Talk about symbolic manipulation

E. Ablorh-Odjidja

October 6, 2010

Myths are necessary for history. It is through them that nations express themselves and the ways fate has led them through to the present.

When we build statues, name our streets and buildings, we are branding ourselves and creating paths for the imagination of posterity to follow.

In one sense, we have Jubilee House that the NDC claims clouds Nkrumah’s history and achievements.  In another, we have Kotoka’s name as the face on the Accra International Airport that shames Nkrumah further.

The Accra International Airport, now called Kotoka International, is the worse indictment of Nkrumah and continues to do so globally.  It questions both the good sense of the Ghanaian and also the perception of Nkrumah as the virtuous leader that he was.

And it does both in no subtle ways.

"The voyage of discovery,” said Marcel Proust “is not in seeking new landscapes but in having new eyes."

That’s where myths come in.  Myths can provide those eyes.  And in this endeavor, as a nation, we are failing. 

For ideological reasons, we have failed to notice how harmful the naming of the Kotoka International is to us as a people and a nation.

We have developed some blindness to myth and thus ignored its power as a tool for history creation.

The NDC government has lately come to the defense of the image of Nkrumah. They seek to rename Jubilee House; reverse the name back to Flagstaff House to preserve Nkrumah's honor.

Flagstaff House, the NDC insists, was where Nkrumah lived. They forget to add that that was true until he was overthrown by Kotoka and his gang of mutineers in February 1966. 

Kotoka is still honored as the name of the Accra International Airport since 1967.

And you ask, why the change now and where have they been since coming to power in 1981?

They have a reason now.  But in this reason lies a hidden one, which is more potent and significant for their current mission.  And the target is the presence and legacy of J. A. Kufuor, the current president of Ghana.

The Golden Jubilee House was completed and named in 2008.

Both the names of Flag Staff House and the Kotoka International have been in existence before and after the NDC was in power.

The drive for a name change is focused on one monument and not the other.  So why the rush for the change now?

The name Flagstaff House itself was a leftover, a mark from colonial occupation; not one fashioned for his residence by the late president of Ghana. 

It would be a serious abuse of Nkrumah’s memory if it were assumed that he even liked the name.  He probably would have preferred the Golden Jubilee nomenclature better, given that it commemorated the date Ghana achieved her independence.

But here comes the NDC and the wish to revert to the Flag Staff House name. 

Given what we know about Nkrumah's penchant for Black heritage or the African personality, there is no reason to consider the reason given to honor him with the name change credible.

Rather, it will be reasonable to think the reason given as an excuse to reverse a landmark achievement of Kufuor, which is the building of the presidential palace carrying the name, the Golden Palace.

President Kufuor’s government, in applying the name Jubilee House to what used to be called the Flagstaff House, was in reality not seeking to obliterate the good name and memory of the late President Nkrumah.

There is a real honor in place for Nkrumah inside the Jubilee complex.  The old residence of the first president has been transformed into a museum, the “Nkrumah Heritage House,” the first of its kind.  And the entirety of the complex is one of spectacular splendor.

This sudden mood to bring back the Flag Staff name for Nkrumah’s memory is not so surprising, when one considers that before the Golden Jubilee that location had remained unremarkable.

There wasn't even a show of need by the NDC, which ruled for 19 long years, to refurbish the old residence of Nkrumah until President Kufuor arrived at the presidency in 2001.

Kufuor, through an astute policy maneuver, managed to obtain a loan (truth be said a gift) from the Indian government to build the Jubilee House structure, the centerpiece of which is the Presidential Palace, now recognized as one of the ten most beautiful presidential palaces in the world.

Meanwhile, from 1967 to 2008, the name Kotoka has stood on the Accra International Airport, which means the name has been accepted by every government in Ghana, including the NDC, since Nkrumah was overthrown in 1966.

In short, the NDC throughout its dominance in the country, from 1981 to 2000, accepted to honor a man who disgraced Nkrumah, the man they want to honor now, with this fervent demand for a name change to Flag Staff House.

There is a need for a name change, but not for the Jubilee House. 

A true love of Nkrumah would demand that the Kotoka's name be immediately removed from the international airport because the name does negatively impact Nkrumah’s memory - the same memory the NDC now hotly seeks to burnish.

It must be conceded though that the NDC has picked a fight at a time it knows it can win.  It won the last election.  The time is now for revenge and spite.  And, as normally done in Ghana’s politics, Nkrumah's name can provide the perfect cover.

For the NPP to fight against the name change at the Kotoka International airport, the NDC knows that the former would have to overcome first an a priori belief that they were complicit with Kotoka in the overthrow of Nkrumah.

There are many within the NPP party of today, for whom the name Nkrumah is an ideological anathema. 

These folks, the NDC folks know, will be frozen into inaction against the onslaught aimed at the Jubilee House and will miss the notion that the drive is rather aimed to undercut Kufuor’s achievements.

Without this internal conflict about Nkrumah, it would have been easy for the NPP to ask the NDC why it wouldn’t consider naming the Accra International Airport after Nkrumah if the wish is really to affirm him as a great leader.

After all, Nkrumah's myth and all is acknowledged as a great man.  This is an idea that would not die for the majority in Ghana and Africa.

But as already said, the NPP, because of its historical ideological and personality stance against Nkrumah, is already compromised and any need to protect Nkrumah's prestige is an ideological risk the NPP may not want to take.

However, a historical truth is needed  Either a name change for the airport or the palace must be required. 

That one of the names must go is the answer patriotic reasoning must give. 

But to change the name Jubilee back to Flag Staff to honor Nkrumah will be a political hoax that must not be allowed.

The name Golden Jubilee Palace must be left alone as it pays tribute to Nkrumah and at the same time celebrates Ghana.

By not fighting to win on this ground, the NPP will be kneecapping its achievements under President Kufuor, a monumental symbol of which is the Golden Jubilee House.

The name Kotoka on the face of the Accra International Airport, on the other hand, must go.  It celebrates a fifth columnist and the man who executed the 1966 coup at the bidding of our detractors.

This was the man who did the bidding of our detractors, and therefore, only worthy of celebration as a monstrosity, though the NDC for all these years found no offense in the worship of his name at the airport.

That done with the NDC, blame also some stalwarts of the NPP who would rather see the name Kotoka remain because it puts Nkrumah’s repute as a great man under the cloud of the February 1966 coup.

Deliberate or not, the effect of the anti Nkrumah posture for the NPP is still folly.  It makes this party very vulnerable to historical rebukes and also undercuts its ability to stay in power, both in the gaining of it and the prestige that comes with it in the long run.

Thankfully, in the efforts of Kufuor, the NPP does have some ameliorative excuses and the Jubilee House is the most illustrative of the reason for no name change for it.

E. Ablorh-Odjidja, Publisher www.ghanadot.com, Washington, DC, October 6, 2010

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