The Media-Democracy Paradox in Ghana by W.S. Dzisah

Author:W.S. Dzisah [Dzisah, W.S.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Social Science, Media Studies, Political Science, General
ISBN: 9781789382372
Google: MpruDwAAQBAJ
Publisher: Intellect Books
Published: 2020-06-30T02:47:12+00:00

Nkrumah and democracy

Nkrumah’s understanding of democracy is anchored on the democratic philosophies of Aristotle and Abraham Lincoln. According to Nkrumah, democracy, if we are to accept the Aristotelian description, is the law of the state that directs:

[T]hat our poor shall be in no greater subjugation than the rich nor that the supreme power be lodged with neither of these, but that both shall share it. For if liberty and equality, as some persons suppose, are chiefly to be found in a democracy, it must be so by every department of government being alike open to all; but as the people are a majority, and what they vote is law, it follows that such a state must be a democracy.

(1963: 83)

Nkrumah saw rabid capitalism as an anti-democratic phenomenon and that true democracy was only re-erected and restored by Abraham Lincoln’s concept of government. By implication, Nkrumah had endorsed the western concept of democracy. However, he argued against a democratic model that imposed class monopoly on the state. Democracy, he insisted, ought to be exercised by all and for the benefit of all. Expressing his understanding of the concept in Washington D.C. in 1951 after his release from prison in Ghana, he stated:

We are aiming to work under democratic principles such as existed in Britain and in the United States. What we want is the right to govern ourselves, or even to misgovern ourselves.

(Nkrumah 1951: 4)

An insight into Nkrumah’s understanding of the concept of democracy showed that he had some faith in western democracy. His admiration for it was evidently made clear. What he disagreed with was external interference and internal usurpation of the rights of the citizens to be in control of the affairs of the newly emergent nation. Explaining this position he stated that they (nationalist leaders) engaged in the liberation struggle in order to afford Ghanaians the freedom of worship, association, speech and expression of thought without harming their neighbour or jeopardizing the state (Nkrumah 1960). Nkrumah’s position stems from his long-standing antipathy to colonialism and his subsequent mistrust of ‘neo-colonialism’.

According to Ninsin (1991), at independence in 1957 Ghana enjoyed a multi-party system of governance. There were parties other than the Convention People’s Party (CPP). This, he argued, meant that the people had the liberty to express their views freely, whether or not they ran contrary to those of the ruling party and government (1991). It is imperative to note that the freedom to hold and express contrary views and organize meant that people could take on public officers for acts deemed to violate public norms and fundamental human rights. These opportunities in a multi-party setting with its attendant freedom of the press were firmly curtailed in the 1960s, 1970s and the 1980s (Ninsin 1991). The road to one-party dictatorship, military intransigence and authoritarianism started with Kwame Nkrumah. Using its majority in Parliament, the CPP legislated for a one-party state after a national referendum had voted for a ‘one-party’ state. This singular act meant the imposition of limits on freedom of speech, expression and association.

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