Ghana: It’s about time Kotoka International Airport is renamed
An international airport is an entry/exit point in a country, utilizing air transport. Throughout the world, airport facilities are named after things that exude positivity and reflect exemplary qualities of the person or thing named after.
Heathrow Airport in London was named after an old cottage of Heath Row that was demolished to make way for one of the busiest airports in the world. O’Hare International Airport in Chicago was named after Edward O’Hare for his bravery during World War II, when Japan attacked the United States.
In 1969, Accra International Airport was renamed Kotoka International Airport by the National Liberation Council (NLC) military junta in honor of Lieutenant General Emmanuel Kwasi Kotoka. The junta overthrew Dr. Kwame Nkrumah’s Convention People’s Party (CPP) government on February 24,1966, while Dr. Nkrumah was on a peaceful mission to Vietnam.
On April 17, 1967, an insurrection of some junior military officers attempted to overthrow the NLC regime. So, when the chief architect of Ghana’s first military coup, General Kotoka, was assassinated in the process, NLC thought it prudent to honor him by renaming the airport after him.
Hitherto, the facility was known as the Accra International Airport – reconfigured, rehabilitated, and reconstructed from a British Royal Air Force base to a civilian and commercial use by Kwame Nkrumah.
Political History
The first nationalist political party in the Gold Coast, the United Gold Coast Convention (UGCC), was founded on August 4, 1947, to facilitate self-government from British colonial rule.
Mostly financed by its leader and founder, George Alfred Grant (a.k.a. Paa Grant), a wealthy businessman, the UGCC invited Dr. Kwame Nkrumah, who had been a Pan-African activist in the UK and the USA, to assume the position of General Secretary in the newly formed party.
He also became the mouthpiece of the UGCC.
Following political activism and disturbances by the UGCC and loss of lives, the colonial government arrested six key members of the party: Kwame Nkrumah, Ebenezer Ako Adjei, Edward Akufo-Addo, Joseph Boakye Danquah, Emmanuel Obetsebi Lamptey, and William Ofori Atta. These members later became known as the Big Six.
Barely two years later, Kwame Nkrumah left the UGCC over disagreement on the direction of the movement and established the Convention People’s Party (CPP) on June 12, 1949. Nkrumah and his CPP defeated the UGCC in general elections and became the first political leader of independent Ghana.
The two parties never saw eye to eye thereafter. Political acrimony, hatred, undermining, accusations, and counteraccusations defined the sociopolitical climate at the time, so much so that Nkrumah jailed some of his former compatriots.
We are not necessarily against naming an edifice after a military officer. However, we think an edifice such as an international airport must be named after a patriot whose name signifies patriotism and/or an achiever whom generations to come may emulate with pride.
For the short span of the life of the NLC, nothing significant was achieved. The late General Acheampong chalked some successes such as Operation Feed Yourself, aligned Ghana with the metric system, and introduced the Ghana Moves Right driving system, yet his name is all but in oblivion.
Curious diplomats, tourists, and visitors arriving in Ghana for the first time would want to know “who” or “what” was or is Kotoka. Similarly, Ghana’s Generations X to Z and beyond would have to dig deeper to unearth the military officer for whom Ghana’s premier airport was renamed. Not much has been written or known about Lieutenant General Emmanuel Kwasi Kotoka nationally or internationally.
Dr. Kofi Abrefa Busia’s Progress Party government, which came to power through the ballot box and after the NLC government had left the scene, could not have expunged General Kotoka’s name from the airport.
After all, the dissolved military government had overthrown its number one political nemesis. Other military leaders who came to power through the barrel of the gun – General Acheampong, General Akuffo, Rawlings I and II – had no moral right to “dishonor” one of their own.
Democratically elected governments after restoration of constitutional rule in 1992 have thus far failed to consider renaming the Kotoka international Airport, due either to past political affiliation/loyalty or lack of political spine to do so.
The quondam nation of the Gold Coast and the present-day Ghana into which it metamorphized do not lack heroes, sheroes, and patriots, any one of whom the so-called gateway to Africa could be named after.
The martyrs Sergeant Adjetey, Corporal Attipoe, and Private Odartey Lamptey gunned down by the colonial police in a peaceful protest on February 28, 1948, come to mind. Their deaths accelerated the fight for political independence.
Or, Ephraim Koku Amu, the musicologist, dismissed from the Presbyterian Training College, Akropong, for donning kente cloth on the pulpit. His nationalism precipitated him to pen Ghana’s foremost patriotic song “Yen Ara Ya Asaase Ni” (This Is Our Land), among several others.
We must also not forget Anton Wilhelm Amo, who’s said to have been Germany’s first Black philosopher and was a contemporary of Immanuel Kant. Professor Amo lectured at the Universities of Wittenberg, Halle, and Jena and published widely in the 1730s. A street in Germany was recently named after Professor Amo.
These, plus the crème de la crème of patriots, scholars, traditional leaders, musicians, and others in contemporary Ghana, are names that befit Ghana’s premier entry point. A name that reflects pride and serves as role model is what is needed.
Otherwise, it would at least be a step in the right direction to revert to its original name of Accra International Airport, as is currently being done to some tertiary institutions renamed by the Akufo-Addo government.