IMANI represses history with 'bitters' not from Komenda Sugar Factor

"...The idea of reviving the Komenda Sugar Factory goes back many decades. Seeing as there does not appear to be significant private sector interest..., and given the unemployment situation..., it is completely understandable that government would want to reactivate the project...". That is your opening sentence, Mr. Franklin Cudjoe... So, Mr. Franklin Cudjoe, with all your college degrees and the brainy powers you control at IMANI, would it not have been a tad more useful if you had bothered to educate "young" Mr. Mahama about the true antecedents of the Komenda Sugar Factory?..Or, are you, Franklin Cudjoe, simply too young yourself, too ignorant, bitter, and superficially too boastful in your no-holds-barred, property-owning capitalist suit-and-neck-tie?...So, IMANI man, tell us how much of that UK-DFID money you and IMANI have taken to keep your consequential IMANI mouthpiece shut about the $6 billion lost oil revenue as you dwell on little sugar crumbs from the high tables, whilst Ghanaians are made the poorer...(Frankin Cudjoe, IMANI, plus commentary by Prof Lungu, 9 June, 16).

Dear reader, you've just read the opening sentence to Franklin Cudjoe's critical essay on the Komenda Sugar Factory.

"The idea of reviving the Komenda Sugar Factory goes back many decades...da da da...da da da"

In the last essay in our "Only Mad 60-Year Olds Blame Nkrumah" series, we touched on the fact that some youth and others are aggrieved for a good reason. They are aggrieved that Kwame Nkrumah's legacy and his commendable achievements for Ghana have largely been censored out of official records in Ghana. Those repressed records include government-approved reading materials used by Ghanaian students and youth.

From our vantage position, we understand perfectly why coup plotters and "rascal civilians" like Dr. Kofi Abrefa Busia, abetted and bankrolled by the Johnson CIA, would destroy public records, proscribe the CPP for a generation and more, and censor all the remaining public records they did not, or could not, destroy.

Their goals:
(1) To hide the fact that they directly acted as agents for Johnson's CIA

(2) To justify their treasonous actions against Ghana through lies and fabications

(3) To install their version of Darwinian, property-owning plunder and sale of Ghana's natural and cultural resources

(4) To physically erase Kwame Nkrumah's achievements from the Ghanaian memory.

However, in 2016, a solid 50 years and 4 months after Kwame Nkrumah's government was overthrown, it is difficult for us to understand how Franklin Cudjoe of IMANI, a "Think Tank" operating in Ghana that professes objectivity, fairness, and accuracy, thinks that starting a policy critique from "the 75%" is not a discredit to himself, to his "Think Tank", and to every other "Think Tank" organized and/or operating Ghana.

IMANI's Franklin Cudjoe starts his critical essay about the NDC government's policy on the Komenda Sugar Factory with:

"The idea of reviving the Komenda Sugar Factory goes back many decades..."?

Da da da...da da da!

How did it all begin, Franklin Cudjoe?

How is it that you can assume you can actually educate "young" Mr. Mahama and your readers starting at that "75%"?

You know, the fact is, the Komenda Sugar Factory was commissioned in 1960 under the leadership and government of Kwame Nkrumah. And it was a very useful economic project, the type they call "industrial". Millions of cubes and bags of sugar from Komenda served nearly a generation of Ghanaians, adding to their economic gains, welfare, and happiness.

The Komenda Sugar Factory was never a Guggisberg factory.

So, Mr. Cudjoe, tell us how it hurts if you are not totally ignorant of the "real situation"!

Tell us how bitterly it hurts to learn from GraphicOnline, a "Government-owned mouthpiece nonetheless, that a far superior, more historically grounded, and objective introductory sentence/paragraph about the state of the Komenda Sugar Factory is of this nature:

"...The sugar factory, which offered employment to the community and others from far and near, was established by Ghana’s first President, Dr Kwame Nkrumah, and became defunct in the 1980s as a result of inadequate funding and bad policies....", (GraphicOnline).

Or, you, Franklin Cudjoe, using your IMANI mouthpiece, could even have gone nuclear!

You could have borrowed and utilized the style of Mr. Eric Bawah who began his 8th June essay on the same subject, thus:

"President Mahama told Ghanaians that he was the only President of Ghana, who was born after independence...If yours sincerely is to go by what he said then the president was born too late to see the Komenda Sugar Factory, which was established in the early sixties by Osagyefo Dr. Kwame Nkrumah...I was schooling in Takoradi when the Komenda Sugar Factory was operating fully and even had the opportunity to do some vocational employment there anytime we had our long term vacation....Dr. Kwame Nkrumah was a visionary leader who thought ahead...To begin with, the CPP government brought in specialist to make feasibility study of the intended sugar factory and they recommended special sugarcane species to be planted and to be used as a raw material for the intended factory. Before the factory was built, the country had huge sugarcane plantation stretching all the way from Winneba Junction to the outskirts of Cape Coast..."

Dear Reader, needless to say, we encourage you to read the entire article by Mr. Eric Bawah (referenced under Sources). And that goes for "young" Mr. Mahama, also.

We also recognize that the reader knows that most grade school students understand that to objectively communicate information about a case as may be demanded of a student by a teacher, one must objectively start from the beginning. One simply cannot ignore the beginning and hope to receive an "A", or even a "B".

We like to think that is the brilliant, intellectual, downright honest way - to begin your story, your critique, your analyses, with a meaningful record of antecedent(s). The intellectuals, when it is full-throated, call it "Literature Review", but a simple sentence would have sufficed in this case for "Background".

In college and within business and professional circles as well, one does not dismiss or ignore the beginning, the background, the forerunner, unless one is a political pimp, or ideological hack, or just plain mad.

The way we see it, only bitter politicians and others with self-serving ideological agendas render accounts of events and episodes starting from the "75%", or from the middle at best, neglecting all antecedents.

That is precisely what Franklin Cudjoe did, for reasons best known to the IMANI man.

And so, we will today declare that IMANI's Cudjoe has now joined the ranks of the bitter ones, those who neglect pertinent Ghanaian history, those who destroy Ghanaian history, and those who repress Ghanaian history, for ideological and political reasons, among others.

While the Cudjoe-types articulate at the 75%, the likes of Akufo Addo and Bawumia simply ignore the middle. They ignore the middle when it serves their interests because they and their followers can't bring themselves to appreciate what Kwame Nkumah did, what Nkrumah left, for all Ghanaians no matter where they come from, from Komenda to Adomi, to Yeji.

That is why more than a decade into the 21st century, they talk in the fashion of Rip Van Winkle:

"... We have to make a deliberate effort to move on from the Guggisberg, raw material-exporting economy to a new economy that can deliver prosperity for our people. And this is the path the next NPP government hopes to pursue, if, by the Grace of God and your votes, we are elected into power..." (Nana Akufo Addo, 2012).

And this:

"... Dr. Bawumia assured the Diaspora of the NPP’s plans to ensure real macroeconomic stability underpinned by fiscal discipline indicating that the resulting economic transformation will move Ghana’s economy from the ‘Guggisberg economy’ to an economy that will add value to our natural resources..." (http://politics.myjoyonline.com/pages/news/201207/89914.php).

Yep, start re-building Ghana from that "Guggisberg economy".

Nice try, fellas!

It is the foundation Kwame Nkrumah built that Ghana needs to develop upon, not a self-serving colonialist's pet dream for their colony, stupid!

That, in fact, is the total essence of the Komenda Sugar Factory, today.

And the recently re-constructed Adomi Bridge, too.

For, if young Mahama and his team had bothered to learn about those antecedents, they would have spared us all these electronic and tabular missives.

Start re-building Ghana from that "Guggisberg economy" and you will forever assign Ghana to the oligarchic-neocolonial fangs of global capitalist conglomerates, 21st century-style.

Symbols matter too, we must remind you bitter ones!

So, Mr. Franklin Cudjoe, with all your college degrees and the brainy powers you control at IMANI, would it not have been a tad more useful if you had bothered to educate "young" Mahama also about the true antecedents of the Komenda Sugar Factory, how we all got here, in the first place?

Or, are you, Franklin Cudjoe, simply too young yourself, too ignorant, bitter, and superficially too boastful in your no-holds-barred, property-owning capitalist suit-and-neck-tie?

We must end now!

But before that, tell us IMANI, tell us about the $6 billion lost oil revenue and your astounding silence.

Tell Ghana, Mr. Cudjoe, tell Ghana IMANI, tell 'em how much of that UK-DFID money you have taken thus far to keep your consequential IMANI mouthpiece shut about that $6 billion lost oil revenue, as you dwell on little sugar crumbs from the high tables, whilst Ghanaians are made the poorer, from Komenda to Adomi, to Yeji.


"...Has any government’s house been in order in this country first before venturing into profitable business?...", you ask in the end!


Well, that, Mr. Franklin Cudjoe, dear IMANI man, we must leave to you and the brainy minds at IMANI to answer.

Answer your own self-important and self-absorbing question in your luxury.


So it goes, Ghana!


SOURCES:
1. Franklin Cudjoe. IMANI: Komenda Sugar Factory and unforeseen challenges, (http://www.ghanaweb.com/GhanaHomePage/NewsArchive/IMANI-Komenda-Sugar-Factory-and-unforeseen-challenges-445595 ).
2. StarrFMOnline. Komenda Sugar factory was commissioned for votes – Minority, (http://www.starrfmonline.com/1.9288521/ ).
3. Eric Bawah.. Sugar Factory without sugarcane = White elephant, (http://www.ghanaweb.com/GhanaHomePage/features/Sugar-Factory-without-sugarcane-White-elephant-445923/).

4. Daily Graphic. Welcome back, Komenda Sugar Factory, (http://www.graphic.com.gh/editorials/welcome-back-komenda-sugar-factory.html/).


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