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The Kwame Nkrumah Institute of Economics and Political Science, commonly known as the
Winneba ideological Institute, was decreed into existence
by Nkrumah, who laid the foundation stone on 18 February 1961. It was located 40
miles west of
Accra
. Nkrumah had been considering the idea of establishing such a center for some time
and as early as 12 November, 1959 he told a meeting of the African Affairs Committee
that he intended "to convert the Winneba Party College to an institute where selected
dedicated members of all nationalist movements of Africa could be rigidly indoctrinated in the realism of African unity . . . " The purpose of such a center in Nkrumah's
words would be "to propagate firmly the essence of African unity in Ghana and throughout the Continent of Africa." He said that trainees should be "made to realize the Party's
ideology is a religion and should be carried out faithfully and fervently." In 1961
Nkrumah, having pronounced that "only socialists can
build a socialist society,"
.founded the Ideological
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Institute to indoctrinate people in socialism Its
mission was described by a staff member in the following unequivocal terms: "Since
practically all the positions in the State machinery, all the executive positions,
were occupied by high officials trained by the British and/or bourgeois mentality,
it is quite obvious that in order to implement its programme of socialist construction,
the C.P.P. has to train men and women who support the principles of socialism and
who can occupy the key positions of the State machinery as wall as those in industrial
and agricultural enterprises."
Nkrumah was influenced by his Russian security advisers to use the Winneba Institute
as his sole selecting ground for future members of the Security Service. According
to a high level official of the Nkrumah Security Service "the Russian security experts suggested to the ex-President, who readily accepted, that future recruitment into
the security services should be through the Ideological Institute at Winneba.
It was in response to this that the head of the Special Branch sent a number of
Special Branch officers to the Ideological Institute." In other words, the Institute
was in business to train cadres, politically loyal to Nkrumah and socialism, who
would eventually replace established civil servants and key workers in every segment
of the Ghana economy.
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The Institute's functions, however,
were not limited to indoctrinating Ghanaians. Its publicly announced purview was:
I. "to train socialist Ghanaians capable of taking into their hands the key posts
in all sectors of the apparatus of the State and the economy, and to take an active
part in the socialist programme of the Convention People's Party;
2. "to train African Freedom Fighters in the spirit of the African revolution, pan-Africanism
and socialism in such a way that when they return to their homelands they will be
better armed to take an active part in liberating their countries from imperialism;
colonialism and neocolonialism;
3. "to train Africans in the spirit of panAfricanism as a method of making progress
toward African Union;
4. "to train Africans in the spirit of Nkrumaism which is considered like the development
of Marxism in conditions and circumstances peculiar to Africa, and
5. "to train Africans in the spirit of proletarian internationalism." The syllabus
for the Institute states its aims in the following terms: "to provide ideological
education to activists and Freedom Fighters of the African struggle against imperialism,
colonialism and neocolonialism."
The Institute seems to have operated at first on an ad hoc basis. It was the site
of the Second All Independent Countries Conference held from 28 June, until 5 July
1961. Then, during the week of 8 January 1962, all
Ghana
's Ambassadors assigned to non-African countries took a course at the Institute
given jointly by the Bureau of African Affairs and the C.P.P. Again in June 1962;
an All-African Freedom Fighters' Conference was convened at the Institute where
Nkrumah addressed it.
However, all of the Institute's activities at this time were not so public for in
1962 it was also used to house and conceal 46 graduates of the Mankrong Camp training
course in weapons handling and explosives. Regular ideological indoctrination courses
were also being given in this period. For example,
Ghana
composer, Francis Saka Acquaye, was summoned to Flagstaff House in 1961 and chastised
for the anti-Russian remarks made by members of the cast of his musical Obadzeng.
The then Minister of Information, Tawia Adamafio, told him "the whole cast should
go to Winneba Ideological Institute and have their minds cleansed of reactionary
thoughts." In addition, there is a letter to the Secretary-general of the C.P.P.
from W. D. Chambeta of
Southern Rhodesia
, dated 21 September, 1961, asking for places for five Rhodesian men and three women
at the Ideological Institute.
A postscript to the letter asks: "In all correspondence, please try and avoid use
of official stationery in order to avoid any suspicion on the part of the imperialists
at home." By 1962, the Institute was in regular operation with an enrolled student
body and a full-time staff. At that time its physical plant consisted of a yellow
and green three-storey building with lower floor devoted to classrooms and upper
floors to student bedrooms.
There were also half a dozen cottages for teachers on the premises and a second
larger three-storey building was nearing completion. The new building's first floor
contained offices, large dining hall, large assembly hall, laundry and kitchen facilities.
The second and third floors contained student bedrooms. In 1961, the Ghana Government
reportedly made £2,000,000 available to develop the Institute into an agent training
school.
The 1962 enrollment was 100 students for whose instruction the Institute maintained
a staff of three resident professors and six part-time teachers. The Institute Director
was Kodwo Addison, widely known in
Ghana
as a Communist activist, who described the Institute in the following terms: "It
will aim at becoming the conscience of
Africa
. Africans of all regions will be trained at the Institute Including freedom fighters
and terrorists He continued: "foreign students will get mostly Marxist and African
nationalistic training. They also will be taught how to fight their governments
from two points of views: constitutionally and revolutionarily."
Addison
planned that there eventually would be guerilla
warfare training at the school.
A. K. Barden, Director of the Bureau of African Affairs at that time, was identified
as Deputy Rector of the Institute, and both he and Addison reported to H. H. Cofie-Crabbe,
Executive Secretary of the C.P.P. The Institute was an adjunct of both the B.A.A.
and the C.P.P. In 1963 additional funds amounting to £1,100,000 were given to the
Institute by Nkrumah for an elaborate expansion programme which included the erection
of a main hall (£170,000), to be followed by the erection of 30 staff houses, a
library, a 40-bed hospital, an £18,000 bell tower and a 20-feet high granite Statue
of Nkrumah. By November 1964, a large residence hall had been completed; a second
was under construction and a third projected. The bell tower, a swimming pool and
a debaters' pit were nearing completion.
The bell tower was ready to play party solidarity songs on the hour. An official
audit of the funds of the Institute for 196364 reveals "the Institute embarked on
development projects which had not been budgeted for and... exceeded its available
grants by about £7,000." Since the amounts mentioned in this audit as having been
available to the Institute are far less than the grants to the Institute mentioned
in
Ghana
's press, it is probable that additional funds were personally made available to
the Institute by Nkrumah.
The rapid growth of the Ideological Institute reflects the importance attached to
it by Nkrumah and his Russian advisers who had assigned it a major role in their
long-range plans for total control of
Ghana
and
Africa
. It also reflects the power drive of its Director, Kodwo Addison. Addison, honorary
president of the Ghana Soviet Friendship Society and a self-avowed Communist, was
Secretary-General of the Maritime Workers Union in 1952 and at that time established
lasting relationships with Communist trade union officials. He was eventually ousted
from the labor movement in 1955 because of his Communist activities. With the help
of John Tettegah, Secretary-General of the MI African Trade Union Federation, he
re-entered the labor movement in 1958 and rapidly rose to high position. By 1960
Addison
had become Director of Political and Social Affairs in the Ghana Trades Union Congress.
To a less ambitious man his appointment by Nkrumah to head the Ideological Institute
might have represented the apogee of power, but for
Addison
it was only a beginning. At the time of the coup, Addison had been named a member
of the three-man commission chosen by Nkrumah to act for him should he be incapacitated;
a member of the Central Committee of the C.P.P. concerned with organizational and
ideological work; chairman of the C.P.P. Education Committee; member of the Board
of Directors of the Ghana Broadcast rig Company; member of the Board of Directors
of the Daily Graphic; member of a Committee to Review Pre-University Education,
and assistant to the Director of Press and Radio to advise on political interpretation
and proper treatment of news items both at home and abroad." With each of these
positions (with the exception of the Presidential Commission from which he was removed
in June 1965), Addison consolidated his control over the information and education
systems in
Ghana
.
He became virtual dictator in the ideological field. (In addition to
Addison
's leading role in the various censorship organs of State, three other Institute
staff members were engaged in censorship) Professor Abraham,
Ghana University
staff part-time lecturer at the Institute, was chairman of a committee "to inspect
publications in bookshops and libraries of schools, colleges and universities in
the country." Other Institute members were two Communist Nigerian exiles Bankole
Akpata and Samuel G. Ikoku. Thus
Addison
. through his own positions and those of staff members connected with him, determined
what was to be taught in schools. Available in bookstores and libraries and reported
in news media. He could also suppress anything that did not conform with his own
views.
There is no mystery as to his views.
Addison
enunciated them freely and especially succinctly on 1 October 1965. in a speech
delivered in
Moscow
on the occasion of the Centenary Anniversary of the First Working men's International
to which he was a delegate. He stated: "Just as Leninism is Marxism in the period
of imperialism, Nkrumaism is Marxism in the era of neo-colonialism. We embrace scientific
socialism and fully agree with Marxism-Leninism.
With a Director advocating such views, it is not surprising to find that the staff'
of the institute was heavily weighted with imported Communist professors and pro-Communist
Africans. Of the twelve instructors at the Institute during this period, eleven
were either outright Communist or associated with the Communist cause in some other
way. Five were foreign Communists; two Ghanaians had studied in
Hungary
and
East Germany
respectively, and three other Ghanaians were indebted to the Communists for various
trips to bloc countries.
By l964-65, the staff was even more clearly Communist, since six of the eleven new
staff members were European Communists, and there were Nigerian Communists. A list
of the academic staff at the Institute dated December 1965 reveals the considerable
expansion of staff that has taken place since 1962. The original staff of three
resident professors and six part-time instructors is dwarfed by the 1965 complement
of 23 full-time professors. A list of courses and instructors for the Institute.
Time-Table for Two-year Diploma in Economics and Political Science 196566 Academic
Year-shows five additional Teachers on the staff' bringing the total for 196566
to
28. The courses given, although they hear innocuous generalized titles such as
"Sociology," History," and " Government," was actually Marxist-Leninist indoctrination
lectures with a liberal sprinkling of Nkrumaism as the African version of Marxism-Leninism.
The number of students enrolled at the Institute increased in direct ratio to the
expansion of faculty and physical facilities already noted.
The following enrollment figures reflect the enrollment of the Institute: 1962-100
students of whom 72 graduated in 1964 including three Somalis). 1963-210 students
(five Kenyans, two Nigerians). 1964-475 students (five Kenyans. two Nigerians -
second year - four Senegalese - first year and an unidentified number of Malawians).
In 1964
Addison
stated he expected an eventual enrollment of 1.000 students and soon planned to
augment the two-year programme with a third year for outstanding students. He used
the word "activists" to describe these students. A professor at the Institute in
December 1965 mentioned a current enrollment of 550 and restated
Addison
's expectation of 1,000 students citing 1970 as the date this would be accomplished
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