Independent Ghana at the Forefront of the African Revolution

Independent Ghana at the Forefront of the African Revolution

On 6 March 1957, the Gold Coast (now known as Ghana) gained independence from Britain. Ghana became a member of the Commonwealth of Nations and was led to independence by Kwame Nkrumah who transformed the country into a republic. The country was the first in the African continent to gain independence from European colonialism.

From his return to Ghana in 1947, as general secretary of the United Gold Coast Convention to his release from prison in 1951, Nkrumah became head of the Convention People’s Party to take over the post of Leader of Government Business. Subsequently, as Prime Minister, Nkrumah mobilised the sound forces of the country and gave direction and perspective to the militant movements of ex-servicemen, workers and youth which opened the road to independence.

His challenge to the old-line reformist and temporising leadership expressed in the slogans of “independence now” and “positive action” was effective. Independence on 6 March 1957, coming on the eve of the great wave of African political emancipation from direct foreign rule, placed Ghana automatically in the vanguard of Africa’s forward march.

It was not only the chance of timing however which placed Ghana in the forefront of the African Revolution. Kwame Nkrumah reiterated time and again that the emancipation of Ghana was only meaningful in the overall context of African freedom and unity. His militant call for united struggle against colonialism and neo-colonialism, his powerful advocacy of a common front for the complete uprooting of imperialist survivals and white supremacy regimes throughout our continent, made him the pacesetter in the formation of the Organisation of African Unity (OAU) in 1963, in the making of its founding Charter and earlier revolutionary policies.

It was for these things that the imperialists hated Nkrumah, that they reviled and maligned him, conspired time and again among themselves and with the unpatriotic forces of internal reaction until at last they succeeded in the coup of 1966 when he was away from the country. Their vindictiveness even followed him into his grave. The capitalist mass media in the ‘West’ could have no good word to say about Nkrumah after his death. They vied with one another to belittle a man over whose departure they could scarcely conceal their rejoicing.

There can be no doubt that the broad main road of socialism and African unity for which Nkrumah fought with such ability and conviction is the only way to a free, happy and independent future for our people. It is for that that Africa will ever honour his memory.

Sources:
Wikipedia.
Editorial, “The African Communist”, No. 50, Third Quarter 1972.

Castro Khwela
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