Welcome readers to todays offering from The Philatelist. So slip on your smoking jacket, fill your pipe, take your first sip of your adult beverage, and sit back in your most comfortable chair. We have an interesting story to tell about a building designed to house the rubber stamp of a president for life but that for periods since house housed a real Parliament.
The stamp today is very attractive. The idea of putting a home like structure on the front of an ceremonial building is quite effective. It seems to invite the citizens of Ghana to come in and participate in running of the government. Sources allege that Ghana’s first President Kwame Nkrumah was the designer of the building. I see no architecture training in his extensive educational career, but perhaps he made insightful suggestions. Either way, good job on the building.
The stamp is issue A156, a 20 pesewas stamp issued by the republic of Ghana on August 4th 1980. The stamp shows the Parliament House that was built in 1965. It was part of a three stamp issue that showed off the architecture of the democratic institutions of Ghana. This was done to recognize the third republic since independence from Great Britain in 1957. According to the Scott catalog, the stamp is worth 25 cents whether it is mint or used.
As I stated above the Parliament House was opened in 1965. This was about the time President Nkrumah was having the Parliament approve the only legal political party as his and that he was to be head of that party and President of the “Republic” for life. The initial optimism that had greeted Mr. Nkrumah on taking office in 1957 had come under pressure by inefficient economic performance, rising debt, and the inability to pull off his goal of a Pan-Africa political union in post colonial Africa. In 1966 there was a coup,and Mr. Nkrumah was forced into exile in neighboring Guinea. Guinea’s President for life Toure’ named Nkrumah honorary co president, a title he held for the rest of his life until he died of prostate cancer in Romania in 1972.
Kwame Nkrumah was born into modest circumstances in the then Gold Coast. He was born under a different name and it is believed his father was a goldsmith. He was taken into Catholic school and was a teacher and headmaster in still colonial Gold Coast. He was gradually politically indoctrinated and this lead to coming to America and given scholarships to study. Here he was further indoctrinated under Trotsky teachers and African American leaders like Stokey Carmichael. Nkrumah sat out World War II. With the war safely over he went to London to study further, his American teachers introducing him as not to bright but anxious to throw all the Europeans out of Africa. This reference seemed to open many doors in England. Seems strange, but I guess you can’t always expect the beliefs of academia to line up with government policy. Unless of course you have a President for life and one legal political party. Maybe Mr. Nkrumah did learn something.
The Parliament in Ghana has a somewhat checkered history. From one party state to military coup to failed republic to coup to failed republic. This stamp honors the third republic that was removed by another military coup the year after this stamp. Since 1992 a multi party republic has been in power in Ghana. At least Mr. Nkrumah’s Parliament House was ready to host it. The building was renovated in 2012.
Well my drink is empty and so it is time to open up the conversation in the below comment section. We can see how difficult and still incomplete European political integration was. Africa was not able to try. It is interesting that the ideas of it were coming from African Americans who perhaps had more distant ties to tribe, language and local religion. Come again tomorrow for another story that can be learned from stamp collecting.