Bossism: Kwame Nkrumah’s Style

The destiny of Ghana has been a paradoxical one. The country the British have praised for having produced capable, honest administrators and technicians was suffering from mismanagement, corruption, and plain and obvious administrative malfunctioning on the eve of the February coup d’etat. The country that had the potential for an effectively functioning democracy—Western style—was, in Conor Cruise O’Brien’s terminology, in the hands of “party demagogues” and “yes-men,” “often with socialist slogans in their mouths and contractors’ money in their pockets.” The most capable and most honest civil servants and technicians fled the country to avoid succumbing to Nkrumahist policies and tactics. In the jargon of the Osagyefo (the Liberator, Redeemer), Ghana continued to experience “negative development,” because of the prevalence and predominance of “negative action” over “positive action.”...