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Ghana: Autobiography of Kwame Nkrumah
(First published 1957)
During the period of my trial, which must have taken about a week altogether, I was remanded in custody. At least I was able to meet my companions and discuss our common problems, but the thing that I objected to most of all was the constant interruption of being dragged backwards and forwards to the courtroom. Some of the undisciplined warders made conditions worse by their obvious delight in having so many prominent people to bully and push around. They had never before had to deal with so many political law-breakers and were revelling in this chance to display authority.
I was quite resigned to my fate. I had foreseen what in all probability lay in store for me and I had prepared myself to accept the consequences. It was all a part of the struggle that I had embarked upon. It was a nuisance, of course, because it meant delay in achieving the final goal of freedom, but I would be able to pick up the threads where I had left off just as soon as I had served my sentence. I had long since come to learn that in the colonial struggle, when faced with a situation of this sort, it is not a question of justice. The idea of defending my case, therefore, had never entered my head, for, whatever defence was put up, I felt that the authorities would not allow me and my colleagues to escape conviction for the judiciary and the executive under a colonial regime are one and the same thing.
Some of my followers, however, who were unacquainted with the treatment meted out to promoters of uprisings in a revolutionary movement, pressed me to secure the services of a lawyer to defend us. Although I knew that this was going to be a complete waste of money and energy, I did not want my colleagues to feel during the long months that lay ahead of us that we had put up no legal fight. I felt that even if we failed, the fact that we had tried might make them feel happier while undergoing their sentences.
An African lawyer was out of the question and so I arranged for two barristers to come out from England. These two gentlemen did everything they possibly could to help us, but I think that even they must have known how useless it was from the very beginning to battle against so determined a power. Our defence cost two thousand pounds altogether and I had to get various loans in order to settle the amount.
I was quite prepared for a prison sentence but horrified by the rumour of a very different punishment in store for me. According to this report someone in authority had conceived the ingenious idea that, as it had been impossible to pin the murder of the two African policemen killed during the clash with the ex-servicemen on any individual, and because I was responsible for declaring Positive Action, then I should be linked with the deaths of these two unfortunate men. It would have suited many people to have me out of the way for all time but, as my hands were perfectly clean with regard to this incident their investigations proved quite fruitless and the charge was never levelled against me.
I appeared in the court room to defend the various charges against me, the main one being that I had incited others to take part in an illegal strike under the terms of Positive Action, which, in the opinion of the presiding magistrate, was a different matter to organising a strike in furtherance of a trade dispute. What I had done, I was informed, was to endeavour to coerce the Government of the Gold Coast.
Mr Saloway was there as one of the chief witnesses for the Crown. I sat and listened to the long story of my activities, of my warnings from the Colonial Secretary and of my determination to go ahead with my plans in spite of these warnings. My defence could hardly have been called such, for, apart from denying the charge that I had anything to do with the strikes of the T.U.C. and the meteorological workers, and explaining my campaign from my own standpoint and from that of the Gold Coast people, I admitted that the facts they had recited were a fairly accurate record of what had taken place. I was given two sentences of one year each. But they had not finished with me. From Accra I had to go on to Cape Coast to undergo trial on a charge for sedition as publisher of the Daily Mail in which an article had appeared called ‘A Campaign of Lies’ and for which my editor, Kofi Baako, was already imprisoned.
I had forgotten for the moment that I was now a guest of His Majesty’s Prisons and I was rather looking forward to this trip to Cape Coast in, I thought, a reasonably comfortable car. I soon discovered how wrong I was! To begin with, although I put up not the slightest resistance, my warders were apparently not going to take any chances of losing me, for I was promptly handcuffed. Then, with both hands clamped together at the wrists, I was made to climb into the back of an old van, a feat which would have put many experienced acrobats to shame.
One look at the van dispelled any thought I may have had about a comfortable trip. Comfort was the least of my concerns now: the question uppermost in my mind was, how could a decrepit vehicle possibly make the journey in one piece. I soon stopped worrying about the vehicle, however, for it became increasingly apparent, with every yard that we progressed, that the odds against me arriving at my destination in one piece were far heavier. For three hours I was perched sideways, on a hard bench clasping awkwardly with my shackled hands a bar that was placed in the middle of the van. The body of the vehicle, with which I was most actively concerned, rocked and rolled as if it were a light raft on a stormy sea and by shutting my eyes I could visualise myself as a galley slave. Every time we turned a corner, and I had no idea before that there were so many on that road to Cape Coast, every muscle of my body was brought into play in an effort to keep me from being thrown to the other side of the van.
And this was not all. Every species of insect life that could fly, tickle and bite was represented in that van and it took no time at all for them to discover my inability to knock them off the exposed parts of my body. I think the warders must have felt a little sorry for me because somewhere along the route the van stopped and one of them brought me a bar of chocolate. As I had refused to eat anything before I left Accra, I was very thankful for it and I felt considerably happier as a result of the man’s kind gesture.
A solemn crowd of tearful people had assembled around the prison entrance at Cape Coast and the sight of them touched me deeply. As soon as the van drew up I performed another acrobatic feat as I got out and was then bustled off to a cell. There, wrapped up in a blanket on the floor, completely left to myself, I had the deepest and soundest sleep that I had had for many nights.
The following morning I appeared before the court, defended by Archie Casely-Hayford, now Minister of Communications. But here again, the defence might just as well have saved its breath, for it was all in vain. I was given another sentence of a year’s imprisonment, making three years in all, each sentence to be served consecutively.
As soon as the trial was over I was given another nightmare ride back to Accra where I was safely handed over to the authorities of James Fort Prison. I was taken to cell number eleven where ten of my comrades were already installed, and I can’t say that the prospect of a three years’ stay in these surroundings was a very happy one.
Whilst I didn’t exactly expect to be made to feel at home in James Fort, it was somewhat of a shock to me to discover that, as a political prisoner, I was treated as a criminal. Sometimes I used to speculate as to what my lot would have been as a hardened gaol-bird. It was difficult to imagine that there could be worse treatment if the minimum of health and sanity of the inmate were to be preserved.
For eleven men we were supplied with a bucket in one corner of the already over-crowded cell to serve as a latrine. After a few weeks most of us managed to overcome the fearful indignity of using this so very public convenience. If only we had been permitted the flimsiest of straw mats to partition the thing off, it would at least have been an attempt to preserve a sense of decency but it seemed that, like animals in a cage, we had to act our part without complaint. We used to take it in turns to clean this receptacle each day and we did what we could to make the best of a bad job. But it was most unpleasant, especially as the wretched food that we had was invariably upsetting our stomachs. It was all most embarrassing and most degrading.
The food was both scanty and poor. For breakfast we were given a cup of maize porridge without sugar. For the midday meal and for the last meal of the day at four pm we were given either boiled cassava, kenke (corn meal) or gari (a cassava farine) with red pepper. On Sundays and Wednesdays we had a watery soup with the minutest piece of meat thrown in. This was purely a gesture, for it was as hard as a bullet. Sometimes we would get a piece of smoked fish with pepper. Rice was a luxury and only given to those who were unwell and for whom it was prescribed by the prison doctor.
When we first arrived, my colleagues were so disgusted with the food that some of them went on a hunger strike. I was against this for I saw that it would get us nowhere; on the contrary, it was necessary to eat all we could in an effort to keep our strength up. There was much work to do when we were eventually released and it was going to be no good to anybody if we had to be invalided out. After much persuasion on my part, the strikers gave in.
I used to fast for one or two days a week because this had been a former habit of mine. But apart from the spiritual value derived from this, during those prison days it also helped my stomach to right itself again. I had never cared much for food in any case, so I was perhaps more fortunate than my fellow prisoners.
We were let out of our cell from seven in the morning until eleven o’clock for exercise and to work, either at weaving fish-nets or at cleaning cane ready for basket making. Then we were locked up again until one o’clock and we were finally locked up for the night at four pm after our evening meal. All our meals were eaten in our cell, which probably added to the unpleasantness of the food.
It was of course forbidden for me to have a pencil and paper or to read any newspapers and my greatest anxiety at that time was how the Party was faring during my absence. It was permitted to write one letter per month to one’s parents or near relatives, but as a warder was always standing over your shoulder and the letter had to be censored by the prison authorities, there was little apart from a flourishing account of one’s health that would have got through.
Fortunately, just before I was locked up I was able to have a few valuable minutes with Gbedemah who, having served his prison sentence for ‘publishing false news,’ was preparing to leave. In those few minutes I committed to his charge the full responsibility of running the Evening News and the Party.
‘I’ll do my utmost to keep in touch with you somehow,’ I whispered to him, ‘though goodness knows how!’
There was, I realised, only one way that I could keep in touch with the Party outside those whitewashed walls – by writing. My whole life then centred around the problem of how to get hold of a pencil and a supply of paper. Before long I managed to pick up a mere stump of a pencil which I kept safely hidden inside the band of my trouser tops. The paper looked like being a major problem until I suddenly saw the answer staring me in the face. Each day we were given a few sheets of toilet paper. I got the bright idea of appropriating these, as many as I could get. I don’t know what the other prisoners must have thought was wrong with me when I made known to them my urgent need of additional toilet paper, but they were quite willing to exchange what they could spare for bits of food and anything else I could offer them. This precious store of paper was kept carefully under my straw sleeping mat.
As soon as it was dark and we were thought to be asleep, like the many cockroaches that roamed freely about the cell I, too, started to work. Writing in that cell was no easy matter for the only light was from an electric street lamp that penetrated through the bars at the top of the wall of the cell and cast its reflection on a part of the floor and a section of the opposite wall. I used to lie in this patch of light and write for as long as I could until cramp made it unendurable, then I would change to a standing position and use the spot of light on the wall. On one occasion I remember covering fifty sheets of this toilet paper with my scribble. The written sheets were then folded minutely and wrapped in another piece of toilet paper, and this eventually found its way to Gbedemah outside. How they got there is quite another matter, but by the same means that my toilet paper scribbles found their way out of gaol, so Gbedemah was able to send me from time to time a full report of what was going on outside.
