The Art of Agreement

Published on 25th July 2006

Accra, the capital city of Ghana, is my favorite city on the West Coast of Africa. It is peaceful, fairly well-planned, though it is rapidly growing into a mega city with all the attendant problems of pollution, insufficient infrastructure and extreme poverty amidst riches and slums. It is also badly copying Lagos in 'go slow' (traffic hold-ups) on the major roads but thankfully not up to the manic levels yet.

There is also the general friendliness of Ghanaians and Pan Africanist awareness. To many people the obvious pull of Ghana as a whole is because it gave us Kwame Nkrumah. You cannot walk around Accra without feeling the proud heritage of Pan Africanism and the high hopes and dreams that once bestrode this country that blazed the trail of popular struggles for independence. Not only Pan Africanist heroes /heroines and cities are so honored, but also other icons of Third World struggles like Gandhi, Nehru, Sukano and Ho chi Mi, Castro have streets named after them. Civil rights figures like WEB Du Bois, Malcolm X, Harriet Tubman, Martin Luther King Junior, are all represented in this city of Circles and Statutes.

For those of us who are unashamedly Nkrumahist, Ghana will always mean Nkrumah and vice versa. It also means that we either consciously or unconsciously make political choices either for or against political figures and parties in Ghana based upon our loyalty to the Osagyefo. In the pantheons of our hate figures in Ghanaian politics, Dr Kofi Busia, a political rival and opponent of Kwame Nkrumah is probably top on the infamous club. The mere mention of his name to many Pan Africanists of the Nkrumahist tradition invites many unprintable reactions. The death of both men many years ago has not diminished the political hostility between their supporters.

Fifty years since Ghana's independence and more than six decades since the political lines were drawn in the epic struggles for independence, several regimes down the line including two failed revolutionary attempts, prolonged military rule and now an increasingly confident democratizing environment, Ghana politics is still very much polarised between the BUSIA-DANQUA group and the ever fractious and sectarian broad Nkrumahist tradition. Not even 20 years of JJ Rawlings' rule both in its brutal first ten years and authoritarian reluctant democrat of the second decade has changed this division. Broadly even his regime is seen (at least by the Busia-Danquah people) as part of the Left/Nkrumah family not withstanding the fact that at a personal level the Man either hated or is hostile to Nkrumah.

Nowhere is the saying: 'never say never' more applicable than in politics. I could not imagine myself attending a political memoriam for Dr Busia despite my tenuous link to him academically through St Peter's College Oxford of which he remains the most
famous Alumni. It became more strange still that I should be attending such an event under the auspices of the Busia Foundation. Yet  I went to listen to the 3rd Annual Memorial Lecture in honor of Dr. Busia, organized by The Busia Foundation, set up by his aged widow. I have nothing against the family personally. Prof. Abena Busia who is co -chair of the foundation is a sister I know and respect hugely, and her cousin, Nana Busia, is a fellow Pan Africanist soldier. The problem is just inherited political prejudice. 

What really persuaded me to go was the Guest Lecturer, a senior comrade (even if his perpetual youthful face does not indicate he has become a Mzee too) and Pan Africanist of the same Nkrumahist orientation, Dr Akwasi Aidoo, the Director of the newly launched Trust Africa Foundation. Like other Nkrumahists (admittedly few) at the talk, I wondered what Akwasi would say about Busia in such a public space that was so tied up to a man we grew to loathe politically. Indeed I felt like a gate crasher at the event.

However, I was glad I went. The lecture was carefully crafted and calibrated.  He began by identifying why we need to hear about Busia and other leaders who made great contribution to the cause of liberating our peoples. One, we did not know the man beyond the prism of those who opposed him because he was a political opponent of Nkrumah. Two, there is a benign if not a calculated political and intellectual neglect of the man. Three, reaction to Busia was often based on political prejudices without due recognition given to him first and foremost as a credible intellectual who took himself seriously, researched and wrote voraciously addressing what he considered challenges of his time. In particular, the man regarded education as key to ending poverty, bringing prosperity and modernizing the society. Finally, Akwasi was indebted to Busia who had paid part of his school fees purely out of a chance meeting. The family later discovered at his funeral the many people whom Dr Busia had personally helped on the ladder of self reliance and achievements through education.

Akwasi then took the audience on a journey to meet and get to know Dr Busia. He neither hid his political position nor shied away from mentioning Busia's controversialist politics, devaluation of the cedes and promotion of dialogue with apartheid. But they were done in measured tones. There was a stage I felt I had stayed much longer than I thought and learnt to unlearn some of my prejudices about the man. But it is not just about Busia, the significance of the event goes beyond Ghana.

It goes to the heart of the biggest challenge facing Africa today as we struggle to create
a society in which the majority of our peoples are not victims but agents of change and a leadership that is organically linked to serve them and not just rule. When we look at the nationalist elite regardless of where they were politically (whether as presidents or
opposition leaders), they took themselves seriously, tried to understand their society, study it and proffer solutions. They were both intellectually and politically in charge.

How many of our leaders today whether holed up in State house or hankering after same in the opposition can we say are applying themselves both intellectually and politically to the challenges we face? It is not just that they are not thinking but they actively discourage original thinking. The other lesson I took away from Akwasi's lecture is the need to engage and engage seriously with even our political opponents, read them and understand why and what we disagree (if we disagree at all!). You will be surprised how much you share with your opponents if you only learn to listen, persuade instead of trying to convert but above all have the humility, intellectual and political integrity to accept that your  opponent may sometimes be right. Politics should be an art of the possible and the possibilities include those who may not agree with us.


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