Last week I commenced a series on the incarceration of one of the makers of Ghana’s history, a key victim of Kwame Nkrumah’s Preventive Detention Act (PDA) passed in 1958.
The inhumane treatment he suffered in the Nsawam Prison alongside other political prisoners prompted the empanelling of a Commission of Enquiry by the National Liberation Council (NLC) – the junta formed after the overthrow of the dictator’s government on 24th February 1966. The report emanating from the commission was intended to throw light on the state of the Nsawam Prison and to seek means of sanitizing the place.
The proceedings of the commission entailing the narrations of witnesses and key players in the Nsawam Prison and survivors like Tawia Adamafio, former confidante of the dictator, provide a picture of the Condemned Block when Dr. J.B. Danquah was an inmate.
The commission sought information about the treatment of Dr. J.B. Danquah vis a vis the quality of food served him and had varying accounts. It was the narration of a retired prison officer C.E. Baiden which it took onboard as credible and therefore convincing under the circumstances.
He was in charge of the Condemned Block at the time of Dr. J.B. Danquah’s incarceration and when asked “Do you consider that in the treatment of Dr. J.B. Danquah the measures taken were in the interest of justice?” he said “No. The treatment given Dr. J.B. Danquah was not good. The food was poor, and even when the doctor recommended European diet for him this was overruled by the Director of Prisons. The doctor’s recommendations were not carried out”.
The evidence of a certain discharged Prison Warder Seidu Moshie who served for a number of years in the Condemned Block provided another important insight into what the deceased endured in the Nsawam Prison. Dr. J.B. Danquah’s petition, which he wrote, contained a reference about Seidu Moshie’s kindness to him. “At first the detainees were served a smaller quantity of food so they began to grow lean. This made the doctors to recommend the same quantity of food to be given them” the warder told the Commission.
Dr. J.B. Danquah’s loss of 40 pounds between January and December, 1964 buttresses Seidu Moshie’s evidence. This fact was contained in the routine “Weighing Book” for condemned prisoners. His colleagues lost similar weight, the book recorded.
The remarks of a nutrition officer at the Prison reads: “Undernourished people are hypochondriacs and complain, even hysterically, about small or imaginary disabilities.” These symptoms which Dr. J.B. Danquah was said to be exhibiting were contained in his petitions. The conditions were aggravated by his close confinement and as observed in the report “rigid searches and the regimented loneliness of a person in his state.”
While the report added that not all his disabilities were imagined as the medical evidence showed, Dr. J.B. Danquah “was suffering from chronic Bronchial Asthma and hypertension 220/120. Without exception, all the medical witnesses confirm his condition, and yet, in spite of his pleadings, verbally to doctors and prison officers alike, and in is petitions to the ex-President, he was not moved to the Prison Hospital. The Medical Officers and Prison Officers seemed to be too frightened or lacking in moral courage to assert their authority.”
These were uncertain times and they would be in trouble who were seen to be acting contrary to Kwame Nkrumah’s orders. One could find himself in prison when they were simply reported by their colleagues. This was the obvious reason the prison officers could not use their discretion to move Dr. J.B. Danquah to the Prison Hospital even it was the sensible thing to do at the time.
The report pointed out that the medical officers attending to the prisoners were non-Ghanaians and whose sympathies were not for the political prisoner but rather, it would appear, for the President at whose behest they were in the country. I am referring to the period between 1964 and 1965. None of them could be consulted by the commission at the time of the commission’s sitting as they had left the country.
The case of Mr. E.O. Lamptey was different. Between October 1962 and January 1963, Dr. F.T. Sai, Physician Specialist ordered his immediate removal and transfer to the Korle-Bu Hospital in December 1962.
The Commission learnt about how Dr. J.B. Danquah was punished for being rude to a Senior Prison Officer. A certain Dogo Moshie, a warder with the assistance of others on 30th June 1964 placed Dr. J.B. Danquah in leg irons for a short period. This was denied though but the Commission accepted the evidence of an Assistant Director who is reported to have heard the case and said, the repot went on, “I am convinced that Dr. J.B. Danquah was chained by the officers.”
The Commission, according to the report, observed “we do not agree with the late Director who overruled this finding, but agree with him when he said of Deputy Superintendent E.K . Sagoe, “I am inclined to think that he bears the detainee (Dr. J.B. Danquah) a personal grudge. In view of this, I recommend his transfer from the station.”
Mr. Sagoe it was observed was not transferred from the station until January 1965. He had deprived the detainee of his only source of relaxation which was a regular exercise as a form of punishment in perpetuation of the grudge he had against him.
The report captured this heartbreaking moment and even as I compose this piece, I paused. Although I did not shed a tear I was pained inside me that Dr. J.B. Danquah had to endure such humiliation and died the way he did because that was how Kwame Nkrumah wanted it. How sad!
“On the 4th February 1965, at 6.10am, following the normal routine, Dr. J.B. Danquah was unlocked and escorted to the end of the corridor to take his bath at 6.20am. On returning to his cell, he found, apparently, that his cell had been thoroughly searched and some of his things, including his Bible, were on the floor. He lost his temper and began to abuse the warder. This brought on a heart attack and he collapsed and died. The Medical evidence during the period of January 1965 up to the time of his death, is of interest.”
The ordeal of Dr. J.B. Danquah should never again be visited on any person in this country. A man of his intellect and prowess deliberately reduced to state of begging for kindness from warders and his eventual death through a heart attack was all the man who ordered his arrest and incarceration sought. He got it but he too was ousted and died outside Ghana. There were hundreds others languishing in the Nsawam Prison as political prisoners, victims of the Preventive Detention Act. Little wonder when the 24th February 1966 putsch was enacted, there was a spontaneous outpour of excitement and relief among most Ghanaians.
In subsequent writings, I would present to readers other materials related to the arrest and charges leveled against Dr. J.B. Danquah and his responses.
By A.R. Gomda