Comment: 1992 constitution is a criminal imposition on Nkrumah, Ghanaians

Read full text of a position taken by CPP Youth League as Ghana celebrated Founder's day on 21 September 2013.

The struggle of the Ghanaian masses for national liberation, independence and sovereignty from the criminal system of British colonialism was synthesized into Republic Day, which resulted from the process of freely voting for a Constituent Assembly by the masses to draft an independent Constitution and then by enacting the 1960 Constitution on 1st July 1960 by a yes vote of 88.47% in a national plebiscite and then again with a yes vote of 99.91% in a national referendum on 31st January 1964.

Kwame Nkrumah (CPP) was elected with 89.07% over Joseph Boakye Danquah (UP) 10.93%, to fulfil the mandate of the Ghanaian masses and the CPP was voted as the National Party of Ghana through this method of national plebiscite and referendum, based on the Constitution drafted by the elected Constituent Assembly.

This is in sharp contrast to the murder, violence and treason of the CIA sponsored ‘National Liberation Council (NLC)’ which Nkrumah described in the following words, “…guns and bayonets have become the law-makers of Ghana…2,500 murdered; more than 3000 wounded, tortured and maimed, the savage rapes perpetuated against the women of Ghana; these are sins and crimes which cry to heaven for just retribution.” Kotoka shot Major General Barwah, Army Chief of Staff and Deputy Chief of Defense Staff, in cold blood at point blank range in the presence of his wife and children; along with the murder of seven security officers.

These murders were done with the intention of imposing a neo-colonial military dictatorship on the Ghanaian masses through the NLC Proclamation giving the NLC powers to decree laws with no mandate from Ghanaians. Because of their counter-revolutionary ideology, bourgeoisie class interest, lack of education and political inexperience, they followed the instructions of the US government, IMF and CIA and assumed the powers to make laws for Ghanaians. This national crime is illustrated by 24th February 1966.

CRIMINAL DOCUMENT OF TREASON

These criminal mercenaries, the NLC, converted their murder, violence and treason, to enthrone their US neo-colonial master’s interest, along with their indigenous bourgeois officer’s class interest, onto a criminal document of treason titled, “Proclamation for the Constitution of a National Liberation Council for the Administration of Ghana and for other matters connected therewith.”

Kwame Nkrumah described the said document:

“In a proclamation published on 26th February 1966 the people of Ghana were told that the Constitution had been suspended and that a ‘National Liberation Council’ had been established which constituted the new government of Ghana. According to this proclamation, I and all my ministers were dismissed from office, the National Assembly was dissolved, and the Convention People’s Party disbanded. Further, the “NLC” assumed full powers to make and issue decrees “which shall have the force of law in Ghana” and to appoint committees to administer their “affairs of state.”

The criminals who authored this document are, JA Ankrah, Chairman (Army), JWK Harlley, Deputy Chairman, (Police), EK Kotoka, Member (Army), BA Yakubu, Member, (Police), AK Ocran, Member, (Army), JE Nunoo, Member, (Police), AA Afrifa, Member, (Army), AK Deku, Member, (Police). Nkrumah asked, “Do these murderous renegades imagine that they will never have to give account to the people of Ghana for these crimes; murder, brigandage, rape, and the bullet torn corpses they bury at night on the Accra beaches?”

A WAVE OF COUNTER-REVOLUTION

Fellow Ghanaians, the basis for the 1992 Constitution is in this criminal neo-colonial dictatorship and its foundation is from the criminal document authored by the ‘National Liberation Council,’ titled “Proclamation for the Constitution of a National Liberation Council for the Administration of Ghana and for other matters connected therewith.” In order to get a clear picture we must sequence from this notorious document to the present 1992 Constitution.

The Proclamation Decree was used to: a) suspend the 1960 Constitution for the seizure of legislative and judicial powers from Ghanaians, b) to eliminate the Power of Ghanaians to elect their Constituent Assembly to draft their own Constitution, c) to repress Pan-Africanism and socialism, and dissolve and ban the CPP in order to take political power, d) and to dissolve its mass organs of the working masses which enabled the Ghanaian masses to control the nation with sovereignty.

All CPP leadership were captured, jailed or murdered, and Ghanaians were ordered to turn over all photos, books, and materials associated with Kwame Nkrumah and the CPP. Freedom fighters from other parts of Africa and the world were captured, brutalized and sent to hostile regimes to be possibly tortured or killed along with the seizure of the Bureau of African Affairs and African Affairs Centre and their denigration before the imperialist media.

CIVILIAN RULE FRAUD

The Proclamation Decree was used to ban all political activity with Preservation of Public Peace Decree NLCD 3 to dominate politics with military violence, they set up an economic committee with NLCD 4 to eliminate the 7 Year Development Plan and socialist economy which were approved by the National Assembly and citizens and to go to Washington to receive instructions from the International Monetary Fund as the new master of Ghana’s economy [although the committee Chairman E. N. Omaboe stated that the Ghanaian socialist economy was strong] , they decreed a Forfeiture of Assets Decree NLCD 23 to seize all the CPP and national property in order to sell them to foreign capitalist investors in a shift from a public sector Ghanaian controlled economy to a private sector foreign controlled economy, they appointed and paid two politicians that had been rejected with less than 10% votes in elections over a 15 year period, Edward Akuffo Addo and Kofi Abrefa Busia , as the national leaders of the NLC Political Committee with NLCD 59.

It was to politically facilitate the NLC neo-colonial military politics, they imposed a Prohibition of Rumours Decree 92 to threaten all critics of their dictatorship with violence and arrest, they revised the Armed Forces Act with NLCD 178 and banned strikes as ‘subversion’ and a capital offense punishable by death to strengthen foreign exploitation of Ghanaian workers along with wage freezes, retrenchment, and murder of workers.

Nkrumah was vilified and criminalized along with the CPP leadership with State Security Decree NLCD 119 which prohibits Ghanaians from communicating with Kwame Nkrumah and instructed them to report any communication from Nkrumah to the police station or military Commanding Officer, the Kwame Nkrumah Properties Decree NLCD 154 in which criminals and murders falsely accuse Nkrumah of wrongfully paying public funds [this despicable decree even calls for seizing of funds from accounts of “Madam Fathia Nkrumah, Gamel Gorkeh Nkrumah and Kasma Yaaba Nkrumah,” with the intention to vilify Nkrumah’s family].

CONSTITUTIONAL DECEPTION

The NLC appointed a Constitutional Commission with NLCD 102 to make proposals to them regarding a constitution for Ghana. The Commission was chaired by Edward Akuffo Addo and consisted of other leaders of the United Party. The NLC decreed an Elections and Public Offices Disqualification Decree NLCD 332 to eliminate all competition to their appointed political figureheads, Busia and Akuffo Addo by the CPP and all its associate wings and supporters; and to deprive all CPP members and supporters of means of livelihood. The UP members on the Constitutional Commission called for the election of a Constituent Assembly “by popular elections” to be “the people’s representative body in a truly democratic sense, “while maintaining the ban on the CPP with NLCD 332.

The NLC maintained the ban on the CPP but decreed NLCD 380 Constituent Assembly Amendment Decree and appointed a Constituent Assembly accountable to them rather than one accountable to the people of Ghanaian. This is how the 1969 Constitution was prepared to make the NLC dominant.

FROM DICTATOR TO COMMISSIONER

The NLC transferred their criminality into the 1969 Constitution by appointing their own Constituent Assembly to write the constitution and also by NLCD 406 Constitution (Consequential and Transitional Provisions) Decree. NLCD 406 states, “All decrees of the National Liberation Council issued in pursuance of the said Proclamation, in so far as they existed on the commencement of this Decree, are hereby confirmed and shall form part of the laws of Ghana.” This converted the many NLC decrees onto the 1969 Constitution having the force of law.

It forced the Ghanaian state to follow a policy in pursuit of the thinking and interest of the NLC and their neo-colonial masters. It established the basis for constitutional order in neo-colonial military dictatorship. It continued the repression of Nkrumah, the CPP, Pan-Africanism and socialism and imposed foreign domination causing a flight of wealth from Ghana to the US and EU.

The NLC through their guns took over the position of Presidential Commission to control Edward Akuffo Addo and Kofi Abrefa Busia under the 1969 Constitution from 1969-1972 the same way they controlled them as the NLC Political Committee from 1966 to 1969. The Presidential Commission, not the President nor the Prime Minister controlled the political power under the 1969 Constitution and the Chairman of the Presidential Commission was AA Afrifa and the Deputy Chairman was Harlley. The NLC Presidential Commission “decides the functions of the President,” and the Commission can exercise “any of the functions of the President.”

AFRIFA TO RAWLINGS

The Presidential Commission and the Indemnification of the NLC was imposed onto the 1969 Constitution in the Transitional Provisions by the NLC which took away the right of Ghanaians and the Ghanaian legislature to seek legal redress or make laws to alter the neo-colonial military dictatorship and its architecture established by the NLC. This criminality was entrenched with the phrase, “Parliament shall have no power to amend,” the indemnity clause in the 1969 nor the 1992 constitutions Transitional Provisions, imposing the criminality on top of Ghana’s elected legislature up to today.

This same process of military officers decreeing constitutions was continued by the Armed Forces Revolutionary Council in the 1979 constitution signed by Flt Lt. Jerry John Rawlings. Rawlings was a soldier who joined the military under the NLC in 1967 after completing Senior High School. He quickly became an officer in about a year and five months. He served in the military under the NLC for about five years.

Rawlings decreed the 1979 constitution with AFRC 24 and imposed a Transitional Provisions into it with an Indemnity Clause for the NLC and the AFRC. This continued the criminal imposition of violently imposing a constitutional drafting body onto the citizens of Ghana while maintaining the suspension of the 1960 Constitution and imposing the Decrees of the NLC onto the 1979 constitution.

RAWLINGS THE CHILD OF NLC

Rawlings illegally overthrew the People’s National Party government and ruled as a military dictator from 1981 to 1992 and then went into the same criminal imposition as the NLC did in 1969, the Proclamation Decree, with the NLCD 380, NLCD 406, and Indemnity Clause. Rawlings decreed the 1992 Constitution with PNDCL 282, maintained NLCD 406, instituted an Indemnity Clause, put all the resources Vested in Trust to the President, Indemnified the suspension and abrogation of the 1960 Constitution by the NLC, indemnified the illegal overthrow of the CPP government by the NLC, and indemnified the illegal establishment of the NLC through treason and the Proclamation Decree.

The 1992 Constitution does not allow Ghanaians any legal redress regarding all illegal overthrow of government by those of the military officers class and makes Kwame Nkrumah and the CPP elected government illegal along with Pan-Africanism and socialism. This turned justice on its head because all these things associated with Kwame Nkrumah were voted into power but illegal removed by the NLC criminals through treason.

The indemnification of the illegal overthrow of Kwame Nkrumah and the CPP government in the 1992 Constitution, the indemnification of the suspension and abrogation of the 1960 Constitution in the 1992 Constitution, the indemnification of the establishment of the NLC in the 1992 Constitution, the decreeing of the 1992 Constitution by PNDCL 282 and the establishment of a Consultative Assembly by PNDCL 253, the appointing of a Committee of Experts to write the proposals for the Constitution, the converting of NLC decrees onto the laws of Ghana, and the signing of the 1992 Constitution by Flt. Lt. Jerry John Rawlings as Chairman of the PNDC.

This is not all, it includes the pronounced role of the private sector as a directive principle of state, the removal of Powers of the People and its replacement with Representation of the people, the vesting of the resources of Ghana in trust to the President, reducing freedom and justice from principles to commitments, these facts infer that socialism and Pan-Africanism are opposed by the author of the 1992 Constitution, Flt. Lt. Jerry John Rawlings and his PNDC/NDC.

It also infers that Rawlings and the PNDC/NDC are in support of the criminalization of Kwame Nkrumah and the CPP as the government of Ghana. It infers that the NDC is the ideological successor of the NLC and both the NDC and the NPP have their constitutional origins in the NLC counter-revolutionary rebellion and its Proclamation Decree NLC 1 and Transitional Provisions Decree NLC 406.

WHERE FROM YOU?

The fact that under the 1960 Constitution Ghanaians elected the members of the Constituent Assembly to draft it and elected Kwame Nkrumah and the CPP to lead the country, the fact that they practiced a socialist economic policy of collective ownership and control of the means of production and distribution, the fact that the citizens controlled 65% of the major resources in the country and parliament passed the 7 Year Development Plan to increase Ghanaian economic control, the fact that under the 1960 Constitution Ghanaians enjoyed the highest standard of living and highest literacy rate in Africa, the fact that it explicitly called for a surrender of sovereignty only to an African Union Government to strengthen Pan-Africanism and led to the establishment of the Union of African States on 1st July 1961. We can infer from these facts that Ghana functioned under the 1960 Constitution as a truly sovereign republic.

The NLC wrote a book titled, The Rebirth of Ghana, and published the Proclamation Decree in the said book. This was followed by the US government sending over five hundred tons of milk to the NLC. These developments symbolize the NLC as the child of the CIA and US led neo-colonialism. This is a different parent than the 1960 Republican Constitution of the Ghanaian masses and our Great Founder Osagyefo Kwame Nkrumah.

THE HYPOCRISY MUST STOP

We will no longer sit quietly and watch the NDC play the Kweku Ananse game of putting Nkrumah’s photo on the two Ghana Cedi note, hypocritically recognizing Republic Day on 1st July, taking Kwame Nkrumah’s body from Nkroful and building a Mausoleum, while at the same time indemnifying the suspension and abrogation of the Republic Day Constitution which became operational on 1st July 1960, criminalizing Nkrumah in the 1992 Constitution by indemnifying his illegal overthrow and the establishment of the NLC, and criminalizing Nkrumah’s family through the imposition of NLC decrees such as NLCD 119 and NLCD 154 which have never been repealed.

The 1992 Constitution has discredited and eliminated the process and Constitution written by those who were voted for by the masses to serve there will and mandate on the Constituent Assembly but rather decreed a Constitution with an appointed Committee of Experts to write the Constitution with PNDCL 253. The 1992 Constitution has imposed the foreign capitalist private sector, under the International Monetary Fund, with a pronounced role over the economy to take Ghana’s resources through their plan of privatization, devaluation, austerity, and dependency, which has resulted in major decrease in Ghanaian control to less than 10% of the gold, diamonds, oil and other resources with over 90% currently being taken by foreign capitalist interest basically rendering the citizens without an interest in the national resources.

The 1992 Constitution has resulted in Ghana being declared by the IMF as Highly Indebted and Poor (HIPC) with a 57% literacy level [Zimbabwe has 90% literacy with 51% control over the resources]. The 1992 Constitution has resulted in anti Pan-African policies of supporting the National Transitional Council of NATO against the Pan-Africanist Qathafi and the Libyan Socialist Jamahiriya and collaborating with French neo-colonialism to capture Laurent Gbagbo who was duly sworn in as President by the Constitutional Council of Cote D’Ivoire.

It has enthroned elitism at the level of conception of drafting of the 1992 constitution by decreeing the constitution with PNDCL 282 and PNDCL 253, appointing a Committee of experts to write the constitution rather than the citizens electing a Constituent Assembly to write their constitution, and by indemnifying soldiers in several military dictatorships from NLC to PNDC for murder and robbery; this has resulted in the establishment of superiority of the educated elites and military officers over the masses of Ghanaian citizens.

REPUBLIC DAY FARCE

This superiority has been used to place Flt. Lt. Jerry Rawlings, Nana Akuffo Addo, and Addo Kuffour [the brother of former President John Kuffour and former Minister of Defense under his administration] among the ten richest Ghanaians. This is in contrast to the President of Ghana being the leader of the African revolution with a socialist economy guided by the Powers of the People under the 1960 Constitution.

In conclusion, we ask the question, according to the 1992 Constitution, what day is Republic Day? We are conscious that the 1st July 1960 is the day the 1960 Constitution became operational as the supreme law of the Republic of Ghana. This document established the full sovereignty over Ghana by the people from the level of conception to implementation.

The people decided to lead the African revolutionary struggle for Pan-Africanism and socialism. Since the 1992 Constitution indemnifies the suspension and abrogation of the 1960 Constitution and denies Ghanaians the right to legal redress in court, we charge the PNDC/NDC and the UP/NPP with beginning the history of The Republic of Ghana on 24th February 1966 with the coming of the NLC neo-colonial military dictatorship, not the 1st July 1960.

It is time to go from superficial overtures intended to deceive the masses into legalizing Kwame Nkrumah, removing the Indemnity Clause from the 1992 Constitution, changing the airport from Kotoka to Major General Barwah Airport, returning the property of the CPP, and returning to the policy of the 1960 Constitution and the true meaning of Republic Day through a mass process of Ghanaians in order to reclaim our sovereignty from neo-colonialism through the taking of our national resources for the benefit of the Ghanaian masses.

This will eliminate the criminal imposition of the NLC which is continued by the PNDC up to the present NDC administration. We must return to the foundations of the 1st July 1960 constitutionally to take back our sovereignty from the criminal imposition against Nkrumah, CPP, Ghanaians, and Africans.

Prepared by

The Pan African Improvement Organisation

in association with the CPP Youth League