Kofi Abrefa Busia

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Kofi Abrefa Busia (born July 11, 1913 in Wenchi ; † August 28, 1978 ) was Prime Minister in the second Republic of Ghana from 1969 to 1972 and a university professor in Ghana, the Netherlands and England. Busia belonged to the royal family in Wenchi.

education

Busia originally comes from the Brong-Ahafo region in the city of Wenchi, where he also attended the Methodist School. He later went to Mfantsipim College in Cape Coast in the Central Region .

From 1931 to 1932 Busia attended Wesley College in Kumasi in the Ashanti region and taught at Achimota College from 1936 to 1939. During this time, he graduated from the University of London with a degree in Medieval and Modern History (University of London) special honors.

In 1941 he studied at Oxford University and graduated with a bachelor's and master's degree in politics, philosophy and economics. He was awarded a doctorate (Ph.D.) in Social Anthropology . The title of his doctoral thesis was The Position of the Chief in the Modern Political System of Ashanti , which is praised by some authors as the best work on the subject.

Career between politics and teaching

Back in Ghana, Busia worked from 1942 to 1949 as the head of a district, i.e. a lower administrative unit ( District Commissioner ).

In 1949 Busia received the first professorship for an Africa course (African Studies), which he held until 1954. Busia was the first African to become President of the University of Cape Coast .

In 1951 Busia was of the Ashanti Confederacy in the Legislative Council ( Legislative Council selected) and was only a year later, in 1952, chairman of the party Ghana Congress Party . This party worked with other opposition parties to create the United Party (UP).

In exile

As the leader of the opposition, summarized in the opposition United Party , and opponent of the later first President of Ghana, Kwame Nkrumah , Busia felt threatened and therefore fled the country in 1959. He became Professor of Sociology and Culture at the University of Leiden in the Netherlands . Between 1961 and 1966 he was a member of St Antony's College of Oxford University , UK.

After Nkrumah

After a successful military coup in February 1966 deposed President Nkrumah and replaced him with the National Liberation Council (NLC), Busia returned to Ghana on March 19, 1966. He became an advisor to the NLC.

Between 1967 and 1968, Busia was chairman of the Center for Civil Education (CCE)

In 1968 Busia became a member of the Constitutional Review Committee and founded the Progress Party , (PP) with friends from the former United Party, immediately after the fall of the party ban initially imposed by the NLC .

In the first elections after the military coup and the time of the NLC in September 1969, the PP won 104 parliamentary seats and thus more than a two-thirds majority.

In October 1969, Busia was sworn in as Prime Minister under President Edward Akufo-Addo . Busia was considered the actual power holder, not Akufo-Addo. Busia continued the NLC's westward policy.

Liberal Democracy in Africa

In his work The Challenge of Africa , Kofi A. Busia observes that in contrast to Africa's traditional indigenous political institutions, which were receptive to the local needs of their communities and in which ordinary people could participate in political life, the colonial governments were fundamentally involved were authoritarian in nature. This explains, according to Busia, the authoritarian (even totalitarian) nature of the political systems and institutions of the newly independent African states, including the widespread adoption of the one-party system and a strong executive. Busia claims that, contrary to the assumption of many African philosophers and politicians, the main principles of liberal democracy are not necessarily Western, but rather universal and therefore can be institutionalized in any culture, including African.

Politics under Busia

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The Busia government bore heavily under the heavy debt of former President Nkrumah. Since the former president went into exile after the coup in Guinea and was still active from there, there was a constant fear in the government that the former ruler might return to Ghana. Although the government under Busia gave the opposition a certain leeway, propaganda in favor of the deposed president was banned and made a criminal offense.

A law from December 1969 that expelled hundreds of thousands of immigrants from Togo and Nigeria from the country is still very controversial . Sometimes this is said to have taken place under questionable circumstances. In particular, human rights are said to have been seriously violated in this action. Estimates speak of almost a quarter of a million people affected.

Busia was also criticized for the proposal to come into political and economic contact with the apartheid regime in South Africa .

Ultimately, however, it was the economic problems that led to the end of the Busia government. Busia failed to stabilize the cedi . Cocoa , one of Ghana's most important economic goods, was smuggled into neighboring countries in order to get better prices here due to the better exchange rates. Corruption was widespread. The government had made little changes to the nationalized system from the Nkrumah period, so the economic problems could not be resolved. The high world market prices for cocoa could support the system for a while.

After the world market prices for cocoa fell dramatically, the currency of the "Cedi" was massively devalued. This led to an uproar in the country, as staple foods were now barely affordable for many. From this unrest a climate developed that the later putschists used against Busia.

The coup

The government Busia was the second military coup in Ghana under Colonel ( Colonel ) Ignatius Kutu Acheampong on 13. January 1972 discontinued.

death

Busia died of a heart attack in the UK in 1978 .

family

Busia was married to Naa Morkor Busia. Actress and writer Akosua Busia is a daughter and was born in Oxford in the year of the coup against Nkrumah. The well-known university professor Abena Busia is also a daughter of the former Prime Minister of Ghana.

Publications

  • Africa in Search of Democracy (Academic Literature, 1967)
  • Urban Churches in Britain (Report, 1966)
  • Purposeful Education for Africa (Academic Literature, 1964)
  • Challenge of Africa (Academic Literature, 1962)

See also

swell

  1. ↑ Kofi Abrefa Busia , profile on ghanaweb.com
  2. ↑ Exile Return . Africa Report, Vol. 11 No. 55, May 1966, p. 29
  3. ↑ Guy Martin: African Political Thought . Ed .: Springer. 2012, ISBN 978-1-137-06205-5 , pp. 50-51 .
  4. ↑ a b c d e f g Ghana 7: The Second Republic (1969–1972) . Article on afrikappolitik.blogspot.com, November 28, 2006

Web links

personal data
SURNAME Busia, Kofi Abrefa
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Ghanaian politician, Prime Minister
DATE OF BIRTH July 11, 1913
PLACE OF BIRTH Wenchi
DATE OF DEATH August 28, 1978