The Quills of the Porcupine: Asante Nationalism in an Emergent Ghana

6. "And a Thousand More Will Come?" The NLM's Demise and the Legacy of Asante Kotoko

6 ''And a Thousand More Will Come?" The NLM's Demise and the Legacy of Asante Kotoko When Nkrumah's motion for independence passed the Assembly on August 3, the immediate significance of the election results was brought home to all members of the Movement, from those conspicuously absent from their seats in the Legislative Assembly to those rank-and-file supporters who anxiously awaited word of events taking place in Accra. The agreement dictated that whoever won the battle of the ballot box would be empowered to form the next government and lead the Gold Coast to independence. Nkrumah and the CPP had won the voters' mandate (if not the broader mandate of the Gold Coast's adult population) and the British government, with an easy conscience , was now prepared to hand over power. The men who brought the NLM along the constitutional path and into the halls of the Assembly found themselves left with few options in the wake of the opposition 's overall defeat. Throughout most of August and a good part of September, the NLM and its allies in the Assembly refused to take part in the parliamentary proceedings-those very proceedings which, only a month earlier, they had heralded as the only means for safeguarding Asante's autonomy. For a brief moment, in early August, the politicians of the opposition appeared clueless on how to proceed, how to salvage their strategy. Meanwhile, the youngmen of the AYA, yet again, began to call for the total secession of Asante from the Gold Coast. Cabling the secretary of state on August 13, the AYA announced that "since CPP 162 ''And a Thousand More Will Comepn 163 Government have declared themselves unwilling to call for consultations before the Motion calling for Independence, [this] shall be considered by Ashanti as repealing the Order in Council of 1901 which annexed Ashanti to the British Crown. Ashanti shall then be a Sovereign and Independent State within the Commonwealth. nl The Asanteman Council, more drawn to such drastic appeals than in previous months, wired the secretary ofstate that it considered "the action of the Gold Coast Government in tabling a motion for Independence without an agreement on the future constitution of the country to be unrealistic, irresponsible and only likely to lead to undesirable consequences."2 The Council gave no indication as to what those consequences might be, but on the following day it issued a bold reminder : ''Ashanti has the right to state the terms on which she will associate with the other territories on the withdrawal of the British.".3 However, in contrast to the AYA, the Council was not yet prepared to assert that right. As the youngmen talked of secession, the leadership of the Movement began to regroup. The members of the Assembly returned to Kumase to consult with the Asanteman Council and to consider what steps should be taken in the face of the C;pp's majority in the Assembly . The decisions reached reflect little change in the leadership's strategy: it still held faith in the British government's ability to intervene . On August 12, Busia left for London to plead the NLM's case. Amponsah and J. A. Braimah (of the NPP) left to join him and the opposition 's permanent representative in London, William Ofori-Atta, on August 23. Together, the four men would reenact the well-rehearsed scenario upon which the NLM leadership had relied time and again in the past: circumventing the government and the colonial officers in Accra and appealing directly to the Colonial Office in London. With the delegation pursuing its task in London, the opposition members of the Assembly agreed to return to their seats in order to take part in the debate over the recently published results of the Commission of Enquiry into the Cocoa Purchasing Company. The Commission 's Report concluded that the CPP did control the CPC, that loans were only given to pro-CPP farmers, that CPC vehicles had been used by the CPP in the Atwima-Nwabiagya by-election, and that bribery and corruption existed among CPC officials, including the company's managing director, A. Y. K. Djin.4 If the delegation in London was not able to sway the secretary of state, so it was maintained, the results of 164 ~And a Thousand More Will Come?" the Report had just the ammunition the opposition seated in the Assembly needed to...