Tradition and Transformation: Democracy and The Politics of Popular Power in Ghana by Maxwell Owusu

Tradition and Transformation: Democracy and the Politics of Popular Power in Ghana
Author(s): Maxwell Owusu

Source: The Journal of Modern African Studies, Vol. 34, No. 2 (Jun., 1996), pp. 307-343
Published by: Cambridge University Press
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The Journalof ModernAfricanStudies,34, 2 (I996), pp. 307-343
Copyright C I996 Cambridge University Press
Tradition and Transformation:

Democracy and the Politics of
Popular Power in Ghana
by MAXWELL OWUSU*
IN April I992, after nearly i i years of military rule in Ghana, a draft

democratic constitution of the Fourth Republic was overwhelmingly
approved in a national referendum.' The ban on multi-party politics
was lifted by the Provisional National Defence Council (PNDC)
Government in the following month. An independent interim National
Electoral Commission was established, and a hotly contested presi-
dential election in 200 constituencies monitored by teams of in-
ternational observers was held in November I992. After multi-party
parliamentary elections to the National Assembly, boycotted unfor-
tunately by opposition groups, the democratically elected Government
of Ghana's Fourth Republic was inaugurated in January I993.2
This is not the place for a critical and comprehensive account of the
PNDC regime, which would need to analyse a variety of setbacks and
achievements, albeit in more detail and at greater length than is
feasible here.3 This article focuses on an important aspect of the 3Ist
December i 98I revolution: namely, the place of 'tradition' and
'traditionalism', which is generally neglected or not paid the close and
systematic attention that it deserves, but without which much of what
has been written about the revolution and the transition from military
rule to constitutional democracy cannot be fully appreciated.
* Professorof Anthropology, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor.

1 Maxwell Owusu, 'Democracy and Africa - a View from the Village', in TheJournalof Modern
AfricanStudies(Cambridge), 30, 3, September 1992, pp. 369-96.
2 Richard Jeifries and Clare Thomas, 'The Ghanaian Elections of 1992', in AfricanAffairs
(London), 92, 368, July 1993, pp. 33i-66.
3 See, for example, E. Gyimah-Boadi (ed.), Ghana Under PNDC Rule (Dakar, I993), and
Maxwell Owusu, 'Government and Politics', in L. Berry (ed.), Ghana:a country
study(Washington,
DC, I 995). Also, Victoria Brittain, 'Ghana's Precarious Revolution', in New Left Review
(London), 140, July-August I983, pp. 5o-6i; Baffour Agyeman-Duah, 'Ghana, 1982-6: the
politics of the P.N.D.C.', in The Journal of ModernAfrican Studies, 25, 4, December I987,
pp. 6I3-42; and James C. W. Ahiakpor, 'Rawlings, Economic Policy Reform, and the Poor:
consistency or betrayal?', in ibid. 29, 4, December 1991, pp. 583-600.
308 MAXWELL OWUSU
TRADITION AS REVOLUTION
I would contend that ' tradition', notably 'chieftaincy' and the

values and ideals embodied in that institution, influenced popular
reaction to the rhetoric of the PNDC revolution, to the point of
controlling its major themes - social justice, public accountability,
probity, and people power. The focus on Ghana's cultural and political
heritage is meant to correct and provide context for interpretations of
the revolution based on assumptions about the politics of ideology,
either of the 'left' or of the ' right', thus underestimating the pervasive
influence of 'tradition' and 'traditionalism '.' The latter is a powerful
force in Ghanaian politics, and should be the starting point of any
serious analysis, especially of a revolution that aimed to empower the
great mass of citizens from the grassroots up - farmers, fishermen,
soldiers, workers, rich and poor -and unite them around the core
values of discipline, service to the community, patriotism, and
participatory democracy.
The revolution was intended to unite not divide Ghanaians. It was
to give effective political representation to the average man and
woman whose interests were frequently misrepresented or unrep-
resented, even abused by corrupt soldiers and multi-party politicians.
From the available evidence, it is reasonable to conclude that PNDC
'populism' revived a process of genuine democratic change, with roots
deep in Ghanaian history, which was thus more endogenous and less
radical than originally conceived by the regime's 'leftist' friends, but
clearly better adapted to local culture and -circumstances. The piece de
resistanceof this project was, of course, decentralization embodied in a
new system of local government based on freely elected non-partisan
district assemblies.
The notable democratic vision which led to the formation of Peoples
Defence Committees (PDCs) and Workers Defence Committees
(WDCs) as the bedrock of 'people power' was quickly undermined by
their rash and cynical campaign of unprovoked attacks against so-
called 'enemies of the revolution'. The beatings, fines, extortions, and
detentions of so many innocent citizens, including elders, threatened
the acceptance of the revolution by the general public which considered
PDC/WDC atrocities as un-Ghanaianand clearly undemocratic.
Again, instead of fostering true representation of all the people,
crucial to every modern democratic aspiration and experience, the
andsociety(London and Boulder, i 986).

4 For example, Donald I. Ray, Ghana:politics,economics
TRADITION AND TRANSFORMATION IN GHANA 309
PDCs/WDCs were in danger of fast becoming an exercise in exclusion,
rather than inclusion as originally proclaimed by Jerry Rawlings. The
decision taken by the PNDC in late I984 that they should be abolished
and replaced with Committees for the Defence of the Revolution
(CDRs) was a timely and courageous recognition of the serious threat
to the struggle for true democracy posed by the PDCs/WDCs as then
constituted.
The preamble to the i986 CDR Guidelines stated explicitly that the
effective functioning of the new committees was 'crucial to the
advancement of the Revolution', and that required 'a tolerant attitude
to all groups of the society that could be part of the process without
compromising our revolutionary principles, aims and objectives'.
Membership was open to all citizens of Ghana who were prepared to
uphold and defend the basic objectives of the national democratic
revolution. Indeed, 'the totality of the membership of a community or
work-place are eligible for CDR membership', except for (i) those 'who
opt out because they do not wish to participate', and (ii) 'those who are
rejected by the majority as lacking integrity, patriotism and genuine
concern for their countrymen and women'.5
Dismantlingthe ThirdRepublic
Following a successful coupd'etat come-back on New Year's Eve I 98 I,
Rawlings and his PNDC embarked on a strategy designed to
rehabilitate the declining and stagnating economy, and to restructure
the society and polity in favour of genuine democracy. Among its
objectives, the self-proclaimed 'revolution' was to replace 'the bottom
power' of big market women and their accomplices, as well as the
corrupt power wielded by politicians and by the ubiquitous black-
marketers roaming the streets of urban centres and major cities, with
'people power'. This would spell the doom of rampant, endemic
corruption, economic shortages, runaway inflation, and the ills that
characterised the Third Republic.
It must be recalled that when the 32-year old Rawlings first seized
power in I979 after the uprising of 4 June by junior military officers,
and installed the short-lived Armed Forces Revolutionary Council
(AFRC), the new regime wasted no time in executing eight senior army
officers, including two former Heads of State (Generals Ignatius Kutu
5 CDR Guidelines(Accra, i986), pp. I and 3.

31O MAXWELL OWUSU
Acheampong and Frederick W. K. Akuffo), confiscated land and other

property acquired illegally or through corrupt practices, and impri-
soned dishonest officials. His firm and often ruthless manner in dealing
with corruption (public and private) and abuse of power enjoyed
widespread popular support, especially among the urban and rural
poor. The measures imposed by the AFRC meant that initially some
economic hardships were seemingly and artificially reduced as
consumer goods, which had been hoarded by would-be profiteers,
became readily available in the shops and markets, and as prices fell
through the enforcement of price-controls and compulsory sales,
supervised by military officers.
Accordingly, in handing over power to the elected People's National
Party (PNP) Government in September I 979, Flight-Lieutenant
Rawlings gave a stern warning to the new civilian administration to
avoid corruption and complacency, and to take effective measures to
arrest the economic decline and improve the welfare of Ghanaians.
Thereafter, President Hilla Limann not only politely congratulated the
Chairman of the outgoing AFRC and his 'gallant colleagues' for
conducting the general elections and organising the activities which led
to the birth of the Third Republic, but commended them for their
'efforts, selfless devotion and sincerity of purpose'. What is even more
important, given its implication for the subsequent evolution of
democracy, was Limann's assurance to all Ghanaians that 'guided by
the lessons drawn from the events since June I979' (when the corrupt
Supreme Military Council II headed by Akuffo was overthrown), he
would be firm in his ' commitment to open and clean government based
on participatory democracy at all levels'. 6
Ironically, the PNP administration was ousted in part for its failure
to implement this political pledge, as well as its inability to check
inflation and economic stagnation. For Rawlings, what took place on
3' December i98i was 'the culmination of the spirit ofJune 4, I979'
when, according to him, 'true and genuine democratic foundations
finally began to take roots in Ghana'.7
6 Hilla Limann, Democracy

and Ghana(London, I983), p. 124.
7Jerry J. Rawlings, TheProcessof Consolidation. andInterviews
SelectedSpeeches of Flt-Lt.JerryJohn
Rawlings,Chairmanof the PADC, Januaryi, 1984-December 31, 1984, Vol. 3 (Accra, Information
Services Department, I984), pp. Io-s.
TRADITION AND TRANSFORMATION IN GHANA 3I I
THE JUNE 4 NEMESIS?
Given that the charismatic Flight-Lieutenant still commanded large

and growing popular support, it is perhaps not surprising that he was
retired from the Ghana Airforce within two months of Limann
becoming President. Thereafter Rawlings became the target of a
massive propaganda campaign aimed at undermining his popularity,
while members of the police special branch and military intelligence
began to intimidate his close associates and friends. Meetings at which
Rawlings was frequently the main speaker and principal attraction
were routinely disrupted, sometimes on the baseless grounds (since
there was no such law) that the organisers had no police permit to hold
such functions. C. K. Asher, editor of The Palaver (Accra) and a close
friend of the late General Acheampong, used his weekly tabloid to
repeatedly vilify and tarnish the image of Rawlings, and similar attacks
appeared in the state-owned media. However, this campaign was so
badly handled that it greatly increased the popularity of, and sympathy
for, the very man who was being denounced.
Rawlings openly challenged in i98i the moral if not the consti-
tutional basis of the Limann administration in order to mark the
second anniversary of the June 4 uprising. His undeniably patriotic
address revealed justifiable anger and frustration at the political and
socio-economic drift of Ghana, and included reasons why emerging
reform measures and actions had to be taken to arrest the country's
economic stagnation and hopeless decline, an urgent need which was
clearly not being met by the democratically elected national lead-
ership.8
In the end, it was the political in-fighting and bickering, not to
mention the sheer inexperience, incompetence, lack of courage and
resolve of the PNP administration, and its mismanagement of the
economy, that forced Rawlings and his supporters to move decisively
against the PNP regime. The calamitous effects of the food crisis on
urban and rural populations increasingly assumed the dimensions of
a 'ntamkese' (great oath) to the more traditional Akan people, and
allusions to 'okom' (hunger) were becoming a 'ritual taboo'. The full
impact of the situation can only be grasped by relating food prices to
the current earnings of the fortunate minority who had regular wage
employment. As Emmanuel Hansen graphically indicated for Accra:
8 See Maxwell Owusu, 'Current Socioeconomic Situation: what is to be done', in The Daily
Graphic(Accra), 27 June I 980, pp. 4-5.
312 MAXWELL OWUSU
At the current price of labour at 40 (forty) cedis per day [one US dollar =
2-75 cedis], for those lucky enough to find any wage employment, it would
take the worker more than a week to buy an American tin of rice (3 kg), more
than a day to buy 3 kg of maize, ten days to buy a tuber of yam, over ten days
to buy a bottle of edible oil [one pint], more than a day to buy an American
tin of garri (cassava grains). One finger of plantain costs more than half a day's
wages, and one egg costs a little over one-third of a day's wage... The plain
fact is that most people count themselveslucky to have one square meal a day.9
The considerable negative impact of' hunger' on morality, morale, and
economic productivity was evident everywhere. Without cash many
reverted to a more primitive mode of foraging for survival. Indeed, the
fact that Ghanaians could keep alive at all with some dignity earned
them the unenviable title among West Africans of 'magicians'.
In retrospect, it was the fiery simplicity and clarity of the speech
made by Rawlings on 4 June I 98 I that portended the fall of the Third
Republic and the rise of the decade-long PNDC rule. It is thus an
important document that deserves to be quoted at some length.
Rawlings began by referring to 'The wild allegations about some of us
setting up training camps for subversion when we have been engaged
in directing creative youthful energies into productive agriculture':
Through such false allegations some soldiers have been thrown out of their
lifetime jobs, dumped into jails without trial for months and finally booted
from their quarters without the slightest justification... they are prevented
from getting or chased out of any public job in civil life... Last year... I
requested Parliament to hear these soldiers out. This has not been heeded.
Instead these acts of violence have been intensified and... efforts are being
made to sow seeds of dissension among soldiers. There has been a resort to
tribal campaigns within the army... It has become a crime to demand justice
in a so-called democratic country, and the media have been used to invent and
spread lies upon lies...
Rawlings went on to stress that the very first article of the constitution
was 'affirming something that was fundamental to the June 4th
revolution'; namely, 'that the sovereignty of Ghana resides in the
people', and that this 'meant the whole people, not a selected few, not
exploiters, foreign or local, or even philanthropists, not even our elected
representatives, for all are ultimately accountable to the people'.
Given the conditions that the productive majority face these days - the high
cost of living, the state of the roads and railways, the conditions in hospitals
- and the high hopes that had accompanied the promulgation of the new
9 Emmanuel Hansen, 'The State and Food Agriculture', in Hansen and Kwame A. Ninsin
andPoliticsin Ghana(London, i989), p. i96.
(eds.), The State,Development
Constitution and the hand-over, it is disheartening to observe how the elected

representativesof the people are responding to the plight of the ordinary man.
How come Parliament can sometimes not obtain a quorum when its members
are paid (or rather overpaid) on a full time basis? How can we claim that
things are getting better or that we have indeed achieved democracy that we
aspire to ? ... Day in day out so many of our people leave for 'Agege' [a shanty-
town outside Lagos] or other neighbouring countries or even farther to Britain
or America to seek escape from the deprivations of the homeland. The skills
of artisans, teachers, engineers, architects, washermen, footballers and many
others are thus being lost to this country and for those who remain, the tension
of survival mounts to the point of suicide. When is Parliament going to ensure
medical and health facilities for all persons and the measures to improve the
environment that the Constitution promises?
. Many people are beginning to feel that political parties only profess an
interest in the people when it is voting time only to abandon them in between
elections. Meanwhile the rich patrons of these parties are desperate to reap the
harvest of what they invested in winning power and constantly use their
position for profitable deals.
The instrumental view of electoral party politics is as old as the
independence of Ghana, and indeed, formed an essential element of my
thesis on the uses and abuses of political power.10
As regards the forthcoming registration of voters for all Ghanaian
citizens I 8 years of age and above, Rawlings pointed out that they
'have become cynical of exercising their right to vote only to find that
there is a wider gulf between them and their elected representatives'.
While urging all those qualified under the Constitution to register as
voters - for that 'is the first step in a gigantic struggle not only for
political democracy but also for economic democracy and social
justice' - Rawlings warned that 'Workers, soldiers, farmers, policemen,
teachers, students must all realize that they cannot expect to have their
needs attended to simply because there is a constitution or simply
because civilians are ruling and not soldiers.' And he proceeded to
remind Ghanaians that 'In the history of this country we have seen the
capacity of civilians too to flout the very Constitution and deny the
most elementary rights to the people'. Clearly constitutionalism and
democracy are not necessarily synonymous.
Accordingly, Rawlings called upon ordinary people to constantly
struggle 'to ensure that the ideals enshrined in the constitution are
applied to their situation', a concept that has remained the basis of his
democratic practice and his populist project. For, as he put it:
10
Maxwell Owusu, Uses and Abusesof PoliticalPower: a casestudyof continuityand changein the
politicsof Ghana(Chicago and London, I970).
3I4 MAXWELL OWUSU
sucess in that struggle will require the initiative of workers themselves to

organize effectively the forces of progress to create a common platform with
the students, farmers,progressiveintellectuals and other patriots and to ensure
that victory is not wrenched from their hands ...
For myself, I am ready for whatever sacrifices are required in such a struggle
for a better life for our people, and I will forever work with, and be at the
disposal of the people who share that common cause ... There are some in this
society who resent the initiatives of working people, who are frightened of the
prospects of real democracy... The possibility of grassroots democracy was
demonstrated during the June 4th era by the Committees that emerged from
within various working groups ...
Unfortunately, in the three and a half months that the Armed Forces
Revolutionary Council gave itself we could not expect to achieve the wholly
new society that we cherished. I have no doubt we made mistakes and that
there were many unfinished tasks. But at least we provided some corrective to
earlier abuses of military rule ... May we point out to the enemies of the people
a very vital lesson of June 4th that clearly has not registered in their minds.
Quoting a well-known Ghanaian proverb concerning human greed,

Rawlings pointed out that 'it was the monkey's refusal to pick one nut
at a time out of the gourd that led to his downfall', and ended by
recalling the words ofJohn F. Kennedy, the former US President, that
'Those who make a peaceful revolution impossible make a violent
revolution inevitable'.11
UNFINISHED REVOLUTION, DEMOCRACY, AND PNDC RULE
But did the policy mistakes, incompetence, constitutional abuses,

and corruption of the PNP administration make the 3ist December
i98i revolution inevitable (even a necessary evil), and an essential
aspect of the struggle for genuine democracy? On the evidence of
numerous publications on the PNDC period, the answer given to this
question will raise some serious objections and continue to evoke
acrimonious debate. For as Thomas Cooke has rightly noted, 'No
government has ... aroused so much passion, and induced the formation
of so many [opposition] groups ... as the Provisional National Defence
Council'.12 A measured anti-coup position was well summarised by
Kenneth Mackenzie in his introduction to a book of selected speeches
" The Believer(Accra), io June i98i, pp. I and 4. See Jerry Rawlings, 'Interview with
Christian Tagoe', reproduced in GhanaBar Bulletin(Accra), i June I 988, pp. 56-6 i, and 'Address
at the Opening Session of the National Commission for Democracy Seminar, Sunyani, 5thJuly',
reprinted in HomeFrontGhanaianNewsand Views(Accra, Information Services Department, I 990).
12 Thomas Cooke, 'Passion for Politics', in WestAfrica (London), 27 April i987, p. 798.
TRADITION AND TRANSFORMATION IN GHANA 3I5
of President Limann published in I 983, and presented as an indictment

of the military 'for their unconstitutional and morally unjustified act in
taking power from the elected representatives of the Ghanaian people':
If the government [of the Third Republic] was failing to solve the problems
of Ghana... then the people would soon have had an opportunity at an
election to have rejected the Limann government and chosen an alternative.
If there were provable instances of corruption and malfeasance, then there
were processes of impeachment and trial available.
Mackenzie points out that Limann repeatedly committed himself 'to
accepting the rule of law and the verdict of democracy', and that 'The
military seizure of power is a rejection of both these concepts. Flight-
Lieutenant Rawlings claims to speak for the people but his only
qualifications are that he has the power of the gun behind him'.
Mackenzie was convinced, I think mistakenly, that Rawlings and his
associates 'have different ideas' from those held by the Limann
administration and the Ghanaian public, albeit concluding, perhaps
inevitably, that 'whether they will succeed in allevitating the economic
hardships of the Ghanaians (or in effectively containing corruption), or
whether their coming will prove the "unmitigated disaster" predicted
by Dr. Limann only the future will reveal'.13
Whatever one's view of the 3ist December i98i revolution, it
certainly had profound long-term implications for the country's socio-
economic and political transformation. In truth, much of the credit for
the relatively peaceful transition to constitutional democracy and the
Fourth Republic clearly goes (i) to the patience and proverbial good-
naturedness of the great majority of ordinary Ghanaians, who,
exhausted by economic failure, coups and counter-coups, were never
more united in their demand for a stable, democratic, and rep-
resentative government; (ii) to the pragmatism, patriotism, and
shrewd responsible leadership of Rawlings and the PNDC, who did not
hesitate to adjust and adapt the 'revolution' to the new and changing
realities of both the international and domestic environments; and
finally, (iii) to the farsighted resolve of the opposition to the PNDC not
only to push for democracy, but also to make the transition relatively
peaceful and work hopefully to their advantage, and in the national
interest.
I would contend that once allowances are made for the ambition,
opportunism, and time-serving found in 'normal' struggles for political
power everywhere, the intense rivalty between the PNDC and the
13 Kenneth Mackenzie, 'Introduction', in Limann, op. cit. pp. ix and xiii.

316 MAXWELL OWUSU
opposition was largely between groups and individuals who basically

resembled each other more than they would care to admit on most, if
not all, the key issues; namely, democracy, liberalism, equality, and a
better standard of living as understood by ordinary Ghanaians.
The Povertyof Ideology

Too much has been made, especially by Marxist writers, of the
divisive and nasty struggle for power and control between 'left' and
'right', 'progressives' and 'conservatives', 'radicals' and 'reaction-
aries', both within and outside the PNDC, in Ghana's protracted
transition from military rule to parliamentary democracy. Many of the
so-called 'leftists' on close examination turn out to be ' tribalists' more
concerned with ethnic and regional interests. Terms like 'left' and
'right', derived as they often are from theories or assumptions about
'class conflict', thwart and distort real understanding of the factors that
shape and direct contemporary Ghanaian politics. Indeed, to charac-
terise particular regimes as 'left-wing' (Nkrumah's and the PNP) or
'right-wing' (Busia's and the NLC) without some serious qualification,
is not only misleading but, more importantly, ignores the reasons why
the masses were attracted or opposed to these regimes. Such analyses
misinterpret the true nature of national movements and mobilisation
for political and economic reform.14
The intelligentsia and those exposed to the political phraseology that
had arisen out of industrialised Europe much earlier this century may
indulge in the make-believe, however ill-advised, that a 'socialist'
revolution was needed and possible, ignoring totally the nature and
character of Ghanaian nationalism, political culture, and traditions,
including the sources of political legitimation in the wider society.15 To
most Ghanaians, it must be stressed, terms like 'left' and 'right' are
abstractions, the inventions, however useful, of the highly educated
'booklong' that ill apply to local circumstances. They are not part of
everyday political vocabulary.'6
14
For example, Ray, op. cit. and Zaya Yeebo, Ghana:thestrugglefor popularpower.Rawlings:
(London,i99i).
ordemagogue?
saviour
15 See Maxwell Owusu, 'Custom and Coups: a juridical interpretation of civil order and
disorder in Ghana', in The Journalof ModernAfricanStudies,24, i, March i986, pp. 69-.99, and
Studies
'Rebellion, Revolution and Tradition: reinterpretation of coups in Ghana', in Comparative
in Societyand History(Cambridge), 31, 2, April i989, pp. 372-97.
16 See James C. W. Ahiakpor, 'Recognizing " Left " from " Right " in Ghana: a comment on
Ninsin', in CanadianJournalof AfricanStudies(Toronto), 22, I, i988, pp. I32-6, and Kwame A.

Ninsin, 'Recognising Left and Right in Ghanaian Politics: a reply to Ahiakpor', in ibid.
pp. I37-9.
TRADITION AND TRANSFORMATION IN GHANA 3I 7
There is evidence that 'classes' (as occupational or income groups)

do indeed exist in Ghana, and that workers and farmers have organised
and agitated for better wages and conditions, as well as against
burdensome taxation, or in favour of better prices for their produce.17
But Margaret Peil found in her classic study of factory workers that 'the
industrially or technologically based norms claimed to be present in
modern societies are largely absent in Ghana and there are, instead,
other norms to which workers are expected to respond'. She gives, as
example of this, that a Ghanaian 'may leave his job because he has
inherited a traditional position... or because his relatives think he
should be doing some other type of work'.18
Most politically aware Ghanaians, as followers or supporters of the
past views and/or continuing traditions of Kwame Nkrumah, Dr J. B.
Danquah and Kofi Busia, or Rawlings, are seldom concerned about
differences between 'left' and 'right', let alone 'socialism' and
' capitalism'. In fact, a majority of the population consider the latter as
some kind of Ghanaian institution, almost in the same way as
'chieftaincy' is taken for granted. Many hold strong views on political
leaders as personalities, who have different ethnic, professional, edu-
cational, socio-economic origins, and varying charisma; all seek
improvements in their general welfare and standard of living (as do
people everywhere); and most are quick to respond to local issues like
disputes about chieftaincy and development, or national questions that
directly affect them or members of their community. Our political
language and analysis has to try to capture such complex historical and
ethnographic realities.
MAKING SENSE OF THE 'REVOLUTION
To thousands of his supporters in the early days of the 'revolution',

Rawlings was known as 'Junior Jesus ', a young 'messiah' embarked on
a timely and necessary 'holy war' to save them and the nation from
economic gloom and doom. To his enemies he was 'Junior Judas'. The
3ISt December revolution was first and foremost a crusade against the
destruction of the moral fibre of Ghana as a nation: against ill-gotten
gains, misappropriation, embezzlement, maladministration, social
17 See Polly Hill, Studiesin Rural Capitalismin WestAfrica (Cambridge, I970); Margaret Peil,
The GhanaianFactoryWorker:industrialmanin Africa (Cambridge, I972) ; Richard Jeffries, Class,
Powerand Ideologyin Ghana: the railwaymenof Sekondi(Cambridge, I978); and Piet Konings, The
Stateand RuralClassFormationin Ghana:a comparative analysis(London, i986).
1
Peil, op. Cit. p. 23 I.
3V8 MAXWELL OWUSU
injustice, and lack of accountability among the most influential groups

and within the dominant institutions of society, notably the govern-
ment, the judiciary, the police, and the church.
There was a time that Rawlings had wanted to become a priest, and
according to an interview given to Jeune Afrique (Paris) in i982, he had
been inspired by the leadership of Jesus Christ, described as 'a
fighter... who proved that violence is sometimes necessary' to change
people and their evil ways. He went on to claim that his own
' revolution' aimed to sweep away, with popular support and initiative,
' All that is filth, all that is unclean, all that is corrupt' and to curb 'the
greed of the dominant group', and restore 'the strong, powerful and
pure' national character.19 As reported by Martin Meredith and
Cameron Duodu, there is no doubt that Rawlings appeared to have
Can almost fanatical belief that corruption is at the root of all Ghana's
problems', and that 'if only it could be stamped out the country would
once again be prosperous'.20
Ironically, the man ousted by Rawlings held similar views about the
dynamics of Ghanaian politics and democratic change. According to
Limann, the manifesto of the PNP meant that this Nkrumahist,
national grassroots party, 'accommodates the widest cross-section of
our society, each with his or her personal aspirations, expectations, and
needs':
Our membership... traverses the diverse concepts of our people as to what
constitutes the ultimate good life, and the path that leads to that good life.
Thus on the wings are the extremes of the left and the right which are always
thinner in every national political party. The bulge in the middle embraces by
far the largest number of the members of our party, no less than the largest
number of people of Ghana who can be reached only by the adoption of
policies and programmes which meet their aspirations.
This was so because the PNP spanned the whole range of political
ideas, and as a mass party embraced 'peasant farmers, workers,
fishermen, professionals, chiefs, members of various religious creeds and
so on'.21 These were the same sources from which Rawlings and the
PNDC drew enthusiastic support.
A similar view concerning the nature and membership of the
'revolution' was expressed by P. V. Obeng, chairman of the Committee
19 Daily Graphic,27 May i982, p. 3.

20 Martin Meredith and Cameron Duodu, 'Ghana Preparesfor People Power Mark II', in The
SundayTimes (London), i o January I 982, p. 9.
21 LimannSpeaksthe Way Ahead.Addressby His Excellency PresidentHilla Limannat the Annual
Congressof thePeople'sNationalParty(29thMay to ist June, ig80) at thePrempehAssemblyHall, Kumasi
(Accra, i980), pp. 24-5.
of Secretaries of the PNDC, in an interview given to a Cuban magazine

in I989:
the revolutionary core had been a configuration of forces, some progressive,
nationalist or whatever, agreeing mainly on what Ghana must be and
sometimes not on the means to achieve it and trying to maintain this in the
interest of national unity to reduce the extent of internal strife. These are the
challenges and difficulties and the constraints we are facing.
... the non-violent nature of the 3 I st December I 98 I revolution means that the
transformation process was not going to be a complete 'destroy and
rebuild'... it was destroy part, rebuild part, transform. That builds up a
certain amount of internal contradiction if you're not able to balance the
forces properly.22
THE PARADOX OF CHANGE
The contradictions and paradoxes of change that characterized the

revolutionary process from its inception in a small, dependent,
capitalist, ex-colonial country, with a proud and vibrant cultural
heritage, were illustrated by the outlook and behaviour of a fairly well-
to-do Fante who I interviewed in the Central Region in early i982.
This septuagenarian farmer, with no political party affiliation, frank in
the manner of senior citizens, angrily described the PNP administration
that Rawlings had just overthrown as totally inept (wambeyehwee) and
corrupt (ewifo). He obviously had no sympathy for the 'Old Guard' -
that is, the Convention People's Party (CPP) faithful, including
characters like Nana Okutwer Bekoe, a rich patron of the PNP who
wished to control and determine national policy as well.
Like many others in the Central Region, the farmer had voted in
both the first and second rounds of the presidential elections for
Limann.23 But he now supported the 3ist December revolution, and
had even backed the 'house-cleaning' exercise carried out by
Rawlings under the Armed Forces Revolutionary Council (AFRC).
All the same, as the 'revolution' evolved he had grown unhappy about
what he saw as its apparent attack on genuine, honest capitalists ('dem
aban )i okyir obi a wonya ne sempowa'). He thought that the PNDC
Government's price and rent control measures, and the strong-arm
methods used to enforce them, were unfair and politically unwise, and
that unless immediately checked were likely to worsen the national
22 P. V. Obeng, 'Interview with Hugo Alonso - Government on the Spot', in Prisma(Havana),
79, November i 989, pp. 34-40.

23 See RichardJeffries, 'The Ghanaian Elections of 1979', in AfricanAffairs,79, 316,July 2980,
pp 397-4I4.
320 MAXWELL OWUSU
economic crisis. He claimed that the Ghanaian was a capitalist by

nature ('wodze wooyen, ewo hen mogyamu', 'capitalism is in our blood').
Arguing in i983 for a new direction in economic policy, the Governor
of the Bank of Ghana came to a similar conclusion on the evidence of
the country's economic history and social values,24 a claim that echoed
the results of research on rural capitalism and indigenous traders by
Polly Hill and Peter Garlick.25
The other aspect of the ' revolution' that this farmer found
unacceptable was the senseless harassment and beating of decent men
and women by youths and soldiers, who seemed to have lost all respect
for their elders. Not surprisingly, many ordinary Ghanaians saw the
PDCs, considered by the PNDC as the organs of the revolution and
'people power', as composed mainly of school drop-outs, thugs, the
unemployed, and even common criminals. Another of my informants,
a middle-aged asafoatse of Labadi (a suburb of Accra, where Rawlings
grew up), so strongly disapproved of some of the activities and
behaviour of the PDCs that he had threatened to throw his son out of
his house if he remained a member. Limann naturally shared some of
these negative views:
In the early stages of the military take-over in i 98 i, most unemployed people
and workers who were misfits joined the revolutionary process. They joined
only to take revenge on those they disliked or disagreed with. A lot of innocent
people suffered and lost their property through such vicious acts and this
alienated most Ghanaians from the process of change, and to this day not
many Ghanaians care much about the revolutionary organs.
... bold decisions ought to be taken to re-educate membersof the revolutionary
organs to make them more acceptable to their Ghanaian public. They should
also be made to acquire useful skills that would benefit the development of the
country as a whole.26
That the ex-President did not call for the outright abolition of the
PDCs, but rather for their reform so that they could contribute more
meaningfully to national development, implies an admission of the
importance of the broad aims of the 'revolution'.
Nene Azzu Mate Kole, the Konor of Manya Krobo, while echoing
these views at the annual Ngmayem Festival durbar in October i982,
admonished the PNDC to ensure that 'the practical means of achieving
24 G. K. Agama, 'New Directions in Economic Policy for Ghana', in TheJournalof Management

Studies(Legon),2, i, March i985, pp. 14-19.
25 Hill, op. cit. and Peter C. Garlick, AfricanTradersandEconomic in Ghana(Oxford,
Development
I97).-
26 Hilla Limann, 'Ghana (Interview)', in AfricanConcord(London), 128, i9 February I987,
pp. I7-i8.
TRADITION AND TRANSFORMATION IN GHANA 32I
the noble aims [of the revolution] do not in any way undermine them'.
He referred to the
sad and rather disappointing experience of our people here and in several
parts of the country over the activities of some PDCs and WDCs. Many of
these groups have obviously upheld the essence of what the Government
stands for and some have made concrete and worthy contributions to the
noble exercise of the People's Power, namely to seek the welfare of all. Some
made farms, built schools, helped in clearing bush and motor roads and other
social activities ...
[But many PDCs and WDCs had] used the opportunity for witch hunting and
the settlement of personal scores. We therefore wish to emphasize that such
elements cannot but undermine the noble aims of Government from within if
they are permitted to continue in that manner.27
It is worth pointing out that the forms of' communal labour' performed
by the PDCs and WDCs, such as clearing the bush and roads, were the
traditional functions of asafo and other youth groups.28
My septuagenarian farmer had backed the 'revolution' because
'Ghanaians were difficult to govern' ('hen aso ye dozen) and needed
someone with the courage and integrity of Rawlings 'to straighten us
out'. He particularly praised the PNDC for demanding accountability,
honesty, probity, and hard work in public and private life. But the
widespread criticisms of the attitudes and behaviour of many PDCs
were not lost on the PNDC leadership.
'Part Three' of the Guidelinesfor the ProperFunctioningand Effectiveness
of thePeoplesDefence Committees,issued in I 986 by the Press, Information,
and Interim National Co-ordinating Committee for the PDCs,
identified four categories of abuse of power that members were to avoid
or face 'unprecedented revolutionary action', namely: (i) extortion of
money for personal gain and other economic advantages; (ii) conscious
use of PDCs to victimise other people; (iii) using PDCs to subvert the
national effort, e.g. disrupting production, causing unnecessary strikes,
public panic, and false alarms, spreading false rumours about the
PNDC and its agencies; and (iv) humiliating and dehumanising
attitudes towards members of the public, especially senior persons in
charge of production.
27 Azzu Mate Kole, 'Address Delivered at the Ngmayem Festival Durbar', Krobo Odumase,
i982, p. 2.
28 On the asafo, see Owusu, 'Rebellion, Revolution and Tradition', and Uses and Abusesof
PoliticalPower.
322 MAXWELL OWUSU
NATIONAL CHARACTER AND CORE VALUES
Ghana is a deeply religious and deferential society that strives for

moral excellence, peace, and harmony in human relationships.
Although described in official publications and popularly viewed as a
'Christian country' and her people 'God-fearing', Ghana contains a
large number of people, including many Muslims, who adhere to
indigenous religious beliefs and practices embodied in chieftaincy and
family institutions.
During the most radical phase of the 3ist December revolution (in
the early and mid-ig8os), an estimated 45 per cent of Ghanaians
belonged to various Christian denominations (principally Roman
Catholic, Methodist, and Presbyterian), and about I2 per cent were
Muslim. Bodies such as the Christian Council of Ghana, the Catholic
Bishops Conference, the Ghana Muslim Representative Council, and
the National House of Chiefs continued to function as independent
pressure groups for the promotion and fostering of common, rather
than special interests, insisting on negotiation and mediation, rather
than confrontation and violence in the management of national
disputes, and advocating programmes and policy alternatives that
emphasise the long-term needs of society.
For example, in February i99i, the Catholic Bishops circulated a
pamphlet which argued that in their 'search for true democracy'
Ghanaians should recognise the importance of human rights, tra-
ditional values, and stable institutions that could guarantee freedom,
justice, and individual as well as national progress. They claimed that
Ghana's traditional cultures contained modalities of public behaviour
and proper conduct of affairs of state which deserved to be carefully
studied and incorporated into structures for modern democratic
government.
In I982, the head of the Afrikania Church who was a member of the
PNDC, the Rev. Dr Kwabena Damuah, under whose auspices the so-
called 'Positive Christian Movement' had been formed with the
apparent blessing of the Christian Council of Ghana to sustain the
'Holy War',30 called for a national consultative religious conference
involving Christians, Muslims, and practitioners of indigenous African
religions on 3 June I982 to promote the objectives of the revolution.3'
Church
29 Catholic Bishops Conference, TheCatholic andGhana'sSearchfora New Democratic System
(Accra, February i 99 I).
on the
30 Obeng Manu, 'State of the Nation', in Ivor Agyeman Duah (ed.), PoliticalReflections
Motherland(Kumasi, I 92), p. I30. 31 Daily Graphic,27 May i982, pp. 4-5.
Later that year, in one of its numerous memoranda to the PNDC

Government, the Christian Council asked Ghanaians (obviously with
the advocates of a 'leftist' revolution in mind) to recognise the peculiar
structure and nature of their society, and to be on guard against any
class or ethnic group that kept calling for the downfall or destruction
or blood of others, since without social cohesion no real progress could
be made in efforts to pull the country back to its feet again.32
On the question of the structure of Ghanaian society and traditional
values as they relate to class identification and consciousness, William
Ofori Atta, one of the leaders of the independence struggle, had this to
say when addressing Ghana's 'new masters' who were preaching class-
war:
The messenger you have in your office may be the son of a rich farmer in a
village called Brenya, and also a member of the stool [i.e. chiefly] family of
Brenya. His older brother may be a medical doctor and his younger a
squadron leader. One of the great amanhene[i.e. paramount chiefs] in
Nkusukum was a driver. My own father [a paramount chief] was a lawyer's
clerk and his successor was an electrician, working for the P.W.D. [Public
Works Department]. This is still the nature of our society and we must not
forget it. The messenger does not see himself as belonging to a low class system
of workers.33
A similar point was made by Elizabeth Ohene, who as an early

supporter of the revolution had been appointed editor of the state-
owned Daily Graphic by the PNDC. She later became one of the
regime's bitterest critics, not least because some members and
supporters were deliberately sharpening class antagonisms: their
'desperate attempt to transplant alien concepts to Ghanaian society'
meant that 'our traditional values and institutions are likely to be
destroyed in the process, leaving us poorer'.
The lowly clerk in an office in Accra, the mechanic on the factory floor in
Tema might well be 'Odikros'or sub-chiefs in their towns and villages and
after 5 p.m. he immediately becomes the chief or elder that he is and the man
who is his Managing Director ... from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. would have to (as we
say in Ghana) lower his cloth [as a sign of respect] before speaking to his clerk
or mechanic and on occasion might have to remove his sandals before
approaching this mechanic at a dawn gathering and [the same Managing
Director would] be giving orders to him just a few hours later. This is just to
illustrate that words like the 'working classes, peasants', as understood in
32 Christian Council of Ghana, November i982.

3 William Ofori Atta, Ghana:a nationin crisis. The J. B. DanquahMemorialLectures,Eighteenth
Series,February1985 (Accra, Ghana Academy of Arts and Sciences, i988).
324 MAXWELL OWUSU
other societies, might have difficulties being transplanted wholesale into

Ghana.34
The aforementioned memorandum of the Christian Council of
Ghana called on the PNDC to initiate a meaningful dialogue with all
important, identifiable, and recognized civil organizations and bodies
in the interest of national reconciliation and national consensus. The
listed objectives included finding ways and means for reconciliation
and peace in the country; reduction of tension, sense of insecurity,
divisiveness, bitterness, vindictiveness, and vengeance; consideration
of a meaningful programme for economic recovery; the promotion of
respect for existing law and order; the involvement of people
realistically in the decision-making process; and the rehabilitation of
social and moral order.
There is evidence that the 'Holy War' fired the imagination not only
of the struggling poor and down-trodden, who believed that Rawlings
could provide the much needed honest and decisive national leadership
to pull the country out of its mounting economic problems, but also of
people from all walks of life, including, as Obeng Manu reluctantly
admitted:
the students of the three universities, workers in Accra, Sekondi-Takoradi,
Kumasi, Sunyani, Koforidua and other places... Even the Association of the
Recognized ProfessionalBodies did not initially oppose the second coming of
J.J. The Bar Association appraised the situation and issued a non-committal
statement which in effect did not reject the second coming of J.J. So it was
generally believed that non-condemnation of the PNDC in its early days
meant its approval by the nation as a whole.35
In an earlier study I argued that the moral-legal themes of populism,
trusteeship, and leadership accountability, as well as social justice and
civic duty, provided a charter for the 3 I st December revolution, as they
had for earlier national struggles for political and economic reform.36
Max Assimeng, in a more recent attempt to explain why 'Ghanaians
looked on the Rawlings phenomenon unprotestingly', finds the answer
in the core values as presented above. Their acceptance 'was due to the
fact that Rawlings harped on themes of moral purism, probity in social
and economic life, conscience racking and the institutional imperatives
of accountability'. Assimeng went on to point out correctly that 'These
themes affected virtually all Ghanaians: big chiefs and small chiefs;
army generals and privates; university professors and students;
Elizabeth Ohene, 'Is Military Rule Really the Answer?', in West Africa, 3i May i982,
p. I45I. 35 Manu,loc. cit. p. I30.
s' Owusu, 'Rebellion, Revolution and Tradition', i989.
principal secretaries and office messengers; managing directors and
clerical assistants'; and so on-that is nearly all classes of society.37
As study after study has shown, whatever the current ideological
terminology, Ghanaian politics is not really about 'class' or 'ethnic'
conflicts in any unambiguous sense (though elements of these may be
present). Much more important are local disputes over sharing power,
over legitimate but rival claims about the values of economic
individualism and populism; about enlightened self-interest, com-
munity service, and the common good; and abut 'the ordering of
society in the village, or chiefdom or district'.38
For every Ghanaian citizen belongs to, and is often emotionally and
ideologically attached to, a village, chiefdom, or district; indeed, one's
national self-image is defined to a large extent by the sense of belonging
to one's home locality. Dennis Austin has observed that no party
politician or military ruler in Ghana has dared to proclaim 'the
republic of the common man at the village level, or to abolish the office
of chief'. Indeed, 'ordinary illiterate Ghanaians have ... been moved to
violent action in defence of " rights" ... when local loyalties have been
passionately aroused '.3 This is because in the tradition of 'customary
law' and 'usage', as well as in popular ideology, 'chiefs' and 'people'
are inseparable:they are united by reciprocal rights and obligations, and
by a sacred duty to protect and advance the interests of the community.
This is not 'tribalism'.
What the mass of people sought who supported the revolution
proclaimed by Rawlings was obviously not some illusory workers'
paradise on earth, but effective, realistic, and tangible means to cope
with misery, hunger, starvation, unemployment, and poverty. Extreme
hardship, on the whole, failed either to generate any spontaneous
' revolutionary consciousness' or to breed chiliastic illusions among the
masses as ' Agegemania' clearly attests - the nearly uncontrollable
streams of economic migrations out of Ghana to neighbouring countries
and elsewhere in the early ig80s.40
It needs to be emphasised that most African countries are basically
village and small-town societies rooted historically and culturally in
kinship, family, and chiefship. Territorially, Ghana consists of a
37 Max Assimeng, 'Rawlings, Charisma and Social Structure', in Universitas(Legon), 8, n.d.
p. 153.
38 Dennis Austin, GhanaObserved:essayson thepolitics of a West Africanrepublic(Manchester,
1976), p. 157. See also, Owusu, Uses andAbusesof PoliticalPower,and Dennis Austin and Robin
Luckham (eds.), PoliticiansandSoldiersin Ghana,1966-1972 (London, I975).
39 Austin, GhanaObserved,p. I57.
40 See Maxwell Owusu, 'Agegemania', in The LegonObserver, 3, 2, 1981, pp. 124-6.
326 MAXWELL OWUSU
contiguous, overlapping, or cross-cutting system of so-called 'tradi-

tional areas', each with a paramount chief under whom are various
subordinate chiefs and headmen, with more or less exclusive claim to
lands and other natural resources vested in extended families, lineages,
and communities. It suffices simply to point out here that their natural
resources, including labour, are in the main controlled, in theory if not
in practice, by family and lineage heads, as well as by local chiefs who
act as trustees of group or communal property, albeit accountable to
their members who have user-rights. This system is basically intact
despite important changes associated with colonial rule, capitalism,
and reforms introduced by successive governments, as well as pressures
from outside interests.
Accordingly, the true meaning of 'people-power' as proclaimed by
the architects of the 3 I st December revolution cannot be fully
appreciated without reference to 'tradition' and 'traditionalism' as
defined above. Indeed, in their everyday socio-political behaviour,
Ghanaians may be characterised, quite paradoxically, as republican
royalists and aristocratic proletarians, and as conservative or aristo-
cratic populists. The great majority seem to have very little difficulty
living with the awkward contradictions and paradoxes of their cultural
heritage and contemporary society. These are the distinguishing
characteristics of Ghanaian rural and urban society that cannot be
ignored because of their impact on the 'revolutionary' politics of
economic and political transformation, liberalisation, and democrat-
isation. Significantly, one of the objectives of the revolution as provided
for in the Directive Principles of State Policy (PNDCL 42) was the
adaptation and development of traditional cultural values as an
integral part of the growth of Ghanaian society.
Mention must be made of the intriguing decision taken by the PNDC
to retain the relevant provisions pertaining to chieftaincy in the
suspended I 979 Constitution, and to continue to make the process of
cultural adaptation and change a major if not the primary respon-
sibility of traditional leaders and institutions; namely, the 130 or
more traditional councils, the ten Regional Houses of Chiefs, and the
National House of Chiefs. Thus, contrary to Donald Ray's claim, the
PNDC Establishment Proclamation of i i January I 982 did not remove
'the constitutional structures that had legitimized the wealthy's
political control by suspending the old constitution'."4 His ideologically
preconceived description of chiefs as forming 'the parallel, though
41
Ray, op. cit. p. I25.
decaying, system of authority to parliament', and his sweeping

observation that 'In both chieftaincy and party politics, the elders had
kept a stranglehold on the decision-making process... [and that] the
defence committees broke this stranglehold and acted as a demo-
cratizing force in this regard',42 completely misrepresents the place of
chieftaincy and tradition in Ghanaian society, and the meaning of the
revolution to Rawlings, the PNDC leadership, and the general public.
Looked at from the viewpoint of the thousands of Ghanaians who
welcomed the revolution, and who believed that Rawlings 'will bring
an end to the corruption, shortages and rampant inflation that marked
the government of the ousted president, Hilla Limann', it could be
reasonably argued that what was perhaps farthest from their minds
was the re-imposition of a discredited and unpopular Nkrumah-type
Marxist-Leninist regime as a strategy for solving their economic
misery.43 The spirit, intent, and language of the revolution as
articulated repeatedly by Rawlings, not to mention the ideological
orientation of a majority of PNDC members and appointees, were
obviously non-Marxian - a point to which we return in light of the
controversy over whether policies adopted by Rawlings and the
PNDC, notably the Economic Recovery Programme (ERP) supported
by the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the World Bank,
really constituted a betrayal of the revolution as critics on the 'left'
maintain.
Clearly, the principles of the revolution as enunciated by Rawlings
and the PNDC and embodied in PNDCL 42 (which I have described
elsewhere as being an evolutionary document), spoke to common
aspirations and ideals which were at once nationalist, populist, liberal,
Christian, and traditionalist.44 This is supported by the fact that
Rawlings and the PNDC did not hesitate to condemn and punish the
atrocities committed in the name of the revolution by a minority of self-
styled Marxist cadres operating through the PDCs and WDCs, and to
disband and reconstitute them as Committees for the Defence of the
Revolution (CDRs) under new guidelines that were more consistent
with the spirit and intent of PNDCL 42.
It is necessary to distinguish between two broad stages in the
revolution: the first, from early I982 to mid- I 983, the phase of
' extraordinary' politics, was utopian, populist, anarchistic, and
adventurist, rather than Marxist in any serious sense of the term; the
42
Ibid. p. 7I. 43 See Meredith and Duodu, loc. cit. p. 9.
44 Owusu, 'Custom and Coups', p. 86.
328 MAXWELL OWUSU
second, from I 983 to I 988 and from I 989 to I 992, the phases of
ordinary, more or less 'normal' politics, were more stable, pragmatic,
conciliatory, democratizing if authoritarian. The fact is that it is a gross
error in analysis not to recognise the dynamic and positive role of
tradition in the revolution. Participatory democracy at the grassroots
level is unthinkable in Ghana without some active involvement of both
chiefs and people.
It is also important to remember that the 3Ist December I98I
revolution coincided with developments in the international political
and economic environment that imposed severe constraints on its
future direction. For those who naively hailed the revolution as
ushering in a real socialist transformation of society, it could not have
occurred under more inauspicious circumstances. The policies of the
Reagan-Bush Administrations in the United States (i980-92), the
decade of Thatcherism in Britain, not to mention Gorbachev's
perestroikaand glasnost which initiated the rapid disintegration of the
Soviet Union and Eastern Europe, as well as the collapse of
communism, all conspired to create an international policy climate
that was vigorously anti-socialist, pro-market economy, and pro-
democracy, and assumed in the words of Leo Panitch and Ralph
Miliband that 'humankind has no viable alternative to global
capitalism '.45
TRADITION AND TRANSFORMATION
It has been argued by Eric Hobsbawn that the extent to which the
formal political and social institutions of a country can be transformed
depends on three factors: 'on the flexibility, adaptability, or the
resistance of its old institutions, on the urgency of the actual need for
transformation, and the risks involved in the great revolutions which
are the normal ways in which they come about'.46 What was the role
of traditional institutions, particularly chieftaincy, in the 3Ist
December revolution? Was this opposed by Ghana's ancien regime?To
what extent are chiefs adaptable or reactionary?
What follows is an attempt to answer these and related questions on
the basis of systematic data collected in the course of fieldwork and
participant observation extending over several years. My findings
45 Leo Panitch and Ralph Miliband, 'The New World Order and the Socialist Agenda', in
Panitch and Miliband (eds.), The Socialist Register, 1992 (London, I992), p. I.
46 EricJ. Hobsbawn,Industry and Empire:from 1750 to thepresentday (Harmondsworth,

i968),
p. i6.
have, I believe, some important theoretical, substantive, and practical

implications, as well as providing much needed light on the nature and
contribution of the 3ist December revolution, and of chieftaincy to
political and economic reform in Ghana.
The fact that the Rawlings revolution put so much emphasis right
from the very beginning on placing power in the hands of ordinary
people, organised from the grassroots upwards, in order to ensure
genuine participation in the decision-making process, immediately
raises questions abut the role of chieftaincy. Indeed, a member of
Ghana's I978 Constitutional Commission admitted that the moment
one talked about grassroots democracy one was already making
overtures to chieftaincy, because in Ghana one could not realistically
implement successfully a programe of empowerment without the
involvement of chiefs. As Alex Kwame Aidoo explained:
you cannot go to any village and ... start propagating an ideology or political
programme or anything in the air... the chiefs are very important if we are
going to think about participation of all the people in Government. We have
to use them from the grassroots level to the national level.47
That factual admission echoes essentially the views expressed 30 years
before by the famous Coussey Constitutional Commission of I949 on
the place of traditional rulers in representative institutions in Ghana:
The whole institution of chieftaincy is so closely bound up with the life of our
communities that its disappearance would spell disaster. Chiefs and what they
symbolise in the society are so vital that the subject of their future must be
approached with the greatest caution. No African of the Gold Coast [Ghana]
is without some admiration for the best aspects of chieftaincy and all would
loathe to do violence to it any more than the social values embodied in the
institution itself. Criticismsthere have been, but none coming from responsible
people whom we have known or met is directed toward the complete
effacement of chiefs.48
It is remarkable that a generation later, the Constitutional
Commission's proposals in I978 contained similar recommendations on
chieftaincy:
in spite of certain features which have often given cause for serious concern and
the not altogether satisfactory record of some chiefs in national life, we remain
convinced that the institution of chieftaincy has an important and
indispensable role in the life and government of Ghana, both for the present
and for the foreseeable future. We, therefore, consider it right and necessary
47 Alex Kwame Aidoo, 'Chieftaincy', in Proceedings
of the Constitutional
DraftingCommission held
at the KwameNkrumahConference Centre(Old Conference
Hall) on Wednesday, 7th June 1978 at 8:40 in
theForenoon(Accra, 1978), p. 48.
48 Quoted by N. A. Ollennu, 'Chieftaincy Under the Law', in W. C. Ekow Daniels and G. R.
Woodman (eds.), Essaysin GhanaianLaw, i876-1976 (Legon, Faculty of Law, 1976), p. 52.
330 MAXWELL OWUSU
that the institution should be protected and preserved by appropriate

constitutional guarantees.49
Along similar lines but on a broader level, 'The basic problem for
Africans', according to Basil Davidson, 'is to find their own way of
revolutionizing the structures of the past, and ... the colonial structures
they've had imposed upon them, and which they inherited, in large
part, when they [became] politically independent'. He went on to
explain in the I970S that 'Africans need this dual revolution along
African lines.... because they have to move on to new systems and
modes of production '." This historian's point is, I believe, quite
consistent with my own position that the challenge faced by the 3ISt
December revolution was
basically both a question (i) of appropriate constitutional reforms that are
capable of providing a competent and accountable government, with an
effective means of political control, participation, and representation for the
masses at the grass roots; and (2) of political leadership, imbued with popular
values about social justice, which could come up with coherent policies for
economic reconstruction and regeneration, as well as popular democratic
rights, which can be realistically implemented."
The position of chiefs in modern Ghana remains controversial in
some quarters for a variety of reasons. There are, for example, those
who on doctrinal grounds believe that such 'institutional obsoletes'
impede the development of a virile, prosperous, democratic, and just
society, and thus must have no place in any progressive society.52
Accordingly, the guidelines written by the self-styled Marxists who
controlled the National Defence Committee of the PDCs in the early
period of the revolution, excluded chiefs from membership, as well as
the rest of the corrupt 'propertied classes', considered at the time 'the
enemy classes'. The new organs of local and 'popular' power began a
systematic, if highly selective and pre-planned attack on chieftaincy.
Indeed, several PDCs, notably in the Greater-Accra and Central
Regions, 'took over' traditional councils and in some cases 'destooled'
or chased chiefs out of their palaces, accusing them of corruption,
misappropriation and misuse of people's money and lands, and calling
for the nationalization of all stool lands.
In headline after headline of the government-controlled press, the
4 Commissionfor
TheProposalsof theConstitutional of a Transitional
for theEstablishment
a Constitution
(Interim)NationalGovernmentfor Ghana(Accra, I978), p. 96.
5 Quoted by Peter Waterman, 'Introduction: on radicalism in African studies', in Peter C.
W. Gutkind and Waterman (eds.), AfricanSocialStudies:a radicalreader(London and New York,
I977), p. 2- 5 Owusu, 'Custom and Coups', p. 72.
52 See, for example, Waterman, loc. cit. p. 2.
institution of chieftaincy was threatened with abolition by PNDC

secretaries and PDC executives, unless the chiefs threw their weight
behind the revolution. Even an editorial in the Free Press, the
independent and influential Accra weekly, called for the 'democrati-
sation' of chieftaincy in February I 982 on the grounds that the present-
day institution 'is diametrically opposed to any system which will
ensure that the people really participate in decision-making at the
village-level where the odikroreigns'5 - implying, I believe, mistakenly,
that chieftaincy was incompatible with the popular aims of the
revolution.
All the same, the important issue of the relationship between
participatory democracy, power-sharing, decentralization, and 'tra-
dition' as chieftaincy has to be addressed. It is noteworthy that the
institutional framework for bringing about 'true democracy' was
provided for in the PNDC's first enabling legislation, the Establishment
Proclamation, the same document which created the National
Commission for Democracy (NCD), and which outlined its functions in
PNDCL42 .
Concerning the issue of decentralization of power and its implication
for popular democracy and progressiveforms of government in Africa,
Davidson raised the following questions in i988 which are directly
relevant to the Ghanaian situation: (i) Can decentralization create a
viable tradition in which rural power based in rural communities is
able to counterbalance effectively the constraining, often repressive
and exploitative power of the central government? (ii) Does devolution
to rural communities with their customary self-help and community
development imply a wish to strengthen traditional authority or return
to pre-independence or even pre-colonial forms of government which
cannot work unreformed in today's circumstances? (iii) Can de-
centralisation lead to a revival of old political traditions or rather to the
general acceptance of new and radical organising ideas from urban
centres?5
According to Samir Amin, a distinguished Marxist scholar writing in
I985, the historical experience of decentralization would seem to
indicate that 'all the great progressive changes in history have been
effected by centralized social forces while decentralization has often
reinforced conservative power controlled by local notables ... and
5 FreePress (Accra), 7 February I982, p. I.

5'See Owusu, 'Rebellion, Revolution and Tradition'.
5 Basil Davidson, 'Nationalism Reconsidered', in UCLA AfricanStudiesCenter
Newsletter(Los
Angeles), Spring I988, pp. IO-I2.
332 MAXWELL OWUSU
contributed to depoliticization'.56 In support of this position, S. A.

Nkrumah, who argued against the involvement of chiefs in a
decentralized system in Ghana, insisted in I973 that they would use
their presence in decentralized bodies to maintain what he considered
to be their 'untenable and declining position'." In an earlier study,
Amin concluded in i964 that
British colonisation systematically practised a policy of reinforcing the
traditional chiefs in Ghana with the Ashanti Kingdom ... And the descendants
of those who were the heroes of the resistance to the conquest, the Ashanti
chiefs... are today the best agents of imperialism. These traditional rulers have
in general become powerful pseudo-feudalities, reducing the peasants to a
state of servitude.58
This view completely overlooks the critical distinction between
constitutional' and 'feudal' chieftaincy, and as Busia showed in I 95 I,
Asante/Ashanti chieftaincy is anything but feudal.59
Clearly, there are those who view the representation or active
participation of chiefs in decentralized institutions, such as Ghana's
new District Assemblies, or in the organs of popular power, as both
undemocratic and even 'counter-revolutionary'. In the early years of
the revolution (between i982 and i984), my long discussions and
interviews with members of the Eastern and Central Regional Houses
of Chiefs, as well as the National House of Chiefs, revealed that many
were openly agonised over the uncertain and tense political climate,
notably the attacks in the press and by PDCs which they felt were due
in most part to ignorance and misunderstanding of the place of
chieftaincy in contemporary Ghana. As custodians of the national
cultural heritage the chiefs assured me that they had no difficulty
supporting causes that were truly in the national interest, morally and
spiritually uplifting, and aimed at improving the material welfare of
the people.
It is widely recognised in Ghana that those introducing new ideas,
let alone hoping to implement important changes, almost always seek
the support of chiefs, either in the form of quiet approval, open
declaration, or active participation, not least because of their local
prestige, charisma, and persuasive powers. In Ghana, chieftaincy has
5 Samir Amin, 'A Propos the " Green " Movements', in Herb Addo et al., Development as Social
Transformation: on theglobalproblematique
reflections (London, i 985), p. 279.
57 S. A. Nkrumah, 'Reflections on Local Government in Ghana', in The Legon Observer, 8,
I2-25, January 1973, pp. Io-I5.
58 Samir Amin, 'The Class Struggle in Africa', in Revolution (Paris), i, 9, i964, p. 38.
59 K. A. Busia, The Positionof the Chief in the ModernPoliticalSystemof Ashanti: a studyof the
influenceof contemporarysocialchangeson Ashantipoliticalinstitutions(London, 195I).
demonstrated over the years that it can respond to the challenge of a
national effort.
The public views of chiefs towards the PNDC revolution must be put
in some historical perspective in order to appreciate their real
significance. The Convention Peoples Party (CPP), formed and
launched by Nkrumah in June 1949, saw itself from the beginning as
' a Socialist Party - the party of the workers, farmers (including
fishermen) and co-operative societies'. It aimed, interalia, (i) to release
the people 'from the bondage of foreign colonialism and the tyranny of
local feudal despotism', and (ii) to replace ' feudal and despotic
chieftaincy' with 'democratic and constitutional chieftaincy 60 But in
keeping with the proverbial paradoxes of Ghanaian political change,
Nkrumah indicated that 'If... chieftaincy can be used to encourage
popular effort, there would seem to be little sense in arousing the
antagonism which its legal dissolution would stimulate',61 as some CPP
members had demanded.
As part of Nkrumah's later policy to centralise executive power in his
new one-party Marxist-Leninist state, the responsibility for matters
relating to chiefs was transferred from the Ministry of Justice to the
Office of the President, along with the creation of a new Chieftaincy
Secretariat with effect from March I964. The Northern Regional
House of Chiefs immediately welcomed the announced change as
proving 'beyond doubt that chieftaincy is part of our socialist pattern',
and members expressed their determination 'to give the lead in the
socialist programme' 62 In April I965, the signatories of a letter from
chiefs addressed to 'Comrade Chairman' Nkrumah included Nana
Agyemang Badu of the Brong-Ahafo Region and Togbe Teprehodo III
of the Volta Region, both members of the Chieftaincy Secretariat, who
appealed to Osagyefo the President to give approval to the organisation
of chiefs as an integral wing of the Marxist-Leninist CPP. Among the
reasons given for what would seem to be such an unusual step was that
'the party is the vanguard of the people and chiefs are nominated,
elected, and installed from among the people'.,63 Indeed, Nkrumah
himself seemed not particularly bothered by the apparent ideological
contradictions associated with integrating chieftaincy in a socialist
economic and political strategy of development. As he had told John
Gunther while Prime Minister in I953:
60 Kwame Nkrumah, 'Movement for Colonial Freedom', in Phylon (Atlanta), i6, 4, 1955,
pp- 403 and 405. 61 Kwame Nkrumah, Africa Must Unite (London, i963), p. 84.
62 The GhanaianTimes (Accra), i8 February I964, p. 3.
63 Maxwell Owusu, I982, personal notes.
334 MAXWELL OWUSU
We are building on the old heritage of the chiefs, not superimposingsomething

from above. Our chiefs are much more democratic than most outsiders think.
Our biggest asset is that our movement rises from people who understand our
goals.64
It is thus hardly surprising that nearly 40 years later, at a time when
chiefs were forbidden by PDC guidelines from membership of PDCs, a
group of 'concerned citizens' submitted a petition in November I982
to the Chieftaincy Secretariat in Accra, in my presence during
fieldwork, in which they urged the formation of a Chieftaincy Defence
Committee, 'to campaign for support of the December 3ISt Rev-
olution', since 'chieftaincy is an institution for social and cultural
development'. Educated chiefs had been rewarded by the CPP as
opportunities were created for them to play a more active role in
Nkrumah's Marxist-Leninist regime. One was made ambassador to
India, another served as a delegate to the UN General Assembly, yet
another with an Oxford doctorate in anthropology became a cultural
adviser to the Ministry of External Affairs, while others were appointed
to serve on important boards and commissions.65 At the local levels,
chiefs were urged to identify with development projects to ensure their
successful implementation. The fact is that even under the CPP's policy
of' democratic centralism' as opposed to the strategy of decentralization
initiated by the PNDC, the active involvement of chiefs was considered
essential in a process of radical change.
CHIEFS VERSUS PEOPLE OR CHIEFS AND PEOPLE?
There has been a tendency in Ghana for political history to be

repeated in certain predictable ways, not least because of the continuing
significance of tradition and traditionalism. For example, all post-
colonial constitutions have guaranteed to preserve the honour and
dignity of chieftaincy as established by customary law and usage.
Indeed, the Third Republican Constitution (which the PNDC
suspended) went even further in I 979 by seeking to protect chieftaincy
from an arbitrary executive, and from parliamentary and party
control, interference, and encroachment. Since chiefs appeared as
indispenable agents of modernization, as they had in the colonial
period, they were made members of new district, municipal, city, and
regional councils, and of village, town, and area development
64 John Gunther, InsideAfrica (London, I955), pp. 779-80.

6
St. Clair Drake, 'Traditional Authority and Social Action in Former British West Africa',
in Pierre L. van den Berghe (ed.), Africa: socialproblemsof changeandconflict(San Francisco, 1965),
P. 528.
committees established in order to decentralise decision-making and
implementation. Chiefs and their traditional bodies were given
responsibilities for mobilising support for local development projects
aimed at improving living standards. This has been the tradition. It is
assumed that these age-old institutions are well-adapted to encourage
increased popular participation at the grassroots. Ghanaian chiefs do
not, as a rule, see central authority as their adversary but as a partner.
They are ready in the national interest to work with and offer advice to
any government in power, whatever its professed ideology. Sym-
bolically, chiefs see themselves as 'fathers' of all their people to whom
they are ultimately accountable.
It therefore did not come as a surprise when, within a week of the
onset of the 3ist December revolution, and in spite of the subsequent
PDC attacks on chieftaincy, the Omanhene of the Ahanta Traditional
Area called on the PNDC to stay in office until Ghanaians, particularly
workers, were completely free from what he described as the bondage
of economic strangulation. He pledged his people's support for the
revolution, and called on other chiefs to rally behind the PNDC to fight
tooth and nail to wipe out corruption and exploitation of the masses by
the privileged few. 'In the interest of peace and unity', Nana Baidoo
Bonsoe XV appealed to all the chiefs to use their traditional authority
'to support this glorious revolution'.66 Thereafter other chiefs from
different regions of the country also openly pledged their support for
the aims of the revolution, even though they did not hesitate to
condemn the draconic measures adopted by the PNDC, as well as the
widespread human rights abuses by some PDCs.
It must be noted here that the majority of the thousands of chiefs
found in Ghana's hamlets, villages, towns, and big cities, who still
command the respect and loyalty of the people, enjoy modest lifestyles
that are scarcely distinguishable from those of the workers, peasants, or
fishermen they lead. The socio-economic backgrounds and the
ideological orientations of chiefs, as my own studies confirm, are as
varied as those found among the general population of Ghana. The
'average chief', no less than the 'average worker' (and many chiefs are
themselves workers in their occupational lives), has a vested interest in
the stability, survival, and continuity of any government that is seen to
be in favour of improving the general welfare of ordinary people. But
support for 'populist' policies does not necessarily imply or mean a
preference for socialist economic and political strategies.
66 Daily Graphic,7 January i982, p. I.

336 MAXWELL OWUSU
By the close of i982, the National Defence Committee (NDC) - the

parent body of the PDCs and WDCs - had been dissolved in large part
because of popular outcry, domestic political pressures, and strong
lobbying by chiefs and a variety of civic bodies, including the Christian
Council of Ghana and the National Catholic Secretariat, all urging the
PNDC to take effective steps to check PDC atrocities against ordinary
citizens and chiefs. The official explanation for the dissolution of the
NDC was that certain of its personnel were 'acting like lords competing
for spheres of personal power'. The nine-member standing committee
appointed by the PNDC to replace the NDC soon formulated new
guidelines for the proper functioning of the PDCs, whose membership
could henceforth include chiefs.
As an illustration of the new influence that some chiefs began to
exercise, the Kyebi PDC executive was dismissed in early i983 after a
public meeting held in the Akyem Abuakwa Traditional Area, presided
over by Barima Boakye Nkyira I, the Abontendomhene of Kyebi, had
found that it was guilty of imposing heavy fines on individuals for petty
offences, and of failing to give proper account of money collected, as
well as being unable to mobilise the town people for greater
productivity."
More importantly, PNDC leaders began to stress in their official
speeches, press releases, and interviews that the evolving 'true
democracy', far from being a carbon copy of any foreign revolution,
was being built on Ghana's indigenous political traditions and values.
Rawlings himself reassured the chiefs that the PNDC valued the
'positive potential of chieftaincy as a means of mobilizing the people for
meaningful development'.68 In this connection, it should be observed
that an editorial in The Legon Observer- the unofficial mouthpiece of
intellectuals and academics - marking the 25th anniversary of Ghana's
independence in March i982, came to the following conclusion after a
critical assessment of the country's post-colonial political experience:
The popular view is that the structures of consultation and governance so far
tried have failed the people. Whatever the case may be, there can be no
quarrel with a continuing search for more appropriate models of governance.
In this search, hardly a day passes without somebody urging-that indigenous
institutions and practices be adopted.69
In i985 an exasperated opponent of the PNDC regime complained
helplessly that 'Rawlings employed his connubial ties with the Asante
68
67 WestAfrica, 24 January i983, p. 238. Afrique-Asie(Paris), May i985, p. 9.
69
The LegonObserver,i982, p. 5I.
Stool to keep the Asantehene in his fold',70 a reference to the fact that
the First Lady was a member of the Asante royal family. After the I 986
CDR Guidelineshad confirmed that all who were prepared to uphold
and defend the basic objectives of the revolution could join, it was not
long before the Asantehene became an honorary member. The good
work of the CDRs in Ashanti was praised in July I988 by Otumfuo
Opoku Ware II, who invited all chiefs in Ghana to co-operate
effectively with CDR cadres to enhance efforts at national recon-
struction. After having called Rawlings 'my son', the most powerful
traditional ruler in Ghana was photographed publicly embracing the
Head of State, a ritual act signifying acceptance and support for the
3ist December revolution with far-reaching political implications.
The PNDC on its part appointed a number of chiefs to influential
positions: Nandom Na, Polkuu Konkuu Chiiri VI, became PNDC
member and Secretary for Defence; Nana Akuoku Sarpong was made
Secretary for Health; and Emmanual G. Tanoh, an Agona chief and
lawyer, was appointed Secretary for Chieftaincy Affairs and Acting
Attorney-General. P. V. Obeng, PNDC member and chairman of the
powerful Committee of Secretaries, in explaining the prominence given
to chieftaincy in the revolution, noted in i989 that 'we have co-opted
the traditional authorities some way into the structure so that the
cultural aspect of our nationhood is maintained and that they are
involved in the process of development.'71 By then the PNDC had
enacted several important laws and instruments that gave legal
backing to the role of traditional institutions and practices in the
revolution, notably:
the Chieftaincy (Amendment) Law, i982 and i985; the Regions of Ghana
(Amendment) Law, i983, which created two new Regions along with their
Houses of Chiefs; the Head of Family (Accountability) Law, i985; the Local
Government Law, i988; and the various Local Government Instruments in
i988 that established the new ii o DistrictAssembliesthroughoutGhana.
The Regional Co-ordinating Council (RCC) in each of the ten
administrative regions of Ghana initially consisted of the Regional
Secretary and all District Secretaries appointed by the PNDC, as
well as Presiding Members of the District Assemblies, but the I992
constitution provided for the addition of chiefs as members. As for
the functions of each RCC, these included (i) the co-ordination and
formulation of integrated plans and programmes (through consultation
and sharing of views with the District Assemblies), and (ii) their
70 TalkingDrums (London), 25 March i985, p. I4.

71 Prisma,November i989, p. 38.
338 MAXWELL OWUSU
harmonisation with national development policies and priorities for the

approval of the PNDC; also (iii) the monitoring and implementation
of programmes and projects within the region, and (iv) the evaluation
of their performance.
The District Assemblies have yet to achieve their full and real
potential. According to Jeffrey Herbst's otherwise excellent study of the
politics of reform in Ghana from 1982 to i99i, they are described as
'apolitical organizations ... [which] cannot be expected to provide
political support'. He also sees as a 'defect' in the system the fact that
there is no way in which the district assemblies can transmit informationfrom
the rural areas to the national leadership. The assemblies are not designedto
transmit information, and they currently lack the expertise or the resourcesto
competently survey their constituencies even if they desired to informthe
central government about the state of agriculture, the roads, or social
services.72
Is this simply because members have been recruited on the basis of free
non-partisan elections and appointments by the PNDC?
The fact that District Assemblies are non-partisan does not mean
that they are apolitical, as T. H. Ewusi-Brookman explained in an
editorial in The Pioneer:
It is reasonable to say that if one is helped to stand on a campaign platform
mounted on one's behalf and others by the National Commissionfor
Democracy, and by one's pledges to help improve the life of the community,
one is elected to a district or metropolitan assembly established by PNDCLaw
207, one is doing politics ... Furthermore, if a person is a PNDC appointeeor
nominee to a district or metropolitan assembly, that person is... also doing
politics. The layman's view of the PNDC, its membership and all its
components of secretariesat cabinet, regional and district levels, as well asthe
various revolutionary organs are all doing politics. This is despite the factthat
they are doing so under no party concept and mandate.73
Indeed, the members of the Agona District Assembly saw themselvesas
'politicians', and some even acted like old party-elected parliamen-
tarians at district level. Moreover, according to the I986 CDR
Guidelines,as thereafter provided for in the Local Government Law of
i988 and the Local Government (Amendment No. 2) Law of i990,
they felt the need to keep in close touch with their constituents,
72 Jeffrey Herbst, The Politicsof Reformin Ghana,1982-91 (Berkeley, Los Angeles, and Oxford,
1993), pp- 91-2.
7 See T. H. Ewusi-Brookman, 'Is the Politician, The Scape Goat? Editorial Opinion',in Ivor
Agyeman Duah (ed.), op. cit. pp. 38-9.
including their traditional authorities and Presiding Member, as well
as the District Administra tive Officer and the PNDC District Secretary.
The latter acts as the Government's eyes and ears, not least by
channelling information from the centre to the district and vice versa,
thereby helping the District Assembly to identify the needs and
priorities of Agona, as well as the required resources.
THE AGONA DISTRICT EXPERIENCE
Given the rather great degree of socio-historical and geographical

diversity in Ghana, any generalization about the meaning and impact
of the PNDC revolution is apt to be invalid unless based on systematic
studies of a wide variety of localities and districts. My Agona experience
briefly presented here may help to answer the following questions: to
what extent were Agona traditional authorities 'co-opted' into the
structure of the revolution? and how were they involved in the process
of development?
Most of the component localities of the Agona District are either
villages or small rural towns, such as Kwanyako, Asafo, Abodom,
Nyakrom, Nsaba, Kwaman, Duakwa, Bobikuma, and Bawjiase. Only
Agona-Swedru, the district capital, with a population of over 20,000,
enjoyed an array of basic social amenities, notably pipe-borne water
and electricity, and only there did commercial life, transportation, and
services dominate economic activities, although farming continued to
remain important. As for the population of the rural towns in the
district, those employed in agriculture ranged from 57 to 8o per cent,
as elsewhere in Ghana.74 There are two paramount chiefs in Agona,
one at Nyakrom and the other at Nsaba, plus a number of divisional
and sub-divisional chiefs, adikro,and headmen, on the Akan pattern,
and data collected suggest that the majority of people felt that the
district assembly concept, the cornerstone of decentralization and
participatory democracy, was a natural and rational product of the
basic assumptions of local indigenous political traditions.
The voting patterns and the results of the i988-9 elections for the
Agona District Assembly clearly confirm this assessment.75 And so did
the highly successful function organised in May i989 specifically for
chiefs, cadres, assembly members, town development committees, and
district heads of ministerial departments 'on the theme 'Towards
Mobilisation of Available Local Resources for Development: the case
7 GhanaPopulationCensus,i984 (Accra, I984), pp. 72-3.

7 See Owusu, 'Democracy and Africa'.
340 MAXWELL OWUSU
of District Assemblies'. About 6oo attended the two-day conference,

and the enthusiasm shown by all participants, as well as the nationally
respected invited speakers, was indicative of the close bonds being
developed between Agona chiefs and the people.
The peaceful manner in which occasional conflicts between chiefs
and revolutionary cadres were settled in Agona was another indication
of the cordial and productive relationship being forged between the key
traditional and non-traditional leaders. For instance, the PNDC
District Secretary for Agona, H. Jehu-Appiah, and the Presiding
Member of the District Assembly, B. A. K. Griffen (a retired high
school principal who was also a chief of Abodom), while on a
familiarisation tour in April I989 strongly urged the people of
Kwaman, a small rural town, to reorganise the local CDR so as to
reduce tension and enable the chiefs to work closely with the new
members.76 Again, a timely intervention by Jehu-Appiah and Griffen
prevented a potentially explosive situation in Upper Bobikuma, where
eight chiefs were unlawfully 'destooled' in a so-called popular uprising,
precipitated by an alleged exorbitant increase in funeral contributions
('nsawabode')that they had imposed on the people. An emergency
meeting of the CDR convened in November i989 was reminded by the
District Organising Assistant that they were not allowed to dabble in
chieftaincy matters. He appealed to the people to exercise restraint,
and to resort to lawful procedures to avoid any breach of the peace. In
attendance was the Assembly member for the town, and after some
discussion the case was duly referred for settlement to the Omanhene
of Agona Nyakrom Traditional Area, Nana Okofo Katakyi Kweku
Eku IX, and his Traditional Council.
It must be noted that the new bye-laws regulating marriages and
funerals, which applied to 'all natives' living in the Nyakrom
Traditional Area as from December i988, had been passed by the
Traditional Council in February in exercise of the powers conferred on
its Funeral and Marriage Committee by traditional customary law
under section 4' of the Chieftaincy Act, No. 270 of I97I. The term
'natives' means Cpersons or group of persons living in the Nyakrom
Traditional Area ... of Agona Nationality and may include strangers
who have naturalized and are willing to adopt these laws'."7 The
Agona CDR leadership appear to have accepted in principle the
76 See 'Report on the Familiarization Tour of the Agona District by the PNDC Secretary and
the Presiding Member of the Agona District Assembly', i989.

77'Marriage and Funeral Bye-Laws, i988, by the Agona Nyakrom Traditional Council',
I988, p. 4-
dictum expressed by one Agona chief I interviewed, that' Tumbi woho

ana abanreba': namely, 'The authority of the chief existed before the
establishment of the modern state'. This was certainly a far cry from
the early days of the revolution in I 982, when the Agona-Swedru WDC
had demanded that the Court Grade I Magistrate and Registrar
be transferred because of their 'corrupt and counter-revolutionary
activities'.78
These and other isolated and yet 'normal' conflicts between chiefs
and CDRs did not disturb the on-going integration of traditional
institutions into the structure and dynamics of the revolution in the
Agona district, as may be illustrated by the following developments:
I. The National Mobilisation Programme, which started in i983 as
an emergency measure to receive and resettle those expelled from
Nigeria, soon became a viable and profitable enterprise in Agona
thanks to the ready support given by local chiefs. They freely released
communal lands to what became known as 'Mobisquads', who
undertook a variety of projectsin the district - including the cultivation
of maize, pepper, coffee, cocoa, and oil palm - with some of the profits
made being ploughed back into community development. Some
Mobisquads became co-operatives, and the only two with this status in
the Central Region were Mensakrom and Mankrong in the Agona
district. Concurrently, the 3 I St December Women's Movement, headed
by the First Lady, was also allocated lands by chiefs. Some of the I I
branches established in Agona began to manufacture soap, while others
ran day nurseries and care centres for working mothers.
2. Like all chiefs throughout Ghana, those in Agona continued to
use traditional festivals, such as Akwambo,as well as other ceremonial
occasions, including durbars, to explain and propagate the ideals and
aims of the revolution, to announce policy decisions, and to 'outdoor'
development projects. Chiefs were actively involved in programmes
associated with creation of district assemblies and their inauguration in
I988-9. Of the 22 appointed by the PNDC as members of the Agona
District Assembly, half were chiefs, as well as one of the 48 who had
been elected. The Presiding Member, perhaps the most dominant
personality in the Assembly, was as already noted a chief. At the
national level, chiefs were effectively represented in the National
Consultative Assembly inaugurated in August i99i, which debated
and adopted the draft proposals for the I 992 Fourth Republican
Constitution.
JNsamankow(Accra), 7, 24-30 September 1982, p. 8.

342 MAXWELL OWUSU
3. The Agona FankobaaKuw, a national association of citizens of the

District, was founded in early i989 with the full support of chiefs and
people of Agona. In May, some 30-40 delegates representing chapters
from across the country attended a meeting chaired by Nana Ampim
Darko V of Kwanyako, the main brain behind the organisation, which
was formally inaugurated two months later at an impressive ceremony
in Accra at the Ghana Institute of Journalism (GIJ). The main
speaker for the occasion was Nana Kwesi Obuadum XI (Emmanuel
G. Tanoh) of Nsaba, the PNDC Secretary for Chieftaincy Affairs and
Acting Attorney-General. The guests of honour included Kwesi
Botchwey, PNDC Secretary for Finance and Economic Planning, a
citizen of Agona Asafo; the Paramount Chiefs of Agona-Nyakrom and
Agona-Nsaba Traditional Areas; the High Commissioner of Canada to
Ghana; and the PNDC District Secretary for Agona, Jehu-Appiah,
whose grandfather had founded the nationally famous Musma Disco
Christo Church, an African-Christian movement. The masters of
ceremony were H. B. Baiden, a wealthy businessman, and Kweku
Darko (alias Super 0. D.), a nationally acclaimed and beloved TV and
radio entertainer from Agona Abodom.
4. The appointment of so many Agona to PNDC membership was
a source of local pride. Apart from those already mentioned, those from
this distinct Akan minority included Kojo Yankah, Director of the GIJ,
Kwamena Ahwoi, Secretary for Local Government, and Major (Rtd)
Abraham Sam, Under-Secretary for Roads and Highways. In I993
the Omanhene of Agona-Nyakrom Traditional Area conferred on
Botchwey, Ghana's longest serving Finance Minister, the title of
fkosohene, or 'Chief of National Progress', in recognition of his
contribution to economic recovery and development.
5. The CDRs, as well as other revolutionary organs such as theJune
4th Movement and the Civil Defence Organisation, were widely
presumed to stand in a similar special relationship to the Agona District
Assembly as the Asafo companies enjoyed with the traditional councils
of chiefs and elders. Indeed, at the grassroots level, the membership
tended to overlap, not surprisingly since their functions were rather
similar, and many of the chiefs accepted this as the revolution's tribute
to their leadership.
SOME CONCLUSIONS
The hard evidence from Agona is quite consistent with data collected
from other districts, and shows that far from being a decaying
institution as some have claimed, the chiefs were deeply involved in the
revolution right from the beginning, and made tangible and significant
contributions to the process of change. In I935, when the British
colonial authorities restored the Asante Confederacy, there were about
9,ooo gazetted chiefs in the Gold Coast of all categories - namely, the
Asantehene, paramount chiefs, divisional chiefs, sub-chiefs, adikro,and
headmen, with a national population of only 3-5 million. Over 50 years
and many radical changes later, the number of chiefs had risen steeply
to over 32,000, with a national population of 125 million according to
the I 984 census.
The PNDC politics of popular power cannot be completely
comprehended without systematic reference to tradition and tra-
ditionalism. The revolutionary process itself, right up to the in-
auguration of the Fourth Republic and constitutional democracy,
could be characterised as a mixture of authoritarianism, populism,
traditionalism, and liberalism typical of Ghana's deferential society.
The mixture, of course, tilted heavily towards one or other of the
' isms', depending on local factors and objective conditions. The reality
is that this is a country not only with a mixed economy, but a mixed
polity as well. As Carl Stone has argued, all contemporary political
systems exhibit a varying mix of basic tendencies - namely, populism,
liberalism, and authoritarianism- and political change is a 'dialectical
process whereby contending social interests seek to alter the balances
and mix among these basic elements' depending on historical
circumstances.79 Traditionalism must obviously be added in the
African context.
" Carl Stone,

'Democracy and Socialism in Jamaica, 1972-1979', in Henry Paget and Stone
(eds.), TheNewerCaribbeanDecolonization
DemocracyandDevelopment (Philadelphia, Institute for the
Study of Human Issues, i984), p. 236.

Tradition and Transformation: Democracy and The Politics of Popular Power in Ghana by Maxwell Owusu

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Tradition and Transformation: Democracy and The Politics of Popular Power in Ghana by Maxwell Owusu

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Tradition and Transformation: Democracy and the Politics of Popular Power in Ghana

Author(s): Maxwell Owusu

Tradition and Transformation:

IN April I992, after nearly i i years of military rule in Ghana, a draft

* Professorof Anthropology, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor.

I would contend that ' tradition', notably 'chieftaincy' and the

andsociety(London and Boulder, i 986).

5 CDR Guidelines(Accra, i986), pp. I and 3.

Acheampong and Frederick W. K. Akuffo), confiscated land and other

6 Hilla Limann, Democracy

THE JUNE 4 NEMESIS?

Given that the charismatic Flight-Lieutenant still commanded large

Constitution and the hand-over, it is disheartening to observe how the elected

sucess in that struggle will require the initiative of workers themselves to

Quoting a well-known Ghanaian proverb concerning human greed,

UNFINISHED REVOLUTION, DEMOCRACY, AND PNDC RULE

But did the policy mistakes, incompetence, constitutional abuses,

of President Limann published in I 983, and presented as an indictment

13 Kenneth Mackenzie, 'Introduction', in Limann, op. cit. pp. ix and xiii.

opposition was largely between groups and individuals who basically

The Povertyof Ideology

Ninsin', in CanadianJournalof AfricanStudies(Toronto), 22, I, i988, pp. I32-6, and Kwame A.

There is evidence that 'classes' (as occupational or income groups)

MAKING SENSE OF THE 'REVOLUTION

To thousands of his supporters in the early days of the 'revolution',

injustice, and lack of accountability among the most influential groups

19 Daily Graphic,27 May i982, p. 3.

of Secretaries of the PNDC, in an interview given to a Cuban magazine

THE PARADOX OF CHANGE

The contradictions and paradoxes of change that characterized the

22 P. V. Obeng, 'Interview with Hugo Alonso - Government on the Spot', in Prisma(Havana),

79, November i 989, pp. 34-40.

economic crisis. He claimed that the Ghanaian was a capitalist by

24 G. K. Agama, 'New Directions in Economic Policy for Ghana', in TheJournalof Management

NATIONAL CHARACTER AND CORE VALUES

Ghana is a deeply religious and deferential society that strives for

Later that year, in one of its numerous memoranda to the PNDC

A similar point was made by Elizabeth Ohene, who as an early

32 Christian Council of Ghana, November i982.

other societies, might have difficulties being transplanted wholesale into

37 Max Assimeng, 'Rawlings, Charisma and Social Structure', in Universitas(Legon), 8, n.d.

contiguous, overlapping, or cross-cutting system of so-called 'tradi-

decaying, system of authority to parliament', and his sweeping

TRADITION AND TRANSFORMATION

46 EricJ. Hobsbawn,Industry and Empire:from 1750 to thepresentday (Harmondsworth,

have, I believe, some important theoretical, substantive, and practical

that the institution should be protected and preserved by appropriate

institution of chieftaincy was threatened with abolition by PNDC

5 FreePress (Accra), 7 February I982, p. I.

contributed to depoliticization'.56 In support of this position, S. A.

We are building on the old heritage of the chiefs, not superimposingsomething

CHIEFS VERSUS PEOPLE OR CHIEFS AND PEOPLE?

There has been a tendency in Ghana for political history to be

64 John Gunther, InsideAfrica (London, I955), pp. 779-80.

66 Daily Graphic,7 January i982, p. I.

By the close of i982, the National Defence Committee (NDC) - the

70 TalkingDrums (London), 25 March i985, p. I4.

harmonisation with national development policies and priorities for the

THE AGONA DISTRICT EXPERIENCE

Given the rather great degree of socio-historical and geographical

7 GhanaPopulationCensus,i984 (Accra, I984), pp. 72-3.

of District Assemblies'. About 6oo attended the two-day conference,

the Presiding Member of the Agona District Assembly', i989.