How Nkrumah kept my father in condemned cell for 6 years — Dr. Afriyie Akoto

Minister of Agriculture — Dr. Owusu Afriyie Akoto has shared a chilling story of how his father, Baffour Osei Akoto was put in a condemned cell for close to six (6) years by Dr. Kwame Nkrumah, Ghana's first President.

The Agriculturalist, who was speaking to a gathering of law students during the launch of this year's Baffour Akoto Moot Court Competition said, his father was thrown into condemned cell 11 of the Nsawam Medium Security Prisons in the mid-fifties over his role in standing up for the rights of cocoa farmers.

Every year, students of the Ghana School of Law as part of their SRC Week celebration, organize the Baffour Akoto Moot Court Competition to honour the memory and sacrifices made by Baffour Osei Akoto.

Delivering a keynote address at the launch, Dr. Afriyie Akoto narrated that his father led cocoa farmers in the struggle to obtain a decent producer price to better the lives of cocoa farmers at the time.

According to him, this happened in 1954,  a time when his father, Baffour Akoto Osei had formed a political party, the National Liberation Movement (NLM) to oppose a virtual one-party system which was then emerging under Kwame Nkrumah and the Convention People’s Party (CPP).

He said Dr. Nkrumah during the 1954 election campaign, promised to better the lives of cocoa farmers by doubling the producer price of cocoa but after winning the elections, he rather announced the reduction of the price, something he said, resulted in bringing a lot of agitations in the system.

"During the March 1954 election campaign, Kwame Nkrumah had promised to double the producer price of cocoa farmers if they voted for the CPP. After winning the elections, instead of doubling the producer price of cocoa as promised, Kwame Nkrumah turned around to announce a reduction in the producer price thereby putting cocoa farmers at a financial disadvantage. The furore which followed this broken promise led to severe agitation against the CPP in the cocoa-growing areas of the time," he said as he advised the students to fight for the rights of people especially farmers, women and people with disabilities.

He said his father who was a don in cocoa farming and a senior linguist to the then Asantehene took it upon himself to lead the agitations in fighting for what was right but he was detained with several others under the Preventative Detention Act (1958) and was kept in the Nsawam prison in solitary confinement for a period of nearly six years.

"Being a popular figure in the cocoa-growing community, because of his position as senior linguist to the Asantehene and as a big cocoa farmer himself, Baffour was a natural choice to lead this agitation.

"For his role in standing up for the rights of cocoa farmers and advocating for multi-party democracy, Baffour Osei Akoto and hundreds of others were detained under the Preventative Detention Act (1958) and was kept in Nsawam medium security prison in solitary confinement for a period of nearly six years," he said.

He added, "Baffour and the top hierarchy of detained political prisoners including Dr J B Danquah were kept in cells meant for condemned prisoners who had been found guilty of murder."