$Unique_ID{COW01424} $Pretitle{353} $Title{Ghana Chapter 3C. Independent Ghana} $Subtitle{} $Author{} $Affiliation{HQ, Department of the Army} $Subject{nkrumah cpp government party power national nkrumah's opposition major african} $Date{1970} $Log{} Country: Ghana Book: Area Handbook for Ghana Affiliation: HQ, Department of the Army Date: 1970 Chapter 3C. Independent Ghana On August 3, 1956, the new assembly passed a motion authorizing the government to request independence within the British Commonwealth. The opposition did not attend the debate, and the vote was unanimous. The British government accepted this motion as clearly representing a reasonable majority; a bill to give the Gold Coast its independence was introduced into the British Parliament and approved, and the date of independence was fixed. On March 6, 1957, the 113th anniversary of the Bond of 1844, the Gold Coast became the independent state of Ghana. Sir Charles Arden-Clarke, who had been governor since 1949, became the first governor general. The Legislative Assembly became the National Assembly. Ghana was admitted as a member of the United Nations two days after it attained independence. The Strengthening of the Government's Hand The constitution in force at independence provided protection against easy amendment of a number of its clauses. It also granted a voice to the regionalism and traditionalism of the chiefs and their tribal councils by providing for the creation of regional assemblies. No bill amending the entrenched clauses of the constitution or affecting the powers of the regional bodies or the privileges of the chiefs could become law except by a two-thirds vote of the National Assembly and majority approval in two-thirds of the regional assemblies. The local CPP supporters gained control of all regional assemblies, however, in part because the opposition parties chose to boycott the elections to these bodies. The Nkrumah government, which already had a two-thirds majority in the National Assembly, promptly secured passage of the Constitution (Repeal of Restrictions) Act of 1958. The act removed the special entrenchment protection clause in the constitution and left the National Assembly with the power to effect any constitutional change it wished at the will of its CPP majority. One of the early acts of the now unfettered National Assembly was the outright abolition of the regional assemblies. Another was the dilution of the clauses in the constitution designed to ensure a nonpolitical and competitive civil service. This alteration allowed Nkrumah to freely appoint his followers to positions throughout the upper ranks of the government service. The major law strengthening the government's power was the Preventive Detention Act, which allowed Nkrumah to imprison an opponent at will, initially for up to five years (later extended to ten), without either publishing the prisoner's name or the charges against him and without allowing the seized person any recourse to the courts. By 1964 the number of political prisoners held under the act was estimated at between 400 and 2,000 persons. The Preventive Detention Act was preceded and supplemented by the Deportation Act of 1957, which allowed the government to deport any noncitizens resident in Ghana who opposed the regime and also allowed it to void the citizenship of any person who could not prove he was born in Ghana of Ghanaian parentage. Deportation could be carried out solely on the grounds that the subject was "disaffected toward the Government of Ghana." The act was used almost immediately to deport two leaders of the opposition Moslem Association Party. Intraparty Dynamics Even as it achieved its first victory at the polls in 1954, the CPP had begun to experience dissension within its ranks. Lower level leaders and whole local elements, disappointed either by the party stands on political or economic questions, particularly regarding the question of federal versus centralized control, or by personal failures to obtain high-ranking posts, left to join or to form opposition parties. For example, eighteen of the twenty-one members of the executive body of the NLM, the CPP's major opponent, were former CPP members. One of the NLM's major elements was the Asante Youth Association, which had originally been formed by the CPP to lead its membership drive among the urban Ashanti. In addition, the rigidity of executive domination within the CPP had already become apparent enough by 1956 to antagonize many supporters. It was the prime cause of the formation of the Ga Standfast Association (Ga Shifmo Kpee) among the highly urbanized Ga tribal group centered in Accra. These people had initially been the strongest supporters of the CPP and Nkrumah. They broke with the party over the issue of intraparty democracy and cronyism, as did some labor and veterans' groups. This was the cause of the CPP's poor turnout in the Accra Capital District and the Eastern Region in the 1956 election. No opposition candidates attractive to these urban defectors presented themselves in time to contest the campaign, however. As a mass party with over 20 percent of the country's population enrolled as members, the CPP found that all the major divisions within the country were being reflected in the party. In order to counterbalance them, control over the party was made more rigid. Regional organizations initially strong enough to present alternative power centers to the national leadership, were subordinated through the concentration of power in the hands of regional secretaries appointed and paid by the Central Committee. The creation of local units of the party's youth and women's and labor organizations divided the popular support that had formerly been given to the local party branches. As early as 1955 Nkrumah had gained the power necessary to dominate the party executive. He had been acclaimed chairman of the party for life and, as life chairman, had also gained the right to choose a majority of the members of the Central Committee. By 1956 he also had ultimate control over the selection of candidates for elective offices. After an administrative reorganization of the CPP in 1959, which created a national secretariat with departments directly paralleling those of the government administration, Nkrumah also took the position of general secretary of the CPP. The leaders of the party-dominated labor and farmer organizations were given representation in the national executive at the time, thus giving Nkrumah direct access to their decisionmaking as well. Under the 1958 amendment to the constitution, all power was legally vested in a parliament controlled by the tightly disciplined CPP delegation. By 1958 leadership of the party was organizationally in the hands of the Central Committee, selected and dominated by Nkrumah. Thus, by 1959 a governing structure had been created with Nkrumah at the pinnacle and all reins of power in his hands. Party Fronts From its beginnings, a major portion of the CPP's support had been developed by secondary organizations-the youth groups, women's societies, cooperative associations, farmers' unions, labor unions, and the Ex-servicemen's League. Only the labor unions and the Ex-servicemen's League were capable of presenting any challenge to the party. The CPP replaced the league with a government-controlled body, the Ghana Legion. All women's and youth organizations, even the Young Women's Christian Association and the Boy Scouts, were abolished and replaced by party auxiliaries. The National Association of Socialist Students Organization was created to instruct older students in the ideas of Nkrumah, although this body was later abolished because its leadership became a center of left-wing opposition to Nkrumah policies. Its place was officially taken by the Kwame Nkrumah Ideological Institute at Winneba, a center to which all senior government officials and all university students, as well as others, were to be sent for ideological indoctrination. Nkrumah sought to have every citizen join some organization-if not the CPP itself, then one of its cooperative societies, labor unions, youth groups, or other fronts so that they would have a sense of personal involvement in the state and party. These secondary organizations, however, had very limited success in creating the popular support expected by the party. The Young Pioneers met opposition from both teachers and students within the schools; the women were more influenced by economic consideration than by party propaganda efforts; the university students retained their own organizations until 1964 and remained a permanent center of liberal opposition to Nkrumah. The Winneba institute was an intellectual and propaganda failure, even in the opinion of its own faculty. The Parliamentary Opposition By the time of independence the opposition political parties, linked by their fear of the growing power of the CPP, had formed a unified body, the United Party (UP), with K. A. Busia as its leader. The dwindling opposition in the parliament joined the UP, which made its first national electoral effort in the plebiscite of 1960. The plebiscite was held to demonstrate public supporting for Nkrumah's decision to make Ghana a republic, with himself as president. The UP effort, plagued both by government interference in its campaign and by the attractiveness of the republic concept as presented by Nkrumah, failed to attract any notable support for the party or its presidential candidate, J. B. Danquah. The UP opposed the new constitution on the grounds that it was nontraditional and undemocratic. They felt it would end the responsibility of parliament to the people, betray Ghana's hard-won sovereignty through the clause providing for the surrender of sovereignty to a larger African alliance, and give the president far too much power, including control over the civil service, judiciary, police, and armed forces. The UP said it stood for a liberal socialist economy and against the CPP economic ideology, which seemed to them to smack of communism. Their immediate targets were the restoration to parliament of power and status and a constitutional reform commission that would write a constitution guaranteeing civil liberties and ensuring that the civil service, police, and armed forces were agents of the state rather than of a single political party. They advocated the union of Africa on a "realistic basis," but without the surrender of sovereignty. They called for an end to corruption, deportations, and punishment without trial (a reference to the Preventive Detention Act). Although the CPP used its control of the government to limit the UP campaign, it won the election on its own strength. Well organized, popular as the achiever of independence, and in control of all public media except the Ashanti Pioneer, the CPP won the plebiscite by a seven-to-one margin. Under the 1957 Constitution parliamentary elections were to be held at least every five years. Nkrumah and the CPP decided, however, that the overwhelming popular support for the government position in the 1960 constitutional plebiscite and for the presidency of Nkrumah obviated the need to reelect the parliament. The incumbent National Assembly was, therefore, continued in office as if it had been reelected in 1960, and its life was extended until 1965. Local and Municipal Elections In local and municipal elections, there were seldom more candidates than positions to be filled, so that the results were declared without the voters going to the polls. Before the outlawing of opposition parties, considerable elation attached to winning an election through lack of opposition, and CPP publications gleefully pointed out such events as further proof of the overwhelming popularity of the party. The UP seldom, if ever, put up a candidate, so it was only an occasional independent who challenged the CPP slate for the local and municipal councils, and he was almost invariably defeated. Until mid-1961 it seemed that Nkrumah was moving without serious opposition toward his goals of national unity and the development of a modern society and economy. Particularism and federalism no longer appeared to present a serious threat to Nkrumah's policies. Many observers felt that the power of the traditional chiefs had been successfully curtailed and that a new national social structure appeared to be on the way to superseding local, tribally based structures (see ch. 5, Social System). With the presentation in July 1961 of the first austerity budget, however, the workers and farmers became aware and critical of the cost to them of the ambitious government programs. CPP backbenchers and UP representatives in the National Assembly sharply criticized the government's demand for increased taxes and, particularly, a forced savings program. In early September the railroad workers and dockworkers in Sekondi-Takoradi and other cities began a strike in protest against the budget. The government and Trade Union Congress leaders were forced to declare a state of limited emergency and to send in police to put down the strike. Nkrumah was on a trip to Eastern Europe when the strike reached its climax. He reversed measures taken in his absence by the Presidential Commission and subsequently deprived two of the three members of their cabinet posts. The strike was the most serious of a number of public outcries against government measures during the spring and summer of 1961. Nkrumah's "Dawn Speech" of April 8, in which he demanded an end to corruption in the government and CPP, had undermined popular faith and resulted in public attacks against CPP ministers. The further drop in the price paid to cocoa farmers during the 1961 harvest season by the government Cocoa Marketing Board had aroused resentment among a segment of the population that had always been among Nkrumah's major opponents. Pan-Africanism and Nkrumah After independence, Nkrumah devoted a major portion of his energies to the liberation of the other territories of Africa from colonial rule. Above all a pan-Africanist, he hoped to see continental independence followed by the creation of a unified continent-wide United States of Africa, preferably under his leadership. He opposed the continued existence of numerous individual small states as a balkanization foisted on the African peoples by the intrigues of their former colonial masters and the United States in order to continue economic control and political domination in a new form, which he labeled neocolonialism. He believed the old form of direct colonial rule had proved too expensive, since it had saddled the colonial powers with responsibility for social development. His ideas were presented in his books, particularly in Neo-Colonialism: The Last Stage of Imperialism and Toward Colonial Freedom: Africa in the Struggle Against World Imperialism. Nkrumah had opened the first conference of independent African states in Accra in 1958. Only five black African states were independent at that time, but the representatives of a large number of colonial territories, many of which were well on their way to independence, attended as well. As a first step toward initiating a broad continental union, Ghana entered a formal union with the former French colony of Guinea in 1958. Mali was added to this "Union Government" in 1961, although the formal creation had no practical or structural effect on any of the three countries involved. The unification that Nkrumah sought was frustrated by the lack of interest shown by the leaders of most of the other states as they achieved independence. Few were willing to sacrifice their newly won independence to a subordination in a federal body, although all espoused African unity and some looser form of tie. Ghana participated fully in the centralized groupings that did come into existence. Nkrumah was deeply involved in the grouping of radically oriented states labeled "the Casablanca group" after its first meetingplace. The country became a leading member of the Organization of African Unity at its founding in 1963. Nkrumah continued to strive for the creation of a unified state rather than a loose association, however. These efforts and those of his Bureau of African Affairs included support for moves to oust from power the governments of other independent states that Nkrumah looked upon as under neo-colonialist influence, notably those of neighboring French-speaking states. The bureau conducted training in guerrilla warfare for refugees from countries still under colonial rule, particularly those in the white redoubt of southern Africa. This effort was supported by nearly all the other independent states, but the bureau and Nkrumah were believed to be training guerrillas and assassins and supporting insurgency aimed at the governments of other independent states. Nkrumah was widely blamed for the overthrow and assassination of President Sylvanus Olympio of Togo in 1963, for example, even though no evidence of such a connection ever came to light. These efforts and rumors of efforts, along with the brashness of his attempts to dominate inter-African affairs, alienated even those leaders of other countries who generally supported a similar attitude toward African unity and who looked up to Nkrumah as the senior figure in the continent's efforts to rid itself of colonial rule. Nkrumah as Supreme Ruler By 1961 the continuing accusations of corruption among the central party leaders and Nkrumah's demands for, and expressions of, sycophancy led to a growing loss of local support for the CPP. Nkrumah took advantage of the rumors of corruption to remove the leaders of the CPP's right wing, most notably K. A. Gbedemah, who had begun to question the motives behind legislation further limiting personal freedom within the country. Nkrumah accused twelve ministerial-level officials of having excessive personal property or having business interests that conflicted with their government duties. Six were dismissed, including Gbedemah. After the dismissal of Gbedemah, one of the CPP's founders, Nkrumah began to give stronger encouragement to his own "personality cult." Nkrumah was always the most popular and certainly the best known figure in the country. His popular appeal was the major source of his strength and enabled him to succeed in his continuing efforts to concentrate power in his own hands. Another major factor was his superior organizational ability, honed by the advice of his foreign supporters, particularly Geoffrey Bing, a former Labour Party member of the British Parliament and his legal adviser. Nkrumah attempted to bind the country to the CPP by making himself the popular symbol of the CPP and government. Virtually everything that could be was named in his honor. He portrayed himself as the fountainhead of all that was good for the country. Adulations began to acquire religious overtones. Nkrumah became more sensitive to the danger of opposition to his personal rule, particularly as a result of a number of assassination attempts aimed at him. For this and other reasons he came to depend more heavily on members of his own small tribal group, the Nzema; his advisers were often foreigners resident in Accra, most of whom were strongly pan-Africanist, or Marxist, or both. These included a number of West Indians, most notably George Padmore until his death in 1959, and American Negroes, including W. E. B. DuBois, several doctrinaire British Socialists, and refugees from other African countries, particularly from South Africa. They also included a variety of other nationals, even a German Nazi figure. Most Ghanaians believed that his security advisers were all Russians. Nkrumah's Political Philosophy Nkrumahism, the CPP's official philosophy, was the name given to the major pronouncement of the CPP and its leader on public morality and socioeconomic objectives. Basically pragmatic rather than an established doctrine, its official definition was constantly being altered as Nkrumah's plans for the country evolved. Attempts to define it were generally failures, particularly Nkrumah's own book on the subject, Consciencism. According to one definition in 1960 by the CPP's Bureau of Information, Nkrumahism was based on scientific socialism, which was taken as providing the means for correcting the inequitable distribution of food and other basic material necessities of life that are the legitimate right of all people. It was opposed to capitalism, demanding its vigorous and systematic elimination from society. It was also based upon purely African factors, particularly pan-African unity and a truly African sociocultural renaissance produced by a synthesis of the best of traditional Africa with the best drawn from other parts of the world. Further, it was "the philosophy embodied in the life and teaching of Kwame Nkrumah," thereby linking the ideology to the leader. Following a series of articles in the party's Accra Evening News in 1961 intended to illustrate the ideology to the common reader, it became usual to portray Nkrumah in clearly theological terms. Nkrumah was proclaimed Ghana's messiah. Along with Moses and Christ, Marx, Lenin, Gandhi, and Nkrumah were declared divine saviors of the people. Ties to the Communist World After his first visit to the Communist world, a trip to the Soviet Union, its European satellites, and Yugoslavia in 1961, Nkrumah began a widely publicized reorientation of his country's overseas ties and interests away from the West. In this move he was evidently influenced by a number of factors: the CPP's espousal of socialism, no matter how unorthodox in Marxist-Leninist eyes; Nkrumah's own early impressions of the organizational dynamism of the Communist Party as he had observed it in his student days in the United States and Great Britain in the 1930s and 1940s; and the influence of his foreign advisers, who ranged in political viewpoint from Fabian Socialists to avowed Communists. He was also incensed against the West after the fall of the Patrice Lumumba government in the Congo (Kinshasa). He had looked upon Lumumba, who had received Communist backing, as his most important protege and blamed Western neocolonial interests, particularly the United States, for his downfall. Another major factor in his reorientation was the fact that Communist states indicated a willingness to give arms and financial aid to revolutionaries favored by Nkrumah in other parts of Africa. The establishment of strong diplomatic ties with the Communist states was followed by a considerable reorientation of trade, as well as increased foreign aid, including technical assistance, scholarships at East European schools, military equipment for a major portion of the army, and security personnel for Nkrumah's bodyguard. In addition, at the paragovernmental level, the women's, youth, and farmers' organizations became affiliated with, and received scholarships and financial support from, the Communist-front international organizations in their fields. The All African Trade Union Federation (AATUF) was formed by Nkrumah with the announced purpose of creating a truly African nonaligned labor body free of interference or domination by either the Western-oriented International Confederation of Free Trade Unions (ICFTU), with which most African trade unions were affiliated at the time, or the Communist World Federation of Trade Unions (WFTU). The AATUF, which Nkrumah made into a major tool for his attempts to influence internal and foreign policy in other African states, actually received its major support from the WFTU. In return for this support, it repeatedly accused the ICFTU of being a tool of the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA). This effort had remarkable success in the rest of Africa. The AATUF had its headquarters in Accra, and seven of its eight secretariat members were supported by the WFTU. Nkrumah was awarded the Lenin Peace Prize in July 1962. The Growth of Opposition to Personal Rule Nkrumah's complete domination of political power had the effect of isolating lesser leaders, leaving each a real or imagined challenger to the ruler. After crushing the opposition parties, opponents could come only from within the CPP hierarchy. Among its members was Tawia Adamafio, an able, hardworking leftist. Nkrumah had made him general secretary of the CPP before deciding, on foreign advice, to reserve the post for himself. Adamafio then became minister of state for presidential affairs, the most important post in the president's own staff at Flagstaff House, which gradually became the center for all decisionmaking and much of the real administrative machinery for both the CPP and the government. The other leader with an apparently autonomous base was John Tettagah, leader of the Trade Union Congress. Neither, however, proved to have any power beyond that granted to them by Nkrumah. Nevertheless, as Nkrumah continued to seek out possible political challengers among his supporters, his eyes fell on Adamafio. The younger, more radical members of the CPP leadership, led by Adamafio, had gained ascendancy over the original CPP leaders like Gbedemah in 1961. After a bomb attack on Nkrumah's life in August 1962, Adamafio, Ako Adjei (then minister of foreign affairs), and a number of other CPP leaders were jailed under the Preventive Detention Act. The CPP newspapers charged them with complicity in the assassination attempt, offering as evidence only the fact that they had all chosen to ride in cars far back from the president's car at the time the bomb was thrown. Tettagah was also removed from leadership of the Trade Union Congress and the internal political scene by being made head of the AATUF. After the loss of power of this younger group of radicals, the ideology and propaganda of the government and CPP veered again, this time toward closer ties to African traditions, with Nkrumah stressing his role as the heir to the traditional chiefs. Stronger emphasis began to be placed on the African, rather than the "scientific," nature of their socialism. In addition to having an appeal to the disaffected traditionalist, this change coincided with Nkrumah's strong involvement in pan-African and inter-African affairs. Wholesale changes in staff and fluctuations in policy were possible because of Nkrumah's almost total control. As one academic observer, David Apter, has noted, the really comparable body to Ghana's ruling center would have been the court of king before the introduction of constitutionalism. Nkrumah was king in all but title, and the various factions and philosophies vied for his favor. That favor could sometimes be obtained by presenting a program to benefit his subjects, but at other times Nkrumah's favor went to those showing the most fawning support or putting the biggest bribe in the right hands. The ruler retained power despite the disaffection of the elite and commoners because the opposition within and outside of the ruling clique was divided. Moreover, the majority were reluctant to overthrow him because he was heir to the ruling traditions: symbolically he had replaced the chiefs and he had provided leadership in ending colonial rule. Major political interest in 1963 focused on the trial of the alleged plotters of the 1962 assassination attempt-Adamafio, Adjei, Cofie-Crabbe, and two others. They were brought to trial before a special court for state security cases, created in 1961. The three-judge court consisted of the chief justice, Sir Arku Korash, and two justices of the High Court of Justice, Van Lare and Edward Akufo-Addo. Two of the accused were convicted, but the three former leaders of the CPP were acquitted. Nkrumah publicly showed his strong displeasure. He used his constitutional prerogative to dismiss the chief justice. He then obtained a vote from the parliament granting him the power to set aside any decision of the special court. He applied his new power retroactively to the newly acquitted Adamafio and his associates, who were retried in late 1964, after having been held under the Preventive Detention Act in the interim. The new court, with a jury handpicked by Nkrumah from the faculty of the Winneba institute, founc all five guilty and sentenced them to death, although Nkrumah later commuted the sentences to twenty years in prison. In early 1964, in order to prevent future challenges from the judiciary, Nkrumah obtained the power to dismiss any judge, not just the chief justice, as he might see fit. This change required a constitutional amendment. At the same time a referendum was held to make Ghana officially a single-party state, with the CPP as the only legal political organ. By what impartial observers described as blatant intimidation and ballot-box rigging, the government obtained more than 99.9 percent of the votes cast in favor of the one-party system and absolute presidential control over the judiciary. In May 1965 the parliament passed three laws altering the rules governing the naming of candidates for election. The first two laws ensured that there would only be one candidate for president, nominated by the CPP and approved by the National Assembly. The third law appeared to provide for non-CPP candidates to stand for local and national seats. Other parties had already been outlawed, however, and other candidates would have had to run as independents. None came forward to challenge the party slate in the general elections announced for June 1965. The 1965 elections were the first called for by the National Assembly since 1956. The number of seats in the assembly, increased to 114 with the addition of 10 women members in 1960 was raised to 198 in 1965. In June, because the CPP slate was unchallenged, the slate of candidates officially picked by the CPP Central Committee but actually chosen by Nkrumah was declared to be automatically elected without the need for any actual polling of voters. The Downfall of Nkrumah No single act or set of actions brought about the general alienation that preceded the downfall of Nkrumah and the CPP. Rather, they lost their popular support as a reaction to the continual erosion of civil liberties, the undermining of the judiciary and the traditional rulers, the lack of opportunity for expressing political and economic grievances, and the government's apparent preoccupation with external affairs to the country's detriment. A significant consideration was the economic deterioration that affected more and more people. A major portion of the decline was the result of factors beyond the government's control, particularly the fall in world cocoa prices and the need for investments for the country's long-range improvement, including industrial development and the expansion of educational facilities (see ch. 10, Foreign Political and Economic Relations). Nevertheless, Nkrumah's insistence on prestige projects at any cost, the periodic banning of imports (including many items needed by the general public), the increased taxation, and the blatant corruption and mismanagement led to the government's being blamed entirely for the rising prices, declining incomes, and widespread unemployment. The civil service, police, and armed forces became even more alienated than the general public. They were offended by Nkrumah's "personality cult" and by the supplanting of the professional elite in the ministries by new and untried men under the president's direct control in Flagstaff House. They were disturbed by the fact that social and economic development decisions were often dictated by ideological rather than technological considerations. For the British-trained army and police, the major factors were their subordination to nonprofessional men and their relegation to a place in security affairs second to the Soviet-influenced National Security Service, the Special Intelligence Unit, and the presidential bodyguard. The army particularly resented the better treatment accorded the President's Own Guard Regiment. In late February 1966 the government introduced the budget for the new fiscal year. Contrary to hopes, it contained no steps to alleviate popular economic grievances. Nkrumah, perhaps planning his timing to avoid protests over the budget, had embarked on a trip to Hanoi via Peking, which he touted as an effort to end the war in Vietnam. On February 24, while he was arriving in Peking, the army and police force, led by the army's Second Brigade under Colonel E. K. Kotoka and Major A. A. Afrifa, staged a coup. Despite a few hours of opposition by the guards at the president's residence, the coup was an immediate success. The coup leaders announced an end to Nkrumah's rule, dissolved the CPP and the National Assembly, and suspended the constitution. They also released all the prisoners held in preventive detention. The eight-member National Liberation Council, composed of four army and four police officers, assumed executive power. They appointed a cabinet of civil servants and promised to restore democratic government as quickly as possible. Nkrumah's overthrow was greeted with great popular joy throughout the country. His older political opponents, exiled or imprisoned during the previous nine years, quickly returned to the country's political arena. Nkrumah sought exile in Guinea, where President Sekou Toure proclaimed him as Guinea's new copresident.