my first coup d'etat

M Y F I R S T C O U P D ’ E TAT

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M Y F I R S T C O U P D ’ E TAT

And Other True Stories from the Lost Decades of Africa

John Dramani Mahama

New York Berlin London Sydney

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Copyright © 2012 by John Dramani MahamaMap copyright © 2012 by Gary Antonetti

“Ooh Child,” words and music by Stan Vincent © 1970 (Renewed) Kama Sutra Music, Inc. and Frantino Music. All rights controlled and

administered by EMI Unart Catalog Inc. (publishing) and Alfred Music Publishing Co., Inc. (print). All rights reserved. Used by permission.

“Vietnam,” written by Jimmy Cliff . License issued courtesy of Universal Publishing/Island Music Limited.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission from the publisher

except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles or reviews. For information address Bloomsbury USA, 175 Fifth Avenue,

New York, NY 10010.

Published by Bloomsbury USA, New York

All papers used by Bloomsbury USA are natural, recyclable products made from wood grown in well- managed forests. The manufacturing pro cesses

conform to the environmental regulations of the country of origin.

library of congress cataloging- in- publication data

Mahama, John Dramani, 1958–My fi rst coup d’etat and other true stories from the lost de cades of Africa /

John Dramani Mahama.—1st U.S. ed.p. cm.

ISBN 978- 1- 60819- 859- 71. Mahama, John Dramani, 1958– 2. Ghana—History—1957–

3. Ghana— History—Coup d’etat, 1966. 4. Vice- presidents—Ghana—Biography. 5. Ghana— Biography. I. Title.

DT512.3.M35A3 2012966.705'4092—dc23

[B]2011053052

First U.S. edition 2012

1 3 5 7 9 10 8 6 4 2

Typeset by Westchester Book GroupPrinted in the U.S.A. by Quad/Graphics, Fairfi eld, Pennsylvania

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To the memory of my father, Mr. E. A. Mahama,

a man of humility and integrity, who lived

in ser vice to his family, his people, and his nation

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We plan our lives according to a dream that came to us in

our childhood, and we fi nd that life alters our plans.

And yet, at the end, from a rare height, we also see that

our dream was our fate. It’s just that providence had

other ideas as to how we would get there. Destiny

plans a diff erent route, or turns the dream around,

as if it were a riddle, and fulfi ls the dream in

ways we couldn’t have expected.

—Ben Okri

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C O N T E N T S

Introduction: The “Lost De cades” 1

My First Coup d’Etat 7

The District Commissioner’s Hat 17

Of Silence and Solidarity 39

Wild Lions and Little Boys with Catapults 52

Full Moon Dance 65

How I Got My Christian Name 81

Sankofa 105

Teenagers in Tamale 123

Frozen Fire 139

Praise for the Powerful 161

Union Government 180

Truth Stands 197

Perilous Crossings 210

Ghana Must Go 240

Providence 264

Tovarisch 286

Coda: Return of Hope . . . Anaa? 304

Acknowledgements 315

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NORTHERNNORTHERN

UPPER WESTUPPER WEST

UPPER EASTUPPER EAST

BRONG-AHAFOBRONG-AHAFO

ASHANTIASHANTI

WESTERNWESTERN

CENTRALCENTRAL

EASTERNEASTERN

VOLTAVOLTA

GREATER ACCRA

G H A N AG H A N A

DomongoDomongoScarpScarp

ReserveReserve

MoleMoleNational ParkNational Park

Bla

ck V

olta

LakeLakeVoltaVolta

Bia

KumasiKumasi

TakoradiTakoradi

AburiAburi

KoforiduaKoforidua

HoHoNkawkawNkawkaw

NORTHERN

UPPER WEST

UPPER EAST

BRONG-AHAFO

ASHANTI

WESTERN

CENTRAL

EASTERN

VOLTA

GREATER ACCRA

Bla

ck V

olta

Bla

ck Volta

Gul f o f G uinea

LakeVolta

White Volta

Volta Rouge

Bia

DamongoScarp

Reserve

MoleNational Park

BoleDamongo

Kalba

Aflao

Wa

Kumasi

Takoradi

Tamale

Bolgatanga

Accra

Savelugu

Yapei

Salaga

Aburi

Koforidua

Sunyani

Cape Coast

HoNkawkaw

Yendi

Kintampo

Busunu

BURKINA FASO

TOGO

G H A N A

BENIN

CÔTED'IVOIRE

0 25 50 75 100 km

0 25 50 75 mi

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AU T H O R ’ S N O T E

This is a work of nonfi ction. I have changed the names of some individuals and modifi ed identifying features, including physical descriptions and occupations, in order to preserve their anonymity. Occasionally, timelines have been compressed in order to further preserve privacy and to maintain narrative fl ow. The goal in all cases was to protect people’s privacy without damaging the integrity of the story.

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Th e re i s a period of time often referred to as the “lost de cades” of Africa. That description speaks to the dismal

post- independence per for mance of African countries during the 1970s and 1980s into the early part of the 1990s. The me-dian per capita growth of developing African countries during those “lost de cades” was 0.0 percent. It was a period of crippling stagnation, especially when compared with the era of libera-tion that preceded it, within which is also included the initial post- colonial period that began in the late 1950s and contin-ued throughout the 1960s and the early 1970s.

The description “lost de cades” is used primarily to address matters of economy and development, but during those years, other aspects of life in Africa were undergoing an equally marked period of stagnation, particularly the arts. During the era of liberation, an entire generation of visual art, literature, music, and international cultural exchange was empowered by the electricity of a continent shaking off its oppression. The Western world (and by that I mean the United States of Amer-ica, Canada, Australia, and the countries in Eu rope, collec-tively) was introduced to dashikis, geles, fufu, and jollof rice; it

I N T RO D U C T I O N : T H E “ L O S T D E C A D E S ”

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2 M Y F I R S T C O U P D ’ E TAT

learned the rhythms of highlife from Osibisa and of makossa from Manu Dibango. Miriam Makeba’s hit single “Pata Pata” had us all, in every country and on every continent, singing in Xhosa; and Fela Anikulapo Kuti’s new musical alchemy that he called Afrobeat— which has recently made a ferocious comeback— was already turning heads and moving feet.

An entire canon of literature was created with books like Things Fall Apart by Chinua Achebe, Weep Not, Child by Ngugı wa Thiong’o, The Beautyful Ones Are Not Yet Born by Ayi Kwei Armah, and So Long a Letter by Mariama Ba. Yet this period of productivity, excitement, and unbounded creativity was short- lived as, during the 1960s, the continent ever so slowly devolved into what would ultimately become a lengthy cycle of po liti cal unrest and then, by the mid- 1970s, made a rapid plunge into poverty.

During the “lost de cades,” Ghana— and in fact all of Africa— experienced a “brain drain,” a mass exodus that found many of our artists, intellectuals, professionals, and politicians living abroad in either a forced or a self- imposed exile. As a result, that period of time and the direct impact it had on the cultural, educational, and po liti cal lives of those who remained has not been heavily documented, especially not from a per-sonal perspective. They are years that are rarely discussed, years of untold diffi culty and hardship, of ever- present hunger and fear. They are years that many have, understandably, tried to forget, to erase entirely from memory.

But rarely is anything all bad. There are always pockets of light, however small, to be found during periods of darkness. A number of us who stayed during the “lost de cades” and lived through the diffi culties, whether by choice or by force,


I N T RO D U C T I O N : T H E “ L O S T D E C A D E S ” 3

discovered that it was, ironically, during this time that we found ourselves, our voices.

For many individuals, there is a moment that stands out as pivotal to the awakening of their consciousness. Often that moment can feel like a harbinger of disaster: the fi rst tremors of an earthquake or rains of a hurricane, the eruption of civil war or riots, an assassination or a coup d’etat. It is a moment that serves as the line of demarcation, separating the certainty of what was from the uncertainty of what lies ahead. It is a moment in which you suddenly become aware of who you are; you become aware of the fragility and unpredictability of the world in which you live. Ghana’s descent into the “lost de-cades” began with such a moment, with the coup d’etat that unseated our fi rst president, Dr. Kwame Nkrumah. When I look back on my life, it’s clear to me that this moment marked the awakening of my consciousness. It changed my life and infl uenced all the moments that followed.

The “lost de cades,” from that fi rst coup d’etat to the fi nal reintroduction of constitutional rule, were the years that de-fi ned my life, and as a result, they are the years that I have wanted most to write about, to commit not only to memory, but to paper. It was my desire, through the stories in this book, to document the eff ects that the events that occurred during those years had on the country and, more personally and spe-cifi cally, on my family and me.

Each of the stories in this book is a memory of a specifi c incident or set of incidents, and true to the zigzag way in which memory works during the piecing together of a narrative, they are more fl uidly circular than strictly linear, pulling in what ever is relevant and necessary— such as historical facts



and background— to complete the picture and help the expe-rience make sense. Throughout the book, from one story to another, there are instances of what, on the surface, might seem to be repetition or overlap of the narration of events. How-ever, the details of each event described are specifi c to the story being told and the contextual understanding of it. Be-cause Africa is often thought of in monolithic terms, I also made every eff ort to be as specifi c as possible in the descrip-tions and details that I provided of the lifestyle and general atmosphere of the various towns, villages, and cities in Ghana and Nigeria. I wanted, in these stories, to explore the diversity that exists in Ghana, which is but one of the continent’s fi fty- four countries.

Furthermore, I wanted to display the diff erences between life in the northern part of the country, which remains the most underserved, and life in the southern part. I also wanted to highlight the vibrant life in the urban centres that are becom-ing more and more modernised and show the contrast between it and the rapidly vanishing traditional life in the villages.

The world I try to capture in this book, through these sto-ries, does not exist anymore. There are times when I stop and wonder if it ever did exist or if I merely dreamed it into being. Some of the experiences I either had or heard about were that incomprehensible. The places have changed and the customs have died out. Even some of the vernacular has become ex-tinct. In these stories there are words, expressions, and phrases I use that are specifi c to the time and place and experience I am describing but are no longer part of our everyday vocabulary.

In Ghana, as in most African countries that were part of the Commonwealth, we have inherited words and terminology


I N T RO D U C T I O N : T H E “ L O S T D E C A D E S ” 5

that are part of the so- called Queen’s En glish. We have also bastardised words and terminology and made them our own. Since language is a primary element of civilisation, of culture, I have chosen to be representative and authentic, in both the narrative and the dialogue, of who we were and how we were in those days.

Nowadays so much of the information about Africa that reaches the rest of the world is negative, and it places our con-tinent in an unfl attering and almost irredeemable light. As a resident African, and a po liti cal leader of an African nation, I am saddened by this, because however “factual” the informa-tion, it’s never the entire truth. Headlines are made of isolated, often aberrational, events. Statistical data are usually presented without context or explanation. There are a million stories that can fi ll all the blank spaces of what has been left unspoken and unwritten, stories that will shift your perceptions and chal-lenge your prejudices.

Though my intention in writing the stories in this collection was merely to present the life that I led and the Ghana and Africa that I knew during a specifi c period of time, not to alter any preconceived notions, I do hope that in reading them, you will suspend all previous opinions or judgements and allow the reality of these recollections to occupy its own canvas.

I suspect that Africa, as the motherland of humankind, has always been and will always be something of an enigma. How and why, as civilisations on other continents perished, the African continent and its people have survived throughout the centuries, despite countless wars, diseases, and natural di-sasters, may very well remain an ongoing mystery. If, however, my own experiences during the “lost de cades” can serve as a



guide, I would have to say the key to that mystery must be somewhere in our stories, in the seeming minutiae of the day- in and day- out, the customs and the rituals, the adaptations and requisite improvisations, the mistakes and the miracles. The key to Africa’s survival has always been, and will most likely always be, in the story of its people, the paradoxical sim-plicity and complexity of our lives.
