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William Ofori Atta, Nnambi Azikiwe, J.B. Danquah and the “Grilling” of W.E.F. Ward of Achimota in 1935*

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  13 May 2014

Ray Jenkins†
Ray Jenkins†*
Affiliation:
Staffordshire University
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Extract

In December 1932 J. B. Danquah identified five stages or “ages” in the coastal political history, or the “national history,” of the Gold Coast. This paper may be described as a temporary departure from a preoccupation with “Ages” two, three, and four (1867-1930) and a tentative entry into the study of the fifth: Danquah's post-1930 “Age of Enlightenment.” What follows therefore is more of a shift in time than of space and focus—the area and arena of coastal politics in the colonial Gold Coast. If a new age did dawn in the 1930s, then for an influential core of today's Ghanaianist historians, it would seem that the turning point occurred in 1935. In that year the radical response of I.T.A. Wallace-Johnson and Nnambi Azikiwe (“Zik”) to the Ethiopian crisis galvanized those forces that presaged the later emergence of Kwame Nkrumah, one of history's winners. In sharp contrast, J.B. Danquah, one of history's losers, represented the continuity of past conservatism during—and after—the 1930s.

A bold attempt to confirm or contradict the 1935 “discontinuity thesis” is beyond the scope of this progress report on an act of trespass into the 1930s. The modest outcome of the latter is a snapshot of Accra-based politics. It tries to bring into focus several elements: the texture, style, and ‘reach’ of urban-based politics and politicians; the place of the study and teaching of history in anticolonial nationalist thought; and the extent to which rhetoric served as a mask for the pursuit of group or personal grievance and ambition. In short, this paper re-examines an old theme—the relationship between past history and present politics, albeit within the confines of a British colonial state.

Type
Research Article
Information
History in Africa , Volume 21 , 1994 , pp. 171 - 189
Copyright
Copyright © African Studies Association 1994

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Footnotes

*

This paper was first presented to the Biennial Conference of the ASAUK on “Order and Disorder in Africa,” 8-10 September 1992, at the University of Stirling. Ray Jenkins died un-expectedly on 3 April 1993; as a result this paper is not as finished as he would have liked it to have been, but the subject at hand is such an unusual one that we hope that readers will take this into account. Obituaries for Ray Jenkins appeared in The Guardian, 13 April 1993, and the Stoke-on-Trent Evening Sentinel, 10 April 1993.

References

Notes

1. Danquah, J. B., “Introduction” in Sampson, M., Gold Coast Men of Affairs (London, 1969), 9–38.Google Scholar

2. E.g., Asante, S. K. B., Pan-African Protest: West Africa and the Italo-Ethiopian Crisis, 1934-41 (London, 1977)Google Scholar; Boahen, A. Adu, African Perspectives on Colonialism (London, 1987).Google Scholar Indications of the influence of this view are reflected in the periodization of the titles of Vol. 7 (1880-1935) of the UNESCO General History of Africa (London, 1985)Google Scholar, ed. Boahen, Adu, and Mazrui, A. A., Nationalism and the New States in Africa From About 1935 to the Present (London, 1984).Google Scholar

3. Specific references to this secondary literature are included in subsequent footnotes.

4. Before any attempt can be made to examine the political thought of Azikiwe and, particularly, Danquah, a full inventory of their journalism before 1938 is required. The handful of attempts to examine their ideas and activities in the 1930s—outside the biographical or autobiographical genre—includes Twumasi, Y., “J. B. Danquah: Towards an Understanding of the Social and Political Ideas of a Ghanaian Nationalist,” African Affairs 11 (1978), 73–88CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Echeruo, M. J. C., “Nnamdi Azikiwe and Nineteenth Century Nigerian Thought,” Journal of Modern African Studies 12 (1972), 245–63CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Tonkin, E., “Zik's Story: Autobiography as Political Exemplar” in Farias, P. F. de Moraes and Barber, K., eds., Self-Assertion and Brokerage. Early Cultural Nationalism in West Africa (Birmingham, 1990), chapter 3Google Scholar; and Furlong, P. J., “Azikiwe and the National Council of Nigeria and the Cameroons,” African Affairs 91 (1992), 433–52.CrossRefGoogle Scholar The value of K. O. Hagan's “Exploring the Role of Literary Clubs and Youth Movements in Ghana Politics in the 1930s” has been acknowledged in print (but has proved too elusive to acquire). See Jenkins, P., ed., “Akyem Abuakwa and the Politics of the Inter-War Period in Ghana,” Mitteilungen 12 (1975), 7, 42.Google Scholar

6. E.g., W. E. F. Ward, “My Africa: reminiscences as a Master, Achimota Collge, Gold Coast, 1924-40,” (ca. 1971), Mss. Afr. r. 127 (Rhodes House, Oxford: hereafter “My Africa”); Private Letters to Ray Jenkins between 15 July 1975 and 15 January 1986 (hereafter “Letters”). I remain greatly indebted to Mr. Ward for his patience, his generosity with his time, and his permission to quote from his letters.

7. Williams, Box 7, no. 17.

8. For Ward's study of Twi, fieldwork research into Akan oral traditions in the Gold Coast and the Ivory Coast, and work on Africanist secondary literature, see Fraser, Box 6, no. 30, Nov. 1927; Williams, Box 7, no. 16; “My Africa,” 29-30, 35-48, 149, 163, 175-85; “Letters,” 30 April 1978; Ward, W. E. F., “Problems in Gold Coast History,” Gold Coast Review 1 (1926), 37–52.Google Scholar

9. Referred to in later footnotes as ABWMC and Short History. The other books were entitled British History for Overseas Students (London, 1934)Google Scholar and Europe from Constantine to Columbus (Achimota, 1936).Google Scholar Williams, Box 8, no. 11, Box 6, no. 33.

10. I have been unable to examine those editions of the Accra press which contained the charges by Azikiwe as claimed by Ward in correspondence with his Principal and myself. W. E. F. Ward to Rev. H. M. Grace, 5 October 1935, Williams, Box 6, no. 3, ff. 267-71; Letters, 13 December 1985. William Ofori Atta was another critic, whose review was reprinted in West Africa, 24 August 1935.

11. The triangular correspondence between Buckman, Grace, and Ward from September to November 1935 is contained in Williams, ibid. It is worth noting that Ward was unable to recall the details of his lengthy replies—not surprisingly.

12. “My Africa,” 153-58; Letters, 27 July 1975, 27 June 1978, 5 December 1985, 13 December 1985, 30 December 1985.

13. E.g., Twumasi, , “Danquah,” 76–77Google Scholar; Ofosu-Appiah, L. H., The Life and Times of Dr. J. B. Danquah (Accra, 1974), 25–29Google Scholar; Jones-Quartey, K. A. B., A Summary History of the Ghana Press (Accra, 1974), 21-24, 50–56Google Scholar; Rhodie, S., “Gold Coast Aborgines Abroad,” JAH 6 (1965), 398–406Google Scholar; Shaloff, S., “Press Controls and Sedition Proceedings in the Gold Coast, 1933-1939,” African Affairs 71 (1972), 249–52CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Asante, , Pan-African Protest, 104-07, 157–58.Google Scholar

14. See note 10 above.

15. In addition to the works cited in notes 4 and 13 above, see also Spitzer, Leo and Denzer, La Ray, “I. T. A. Wallace-Johnson and the West African Youth League,” IJAHS 6 (1973), 422–43Google Scholar; Langley, J. Ayodele, Pan-Africanism and Nationalism in West Africa, 1900-1945 (Oxford, 1973), chapter 8Google Scholar; and, or course, Nnamdi Azikiwe's own publications: Renascent Africa (London, 1937)Google Scholar, and My Odyssey: An Autobiography of Nnambi Azikiwe (London, 1970).Google Scholar Via these sources, Azikiwe's influence on the historiography of coastal politics between 1934 and 1937 has been substantial.

16. Danquah's Times of West Africa, edited by K. M. Stewart, contained some vitriolic attacks on the ‘Azikiwism’ of the African Morning Post in the first quarter of 1935, e.g., 9 February 1935, 14 February 1935, 16 March 1935. While these bear the hallmarks of a ‘tabloid’ circulation war (which Zik won), particularly evident were the attacks on Danquah's links with “Akim Abuakwa” and the rejection of Azikiwe's efforts to peddle ‘myth’ rather than ‘history.’ Thus, “Ethiopia geographically speaking, is merely that piece of country representing Abyssinia today. The meaningless phrase, ‘Ethiopia shall stretch forth her hands’ sounds good and should appeal to all Italians who should be warned against this prophecy.”

17. E.g., the Nationalist Literary Club and the Christiansborg Reformers Club: Times of West Africa, 21 January 1935, 25 March 1935.

18. K. A. B. Jones-Quartey's lectures at the University of Edinburgh in 1972, as quoted in Basil Davidson, Black Star. A View of the Life and Times of Kwame Nkrumah (London, 1973), 29.Google Scholar Jones-Quartey was recruited as a young reporter for the Post in 1935 by Azikiwe, who was also instrumental in his later choice of the USA for his university career. Azikiwe, , My Odyssey, 255-56, 276.Google Scholar

19. Ofosu-Appiah, L. H., Life and Times, 63Google Scholar; Ghana Who's Who, 1972-73 (Accra, 1973)Google Scholar; “Letters,” 13 December 1985.

20. Langley, , Pan-Africanism, 331.Google Scholar

21. For K. M. Stewart, R. B. Wuta-Ofei, editor of Ocansey's Gold Coast Spectator; Jones-Quartey and Ako Adjei, see notes 16 and 18 above; Azikiwe, , My Odyssey, 258-59, 276Google Scholar; Ofosu-Appiah, , Life and Times, 64–65.Google Scholar

22. Buckman—land surveyor, architect, valuer, and sign-painter—was a founder member (with Ocansey, Danquah, and Sekyi) of the West African Youth Association of 1931, which, according to S. K. B. Asante, supported the West African Youth League's boycott of Italian goods from October 1935. See Macmillan, A., The Red Book of West Africa (London, [1920]), 207Google Scholar; cf. Hutchison, C. F., The Pen-Pictures of Modern Africans and African Celebrities (London, ca. 1930)Google Scholar; Jenkins, R., “Gold Coasters Overseas, 1880-1919,” Immigrants and Minorities (1985), 46Google Scholar; West Africa, 6 February 1932; Asante, , Pan-African Protest, 136–37.Google Scholar Interestingly enough, W. E. F. Ward counted Buckman and his wife among the closest of his friends during his years in the Gold Coast.

23. The main sources for this and the following section include West Africa, 24 August 1935 (the text of which is partly quoted below); W. E. F. Ward, ABWMC; W. E. F. Ward to Rev. H. M. Grade, 5 October 1935 in Williams, Box 6, no. 33, ff. 267-79; “Letters,” 27 July 1975, 27 June 1978, 5 December 1985, 13 December 1985.

24. Unlike the content of his replies as quoted here (and see note 11 above) Ward has been able to recall (at intervals in the decade 1975-85) the interrogations with some clarity and feeling.

25. Dominions and Colonial Office Lists and “My Africa.” Ward was Director of Education, Mauritius, 1940-45; Deputy Educational Adviser, Colonial Office, 1945-56; Editor of the Advisory Committee's Overseas Education, 1946-63; “Letters,” 30 December 1985; Short History; Preface to the second edition of A History of the Gold Coast, under the new title of “Ghana,” (London, 1958), 11. It is not without a little irony that the only copy of ABWMC which I have been able to locate and examine was under controlled access in tlie Balme Library, University of Ghana, Legon.

26. E.g., Agbodeka, F., Achimota in the National Setting. A Unique Educational Experiment in West Africa (Accra, 1977)Google Scholar; Ward, W. E. F., Fraser of Trinity and Achimota (Accra, 1965)Google Scholar; Williams, C. Kingsley, Achimota. The Early Years (London, 1962)Google Scholar; Wraith, R., Guggisberg (Oxford, 1967).Google Scholar While these early studies provide authentic whiffs of tlie “ideal” and valuable insights into the interwar history of the college, my own sporadic research and the work of Roger Thomas (note 27 below) does suggest that an analytical history of Achimota has still to be attempted. It is clear that tlie influence of India and Sri Lanka on tlie formation of tlie College, its “ideal,” its interwar development, and the policies of its early hierarchy was far more significant than that of African-American colleges, such as Tuskegee, despite the weight of tlie assertions to the contrary (e.g., Foster, P., Educational and Social Change in Ghana [London, 1965]Google Scholar; Low, D. A., The Lion Rampant [London, 1973]).Google Scholar

27. Thomas, R. G., “Education in Northern Ghana, 1905-1940: A Study in Colonial Paradox,” IJAHS 7 (1975), 464–65.Google Scholar

28. Achimota was on trial as an autonomous institution from 1930 to 1933, before Fraser succeeded in securing legal confirmation from Whitehall and Accra in 1934. “The Achimota College and School Ordinance, Gold Coast Colony No. 2 of 1934” in Williams, Box 7, no. 21. Of the 16 members of the council, 5 were the Governor's appointees and 7 were to be Africans: 1 to be a member of the staff, elected by colleagues; 2 were to be elected by the Old Students' Association, and 4 were to be elected by the Council.

29. Anecdotal illustrations of expatriate animosity to Achimota and its staff are legion. Real insights into the nature and extent of “official” views from Accra and from Whitehall on the College as a center of subversive political propaganda can be found in Colonial Office Files, e.g., PRO CO96. 730/31228. An observation which seems to encapsulate tlie Achimota “problem” can be found in the memoir of Governor Alan Burns, whose “confidence [in the College] was severely shattered when I found no less [sic] than nine members of the that staff were conscientious objectors” on his arrival in the Gold Coast in 1941. Burns, , Colonial Civil Servant (London, 1949), 199.Google Scholar

30. Report of the Gold Coast Dept. of Education on the Achimota Training Classes for 1935 and Minutes of the 70th Meeting of the Advisory Committee for Education in tlie Colonies, in CMSGBI, Box 229, File E and PRO Misc No 397.

31. Times of West Africa, 1 January 1935; “My Africa,” 153-54; “Letters:” 13 December 1985, 30 December 1985.

32. The first four producers of a survey history were C. C. Reindorf, A. B. Ellis, J. B. Anaman, and W. W. Claridge.

33. “Letters:” 27 July 1975, 27 June 1978.

34. Ward's positive relationship with Azikiwe extended to visits to the offices of the Post and, much later in 1960, to an invitation to present a paper at the University of Nsukka in Nigeria. Ward, W. E. F., Fraser of Trinity, 232Google Scholar (note mistaken date of interview); Letters: 26 August 1975, 30 April 1978, 13 December 1985.

35. Danquah, J. B., “Ten Years of Achimota,” African Morning Post, 5-16 October 1937Google Scholar; J. B. Danquah to Rev. C. Kingsley Williams, 1 March 1938, and J. B. Danquah to Colonial Secretary, Accra, 2 August 1939 (on the Report of the College Inspectors of 1938) in Williams, Box 6, File 1, ff. 115-17, and File 39, ff. 318-30; “Letters:” 30 April 1978 (contains an account of a College debate in ca. 1937, chaired by Ward, on “The Making of the Achimota Mind,” in which Danquah accused him of teaching a history in which Africans were depicted as being “incapable of evolving civilization”); Danquah, J. B., “The Akan Claim to Origin from Ghana,” West African Review 26 (Dec. 1955), 1111.Google Scholar

36. Azikiwe, , Renascent Africa, 162.Google Scholar

37. Ward, W. E. F., “Preface to Second Edition,” Short History, iii.Google Scholar B. Y. Owusu was associated with the Cape Coast Historical Society, which had been formed in June 1934 and to which Owusu presented a paper, “The Rise of United Ashanti” in January 1935. The latter was published in the Society's first (and only) edition in October 1936. Its aims and focus of historical interest lay squarely within the old Cape Coast ‘school’ of Gold Coast historiography—a sharp contrast to the nationalist-pan-Africanist concerns evident in the “grilling” of Ward in Accra. See Transactions of the Cape Coast Historical Society 1 (1936), 3–35Google Scholar; “Cape Coast Historical Society papers,” Ghana National Archives, Accra, S.C. 3; “The Gold Coast Historical Society,” West African Review 17 (August 1946), 935Google Scholar; Jenkins, Ray, “Intellectuals Publication Outlets and ‘Past-Relationships:’ Observations on the Emergence of the Early Gold Coast-Ghanaian Historiography in the Cape Coast-Accra-Akropong Triangle” in Farias, /Barber, , Self-Assertion and Brokerage, 68–77.Google Scholar

38. Ward, , Short History of Ghana (7th ed.: London, 1957); idem., A History of Ghana (London, 1958).Google Scholar

39. Ward, W. E. F., Educating Young Nations (London, 1959), chapter 4Google Scholar; “My Africa,” 153-58; “Letters:” 30 December 1985; Fraser, Box 6, private letters, e.g., nos. 32 (February 1928), 74 (January 1933), 81-82 (January-March 1934). The flavor of Fraser's preoccupation has been captured in Ward, , Fraser, 228–29.Google Scholar

40. Azikiwe, , Renascent Africa, 86-87, 244–46.Google Scholar

41. For an extended discussion on Gold Coast historiographical traditions see Jenkins, Ray, “Gold Coast Historians and Their Pursuit of the Gold Coast Pasts, 1882-1917” (Ph.D., University of Birmingham, 1985).Google ScholarDanquah, J. B., The Akan Doctrine of God. A Fragment of Gold Coast Ethics and Religion (2d. ed.: London, 1968 [1947]), 185–86.Google Scholar The MS for a projected three-volume study was completed by Danquah in December 1940, but was destroyed by fire in 1941.

42. Azikiwe, , Renascent Africa, 90–91.Google Scholar On his skills as a ‘“political tightrope-walker” see Furlong, , “Azikiwe,” 449.Google Scholar

43. E.g., Van Sertima, Ivan, ed., Cheikh Anta Diop (Oxford, 1989)Google Scholar; Sertima, Van and Rashidi, R., African Presence in Early Asia (London, 1988).Google Scholar

44. On the nature and purpose of history in the Gold Coast-West African contexts see Ray Jenkins, notes 37 and 41 above.

45. The seriousness of these tensions within the coastal townships and within the provinces of the Colony should not be underestimated. Unlike Governors Shenton Thomas (1932-34) and Arnold Hodson (1934-41), some experienced and informed expatriates did not attribute the unrest exclusively to a handful of agitators. See, e.g., the Papers of Lieutenant-Colonel A. C. Duncan-Johnstone, Confidential Diaries: 3/1 27 February 1934, 3/3 18 December 1934, Mss. Afr. s. 593 (Rhodes House, Oxford); PRO CO96 703/31228; Williams, Private Letters, Box 3, F6 17 March 1934, 2 April 1934, 20 April 1934, and F 7 14 October 1934, 24 October 1934. Duncan-Johnstone, a veteran political officer whose smoldering criticisms of the Accra Secretariat, as Commissioner of the Central, and then the Western, Province of the Colony, in 1934, were delivered directly to the colonial Office in 1936. Williams' letters suggest—when checked against other evidence—that he maintained efficient political intelligence networks. These stretched from his Vice-Principal's office to local African circles (via his colleague and College Council staff member, K. Brakatu Ateko, who became a key political figure after 1945) and to friends in high places in London.

46. According to Ward, he had supported the right of a government to control publications (e.g., obscene literature) in principle, but strongly opposed the Gold Coast Bill. It failed to define “seditious” and, as a consequence, presented a Governor with a “blank cheque” to censor at will. “My Africa,” 159; “Letters:” 13 December 1985.

47. For the local protests and London Deputations against the Bill see Rhodie, Shaloff, and Asante, note 13 above.

48. Like Ward, Williams opposed the Bill, and for the same reasons. See Williams, note 45 above.

49. The following paragraph draws upon: Fraser, Box 6, nos. 32, 38, 65, 67, 72, 74, 81, 82; CMSGBI, Box 229, File 3; Williams, Box 4, File 13; PRO CO96 701/7153/1, 703/31228, 705/7306/1; Azikiwe, , My Odyssey, 279–80.Google Scholar

50. “Achimota Report for 1934” in Williams, Box 7, no 21. The African members included Nana Sir Ofori Atta, W. Ward Brew, L. McCarthy, K. Korsah, E. Asafu-Adjaye, and K. B. Ateko.

51. Azikiwe, , My Odyssey, 280–81.Google Scholar For a more recent appraisal of Achimota's staff recruitment policy, by an Old-Achimotan, see Agbodeka, , Achimota, 143–44.Google Scholar

52. E.g., Shaloff, S., “The Africanization Controversy in the Gold Coast, 1926-1946,” African Studies Review 17 (1974), 495–99.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

53. Note 19 above.

54. Azikiwe, , My Odyssey, 167.Google Scholar

55. Ofosu-Appiah, , Life and Times, 25.Google Scholar

56. Fraser, Private Correspondence, Box 4, File 1, f 161: J. H. Oldham to A. G. Fraser, 8 April 1926), Box 6, nos. 32 (February 1928), 72 (November 1932), 74 (January 1933), 81-82; (January-March 1934); Williams, Box 3, File 5, 5 October 1927, 24 December 1927, 30 April 1928, Box 4, File 10. In brief, Fraser, with his brother-in-law, J. H. Oldham, endorsed Danquah's application for Phelps-Stokes funding to attend a YMCA conference in Finland, and Williams had already met, and been quite impressed by, Danquah at the School of Oriental Studies in London. The cooling of their enthusiasm to appoint Danquah on his return to the Gold Coast may be attributed to one or several factors including: (a) the adverse response of the hierarchy to Danquah's personality and performance as a keynote speaker at the Annual Achimota Teachers' Conference in December 1927, and (b) Fraser's sudden enthusiasm for the Rev. C. B. Gati of the Ewe Presbyterian (formerly the Bremen Mission) church, who rejected the offer to assume Aggrey's post in April 1928. When Danquah's press attacks gained momentum after 1931, so did Fraser's private views that such criticisms were due to the earlier rejection of his application to succeed Aggrey. Ward has suggested that such views of the Principal were not always to be relied on after 1930—a suggestion which receives some confirmation in the Williams letters of the period).

57. Minutes of Meetings of the Advisory Committee on Education in the Colonies, nos. 42-62, 16 February 1933-19 September 1935, PRO Misc No. 397; Directives to and from the Governors of the Gold Coast, Ghana National Archives, Accra, CSO 272/34 and 19/37; Colonial Review 1 (1939), 22–23Google Scholar; Cowan, E. T., “Teaching History in Nigeria, 1914-67,” (M.A., University of Birmingham, 1980), 47–55.Google Scholar Adu Boahen assured me that Ward's Gold Coast History was regarded as a text for junior children, while Batten's imperial West African History was the book for senior students who were engaged in the serious business of passing examinations.