Oliver Barker-Vormawor, a private legal practitioner, has tackled broadcaster Paul Adom-Otchere, mounting a strong defence for Ghana’s first President, Osagyefo Dr Kwame Nkrumah.
Paul Adom-Otchere, over the weekend on JoyNews, detailed his claim that the terrible things Kwame Nkrumah did, which, according to him, warranted his overthrow in 1966.
He claimed that Nkrumah’s amendment of the Constitution of Ghana to make himself a lifetime president of Ghana, also changed the national flag of Ghana to his party flag and prosecuted his political opponents.
Oliver Barker-Vormawor, in a series of posts shared on Facebook, debunked Paul Adom-Otchere’s claims.
He wrote, “The first daft claim by Paul Adom Otchere is that Nkrumah’s name was written in the 1960 Constitution. So that’s proof that Nkrumah was a life-term president. How very daft. If you know anything about the context of the 1960 Constitution, you would know that the referendum to adopt the 1960 Constitution was held together with the first-ever presidential elections in 1960.
“Nkrumah got 89.07% of the votes. JB Danquah got 10.93%. Now, the draft Constitution made provision for a clause to indicate the name of the first president who would be elected under it, when the draft was being finalised after the referendum. Meaning that if JB Danquah, a candidate as popular as Hassan Ayariga is today, had won that election, his name would have been written in the clause for First President,” Barker-Vormawor wrote.
Oliver Barker-Vormawor added, “Under the 1960 Constitution, the President’s term was limited to five years. This was linked to the life-term of Parliament. In fact, it could even be shorter, because in true Westminster format, the President (Prime Minister under British tradition) could dissolve Parliament earlier and call for early general elections. If that happened, the President’s term of office also ended. See Articles 11(1)(a) and 23(2) of the 1960 Constitution”.
“The big defect of the 1960 Constitution was that, in switching over from the Prime Minister to President, we did not put in place a Vice President; and so there was no mechanism for executive transition in case the president died or resigned his office. To cure this, the 1964 Constitution created a Presidential Commission, which would take over after the President was no longer in office. So, in fact, the 1964 amendments rather fixed a problem in the 1960 Constitution,” Barker-Vormawor wrote.
He added, “Here is the biggest shocker. The 1964 amendment rather gave Parliament the power to impeach the President by resolution on grounds of incapacity or medical infirmity. This did not exist in 1960. Listen, so rather than make Nkrumah a life-term president, it actually gave Parliament the power to remove him. Refer to Section 08 of the amendment which introduced Article 18 of the 1960 Constitution as amended.”
Also, Barker-Vormawor debunked claims that Kwame Nkrumah replaced the flag of Ghana with the flag of the CPP.
“Please, when people tell you that we changed the flag to CPP’s flag, the first reasonable question one should be asking is, ‘What was CPP’s flag at the time?’ They won’t know the answer. But I will help you. The CPP’s flag since 1948, when the party was founded, was plain white with a red cockerel in the middle.
“How is red, white and green with a black star in the middle the same as a white flag with a red cockerel in the middle?” he quizzed.
His comment follows Paul Adom-Otchere, who stated that Ghana’s first President, Dr Kwame Nkrumah, was a tyrant and terrible for Ghana.
The renowned broadcaster made these claims while commenting on the Kotoka International Airport name change debate as political score-settling.
Paul Adom-Otchere revisited Ghana’s history to justify why Kotoka was honoured, arguing that he played a heroic role at a time, he says, when Kwame Nkrumah had become a despot.
According to Paul Adom Otchere, Kotoka was a ‘rescuer’ for overthrowing Nkrumah’s despotism.
Speaking on JoyNews’ NewsFile, Paul Adom-Otchere highlighted that Ghanaians must know that the first president did some very bad things, which forced Kotoka to overthrow him.
Adom-Otchere added, “What we would like Ghanaians to see. And at the end of the day, the government will make its decision, and then we will have to decide whether it’s a political decision that we vote on the next time, or whatever we do.
“But we cannot ignore history. We have to make obeisance to history. The history is that from 1960 up to the time Nkrumah was overthrown in 1966, he was a despot. He was not good for Ghana. He was terrible for Ghana,” he said.
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