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Dr Nii Amarh Josiah Ayeh I was with Josiah Aryeh in his University of Ghana law faculty office. I found out that he had written three or so books within the two or so years he had been out of office as General Secretary of the NDC. I commented about the celebrated English writer Charles Lamb. Charles was given custody of his sister Mary Lamb to alert health authorities when she lapsed into her periodic episodes of mental breakdown. I emphasized to Josiah that stress and anguish bring out the most profound intellectual attributes of man, and that Charles Lamb demonstrated that in his best literary output during the period his sister was in his custody. I have managed to read through Josiah's yet to be widely published book, and incidentally my biologist's instinct proved correct. An aspect of the book that widens its appeal is the picturesque construction of the sociology of Accra before the current physical and psychological reconfiguration. It is nostalgia at best to those in whose lifetime that era of Accra has disappeared, and to those who need reminding of the past of their current engagement. I publish below Chapter one of Josiah's yet to be published book capturing that nostalgia. Nii Armah Kweifio-Okai
CHAPTER ONE: THE BEGINNING I was born just after Independence at Jamestown in Accra in the Year of Our Lord 1958. The city which was the administrative centre of the Gold Coast was at the time of my birth the Mecca of African nationalists and Pan-Africanists. The fight for Africa-wide independence from European rule was at its height, having found its Moses in Kwame Nkrumah, the visionary socialist and Pan-Africanist. My birthplace was a mere stone’s throw from the old British centre of James Fort from where Pax Britannica had spread across the city and country. From its offices, scores of British administrators had imposed their writ on the country. Once at the British Public Records Office at Kew Gardens in England I had scoured through the pages of records kept at the fort. In its heyday every mail delivery and every rumour of war had been dutifully entered in the books as close tabs were kept on the locals. During the last years of British rule the fort was converted into a State prison. The waters of the Atlantic seemed to pound incessantly at the foundations of the fort, and at night the roar of the ocean filled its spacious chambers. The squat undistinguished fort overlooked the bay of Accra, transformed as it was into a mini harbour. It was into this harbour that Nkrumah sailed from Liverpool, having spent years as a student in American colleges and at the London School of Economics and Political Science. He had been invited to return to the Gold Coast to steer the affairs of the then dominant political group, the United Gold Coast Convention (U.G.C.C.). The U.G.C.C. was top heavy with patrician lawyers in no particular hurry to cut off British rule. Nkrumah’s more radical agenda led to an inevitable clash. Shortly before I was born Nkrumah found himself incarcerated behind the cold grey walls of James Fort prison. The spark of freedom that Nkrumah’s revolutionary rhetoric had unleashed was unstoppable. Sustained political campaigns, strikes, lootings, boycotts led to independence on 6 March 1957. Independence was the defining moment for the Gold Coast in very much the same way as the Second World War was the central event of the twentieth century. Under Kwame Nkrumah, African nationalism had made its home in Accra and the city basked in the euphoria of independence. The squares of Accra were in political ferment. Nearby, Bukom and West End Arena saw regular political rallies on a mammoth scale. All manner of counter-nationalists were also at work. The grounds of the Jamestown Methodist School doubled as a rally ground of the Ga Shifimo Kpee or the Ga Standfast Party championed by disaffected youths and a number of professionals. In that much-trampled square were many passionate speeches delivered by youthful leaders who barely squeezed an income out of the harbour or plied the streets as taxi drivers. They built their fame upon aggressive anti-CPP rhetoric and drew support largely from social categories at the margins of the State. The yard in which I grew up was surrounded by ancient housing of my matrilineage. It was typical traditional housing named after the founder, a smith. It was called Ofori Solo We. As a smith, Ofori was reputed in household folklore to have been the first settler at Adadentam or Adentam, the etymology of which was derived from the fact that the smith’s irons (dade) were kept in the surrounding fields. He was joined by a group of fishermen from Asere, the core Ga settlement in pre-colonial Accra. To date the Adentams, with names like Ayi, Armah, Dedei, Korkoi, Adaku, bear the purest Ga names among the inhabitants of Jamestown. The Jamestown Chief Fisherman is always from Adentam although few of the inhabitants actually undertake fishing. For some strange reason the paternal section of my matrilineage claim allegiance to the Sempe quarter of Jamestown. This may well be true as the Sempes had preceded the Alatas in their present settlement. It is fairly plausible that pockets of Sempesmight have preceded the Alatas in settling on lands to the west of Jamestown proper. Indeed, near the famous Russell Alley pockets of Sempes are found in close proximity with Aseres. Members of Ofori Solo We were also among the earliest settlers at Bortianor and Kokrobite where they constitute one of the main royal houses. I was one of a large family. Although I had no accurate knowledge of all my kinsfolk stories of the activities of my forebears and collaterals kept weaving in and out of family incidents.
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