Ghana: Crowbar Redivivus

It was only a matter of time before Krobo ("Crowbar") Edusei, 46, returned to President Kwame Nkrumah's Cabinet; he has all the qualifications. A squat, bombastic bully from Ashanti, Edusei was Nkrumah's eminence noire in the Cabinet until last April, when he was finally tossed out during one of Nkrumah's brief experiments in making his colleagues practice what he preaches.

Osagyefo (The Redeemer) had decreed austerely that no Minister in his socialist government should have a house worth more than $56,000. Crowbar, a former $22-a-month debt collector, had five houses; one of them—a $200,000 pleasure dome outside of Accra—would be called a palace even by Osagyefo. However, it was not Chateau Crowbar that led to Edusei's downfall, but a golden bed that was snapped up by his wife Mary in London. In vain Crowbar pleaded with her to send it back to the store. Implored Edusei: "An $8,400 gold-plated bed is not socialism." The aftermath in Accra: his palace was confiscated and Crowbar was axed.

But in Ghana these days, Cabinet Ministers are about as scarce as 14-karat pads.

Since jailing Foreign Minister Ako Adjei and Information Minister Tawia Adama-fio last month, apparently for complicity in a plot to assassinate him, Nkrumah has been hard pressed to plug the gaps. To fill the Agriculture Ministry, the Redeemer redeemed Crowbar.

Edusei might even get his palace back. Mary, still contrary, still has the bed.