“In 1957, our independence from British rule arrived,” Forson continued, his voice taking on the electric hum of a nation being born, “the Castle didn’t change its stones, but it changed its people. The Union Jack came down, and the Black Star rose. I was fifteen then, no longer a weeding boy, but a junior clerk in the administrative wing. I watched the British march out, and the new men march in. They wore kente and smiles that reached to the heavens, believing that history had finally been tamed. We had achieved independence.”
Old Man Forson adjusted his position on the mat, his joints creaking. “Lord Turman had returned to England, but his gift remained with me. I was the only local boy who knew the layout of the archives, the filing codes of the old masters. Because of this, I was kept on. By my early twenties, I had moved from Cape Coast to the seat of government in Accra.”
“You were at the centre of it all,” Kwesi remarked, picturing the young Forson amidst the giants of history.
“I was a fly on the wall in the house of the Osagyefo,” Forson said, using the title reserved for Kwame Nkrumah, the man who led Ghana to independence. “By 1965, I was serving as the Secretary to the Osu Castle’s Chief of Staff. I saw the telegrams that changed the continent. I typed the orders for the Akosombo Dam. I felt the vibration of a vision so large it made the walls of the Castle feel small.”
His expression darkened, the light in his eyes replaced by a cold, historical clarity. “But I also saw the rot. Not the rot of malice, Kwesi, but the rot of complacency. When you are at the top, you stop looking at the ground. You assume the foundation is as solid as your dreams. In February 1966, I was part of the entourage that accompanied President Nkrumah to Beijing. We were on a mission of peace, flying halfway across the world while the ground back home was being hollowed out.”
Forson leaned forward, the intensity of the memory making him look decades younger. “I will never forget the morning of February 24th 1966. We were in a state guest house in Beijing. The air was frigid, the tea was hot, and Osagyefo was preparing for a meeting with the Chinese leadership. Then, the telephone rang. The message was short: The military has taken the Castle. You are no longer President.”
“Just like that?” Kwesi asked, the speed of the fall unsettling him.
“Just like that,” Forson whispered. “A life’s work, a nation’s hope, erased by a few soldiers and a radio announcement. We were men without a country, overnight. The people who had cheered for us in the streets of Accra were now tearing down the statues. It was a masterclass in the fickleness of the crowd and the efficiency of betrayal.”
He looked Kwesi dead in the eye. “That day in Beijing taught me more than all the books in Lord Turman’s library. It taught me that power is fleeting. It can vanish in a heartbeat if you don’t keep your hand on the ledger. I spent fourteen years in Guinea after that, an exile in the shadow of a fallen giant. I watched Nkrumah die in a foreign land, still clutching plans for a country that had moved on without him.”
“Betrayal isn’t a personal insult, Kwesi,” Forson concluded, his voice softening. “It is a historical tool. Jude Asamoah and Kojo Danso are not unique. They are merely playing their roles in a cycle that began long before you were born. They think they have won because they have the titles and the trucks. But they have forgotten the lesson of Beijing: the higher the statue, the more pieces it breaks into when it falls.”
Kwesi felt a chill that had nothing to do with the prison draft. For the first time, he didn’t feel like a victim of a specific crime; he felt like a participant in a much larger, older war. The “Institutional Wall” was high, yes, but Old Man Forson had seen the walls of empires crumble in a single morning.
