Word: ashanti
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: all
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
Even the powerful Asantehene, King of the Ashanti, whose golden stool is believed to have come down from heaven, was not too big for the Prime Minister. Over the months, Nkrumah has created six new senior chiefs in Ashanti to challenge the Asantehene's rule, is now ready with a bill to set up, in accordance with the constitution, Houses of Chiefs to act as advisers to the government. When the bill becomes law, the Asantehene will lose his absolute power to make and break his own vassal chiefs. He will be merely the titular head of an advisory...
...smash the tribal power of the chiefs, particularly over land tenure, and substitute the political power of his party machine. He summarily deported five tribal leaders, highhandedly displaced local officers and replaced them with his own men, concentrating on the center of resistance in the cocoa-rich Ashanti country...
...storm of anxious outcry among Britons who had most ardently urged Ghana's readiness to take its place in the British Commonwealth of Nations. But Nkrumah persisted, and last month was rewarded when his party gained a surprise majority in local elections in Kumasi, the traditional stronghold of Ashanti opposition. The chiefs' hold was broken, and Ghanaians appear to have accepted the change with no more than a murmur...
...other Africans seeking self-government. "Let us testify our determination to maintain civil liberty and democracy," he cried. Retorted a government spokesman: "The concern of the leader of the opposition merely betrays his guilty conscience because he was and has been the leader of those who perpetrated atrocities in Ashanti"-the wealthy (cocoa and gold) territory that is the heartland of Nkrumah's opposition. "Let me tell the House this bill is being introduced purposely because of the Ashanti," blurted another government spokesman...
After he became Prime Minister of the new African state of Ghana, ambitious Kwame Nkrumah quickly discovered that the simplest way to deal with political opponents is to get rid of them. When two Moslem party leaders in Ashanti balked at Nkrumah's authority. Nkrumah rushed a bill through Parliament authorizing their deportation (TIME, Oct. 14). After hearing their appeals, Justice H. C. Smith, a Briton, ruled last week that Nkrumah was within his rights. "Since the Ghana constitution contains no safeguarding of fundamental rights." Smith wrote, "the court must uphold the law." The constitution allows Parliament to pass...