IMANI represses Kwame Nkrumah with "bitters" not from Komenda Sugar Factory!
By: Prof Lungu
July 14, 2016

"...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 little 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 too superficially boastful in your no-holds-barred, property-owning capitalist suit-and-tie?...So, IMANI man, tell Ghana 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, and commentary by Prof Lungu, 9 June, 16-rev).

Dear reader, still in the matter of industrialization of Ghana, do not miss our next essay on these same pages/media this week, titled "They Stole Ghana’s Industrial Revolution as Nation Toiled to Close Technology Gap!".

For emphasis, you've just read again, 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"!

We decided to revise, update, and re-publish our essay because of comments received from two individuals in particular, Kwabena Yeboah, and someone using the moniker "Prophet true or true".

With the usual insults and "disjointed article" comment, Kwabena Yeboah added three new ones, singing (1) Prof Lungu has "hi-jacked" the agenda of the country, (2) Prof Lungu must apologize to Franklin Cudjoe, (3) "LUNGU...MUST BE STOPPED".

So, we've started wondering what planet Kwabena Yebaoh lives on, exactly, and how rationally competent he truly is.

When did Prof Lungu ever control Ghana's agenda, let alone the Ghanaweb agenda?

As we said, it is in fact Kwabena Yebaoh and his like who must, if they have any conscience, apologize to Kwame Nkrumah for all those bogus, fraudulent, coup-plotter smears on Nkrumah's memory and his legacy to Ghana and Africa, all those years.

Which brings us to "Prophet true or true" whose comment was:

"Sources are Web posts on history. please refer to substantive studies. Web posts are but opinions that cannot stand objective critique. This follows many discourse in Ghana. No substance."

By those comments, "Prophet true or true" actually knocked down the Franklin Cudjoe essay, which itself was a "web post" that did not have a single citation or reference, not even a link to that "web post".

In fact, lack of citations is the other important issue with IMANI "Think Tank" corporate essays - they never provide references or citations.

What source, what "World Bank,...expert consensus" said "...it will take about $90m minimum to do a good job of bringing the factory and plantation/out grower scheme up to scratch...?

What does that mean, what would that buy, when, how, and why?

To cut to the chase, we believe strongly that even articles intended for publication on Ghanaweb and other online media by Think Tanks ought to have some references, weblinks, and other information so readers can follow the sources, even to the Think Tanks' own websites, if necessary.

So, when they fail in those attribution responsibilities, they are in fact acting the same as the government officials they are critiquing whose stock in trade is concealing information, repressing data, and persistently neglecting to prove their statements with official data and sources.

That ought to change for the IMANI-types. Therefore, it is the comment from "Prophet true or true" that has absolutely "No substance"!

Again, in our last "Only Mad 60-Year Olds Blame Nkrumah" essay in the series, we touched on the fact that some youth and others are aggrieved for a good reason. They are still aggrieved that Kwame Nkrumah's legacy and his commendable achievements for Ghana have largely been censored, repressed, 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, as we enumerated the last time:
(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 fabrications

(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, more than 50 years after Kwame Nkrumah's government was overthrown, it is still difficult for us to understand how Franklin Cudjoe of IMANI, representing 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 in Ghana.

"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?

Again, how is it that assume you can usefully educate "young" Mr. Mahama and your readers starting at that "75%"?

We know!

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 gone nuclear and borrowed for 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...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...", (Eric Bawah).

Imagine, Mr. Eric Bawah, still living, directly reports that while in school, he "even had the opportunity to do some vocational employment" at the Komenda Sugar Factory.

That, "Prophet true or true", is a direct source!

Dear Reader, we encourage you to read Mr. Bawah's article (referenced under Sources).

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.

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

And so, we will again underscore that IMANI's Cudjoe has now joined the ranks of the bitter ones, those who neglect pertinent Ghanaian history when Kwame Nkrumah is concerned, those who destroy Ghanaian history, those who repress Ghanaian history for ideological and political reasons.

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 Kwame 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!

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

Plan ahead!

But more important, plan with the people and share with them the planning and the plans!

Informatiom matter.

So does symbols and semantics, if we must remind the bitter ones!

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

Isn't there a background to "thing"?

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

We will end, finally!

But before that, tell us IMANI, tell us about the $6 billion lost oil revenue and about 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-plus lost oil revenue, as you dwell on little sugar crumbs from the high tables, whilst Ghanaians are made the poorer, thirsty, and bitter, 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 at the end of your 7th June essay.

If we may indulge, at some time not too far-gone, "governments", including US federal and state governments, etc., were in the "profitable business" of selling and guaranteeing the sale of our forebears. They gave freely, huge wardrobes of money and chunks of land to connected " profitable businesses", and in the latter days, they even took away even the semblance of social responsibility of "profitable business".

So tell us, IMANI man, is there a difference between a "public good", even a quasi public good, and "profitable business" when "government’s house" is controlled by/for "profitable business"?

And so, Mr. Franklin Cudjoe, our dear IMANI man, we must leave to you and the brainy minds at IMANI your own question, to answer in full. It's also in the history, in the background of Komenda Sugar Factory, Asutsuare, GIHOC and others that you repress, even from the young and less privileged, under trees in school.

But, answer completely your own self-important and self-absorbing question, in your luxury and privilege, Franklin Cudjoe.

And you, Kwabena Yeboah, it is you who must apologize.

Apologize to Kwame Nkrumah for all the smears you and your ilk have championed against him, the Founder of Ghana, since 1966.

Till then, so it goes, Ghana!


SOURCES:
1. Prof Lungu. 10 June 2016. IMANI represses history with “bitters” not from Komenda Sugar Factory, (http://spynewsagency.com/imani-represses-history-with-bitters-not-from-komenda-sugar-factory).

2. Franklin Cudjoe. IMANI: Komenda Sugar Factory and unforeseen challenges, (http://www.ghanaweb.com/GhanaHomePage/NewsArchive/IMANI-Komenda-Sugar-Factory-and-unforeseen-challenges-445595 ).

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).
5. StarrFMOnline. Komenda Sugar factory was commissioned for votes – Minority, (http://www.starrfmonline.com/1.9288521 ).


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