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Can Guinea Teach Ghana And Nigeria?
Many observers say that something like twice that number of other Guineans have made their way home to enjoy the 'air of freedom' now blowing in their country. Colonel Traore's Committee for National Redress has now abolished the People's Tribunals which had been dispensing their own breed of justice for many years. The famed people's militia and other supposedly grassroot organisations that the late President had up in Guinea all seem to have evaporated into thin air without the slightest resistance or a show of regret on the part of those who had been swearing to defend the revolution with their very lives.
Over in Ghana, arms and weaponry have just been given to the first group of people's militia Tema with the statement that the people's militia in Tema are responsible for guarding vital installations.
On the judicial front, the People's Courts continue to dispense with their brand of justice backed by the undisputed weight of the leader of the Revolution - Flt- Lt. Rawlings, who has offered that most people who have cases in the ordinary courts have been pleading to have their cases dealt with the Tribunals.
People are said to be ready to die for the revolution and it is said everyday that the Peoples' Defence Committees and Worker's Defence Committees believe so passionately in the new order of life being by Flt-Lt. Rawlings, that they are ready against any and all attacks.
Over in Nigeria, WAI (War Against Indiscipline) badges are being pinned on the chests of officials who are supposed to be leaders in this war declared by the Federal Military Government against that supposedly Nigerian disease of ‘indiscipline’. The newspapers are full of photographs of people who have been caught as prisoners of this war. Such photographs often depict a young man on his knees with a cement block balanced precariously on his head and trying to make his way on a concrete pavement or tarmac or gravelled ground, there is usually a uniformed soldier with a horse whip in hand standing over the young man to ensure that he makes the distance or else.
Some twelve years ago, in the early heady days of the Acheampong coup in Ghana, such scenes were very common in Ghana - and again between June to September 1979 such scenes were commonplace - they were called DRILLING. Public servants who came to work late were apt to find themselves not only locked out, but had to undergo an hour or two of rigorous ‘drilling’, which might, on occasion, involve frog jumping while holding both ears, or, if you were female, having your hair shaved publicly or if you were female and a trader and had been caught selling above the officially controlled price, you were caned in the nude. At that time ‘indiscipline’ was supposed to be a peculiarly Ghanaian disease and Acheampong’s National Redemption Council, and Fit-Lt. Rawlings’ Armed Forces Revolutionary Council, were pledged to eradicate indiscipline from Ghanaian society. Newspapers wrote endless miles on the various campaigns and the success or otherwise can be measured in the state of Ghana today.
When it comes to people’s militia and tribunal, Guinea of the past 26 years provides a much more vivid example for those who would look. According the late Monsieur Sekou Touré, he had so transformed Guinean society that the institutions he had fashioned out would live on far longer than his own mortal life and Guinean revolutionary cadres used to shout their readiness to defend their people's revolution more enthusiastically than the present day cadres in Ghana.
For some reason, which must surely transcend the fickleness of humanity, Sekou Touré had not even settled in his resting place before all his grassroot organisations collapsed like a pack of cards.
Those who used to measure Sekou Touré’s popularity with his people by the turn out at the rallies and the declarations of support and loyalty from all sections of the Guinean society, must be equally baffled that today not one taxi driver can be found in Conakry who has a kind word for their departed leader.
But it is worth remembering that while Sekou Touré lived, anybody reading the Guinean newspapers or listening to the Voice of the Revolution Conakry, was likely to believe that indeed the whole country was solidly behind the late President and his ideas.
The very same arguments being offered in Nigeria and Ghana today have been churned out in Guinea for the past quarter of a century. Today the popular belief in Guinea is that all those institutions were against the very interests of the people - the people’s militia, the people’s tribunals, the war against indiscipline and the various operations launched at one time or the other. Again possibly such ‘heresies’ have become possible because a new group of people are now in charge of Guinea.
That same argument should also serve to tell the present rulers of Ghana and Nigeria that it is quite possible that their own actions and words are deemed to be in the best interests of their people only because in the case of Ghana, they have got the Press in the same situation as Sekou Touré’s Press was, and in the case of Nigeria, Gen. Buhari is working very hard to stifle dissenting opinions with draconian and intimidating decrees.
The lessons, however, must be clear: all these leaders who are so convinced they are doing something brand new and extraordinary only need look across their own borders to realise that the end results are already available.
It is intriguing - have the Guineans got it right after 25 years of revolution, tribunals and militias, ans is their experience of any use to their neighbours? Or the latterday revolutionaries and reformers in Ghana and Nigeria will succeed in ‘changing their societies by brutal force’.
