The debate must start now on changing the names of our airports, and other key national assets

In mid- December 2022, I returned to Ghana for a holiday, after almost twenty years of absence. My daughter of thirty-eight years, her husband and two little sons also come home with me to Ghana. She left Ghana with her mother to join me in June 1988 when she was only three years old. All of us were in the same plane so we landed at the Kotoka International Airport at the same time.

The excitement and joy of being in Ghana for the first time in thirty-five years could be seen at face of my daughter at the arrival hall. For me it was another experience because it was the first time, I saw the newly revamped (or renovated?) international arrival section of the airport. But let truth be said, waiting to collect our luggage was a nightmare experience I was not hoping to meet compared to what we see in Europe and even in South Africa, where I am domiciled.

We parted ways, my daughter, husband and children went their way and my wife, and I went our way. A few days after having sorted out all our cellphone connections, my daughter (a chartered accountant) called to ask me few questions that were bothering her mind. Her first question was, who was this Kotoka, the person whose name is on Ghana’s premier international airport.

I answered her without any equivocation that Kotoka was one of the soldiers who staged a coup d'état in February 1966 to overthrow the first president of Ghana, Dr. Kwame Nkrumah. However, in April 1967 there was a counter coup to overthrow the military government that had been established by the National Liberation Council (NLC), of which Kotoka was a member.

The counter coup failed but General Emmanuel Kosi Kotoka was killed at a spot near the airport. The military government decided to replace Kwame Nkrumah’s name, which was the name of the airport at the time of the coup, with Kotoka who had deposed him, and so, since 1967, we have had Kotoka International Airport.

Her response was quick and succinct to why should Ghana name such an important
national asset in Ghana after someone who overthrew the man who was the first
president of Ghana and championed the African continent’s emancipation from
colonialism – Kotoka?

We hear about the vision and greatness of Kwame Nkrumah in many international conferences, and we bask ourselves in the respect if he still exudes posthumously as Ghanaians throughout Africa. In every Pan African conference, he is eulogized and revered.

“How come that the international airport in Accra is not named after him but rather, the person who overthrew him”, she asked further?

I think it is a question that must be posed to every Ghanaian, why must we still have Gen E. K. Kotoka’s name on our premier airport – the gateway to Ghana?

I watched a video recently of the president, Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo,
commissioning the newly rebuilt Kwame Nkrumah Memorial Park in Accra. The
president said many things superlative about the first president of the country and the need to reposition him as a magnetic force who can attract millions of tourists into the country.

The Kwame Nkrumah Memorial Park will be the ultimate place of attraction to
tourists, internally and externally. Whilst saying all the good things about Kwame Nkrumah and the Memorial Park that has been built in his honour, the irony was lost on the president that, on arriving at the airport in Accra, many foreign tourists would be asking about who this Kotoka was.

If I were a tourist coming to Ghana to visit the Kwame Nkrumah Memorial Park and on arrival at the airport in Accra, I learnt that Kotoka, whose name is on the premier airport, was one of the soldiers who overthrew Kwame Nkrumah, the first president of Ghana, I would certainly pause to ponder about the contradiction.

How can Ghanaians eulogize a usurper and his victim at the same time? Can any society build a monument to immortalize the name of a murderer and his
victim at the same time? Unfortunately, this is what is happening in Ghana.
After February 1966, Kwame Nkrumah’s name and his accomplishments diminished or
were erased to make him look villain in Ghana. He was demonized all sorts of stories about his use of occult powers filled in Ghanaian newspapers.

The coup leaders, General Afrifa, General Kotoka, General Ankrah, Inspector General of Police, Halley et al were our national heroes. Fast forward to 2023, History does no longer eulogize or immortalize the coup leaders of 1966 as our national heroes who once liberated us.

Where are the Afrifa, Ankrah, Kotoka, Halley and the others? Apart from Kotoka, whose name, among the coup leaders, is mentioned or even remembered in Ghana now?

It was said, at the peak of his rule that Kwame Nkrumah never dies. The
commissioning of the Memorial Park by none other than the president of the country, Nana Akufo-Addo has laid to rest all doubts about what Kwame Nkrumah achieved for Ghana and Africa in general before he was overthrown in 1966.

Indeed, Nkrumah never dies. Videos about him speaking at various international conference are all over the social media. He is quoted extensively by academics and even politicians all over Africa. His stature as Africa’s foremost stateman has been restored.

Do we still need to keep the name of the person who overthrew him as the name of our premier airport in Accra? I am opening a debate on this matter, with no intention of hurting the feelings of any one or ethnic group in Ghana. We need to move with time.

Our acknowledgement of Kwame Nkrumah’s achievement, to the extent of building a beautiful Memorial Park in his honour must motivate us to rename our premier airport in Accra as 'Kwame Nkrumah International Airport'.

Finally, I think we need to relook at the names of all our national edifies, assets, structures, and monuments to see whether they were named after the men and women who really contributed to our national development in diverse ways. We have already named our sports stadia against some distinguished sports men and women of the past
.
There are many others in academics, politicians, businessmen/women, medical doctors, scientists, religious leaders etc that we can honour by naming them after our interchanges, streets, highways, bridges, public buildings, schools, colleges, universities etc.

One name that seems lost to Ghanaians in our honours’ list is that of the late Jacob Wilson Sey. History tells us that the wealthy Ghanaian (from Anomabo, Central Region, called Kwa Bonyi) sponsored three lawyers (including a Sierra Leonian) to London to argue out against the Gold Coast Crown Lands Bill in the British Parliament and later persuaded Queen Victoria not to sign the Land Bill which was before her for accenting. That law would have transferred the ownership of all the Gold Coast land to the British Crown.

But for the late Jacob Wilson Sey selfless patriotism, Ghana’s land
would now be in the hands of the British colonialists, just as in Zimbabwe, before the forceful seizure of the white-owned lands by the government of the late President Mugabe and much of South African lands which are still in the hands of white settlers.

Where does the late Jacob Wilson Sey’s name appear in the list of honour in Ghana?