence from Britain was in power as people were free to criticize, But the leader of the country Sir Dawda Jawara dominated politics for thirty years refusing to leave until a military coup which brought Yahya Jammeh to power flushed him out.
These failed policies and ideologies created the worst for Africa and as a result, waiting in the wings were Africa’s soldiers who these dictators use as a tool for suppression. They eventually help the public to hate the tyrant so as to create a space for them to step in as saviors. When they come, they accuse the civilian governments of corruption, incompetence and mismanagement of the economy and claiming a patriotic duty to rescue their countries from collapse.
That was how military officers succeeded in knocking off these governments one by one.
Even Nigeria did not escape. In 1966, Nigerian Military stepped in to upsurge terror and corruption into Nigerian lives. The coup was commissioned by Major-General J. T. U. Aguiyi-Ironsi. The report was compiled by Lt-Col Yakubu Gowon, Captain Baba Usman of Military Intelligence, and Alhaji Yusuf. After Nigeria gained independence from the UK, its domestic politics TRIED to emulate that of its former colonial master by adopting a Westminster-style, parliamentary democracy. There the similarities ended. Instead of the cultured debate and sophisticated party political culture of the UK, Nigeria’s politics fragmented on regional and ethnic lines. NPC’s deputy head Tafewa Balewa became the Prime Minister and NCNC’s leader Dr Nnamdi Azikiwe took the ceremonial role of President. The AG led the opposition.
The makeup of the Government was odd. The NPC’s leader, Sir Ahmadu Bello, could have become Prime Minister but, instead, he chose to become leader of the Northern Region and handed over the Prime Minister’s chair to his deputy, Tafewa Balewa. Rightly or wrongly, many southern politicians viewed Balewa as Bello’s puppet and resented the fact that (in their opinion) the government was being ruled by proxy by a regional ruler and viewed Bello as the real power beyond the throne. This may have led southern politicians to have a disrespectful attitude toward Balewa. This perception was not helped when Bello referred to Balewa as “my lieutenant in Lagos.”
The led the military mainly of Ibo origin to stage a coup killing Balewa and Amadou Bello both of whom are of the Northern Hausa origin prompting counter coups bringing in the Northerners who never left thus destroying the very fabrics of the Nigerian dream
Gen. Joseph Mobutu seized power in the Democratic Republic of Congo (and named it Zaire) following a protracted political struggle between Patrice Lumumba and Joseph Kasavubu. He became a compete devil in human form
Col. Houari Boumedienne overthrew Ahmed Ben Bella in Algeria and he too became another devil until subsequent coups followed thus destroying the country’s infrastructure and raised the state economy to the ground.
A group of army officers overthrew the monarchy in Brundi. In the Central African Republic, Col. Bokassa (later Emperor Jean Bedel Bokassa) overthrew David Dacko and became Africa craziest devil butchering his people with impunity and when madness overcome him, he declared himself God sent emperor until his overthrow.
Gen. Idi Amin overthrew Milton Obote in Uganda plunging more flows of African blood and wails of fatherless children with tears. Amin brought every ideology and molded it together with an iron fist. Eventually he become paranoid with so much power that all the titles in the wide world, his big head can think of at the time apart from God was added to his name.
Many other African countries suffered similar fates. The likes of Mali with Gen Moussa Troure overthrowing Modibo Keita and leading landlocked Mali with brutality thus sending all political opponents fleeing for their dear lives until he too was overthrown by Genaral Amadou Tumani Touray
Gen. Nyassembe Eyadema overthrowing a civilian government in Togo, In Beni soglo comes to power through a coup.
Between January 1956 and the end of 1985 there were sixty successful coups in Africa, that is, an average of two every year (Hutchful 1991, 183). In 1966 alone there were eight military coup d’etat and by 1986, out of some 50 African states, only 18 were under civilian rule (Nyong’o 1998, 78). Behind virtually every coup was the hand of one or the other imperial power, and, more often than not, the US. Overthrowing nationalist regimes and installing tyrannical dictatorships was, then, a “fair game” for today’s champions of democracy and “good governance”!
Yahya Jammeh like any military coupist promised Gambians the very garden Adam was living in before he was sent down to earth little did Gambian knew this one too is a total different type of Marxist Nkrumahist. His ideology stems from the late Libyan despotic dictator Late Mohmar Gaddafi’s school of taught coupled with Mabutu Seseseko’s ideology of leadership. Jammeh rules with an iron fist thus inclogating fear into his fellow citizens and like Mabutu in his early days are Zairian leader, does not hesitate to show his anger when ever provoked. Many political prisoners and Journalist jailed while those who can, fled out of the country and at onetime he was considering to declaring himself King something most countries are trying to abolish. He had his only son’s birthday declared a public holiday for the whole country his true intentions of Gadhafi style of Nkrumahist ideology. But for now he had placed such Royal intentions in the bag waiting for the best opportunity to surface it in the open.
Jammeh with pace and manipulation, managed to become the richest man in the entire country almost owning everything including the state national Television and more land than Gambia itself. He with two schools of thought built in him is now like a superman ready to develop iron wings. His attitude of trusting no one stems from Colonel Mabutu thus his assumptions of the title colonel before retirement. His culture of brutality from Gaddafi who fries his opponents. No wonder when Jammeh touches you, and you are released, you no long talks to no one about your experience inside not even your own wife.
His style of pan Africanism unfortunately come from the Nkrumahist ideology absorbing all of it but with a cobra style of outward hate of the West while inwardly pressuring his aides(ministers and Ambassadors) to kneel for Western aid. He wants to be portrayed as a patriot who cares by absorbing all the state has and handing it out to individuals in grand style as gifts from the chosen one and God sent savior. That’s why Jammeh never gives in secret, GRTS must be there, and media must announce it for my people to know how I cared for them.
There is overwhelming evidence to show that the one-man, one-party state has been a total failure in Africa over the past one-half century. Under these dictatorships, African countries have faced civil and border wars and ethnic and religious strife. Famine, malnutrition and insufficient food production have caused the deaths of millions of Africans. The poverty and unemployment rates continue to rise despite billions in foreign aid and loans. Infant mortality is nearly 100 per thousand (compared to 5 in the United States). Africans have the lowest life expectancies in the world. After fifty years of independence per capita income in much of Africa had declined so much that President Obama had to artfully remind Africans in his speech in Ghana: “Countries like Kenya, which had a per capita economy larger than South Korea’s when I was born, have been badly outpaced.” Politically, the one-man, one-party dictatorships have brought neither ethnic harmony nor good governance; and they have failed to forge a common national identity for their people.
Today we still hear the same rubbish about a democracy before democracy recycled by a “new breed” of silver-tongued African leaders. Meles Zenawi, the chief architect of the one-man, one-party state in Ethiopia says:
Establishing democracy in Africa is bound to take a long time and that elections alone will not produce democracy and do not necessarily bring about democratic culture or guarantee a democratic exercise of rule. Creating a democracy in poverty-ridden and illiterate societies that have not yet fully embraced democratic values and are not yet familiar with democratic concepts, rules and procedures is bound to take a long time and to exact huge costs.
Similar arguments are made by Yuweri Mussaveni of Uganda, Paul Kagame of Rwanda; and even the wily old coyote, Robert Mugabe, pulls the same stunt at age 85 to justify clinging to power.
The “new breed” dictators are trying to sell the same old snake oil in a new bottle to Africans. But no one is fooled by the sweet-talking, iron-fisted new breed dictators who try to put a kinder and gentler face on their dictatorship, brutality and corruption. They should spare us their empty promises and hypocritical moral pontifications. For one-half century, Africans have been told democracy requires sacrifices and pain; and they must look inwards to their village communities, traditional elders and consensus dialogue to find the answers. Africans don’t want to hear that “democracy” takes time and they must wait, and wait and wait as the new breed of dictators pick the continent clean right down to the bare bones. Africans want Africa to no longer be the world’s cesspool of corruption, criminality and cruelty.
The fact of the matter is that there is no such thing as democracy before democracy. There could be either democracy or none-party dictatorships in Africa. We all know exactly what the latter means. The only question is how best to implement constitutional multiparty systems in Africa. On this question, there may be an ironic twist of history.
Longevity is not the only factor discrediting incumbent African regimes with their citizens, particularly the youth. But it is certainly one feature that makes a highly visible target for the unwelcomed military to step in thus ushering in a new dawn of brutality.
.As of March 2012, in 18 of 54 African countries, incumbent rulers (or, in five cases, their family dynasties) has been in power for more than 15 years.
The number decreased by three with the departures of Hosni Mubarak of Egypt after 30 years and Zine Ben Ali of Tunisia after 27. Muammar al-Gaddafi removed and killed after 42 years in power.
The following is a quick checklist of the diverse African countries with leaders or dynasties who have arguably far overstayed their welcome, in order by approximate number of years in power. Those marked with * are now out of power
jk 9 years ago
Nkrumah’s ideologies in Francophone Africa
During Kwame Nkrumah’s day the francophone foil to Nkrumah’s Ghana was supposed to be the Ivory Coast of Felex Houphoet Boigny. Both countries entered into independence wi ... read full comment
Nkrumah’s ideologies in Francophone Africa
During Kwame Nkrumah’s day the francophone foil to Nkrumah’s Ghana was supposed to be the Ivory Coast of Felex Houphoet Boigny. Both countries entered into independence with apparently strong economies; both were led by strong and charismatic political leaders.
The big difference between the two countries was supposed to be ideological. Nkrumah had been moving further and further to the left, and had become increasingly alienated from the former imperial power, Great Britain. The Ivory Coast at the time appeared to be a model experiment in the free market economy and a hospitable environment for foreign investment and for friendship with the West particularly France. Nkrumah and Houphoet Boigny – are even supposed to have taken a wager between them – a bet as to which country would be ahead in a decade or two. The Ivory Coast won the bet at that end of stage. But Boigny’s styles of one party leadership was similar just that the difference with him was to allow economic growth.
For other West African Francophone country with which Ghana could be compared was Senegal. Both countries were cultural vanguards in an African context. Both had charismatic leaders – Nkrumah in Accra and Leopold Sedat Senghor in Dakar. Countries had a vision of Pan-Africanism – Nkrumah was committed to the dream of political Pan-Africanism, Senghor was committed to the vision of cultural negritude. As Aime Ceesay put it: “My Negritude, my Blackness is no tower and no cathedral”
Negritude was part of what Senghor considers the best way to control Africa into a united continent. Having come from a predominantly large Muslim country like Senegal with powerful religious leaders, and him being Christian, Senghor found out that trading with smartness was his only way of staying longer than a day as leader. He did it with mastery and stayed years and years even defeating Muslim opponents at elections. Having laid down a very strong foundation stone for Africa’s strongest multi party Democracy, He voluntarily retired from politics and stepped down from power and handed to his deputy Abdou Joof.
In Guinea Conakry Nkrumah’s friend Saihou Touray was a brutal dictator who ruled with impunity until death and the country fell into the hand of an army general Lansana Conte too rule with brutal force until death and the list goes on for Guinea until Capt. Musa Dadis Camara ruler after Gen Conte was shot by his own body guard and his assistant Saikouba Conate took over who led the country to first true multi party elections that brought a long time opponent professor Alpha Conde to power.
The Anglophone Africa suffered more with the Nkrumah Ideology:
Other African leaders followed in Nkrumah’s footsteps. Julius Nyerere became the first president of Tanganyika (Tanzania) in 1962 and announced his brand of African socialism built around rural folks and their traditional values in an ujamma (extended family) system. Millions of villagers were forced into collectivized agriculture. He modeled his constitution after Ghana’s and followed Nkrumah’s script. Nyerere established a one-man, one-party state around his Tanganyika African National Union, outlawed strikes, nationalized private banks and industries, duplicated Nkrumah’s preventive detention act to go after his opponents and greatly increased his personal power.
With the exception of a few countries, Africa had been incurably infected by Nkrumah’s one-man, one-party virus before the end of the 1960s. Most of the leaders of the newly independent African countries followed Nkrumah’s political formula by declaring states of emergency, suspending their constitutions, conferring unlimited executive powers upon themselves, and enacting oppressive laws which enabled them to arrest, detain and persecute their rivals, dissenters, and others they considered threats at will.
The economic and political outcomes of the one-man, one-party dictatorships by the end of the 1960s were dismal. Nkrumah’s program of rapid industrialization by reducing Ghana’s dependence on foreign capital and imports had a devastating effect on its important cocoa export sector. Many of the socialist economic development projects he launched failed. Similarly, Tanzania nose-dived from the largest exporter of agricultural products in Africa to the largest importer of agricultural products. The one-man, one-party state also proved to be ineffective in reducing ethnic tensions and preventing conflict. Civil wars, genocides, low level ethnic conflicts and corruption spread throughout the continent like wildfire.
In Zimbabwe, Multipartyism was supposed to be alien to African tradition. President Robert Mugabe said when he was interviewed by journalist. Maybe Comrade Sally Mugabe, the late and dearly missed Ghanaianwife of the President Mugabe, made a contribution to her husband’s cultural interpretation of the case or the one-party state. At any rate Robert Mugabe eloquently made the cultural case against the idea of a multi-party Zimbabwe. African indigenous traditions did not institutionalize regular opposition to its own rulers. The concept of a loyalopposition was, through African eyes, a contradiction in terms. Mugabe has since made such an African opposition increasingly difficult to remain loyal.
Kenneth Kaunda, of Zambia even earlier bought Nkrumah’s culturalcase for the one-party state. But Kaunda’s pragmaticcase was very different from Nkrumah’s. While Nkrumah had argued that independent Ghana was too dangerously divided to risk a multiparty system, Kaunda argued that Zambia was too happily united to afford the “absurdity” of an artificial multiparty system. He even argued that at independence the ruling party in Zambians virtually anonymous, came on board in unity. Why create an artificial opposition? But Kaunda was wise and only buying time his pragmatic argument was therefore fundamentally different from that of Kwame Nkrumah’s fear of Ghana’s disintegration. He eventually allowed multi- party democracy and rules for some time until he was finally defeated in an election and he willing gave back power when he bowed to the wishes of the electorates and lives with his dignity intact.
In Kenya, after the founding father, Jomo Kenyatta, Kenya’s Daniel Arab Moi was for so long only partially convinced by the Nkrumah ideology. He was described by some pundits that he was a giraffe that see danger from a long distance and he uses that more often than the Nkrumah theory. That is why Kenya’s one-party state was only de-facto (in fact) rather than de-jure (in law) from 1964 to 1982. Kenya was definitely not converted to Nkrumah’s Leninist argument of the vanguard party. But the cultural argument that Africans preferred consensus to competition was for a while sponsored by the ruling party.
The pragmatic argument in favour of the one-party state in Kenya arrived after the 1982-attempted coup against President Daniel Arab Moi. A constitutional amendment turned Kenya into a de jure one-party state for the first time since independence. Was Kenya at long last catching up with Kwame Nkrumah’s single-party legacy in its fuller ramifications? Fortunately the people of Kenya were already restless for a more representative political order. Multiparty politics returned to Kenya after 1992.
Sir Milton Magai and his brother Albert ruled with the same system for decades but through multi party democracy. Not until Sierra Leone’s Edward Siaka Steven come in. This man brought in a one party state into Sierra Leone and ruled with an Iron fist for decades before he finally handed over to his own handpicked Joseph Momoh who continued his legacies until the military coup led by Capt. Valantine Strasser.
Siaka Stevens destroyed all the infrastructure Sierra Leone was built in and brought in corruption at its very core with a complete different kind of Nkrumah style democracy. Political opponents were killed while many disappeared without trace. The state resources were being wasted on foreign investments for Siaka’s personal gains while the country plunged into severe poverty. As a result, Siaka Stevens in real terms is responsible for the civil war in Sierra Leone for at the time of the civil war, people were so much in pain.
Though in the Gambia there was tiny bit of multi party democracy when the then PPP regime that led the country to independence from Britain was in power as people were free to criticize, But the leader of the country Sir Dawda Jawara dominated politics for thirty years refusing to leave until a military coup which brought Yahya Jammeh to power flushed him out.
These failed policies and ideologies created the worst for Africa and as a result, waiting in the wings were Africa’s soldiers who these dictators use as a tool for suppression. They eventually help the public to hate the tyrant so as to create a space for them to step in as saviors. When they come, they accuse the civilian governments of corruption, incompetence and mismanagement of the economy and claiming a patriotic duty to rescue their countries from collapse.
That was how military officers succeeded in knocking off these governments one by one.
Even Nigeria did not escape. In 1966, Nigerian Military stepped in to upsurge terror and corruption into Nigerian lives. The coup was commissioned by Major-General J. T. U. Aguiyi-Ironsi. The report was compiled by Lt-Col Yakubu Gowon, Captain Baba Usman of Military Intelligence, and Alhaji Yusuf. After Nigeria gained independence from the UK, its domestic politics TRIED to emulate that of its former colonial master by adopting a Westminster-style, parliamentary democracy. There the similarities ended. Instead of the cultured debate and sophisticated party political culture of the UK, Nigeria’s politics fragmented on regional and ethnic lines. NPC’s deputy head Tafewa Balewa became the Prime Minister and NCNC’s leader Dr Nnamdi Azikiwe took the ceremonial role of President. The AG led the opposition.
The makeup of the Government was odd. The NPC’s leader, Sir Ahmadu Bello, could have become Prime Minister but, instead, he chose to become leader of the Northern Region and handed over the Prime Minister’s chair to his deputy, Tafewa Balewa. Rightly or wrongly, many southern politicians viewed Balewa as Bello’s puppet and resented the fact that (in their opinion) the government was being ruled by proxy by a regional ruler and viewed Bello as the real power beyond the throne. This may have led southern politicians to have a disrespectful attitude toward Balewa. This perception was not helped when Bello referred to Balewa as “my lieutenant in Lagos.”
The led the military mainly of Ibo origin to stage a coup killing Balewa and Amadou Bello both of whom are of the Northern Hausa origin prompting counter coups bringing in the Northerners who never left thus destroying the very fabrics of the Nigerian dream
Gen. Joseph Mobutu seized power in the Democratic Republic of Congo (and named it Zaire) following a protracted political struggle between Patrice Lumumba and Joseph Kasavubu. He became a compete devil in human form
Col. Houari Boumedienne overthrew Ahmed Ben Bella in Algeria and he too became another devil until subsequent coups followed thus destroying the country’s infrastructure and raised the state economy to the ground.
A group of army officers overthrew the monarchy in Brundi. In the Central African Republic, Col. Bokassa (later Emperor Jean Bedel Bokassa) overthrew David Dacko and became Africa craziest devil butchering his people with impunity and when madness overcome him, he declared himself God sent emperor until his overthrow.
Gen. Idi Amin overthrew Milton Obote in Uganda plunging more flows of African blood and wails of fatherless children with tears. Amin brought every ideology and molded it together with an iron fist. Eventually he become paranoid with so much power that all the titles in the wide world, his big head can think of at the time apart from God was added to his name.
Many other African countries suffered similar fates. The likes of Mali with Gen Moussa Troure overthrowing Modibo Keita and leading landlocked Mali with brutality thus sending all political opponents fleeing for their dear lives until he too was overthrown by Genaral Amadou Tumani Touray
Gen. Nyassembe Eyadema overthrowing a civilian government in Togo, In Beni soglo comes to power through a coup.
Between January 1956 and the end of 1985 there were sixty successful coups in Africa, that is, an average of two every year (Hutchful 1991, 183). In 1966 alone there were eight military coup d’etat and by 1986, out of some 50 African states, only 18 were under civilian rule (Nyong’o 1998, 78). Behind virtually every coup was the hand of one or the other imperial power, and, more often than not, the US. Overthrowing nationalist regimes and installing tyrannical dictatorships was, then, a “fair game” for today’s champions of democracy and “good governance”!
Yahya Jammeh like any military coupist promised Gambians the very garden Adam was living in before he was sent down to earth little did Gambian knew this one too is a total different type of Marxist Nkrumahist. His ideology stems from the late Libyan despotic dictator Late Mohmar Gaddafi’s school of taught coupled with Mabutu Seseseko’s ideology of leadership. Jammeh rules with an iron fist thus inclogating fear into his fellow citizens and like Mabutu in his early days are Zairian leader, does not hesitate to show his anger when ever provoked. Many political prisoners and Journalist jailed while those who can, fled out of the country and at onetime he was considering to declaring himself King something most countries are trying to abolish. He had his only son’s birthday declared a public holiday for the whole country his true intentions of Gadhafi style of Nkrumahist ideology. But for now he had placed such Royal intentions in the bag waiting for the best opportunity to surface it in the open.
Jammeh with pace and manipulation, managed to become the richest man in the entire country almost owning everything including the state national Television and more land than Gambia itself. He with two schools of thought built in him is now like a superman ready to develop iron wings. His attitude of trusting no one stems from Colonel Mabutu thus his assumptions of the title colonel before retirement. His culture of brutality from Gaddafi who fries his opponents. No wonder when Jammeh touches you, and you are released, you no long talks to no one about your experience inside not even your own wife.
His style of pan Africanism unfortunately come from the Nkrumahist ideology absorbing all of it but with a cobra style of outward hate of the West while inwardly pressuring his aides(ministers and Ambassadors) to kneel for Western aid. He wants to be portrayed as a patriot who cares by absorbing all the state has and handing it out to individuals in grand style as gifts from the chosen one and God sent savior. That’s why Jammeh never gives in secret, GRTS must be there, and media must announce it for my people to know how I cared for them.
There is overwhelming evidence to show that the one-man, one-party state has been a total failure in Africa over the past one-half century. Under these dictatorships, African countries have faced civil and border wars and ethnic and religious strife. Famine, malnutrition and insufficient food production have caused the deaths of millions of Africans. The poverty and unemployment rates continue to rise despite billions in foreign aid and loans. Infant mortality is nearly 100 per thousand (compared to 5 in the United States). Africans have the lowest life expectancies in the world. After fifty years of independence per capita income in much of Africa had declined so much that President Obama had to artfully remind Africans in his speech in Ghana: “Countries like Kenya, which had a per capita economy larger than South Korea’s when I was born, have been badly outpaced.” Politically, the one-man, one-party dictatorships have brought neither ethnic harmony nor good governance; and they have failed to forge a common national identity for their people.
Today we still hear the same rubbish about a democracy before democracy recycled by a “new breed” of silver-tongued African leaders. Meles Zenawi, the chief architect of the one-man, one-party state in Ethiopia says:
Establishing democracy in Africa is bound to take a long time and that elections alone will not produce democracy and do not necessarily bring about democratic culture or guarantee a democratic exercise of rule. Creating a democracy in poverty-ridden and illiterate societies that have not yet fully embraced democratic values and are not yet familiar with democratic concepts, rules and procedures is bound to take a long time and to exact huge costs.
Similar arguments are made by Yuweri Mussaveni of Uganda, Paul Kagame of Rwanda; and even the wily old coyote, Robert Mugabe, pulls the same stunt at age 85 to justify clinging to power.
The “new breed” dictators are trying to sell the same old snake oil in a new bottle to Africans. But no one is fooled by the sweet-talking, iron-fisted new breed dictators who try to put a kinder and gentler face on their dictatorship, brutality and corruption. They should spare us their empty promises and hypocritical moral pontifications. For one-half century, Africans have been told democracy requires sacrifices and pain; and they must look inwards to their village communities, traditional elders and consensus dialogue to find the answers. Africans don’t want to hear that “democracy” takes time and they must wait, and wait and wait as the new breed of dictators pick the continent clean right down to the bare bones. Africans want Africa to no longer be the world’s cesspool of corruption, criminality and cruelty.
The fact of the matter is that there is no such thing as democracy before democracy. There could be either democracy or none-party dictatorships in Africa. We all know exactly what the latter means. The only question is how best to implement constitutional multiparty systems in Africa. On this question, there may be an ironic twist of history.
Longevity is not the only factor discrediting incumbent African regimes with their citizens, particularly the youth. But it is certainly one feature that makes a highly visible target for the unwelcomed military to step in thus ushering in a new dawn of brutality.
.As of March 2012, in 18 of 54 African countries, incumbent rulers (or, in five cases, their family dynasties) has been in power for more than 15 years.
The number decreased by three with the departures of Hosni Mubarak of Egypt after 30 years and Zine Ben Ali of Tunisia after 27. Muammar al-Gaddafi removed and killed after 42 years in power.
The following is a quick checklist of the diverse African countries with leaders or dynasties who have arguably far overstayed their welcome, in order by approximate number of years in power. Those marked with * are now out of power
History corner
Compiled and analyzed by Bamba Mass (Human Rights Activist UK)
Legacies of the Nkrumah Ideology
Post-independence African history is instructive in understanding the scourge of the one-man, and the cur ...
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Nkrumah’s ideologies in Francophone Africa
During Kwame Nkrumah’s day the francophone foil to Nkrumah’s Ghana was supposed to be the Ivory Coast of Felex Houphoet Boigny. Both countries entered into independence wi ...
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