The Birth of Ghana
SHEPHERD, GEORGE W. Jr.
The Birth of Ghana Two former colonies, the Gold Coast and British Togoland, have combined to become the first African Negro nation to win independence from foreign rule By George W Shepherd...
...A bitterly-fought election had just been concluded...
...Traditional African chiefs, conservative businessmen, and some professional people have formed the backbone of the Opposition...
...Sectional rivalries postponed the coming of independence by at least two years...
...While the tendency to idolize Nkrumah must be deplored, it was his conviction, which he followed in opposition to older political leaders, that led to the dramatic change of 1951...
...Donqua in 1948 and go to the people for "self-government now," the Gold Coast might well have followed an entirely different course...
...The Togo-land Congress, which opposed the merger, has warned the Government that, unless a suitable basis of merger can be worked out, trouble will arise...
...Ghana will face difficulties and dangers greater than those surmounted on the road to freedom...
...If Ghana should fail, it would set back the freedom of other African colonies by a generation...
...Other areas—especially the Ashanti in the north—also demand different kinds of regional autonomy and have bitterly contested the CPP idea of a unitary state modeled after Great Britain...
...Anyone who has seen the "mamas" (women) standing in the hot sun of the bazaars with baskets of wares on their heads, selling perhaps a handkerchief or a pair of shoe laces in the course of an entire day, will realize how low the standard of living is...
...Not until the turn of the last century were the warlike Ashanti to the north finally subdued and brought into the colony...
...It is a sound scheme, but the source of the capital for it remains unspecified...
...as soon as the British were defeated, the coalition broke up...
...Today, this tradition of independence and pride has much to do with the difficulties arising from regional interests in Ghana...
...in sight," he said, "never can a nation have been presented with a more decisive opportunity...
...A great deal more than Dr...
...But in the dark days of 1950, when the present Prime Minister and many of his ministers were in prison, the prospects that this revolution would be a peaceful one seemed very slight...
...A single thought unites all African peoples: "As the Gold Coast has gone, so we must go...
...Nkrumah's Convention People's party had emerged with two-thirds of the seats, and the opposition National Liberation Movement and Northern People's party were sulkily refusing even to attend the opening session of Parliament in which the motion for independence was debated...
...Actually, the history of Western trading with the Gold Coast goes back to the 15th century, when the venturesome Portuguese were establishing trading posts around Africa...
...Successfully fanning the flames of sectionalism and ancient tribal hatreds in the Ashanti and northern regions, the Opposition represents a great danger to the new state...
...Let us seize it in unity so that history may record that at our country's greatest hour no dissentient voice was raised to mar the majesty of the occasion...
...His sole aim since he joined the struggle for independence, he told the assembled legislators (some of whom were wearing colorful togas, others Western dress), had been to redeem their country from the status of a colony and see its people free...
...67,492 against) showed strong opposition...
...Most of these they will have to solve themselves, but in some respects the West can be of great assistance...
...Other colonial peoples are watching with great expectations the emergence of the first people in black Africa to win their freedom from a European power...
...But its leaders believe it better to live dangerously than in servitude...
...The Nkrumah Government has run a great risk in forging ahead despite the insistence of these groups on special privileges, such as an Upper House for the chiefs and a federal system of government...
...One can even detect a note of gratitude in the speeches by CPP leaders hailing independence...
...The remarkable feature of the Gold Coast's transformation is that the colonial power is leaving quietly and politely, with an accompanying celebration attended by foreign dignitaries...
...That is why engineers like Arthur Morgan, former head of the TVA, and Sir Robert Jackson of Australia have been called to the Gold Coast to consult on the great Volta River project, which is to produce 600,000 kilowatts of power, most of it to be used in producing aluminum from vast bauxite deposits...
...The Prime Minister's appeal for unity was not mere oratory...
...Kwame Nkrumah stood on the rostrum of the Parliament building in Accra in August 1956 and, in a forceful, colorful speech, proposed the motion for independence of the Gold Coast from Great Britain...
...The peasants, workers and younger middle class remain loyal to the Government party...
...But if it had not been for Nkrumah's determination to defy the more conservative political leaders like Dr...
...Ghana sends a beacon of hope throughout the Dark Continent...
...The British had the foresight to yield, following the victory of the CPP at the polls, and bring Nkrumah from prison to the Prime Minister's seat, with other PGs (Prison Graduates) as ministers...
...The Birth of Ghana Two former colonies, the Gold Coast and British Togoland, have combined to become the first African Negro nation to win independence from foreign rule By George W Shepherd Jr...
...The total cost of financing the project, which involves new railways and a harbor, will be well over $500 million dollars...
...from Leopoldville to Nairobi and from Kampala and Dar-es-Salaam down to Salisbury and Johannesburg, the focus of African nationalism has been the bright hope that Nkrumah and his followers kindled...
...The Gold Coast was gradually transformed into a British colony between 1850 and 1856...
...The British are not being swept out of Ghana on a great tide of violence and revolution...
...As it emerges from colonialism...
...Only ten years earlier, this brilliant young leader, with a gift for oratory, had returned from his studies in America and England to take part in the growing nationalist movement of his people...
...Should cocoa prices fall drastically, Ghana would be bankrupt...
...Yet, they are watching anxiously lest their colonial prodigy slip from the high standards they have achieved...
...The nationalist coalition that Nkrumah had welded held together as long as the common enemy ruled the Gold Coast...
...For a century, the Negro peoples south of the Sahara, with the exception of those in the Union of South Africa, have been under the domination of European powers...
...With independence won, the people of Ghana still face great problems...
...The cocoa farmers and traders are Ghana's main source of wealth, and this one-crop economy is extremely dangerous...
...Nkrumah's reputation or the future of Ghana, however, rests upon the success with which the leaders of the dominant Convention People's party now meet the economic and political problems of self-rule...
...Now that this long-sought goal is George W. Shepherd Jr., a member of the editorial board of Africa Today, is author of They Wait in Darkness...
...March 6 marks the creation of an independent Gold Coast, henceforth to be known as "Ghana" after the ancient empire which once ruled this part of Africa...
...The burning question is whether this can be achieved peacefully in Ghana...
...Nkrumah argues that an efficient modern state of 4.5 million people demands central control...
...The most immediate task for Ghana will be to gain general acceptance for the new constitution...
...By George W Shepherd Jr...
...The British, not without justification, are hailing Ghana as their finest achievement since the liberation of India in 1947...
...This proud people had built a formidable kingdom, ruled by a military hierarchy with as highly organized a political system as any in West Africa...
...A British Governor nearly lost his life in an effort to capture the sacred Golden Stool of the Asantehene, Paramount Chief of the Ashanti...
...When the British first began to develop the Gold Coast as a colony slightly more than 100 years ago, their activities were confined to the coastal trading areas around Accra and Cape Coast...
...The most recent dissension has arisen among the people of the former trust territory of British Togoland, which has now been merged with the Gold Coast after a plebiscite in which the vote (93,095 for...
...Ghana today is an outstanding example of colonialism at its best...
...Behind these regional demands lie the fears of traditional Africa, stirred up by the chiefs, who see in the modern democratic state a threat to their power and position...
...Like their Asian brethren, they want to shed their shackles and claim their place in history...
Vol. 40 • March 1957 • No. 10
