What if Nkrumah was a Thief?

By Kwame Okoampa-Ahoofe, Jr., Ph.D.

I fully appreciate the kind and level of ire I am apt to provoke among fanatics of the Nkrumaist circles; and I am not the least bit perturbed to stir the proverbial hornet’s nest, since the caption for this article was practically foisted on me by an article that I read on Ghanaweb.com titled “Controversy Unlimited: Blay-Miezah’s Billions” (7/1/09), in which the author sought to validate the subject’s claim to having stashed billions of dollars in Swiss banks in trust for the Republic of Ghana, while simultaneously debunking a Blay-Miezah associate’s claim that he has the Abracadabra (Code-Word/Number) key for accessing the same.

The quiddities of the argument itself are a little beyond me, since both interlocutors, Messrs. Calus Von Brazi and Greg Frazier appear to have forged a quite intimate relationship with the late Mr. John Ackah Blay-Miezah. Where I come in, though, regards author Von Brazi’s assertion that accepting Mr. Blay-Miezah’s purported narrative that the seed-money for the establishment of the Oman Ghana Trust Company was given to the “trustee” by the late President Nkrumah for safekeeping, presupposes that the immortalized African Show Boy was a thief, a rather blasphemous premise to hold.

Connected to the preceding, of course, is the old bromide regarding how Kwame Nkrumah used to secretly employ the trusted likes of Messrs. Krobo Edusei and Blay-Miezah, among others, as presidential couriers, to transport tens of pounds of pure gold bars to the then-premier’s father-in-law in Cairo, Egypt.

What is interesting here is that Mr. Calus Von Brazi, in his article captioned “Controversy Unlimited: Blay-Miezah’s Billions,” does not deny the alleged fact of President Nkrumah having used Messrs. Edusei and Blay-Miezah, among others, as couriers to ship out bars of pure gold to Mrs. Fathia Nkrumah’s Egyptian father. What the author disputes, based on a lack of forensic evidence, of course, is the likelihood of any of the alleged couriers having reserved some of the gold bars for their own private and personal use.

The upshot of the preceding argument, obviously, is for Mr. Von Brazi to then facilely claim that wherever Mr. Ackah Blay-Miezah secured the funds with which he established his Oman Ghana Trust Company has absolutely nothing, whatsoever, to do with the source widely held to have been largely responsible for the same.

The problem here, needless to say, is that even if one assumes the plausibility of Mr. Von Brazi’s assertion, a priori, the fact remains that if, indeed, the late Ghanaian premier was in the palpably irresponsible habit of squirreling state-owned gold bars, devoid of parliamentary approval, to his Egyptian father-in-law, then there is absolutely no gainsaying that practically and legally speaking President Nkrumah was a thief! Of course, we also know of other instances in which the Show Boy generously disbursed aid to other African countries, causes and individuals without either parliamentary debate or approval.

I personally first read of President Nkrumah having established a Ghana Trust Company from Prof. L. H. Ofosu-Appiah’s landmark tome titled The Life and Times of Dr. J. B. Danquah. Interestingly, like Mr. Von Brazi’s article, the name of Mr. Ayeh Kumi, an Nkrumah cousin, also appears in connection with the Ghana Trust Company. However, in Prof. Ofosu-Appiah’s version, we also learn that Nkrumah’s Trust Fund/Company was primarily used as a piggybank for the receipt of contractual kickbacks, among others, which funds were then used to bankroll the then-ruling Convention People’s Party (CPP).

To be certain, until quite recently, I never took Prof. Ofosu-Appiah’s narrative, as well as his other charges very seriously because the author frankly observes to the reader, beforehand, that he has a deep-seated personal aversion for Kwame Nkrumah, whom the author describes as a pathologically self-centered opportunist, not exactly in those words but more in import.

Ultimately, what is important here is that if as Mr. Von Brazi claims, Blay-Miezah’s Oman Ghana Trust Company is composed/constituted largely of funds squarely generated by the genius or ingenuity of the founder of the Trust himself, then Ghanaians – politicians and ordinary citizens alike – have absolutely no business fretting over whether such billions as are alleged to be stashed in Swiss and other foreign banking institutions are retrieved and repatriated to Ghana or not. As for Mr. Von Brazi’s rather curious assertion that Mr. Blay-Miezah was too intelligent to have let on his alleged secret bank code to Mr. Frazier, an African-American former Blay-Miezah chauffeur, rather than Mr. Blay-Miezah’s own “very intelligent and extremely beloved Mona-Lisa Blay-Miezah,” the good guess is neither here nor there.

*Kwame Okoampa-Ahoofe, Jr., Ph.D., is Associate Professor of English, Journalism and Creative Writing at Nassau Community College of the State University of New York, Garden City. He is the author of “Sounds of Sirens: Essays in African Politics and Culture” (iUniverse.com, 2004) and a Board Member of the Accra-based progressive think-tank Danquah Institute (DI). E-mail: okoampaahoofe@aol.com. ###