ARTHUR KENNEDY STIRS CONTROVERSY

…By redefining Nkrumah as a great man who lacked compassion

By Charles Takyi-Boadu

A leading member of the main opposition political party, New Patriotic Party (NPP), Dr Arthur Kobina Kennedy has set the stage for a controversial discussion about the attributes and posture of Ghana’s first President, Osagyefo Dr Kwame Nkrumah.
He did this when he described him in a way that would obviously open up the floodgate for wild criticism.
Dr Kennedy claims “Dr. Kwame Nkrumah was defined, significantly, by how he permitted the old and sick J.B. Danquah to die in prison.”
Just to make sure that history would not miss that message, he said Nkrumah “did the same with Obetsebi-Lamptey too.”
Dr Kennedy made these obviously controversial comments in his piece; ‘The soul of President Mills’ dated August 13, 2009 in which he made a diagnosis of some things that has happened under the incumbent government President and his government.
Though he agrees to belief held by Historians that every President is defined by his or her response to a particular event or circumstance, he noted that the response to the event or challenge tells us about the person behind the public mask.
Sometimes, he noted that the picture is positive whilst in other instances it is negative, stressing that “indeed, for some there are both defining positive images as well as negative ones.”
For this reason, he noted that this defined the country’s first President as “a great man who lacked compassion.”
He went further to juxtapose the postures of successive leaders after Nkrumah and told of how he felt about how each and every one of them, including former President Kufuor and incumbent President Mills have comported themselves.
According to him, Dr. Kofi Abrefa Busia’s willingness to dialogue with South Africa defined him as a principled man who was unreasonably committed to the principle of dialogue.
In that regard, he described him as a man who was too far ahead of his time, stressing “it would be nearly a quarter-century before Dr. Busia’s vision of a multi-racial South Africa would be realized.”
For him, General Kutu Acheampong was defined by his steadfast refusal to shed blood since he saw and considered him as a decent soldier who was out of his depth in the affairs of state.
When he got to the turn of Ft. Lt. Jerry John Rawlings who preferred to label Jeremiah, he noted that the former President “showed us his soul when he celebrated the death of the judges, including Cecilia Koranteng Addow in 1982.”
According to him, these judges were killed because they freed AFRC convicts hence their execution was punishment to them and a warning to others.
Dr Arthur Kennedy believes this revealed Rawlings as ‘a vengeful person.’
He however pitied Dr. Hilla Limann who said was naïve about the realities of politics since he emphasised that he revealed his soul when he asked the National Security Forces to “stop following Jato Rawlings because he is harmless.”
“The man who Dr. Limann thought was harmless ended up overthrowing him”, he said, stressing “Dr. Limann turned out to be a decent man who was rather naïve about the realities of politics and security.”
For former President John Agyekum Kufuor, his sin was to have awarded himself with the nation’s highest honour.
Though he admits he dully deserved the award, Arthur Kennedy indicated “to award it to himself showed that the man who had been celebrated so long for his propriety had lost his touch.”
Whilst admitting that all these leaders did good things; some more than others, he noted that these incidents lifted the veil and told Ghanaians who they were, not as Presidents, but as men.
Arthur Kennedy could not fathom that despite what he described as ‘bad things’ happening in the country since President Mills assumed the Presidency, people still brandish him as a good man.
For him, that argument, ‘is a curious one’, making reference to what a colleague Nigerian friend was told him “how can the leader of a band of armed Robbers claim that he is not an armed robber because he does not personally do robberies?”
He described as a disturbing portrait when the President revealed his ‘soul’ in an interview with the ‘Daily Guide’ newspaper somewhere last week in which President Mills made comments about the economy and Last week, the President finally revealed his soul and it was a disturbing portrait. In an interview with ‘DAILY GUIDE’, the President had a bit to say about our economy and the activities and operations of the Bureau of National Investigations (BNI), which has become a subject matter of raging controversy and debate.
His real concern had to do with comments by the President when he was asked about the operations of the BNI, when he said, “I think they have done very well. We have always insisted on the institution acting within the law. I have said publicly that so long as they operate within the law, they will have my full support. So far, I have no cause for regret. I think they are doing very well and they should be encouraged to do so.”
He wondered why the BNI has forcibly taken peoples’ vehicles from them on the streets and the President who also happens to be a law Professor thought they are doing “very well”.
Dr Arthur Kennedy thus asked rhetorically “The BNI has denied Ghanaians under interrogation their right to legal counsel and the President thinks they are doing very well”. The BNI has forcibly taken people who have not been charged who were travelling off planes without court orders and the President thinks they are doing ‘very well’. The BNI has seized the passports of Ghanaian citizens without cause and the President thinks they are doing ‘very well’.
In that regard, he said “the reason why the President’s praise of the BNI should worry all of us is that the fate of the rule of law is at stake under the Presidency of Professor Mills.”
“The key issue facing our country in the next four years is whether we can remain a nation of laws under the government of the NDC”, he said, stressing “make no mistake about it, the biggest threat to the rule of law today is the BNI and the President should be reining them in instead of heaping praise on them while they brazenly disregard the rights of our citizens.”
He thus predicted that the failure of President Mills to stand up for the rule of law would be the defining moment of his Presidency.
“While the President has been derelict, where has the Attorney General been? She has not found it fit to chastise the errant BNI and assert the primacy of the rule of law. While the executive branch, led by the President has been cheerleading for the BNI, where has Parliament been? Why have they not summoned the BNI to Parliament to demand an explanation for these excesses and to firmly set limits for the BNI?, he asked rhetorically.
Apart from the passage of laws, he noted that the most important responsibility of Parliament was oversight responsibility over the executive and therefore asked them to start doing their job and reigning in what he described as ‘the lawless BNI.”
He thus urged all civil society groups to stand with them, against oppression, saying “that is why it is sad that those who used to march for Tsatsu against the Castle now go to the Castle to drink tea while such gross violations are going on.”
To that end, he also urged Ghanaians to “stand up for the rights of former Information Minister, Stephen Asamoah Boateng and all the others whose rights he said are under assault regardless of whether we like them or not.”
“Whether we like them or not, their rights are our rights and restrictions on their freedom are precedents that will make possible restrictions on our freedom”, he said