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Ghana Nkrumah, Ghana, and Africa
Nkrumah has been described by author Peter Omari as a dictator
who "made much of elections, when he was aware that they were not
really free but rigged in his favor." According to Omari, the CPP
administration of Ghana was one that manipulated the constitutional
and electoral processes of democracy to justify Nkrumah's agenda.
The extent to which the government would pursue that agenda
constitutionally was demonstrated early in the administration's
life when it succeeded in passing the Deportation Act of 1957, the
same year that ethnic, religious, and regional parties were banned.
The Deportation Act empowered the governor general and, therefore,
subsequent heads of state, to expel persons whose presence in the
country was deemed not in the interest of the public good. Although
the act was to be applied only to non-Ghanaians, several people to
whom it was later applied claimed to be citizens.
The Preventive Detention Act, passed in 1958, gave power to the
prime minister to detain certain persons for up to five years
without trial. Amended in 1959 and again in 1962, the act was seen
by opponents of the CPP government as a flagrant restriction of
individual freedom and human rights. Once it had been granted these
legal powers, the CPP administration managed to silence its
opponents. Dr. J.B. Danquah, a leading member of the UGCC, was
detained until he died in prison in 1965. Dr. Kofi Abrefa Busia,
leader of the opposition United Party (UP), formed by the NLM and
other parties in response to Nkrumah's outlawing of so-called
separatist parties in 1957, went into exile in London to escape
detention, while other members still in the country joined the
ruling party.
On July 1, 1960, Ghana became a republic, and Nkrumah won the
presidential election that year. Shortly thereafter, Nkrumah was
proclaimed president for life, and the CPP became the sole party of
the state. Using the powers granted him by the party and the
constitution, Nkrumah by 1961 had detained an estimated 400 to
2,000 of his opponents. Nkrumah's critics pointed to the rigid hold
of the CPP over the nation's political system and to numerous cases
of human rights abuses. Others, however, defended Nkrumah's agenda
and policies.
Nkrumah discussed his political views in his numerous writings,
especially in Africa Must Unite (1963) and in NeoColonialism (1965). These writings show the impact of his stay
in Britain in the mid-1940s. The Pan-Africanist movement, which had
held one of its annual conferences, attended by Nkrumah, at
Manchester in 1945, was influenced by socialist ideologies. The
movement sought unity among people of African descent and also
improvement in the lives of workers who, it was alleged, had been
exploited by capitalist enterprises in Africa. Western countries
with colonial histories were identified as the exploiters.
According to the socialists, "oppressed" people ought to identify
with the socialist countries and organizations that best
represented their interests; however, all the dominant world powers
in the immediate post-1945 period, except the Soviet Union and the
United States, had colonial ties with Africa. Nkrumah asserted that
even the United States, which had never colonized any part of
Africa, was in an advantageous position to exploit independent
Africa unless preventive efforts were taken.
According to Nkrumah, his government, which represented the
first black African nation to win independence, had an important
role to play in the struggle against capitalist interests on the
continent. As he put it, "the independence of Ghana would be
meaningless unless it was tied to the total liberation of Africa."
It was important, then, he said, for Ghanaians to "seek first the
political kingdom." Economic benefits associated with independence
were to be enjoyed later, proponents of Nkrumah's position argued.
But Nkrumah needed strategies to pursue his goals.
On the domestic front, Nkrumah believed that rapid
modernization of industries and communications was necessary and
that it could be achieved if the workforce were completely
Africanized and educated. Even more important, however, Nkrumah
believed that this domestic goal could be achieved faster if it
were not hindered by reactionary politicians--elites in the
opposition parties and traditional chiefs--who might compromise
with Western imperialists. From such an ideological position,
Nkrumah supporters justified the Deportation Act of 1957, the
Detention Acts of 1958, 1959 and 1962, parliamentary intimidation
of CPP opponents, the appointment of Nkrumah as president for life,
the recognition of his party as the sole political organization of
the state, the creation of the Young Pioneer Movement for the
ideological education of the nation's youth, and the party's
control of the civil service. Government expenditure on road
building projects, mass education of adults and children, and
health services, as well as the construction of the Akosombo Dam,
were all important if Ghana were to play its leading role in
Africa's liberation from colonial and neo-colonial domination.
On the continental level, Nkrumah sought to unite Africa so
that it could defend its international economic interests and stand
up against the political pressures from East and West that were a
result of the Cold War. His dream for Africa was a continuation of
the Pan-Africanist dream as expressed at the Manchester conference.
The initial strategy was to encourage revolutionary political
movements in Africa, beginning with a Ghana, Guinea, and Mali
union, that would serve as the psychological and political impetus
for the formation of a United States of Africa. Thus, when Nkrumah
was criticized for paying little attention to Ghana or for wasting
national resources in supporting external programs, he reversed the
argument and accused his opponents of being short-sighted.
But the heavy financial burdens created by Nkrumah's
development policies and Pan-African adventures created new sources
of opposition. With the presentation in July l961 of the country's
first austerity budget, Ghana's workers and farmers became aware of
and critical of the cost to them of Nkrumah's programs. Their
reaction set the model for the protests over taxes and benefits
that were to dominate Ghanaian political crises for the next thirty
years.
CPP backbenchers and UP representatives in the National
Assembly sharply criticized the government's demand for increased
taxes and, particularly, for a forced savings program. Urban
workers began a protest strike, the most serious of a number of
public outcries against government measures during 1961. Nkrumah's
public demands for an end to corruption in the government and the
party further undermined popular faith in the national government.
A drop in the price paid to cocoa farmers by the government
marketing board aroused resentment among a segment of the
population that had always been Nkrumah's major opponent.
Data as of November 1994
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