The Editor-in-Chief of the New Crusading Guide newspaper, Abdul Malik Kweku Baako has stated that if he had his way, Kotoka’s name will never ever be on the gateway to Ghana. He said Kotoka did not deserve that honour. A leading member of the Convention People’s Party, Prof Agyemang Badu Akosa this week called for the removal of Kotoka’s name from the country’s international airport arguing that naming the airport after the man who led the 1966 coup against Ghana’s first president Dr Kwame Nkrumah was a slap in the face of democracy and tantamount to glorifying coup makers. “As a country we are in a big conundrum and I am saying we cannot be democratic and yet have our gateway named after Kotoka. In Kenya, it is Jomo Kenyatta Airport, in Botswana and South Africa, Airports have been named after people who placed their lives at the disposal of the countries to make them what they are" he said. "So I am saying that the rehabilitation of Osagyefo Dr. Kwame Nkrumah is incomplete until and unless we change the name to Accra International Airport” he added. Contributing on Joy FM’s news analysis programme, Newsfile Saturday, Mr Kweku Baako shared Prof Akosa’s views. Asked by the sit-in host of the show, Samson Laadi Ayenini, why he held those views, Mr Baako retorted, “who is he? What was he? What did he do? And proceeded to answer the questions, “a coup d’état, simple! Coup d’etat is what he did to become famous or if you like notorious.” He didn’t end there, “what he (Kotoka) did was to lead and bunch of soldiers – whilst we were asleep – to usurp our sovereignty in the name of liberating Ghanaians. Essentially what he did violated the 1960 Criminal Code which is still subsisting.” Appearing livid, Mr Baako said, “any soldier any time, who takes the gun – the gun that we have paid for – and uses it to decide the political direction of this country basically, inherently is committing a crime of the highest order, high treason, punishable by death. That’s what he did.” The veteran journalist emphasized that there was nowhere in the country’s laws “whether the military law or the national law or any other law is the army given the chance or the right to decide that the people of this country are suffering for whatever reason and so they should take up the mission of liberating us.” Mr Baako said those who argue that Dr Nkrumah was simply too powerful were entitled to their view but insisted that the cure to the perceived unlimited powers of the president was not a coup. Quoting extensively from a book, “Politics of the Sword”, authored by one of the main architects of the 1966 coup, General Ocran, the social commentator said “Military rule is akin to self-imposed one-party rule by soldiers. It is a rule imposed by a small section of the community. To my mind, those who disapprove of one one-party rule cannot say they approve of military rule. If anything, military rule is worse than one-party rule because of the simple fact that military officers are imposed on the electorate which is not the case with true one-party systems.” He said while it was unfair for Nkrumah to declare Ghana a one-party state, Kotoka and his collaborators who used that declaration as a justification for the coup tend around and banned the CPP which was a mass political organization. “I am making a point to you that if it was the one-party state that was the motivation for the coup, then they ought not to have banned the CPP when they were ready to return Ghana to democracy. I’m talking [about] equity. That is the principle, it shouldn’t be divisible,” he charged. What was even worse, he intoned, was that while the architects of the coup cried over the Prevention Detention Act (PDA), they replaced it with the Protective Custody Decree and proceeded to haul more people into prison than Nkrumah did under the PDA. “What is the difference between Protective Custody Decree and Prevention Detention Act in its essence,? he asked. “If it was the PDA that was the cause for your coup, then you had no business [freeing] 1,377 prisoners and [taking] in 1,800 and something [prisoners]. That is the point am making! Mr Kweku Baako’s submissions pitched him against co-panelist and Executive Director of the Danquah Institute Gabby Asare Otchere Darko who held the view that the PDA and the one-party state were simply inexcusable. He said while Dr Nkrumah did some good things, he did bad things as well and his adherents must admit that. Play the attached audio and listen to Kweku Baako. Story by Malik Abass Daabu/Ghana