Problems of Dekwamification

Through the crowded streets of Accra, borne in a cage like an animal, a onetime ranking member of Ghana's dreaded security service was carried by police. Caught in nearby Nigeria and flown to Accra on a Ghana air force plane, he was on his way to prison--and almost surely to death. The cage in which he rode had been especially designed and constructed to contain a greater prize: the erstwhile Ghanaian ruler, Kwame Nkrumah, who before his overthrow a year ago, called himself "the Christ of our day" and "the Conqueror of imperialism."

Nkrumah has avoided the cage. He is ensconced in a seaside villa in the Guinean capital of Conakry, 980 miles from Accra, where he studies French, carries on a voluminous correspondence with his remaining admirers and hatches schemes for a triumphal return. Though Sekou Toure, Guinea's leader, has distinctly cooled on his initial offer to share power and prestige with Nkrumah, he continues to give Nkrumah sanctuary. Nkrumah's presence is thus still felt in Ghana, especially by the military men of the National Liberation Council who now run the country.

After tossing out Nkrumah, they made an impressive start at Dekwamification by re-establishing an independent judiciary, granting a degree of freedom to the long-muzzled press, freeing political prisoners and rooting out corrupt officials. They spared the country a bloodbath by singling out only the most culpable of Nkrumah's followers for punishment. Said General Joseph Ankrah, 51, the N.L.C.'s leader: "I did not depose Nkrumah to institute another reign of terror. We can be tough, but we are civilized."

Fears & Alarms. In recent weeks, the fear of Nkrumah-planned subversion has forced Ankrah to become increasingly tough. His men have uncovered two separate shipments of explosives and hand grenades being smuggled into Ghana to be used, so police say, to sabotage the big International Trade Fair, now under way in Accra. The country is full of rumors about assassination plots against the military rulers. Two army officers and two other men have been arrested on the charge of plotting a countercoup. Cracking down, the military regime has enacted an antisubversion law that is reminiscent of Nkrumah's own draconian measures. Under the law, anyone who attempts to establish contact with Nkrumah, who plots subversion or who even knows about a subversive plot and fails to report it, is subject to summary trial before a special military court. The penalties range from 25 years in prison to death.

Ankrah feels understandably edgy. He has taken some unpopular steps in an attempt to rescue the nearly bankrupt economy left behind by Nkrumah. He has, for example, shut down work on many grandiose and unrealistic construction projects that Nkrumah had scattered throughout the country. One result is that 50,000 people have been thrown out of work. Ankrah fears that many of them might be glad to see Nkrumah return, if only to get their jobs back. The most immediate threat from Nkrumah is not armed subversion but the ability to stir up in Ghana a state of nervousness and uncertainty that can only hurt the new government.

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