When presented with a title of this kind, many readers think they know what to expect: drugged-up child soldiers, wince-inducing brutality, ranting demagogues, rebels in women’s wigs. This, thankfully, is not that book. It is something more nuanced, elliptical and elegant.
Ghana is in a different league from Liberia, Guinea or Sierra Leone, its traumatised West African neighbours. Even before the recent discovery that it was sitting on large oil reserves, it was routinely hailed as one of Africa’s success stories. As the ‘first’ in the title makes clear, it has certainly been through its share of political upheaval since independence from Britain in 1957. But when President John Atta Mills died unexpectedly this summer, the army remained in barracks, the constitution was respected and the Vice-President took over in an atmosphere of calm that suggested a mature democracy. He happens to be the author of this book. If there is any correlation between literary skill and political aptitude — which I rather doubt — Ghanaians are in luck. Their current leader is a sophisticated witness with a light touch.
Despite its hopeful closing chapters, this is largely a story of failure. John Dramani Mahama focuses on the ‘lost decades’ of the 1970s, 80s and early 90s, when the promise and excitement of colonial liberation dribbled away, to be replaced by intellectual, economic and political stagnation. ‘They are years that are rarely discussed, years of untold difficulty and hardship, of ever-present hunger and fear. They are years that many have, understandably, tried to forget, to erase entirely from memory.’
Sensing that the place was doomed, many middle-class Africans joined the brain drain. But Mahama was only a boy and he stayed put, watching the drama of a flailing continent being played out by his father — in some ways the real hero of this book — as he rose to prominence, was felled by regime change, reinvented himself and soared again, only to be toppled once more.
Comments
Join the debate for just £1 a month
Be part of the conversation with other Spectator readers by getting your first three months for £3.
UNLOCK ACCESS Just £1 a monthAlready a subscriber? Log in