FROM GOLD COAST TO GHANA: THE WINNING OF INDEPENDENCE

Why was Ghana the first black colony in Africa to achieve independence? The vision and organizational genius of Kwame Nkrumah was a powerful factor but not the only one. By the end of the Second World War the Gold Coast was more advanced economically and socially than any other black African country.

 

Figure 61: President Osagyefo Kwame Nkrumah struggled for independence of Ghana. He was a teacher by profession.

Already by 1945 the Gold Coast had a size- able Western-educated elite of teachers, lawyers and businessmen and a long tradition of political protest stretching back to the anti-poll tax movement of the 1860s.

Ghanaians were dissatisfied not only with the lack of constitutional progress by 1945 but also with the exploitation of their economy by British firms. The Gold Coast was the world's largest producer of cocoa but the marketing of the crop and decisions on its price were in the hands of expatriates. Similarly the bulk of mining profits went to European shareholders instead of being used to develop the country.

The Second World War was a powerful agent for political as well as social and economic change. Meyer Fortes has been substantially vindicated in the assessment he made as the war approached its end:

Great, perhaps revolutionary, changes have been taking place in certain sectors of West African social and economic structure since the outbreak of the war. . . It may well be that the war will prove to have been the outstanding instrument of social progress in West Africa for fifty years.

The war was crucial to the rise and growth of Ghanaian nationalism. Dennis Austin has written, 'by 1946 it was possible to see some form of home rule as a not too distant prospect'

The war led to the introduction of a quota system for imports and the elimination of most Ghanaian businessmen from the import trade, to shortages of essential consumer goods, inflation, hardship for Ghanaian shopkeepers and customers, and eventually to the boycotting of European firms and riots against them in 1948.

The Burns Constitution of 1946 failed to take the sting out of rising demands for radical reform. It provided for an African majority in the Legislative Council, but the majority of African members would be chiefs elected by councils of chiefs. The educated elite and the returning ex-servicemen scorned the new Constitution.

In August 1947 a new political party was inaugurated to press for radical change. This was the United Gold Coast Convention (UGCC), which called for early self-government.

The UGCC was originally an elite party of lawyers and businessmen, many of them with chiefly connections, men like J.B. Danquah, Ako Adjei, Francis Awoonor Williams, Edward Akuffo Addo and William Ofori Atta. It would never have become a mass party without the fortuitous intervention of two events: the appointment of Kwame Nkrumah as general secretary and his return from London in December 1947, and the riots of February 1948.

The struggle and the steps towards independence in Ghana

Nkrumah spent the war years in the United States. In May 1945 he left New York for London. At imperial capital itself. His first serious experience of organizational techniques was perhaps acquired during his London days. He was involved in organizing the fifth Pan-African Congress in Manchester. He then became the secretary of the West African National Secretariat. His activities included organizing meetings, working for the Coloured Workers Association of Great Britain and trying to start a nationalist newspaper, The New African.

In trying to involve French-speaking Africans in pan-African activities Nkrumah crossed the English Channel and went to Paris to see African members of the French National Assembly namely Sourous Apithy, Leopold Senghor, Lamine Gueye and Houphouet-Boigny. It was in 1946 during his stay in London that Nkrumah managed to 'scrape up enough money' to publish his pamphlet Towards Colonial freedom. In it Nkrumah argued that:

The national liberation movement in the African colonies has arisen because of the continuous economic and political exploitation by foreign oppressors. The aim of the movement is to win freedom and independence. This can only be achieved by the political education, and organisation of the colonial masses.3

This book was inspired by Lenin's theory of imperialism. Nkrumah's last publication in office was his Neo-Colonialism: the Last Stage of Imperialism, which also owed its doctrinal inspiration to Lenin's theory. Nkrumah saw himself, quite consciously, as an African Lenin. But Nkrumah was neither a Leninist nor even a communist, though he was considerably influenced by Marxist ideas.

In his concept of revolutionary organization Nkrumah diverged from Lenin. Lenin had thought of organization in elitist terms. For Lenin it was not the organization of the masses which was vital for effective action - it was the organization of the leaders. Lenin thought of the masses as dangerously gullible; he believed the revolutionary elite should be sufficiently organized to avert the danger of a misguided populace. Lenin's elitist concept of organization has prevailed in the former Soviet Union to the present day. But for Nkrumah organization was, from the start, basically mass organization. As his newspaper put it in January 1949, 'No section of the people of this country should be left

unorganized . . , The Strength of the organized masses is invincible . . .

We must organize as never before, for organization decides everything." For as long as the target in the Gold Coast was the overthrow of the British colonial regime, the emphasis on mass organization made sense. As India had demonstrated, the British Raj was vulnerable to organized agitation and demonstration on a 'mass' scale.

The United Gold Coast Convention that invited Nkrumah to become its secretary turned out to be too elitist for the task in hand - as well as being too 'middle class'. Nkrumah eventually broke with the UGCC but at first he tried to radicalize it. To his political vision and organizational ability he was able to add other immense assets; his personal charm and his considerable oratorical power. On his return to the Gold Coast Nkrumah was young - only 39. Tall, handsome and at the same time humble and selfless, his personality quickly won over the masses - the workers, the unemployed primary school; leavers and the lower-level elite of junior civil servants, teachers and small traders.

The riots of February 1948 were inspired by long-standing grievances and were neither desired nor organized by Nkrumah. They were a spontaneous reaction to an incident when a British police officer fired on a group of ex-servicemen marching to the castle in Accra to present a petition to the governor. Already a mass boycott of European and Syrian stores had heightened tension. The shooting incident, in which two marchers were killed, led to widespread rioting and looting of foreign property, and to counter-violence by the colonial authorities in which another 29 people were killed. The effect of the riots was to increase membership of the UGCC by about 25 times between March and May 1948.

Nkrumah took advantage of the expansion in membership to build up a large personal following within the UGCC, called the Committee on Youth Organization. He also established a newspaper, the Accra Evening News, and a secondary school for students expelled for taking part in the 1948 demonstrations. The other UGCC leaders, fearing Nkrumah's radicalism and popularity, decided to remove him as party secretary.

Nkrumah anticipated this and forestalled them by resigning, in a dramatic incident that reveals the nature and style of his charismatic leadership at this time. In his autobiography, Nkrumah describes how he was confronted by an excited crowd which wanted him to resign and form a more radical party of his own. 'Resign,' the crowd shouted - 'Resign and lead us!' Standing on the platform, surrounded by an expectant crowd, Nkrumah asked for a pen and a piece of paper. And then, using somebody's back as support, he wrote out his official resignation and read it out to the people. The enthusiasm of the crowd was deafening. Then, one of the women supporters jumped up on the platform and led the singing of the hymn, 'Lead, kindly light'. Nkrumah relates: 'that with the strain of it all and the excitement, the singing of this hymn was more than I could take. I covered my eyes with my handkerchief, a gesture which was followed by many others . . .'' Thus was born, on 12 June 1949, the Convention People's Party (CPP), which was to lead the Gold Coast to independence.

The programme of the CPP was to fight by all constitutional means for the achievement of full 'self-government Now'- Four months after the formation of the CPP the report of the Coussey Committee was published.

The Coussey Report led to the 1951 Constitution with an enlarged Legislative Council which had a majority of members elected by the people, and an Executive Council or Cabinet with an African majority Nkrumah, denounced the new Constitution as 'bogus and fraudulent', because nearly half the Legislative Council seats were reserved for chiefs.

The colonial government reacted to CPP criticism of the new constitutional arrangements by imprisoning three CPP journalists on charges of writing seditious articles. Nkrumah's response was to organize 'positive action' including a general strike. Thereupon the Governor declared a state of emergency and Nkrumah and his closest supporters were arrested, tried and imprisoned.

The imprisonment of Nkrumah, far from weakening the CPP, created sympathy for Nkrumah and enormously strengthened the party. The CPP's excellent organization at all levels enabled it to survive the removal of its leaders and contest and decisively win the February 1951 election. The CPP won 54 out of the 38 popularly elected seats. Among those cleared was the imprisoned Nkrumah. But faced with the decisive verdict of the electorate. Governor Sir Charles Arden-Clarke ordered the release of Nkrumah and asked - him to head the first African government of the Gold Coast with the title of Leader of Government Business.

The CPP government's two terms of office before independence were marked by considerable economic, social and political development. The government was able to take advantage of the large surplus revenue accumulated during the war. But even more of the high price of cocoa in the world market, which rose from 208 per ton in 1951 to the record figure of ₤467 in 1954. The government was able to scrap the colonial Ten-Year Development Plan of 1946, which had allocated ₤11 million for development, and replace it by a Five-Year Plan costing ₤100 million.

In the political field, the civil service was rapidly expanded and its senior posts were Africanized. The number of African senior civil servants rose from 171 in 1949 to 5000 in 1957.

In 1951 local government was reformed; the old Native Authorities run by chiefs were replaced by elected district, local and urban councils. Nkrumah's title was changed to Prime Minister. A new constitution was promulgated in 1954, with a larger Legislative Council of 104 members, all or them to be elected directly, and a Cabinet responsible to parliament, not to the Governor.

The CPP won the elections of June 1954 with a majority of 71 seats, defeating a number of regionally-based parties such as the Northern People's Party, which was backed by northern Muslim chiefs. But a serious threat to the CPP arose after the 1954 elections in the shape of the Asante backed National Liberation Movement (NLM), opposed to Nkrumah's plans for a strong unitary instead of a federal government.

For two years, from 1954 to 1956, the Gold Coast's nascent democratic political development was disfigured by violent clashes between CPP and NLM supporters, and the inability of Nkrumah or any of his ministers to set foot in Kumasi, the Asante regional capital, for reasons of personal safety. However, at the pre-independence elections of July 1956 the CPP led by Nkrumah won a clear majority over the alliance of regional opposition parties led by the NLM leader Dr Kofi Busia the CPP wan 71 out of 104 seats, a majority of 38, Nkrumah's superior organizational skills and his greater sensitivity to the masses gave his party an edge over his regionalist opponents in the struggle for political supremacy. Yet Nkrumah's margin of success was not all that great. As Dennis Austin has pointed out, the CPP in the 1956 election won only 57 per cent, and its opponents 43 per cent. Of the poll in the 99 contested constituencies; 'it was also out-scared, and out-voted, in Ashanti and the north.

In any case, the poll in that crucial pre-independence election was only 50 per cent of the registered electorate and probably something under 30 per cent of the total adult population. Nkrumah's election victory in 1956 illustrates how much narrower than sometimes imagined is the degree of popular backing with which some of the leaders emerged into independence. It would be a mistake to exaggerate the extent of Nkrumah's charismatic appeal as a vote-catcher. Yet precisely because Nkrumah's margin of electoral success was more modest, his organizational superiority was more crucial. In absolute terms even the CPP organization at that time was not all that strong and cohesive. But in relative terms it might well have determined the issue of whether or not Nkrumah won the 1956 election. The following year Nkrumah was Prime Minister of independent Ghana.