Will anybody justify coup d’etat against Mills today?

Yesterday, Thursday, February 24, 1966 is exactly 45 years since Colonel Akwasi Amankwaah Afrifa and Colonel Emmanuel Komla Kotoka of the Ghana Armed Forces took up guns to overthrow our first Prime Minister/President, Osagyefo Dr. Kwame Nkrumah.
Those who lived in those times were observers of events before the overthrow and some among them, interestingly across political traditions, insist that that precedent of a coup d’etat was right. We on Today will however want us to look at the matter again in the light of our history and the circumstances in Ghana today.
On March 6, this year, Ghana will be 54, and it is important that we understand the proper significance of certain historical incidents in the light of national interest.
Those who support the manner in which Nkrumah was removed from office cite multiple reasons.
They argue that Nkrumah had become a dictator; his word was law and no one dared dissent; he had made a law called Preventive Detentions Act that enabled him to conduct arbitrary arrests; he had a Young Pioneers group made of up children of parents from all walks of lives and the allegation is that he had indoctrinated these children to the extent that they reported their parents who either spoke ill of Nkrumah or disagreed with any government policy; the arrests under the PDA were getting too much and people who were picked up simply disappeared; economic circumstances got tough to the extent that people could not make ends meet, and; he sought to make Ghana a one-party state.

There are lesser though equally serious charges. One of them is that Nkrumah did not believe in Almighty God, but put his faith in a god called Kankan Nyame.
We on Today agree that those are grievous actions, and if indeed Nkrumah indulged in them then he deserves condemnation. However, let us take a closer look at some of these accusations on the light of securing the future of our republic.
Assuming Kankan Nyame was indeed a god, what was wrong with Nkrumah believing in it? Have Ghana’s constitutions since independence not protected the Freedom of choosing one’s own religion – Islam, Christianity or African Traditional Religion?
BUT, the truth is that Nkrumah was a Catholic, and indeed was in a Seminary in the United States when Nii Ako Adjei thought he could be helpful to the UGCC in the fight for independence.
The other truth is in our Tradition: Kan Kan Nyame is an accolade of exaltation to Onyame, God, Allah, which our Traditional Divine Drummers, Akyerema, play on the drum anytime they are honouring the Almighty. “Kan” stands for “first, foremost” or “beginning,” and the repetition in Kan Kan Nyame means we are referring to God who was at the beginning of beginnings, before “all things were made that were made.” Don’t the Bible and Qur’an say that?
As for justifying the overthrow of Nkrumah with the PDA and one-party state, Today must state here that those making that argument lose sight of the fundamental fact of the principle of Separation of Powers. It is to break the unchallenged power a president could have that Parliament was created to make laws, so that if a president brought a stupid law to the House at least some persons among the parliamentarians will see the inherent stupidity of the law, point it out so that the entire house, acting in the interest of the state, the people, will throw it out.
But what happened when Nkrumah sent the Public Detentions Bill to Parliament? So if the bills for the PDA and one-party state were so dangerous, why did Parliament pass them when Nkrumah brought it before them?
Now let us zero in on the issue of main concern about coup d’etats. In one sentence, Afrifa and Kotoka overthrew Nkrumah because they said he was not running the affairs of state properly. That is the same reason Colonel I. K. Acheampong gave when he overthrew Dr. K. A. Busia on January 13, 1972. And that is the same reason Flt. Lt. J. J. Rawlings gave when on December 31, 1981 he overthrew Dr. Hilla Limann.
Nkrumah, Busia and Limann were all elected by the popular will of the people, and the constitution always stated ways of dealing with the specific problems those coup makers used as justification for their action.

We on Today must however point out that, no amount of mistakes by a president or national administration or parliament will change the fact that Afrifa & Kotoka, Acheampong and Rawlings separately subverted the popular will of the people by those disruptive acts.
Anyone who disagrees should consider the following:
Today, the Mills administration is doing all but taking care of the people’s business. The administration seems not to know the nature of the problems confronting all of us let alone finding solutions to them.
There are commodities everywhere, but times are so hard people cannot buy, and most shops are throwing away perishable goods that are expiring before they could be bought. Plus there appear to be tough times ahead. Also, Parliament is still making the same mistakes it did in Nkrumah’s time, because the Castle brings before the House documents whose contents are not in the interest of Ghana, but they pass it.
BUT WILL TODAY SUPPORT A COUP TO OVERTHROW PRESIDENT MILLS?
THE ANSWER IS A BIG, BIG “NO!”
And our reason is simple: Whatever problem anyone has with President Mills and the way he is running the country today is legislated, and the laws state precisely what such a person has to do and where to go to seek redress. Or he or she could wait till day of elections and go and vote according to his/her conscience. Second, whichever way you turn it, a constitutional democracy is infinite times better than dictatorship or even a benevolent military regime.

Thus the next time anyone wants to justify February 24, 1966, January 13, 1972 and December 31, 1981, let that person first pause and realise that he would, indeed, be justifying a coup in this Fourth Republic.