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| Kwame
Nkwumah |
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Nkrumah, Ghana, and Africa
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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.
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