Case study: Ghana's road to independence

1Midnight in Accra

At midnight on 5 to 6 March 1957, at the Old Polo Ground in Accra, Kwame Nkrumah announced to a huge crowd that the Gold Coast was free and would be called Ghana, after the great West African empire you studied in Senior 1. It is often described as the first colony in sub-Saharan Africa to win independence after the Second World War. Nkrumah told the crowd that Ghana's independence would mean little unless the whole of Africa became free. How did a colony move, in just ten years, from riots in the streets to independence without a war?

2Why the Gold Coast led the way

• A wealthy, educated society. African farmers had made the Gold Coast the world's leading producer of cocoa, and it had many schools, lawyers, teachers and newspapers.
• Few settlers. No large group of Europeans owned the land, so there was no settler community to resist African rule, unlike Kenya.
• A tradition of protest. Earlier associations had defended African land rights and asked for representation since the 1890s.
• Ex-servicemen and post-war hardship. Veterans of the war wanted the pensions and jobs they had been promised; prices of imported goods were high.
• A mass leader and party. Nkrumah, educated in the Gold Coast, the United States and Britain, and a delegate at the Manchester Congress of 1945, built the CPP into a party of workers, farmers, market women and young people.
• A willing colonial power. Britain's Labour government (1945 to 1951) and its successors accepted step-by-step self-government in West Africa.

3The process, step by step

Figure 1. Each step raised the pressure for the next. Dates from the Wikipedia articles in the credits.

1. 1948: the Accra riots. On 28 February 1948, at the end of a boycott of European shops over high prices, police fired on a march of unarmed ex-servicemen who wanted their war benefits. Riots followed in Accra and other towns. A British commission (the Watson Commission) blamed the old constitution and recommended reform.
2. 1949: the CPP. Nkrumah, the UGCC's secretary, found its leaders too cautious. On 12 June 1949, before a crowd of some 60,000 people, he founded the CPP and demanded "Self-Government Now".
3. 1950: Positive Action. Strikes and boycotts paralysed the colony. The British arrested Nkrumah and sentenced him to prison.
4. 1951: victory at the polls. In the first general election, in February 1951, the CPP won 34 of the 38 seats contested on a party basis, though Nkrumah was still in prison. The governor released him and made him Leader of Government Business; in 1952 he became Prime Minister.
5. 1954 to 1956: more elections. The CPP won again, and Britain agreed a date for independence. British Togoland voted in a UN plebiscite in 1956 to join the new state.
6. 6 March 1957: independence. Ghana joined the United Nations and the Commonwealth, and in 1960 became a republic with Nkrumah as President.

4After independence

Ghana became a symbol for the whole continent: it hosted the All-African People's Conference in Accra in 1958 and helped to found the OAU in 1963. Nkrumah built schools, roads, the Akosombo Dam and new industries. But Ghana still depended on cocoa prices, and Nkrumah's government became a one-party state that jailed opponents without trial. On 24 February 1966, while he was abroad, the army and police overthrew him.

5Discuss

Nkrumah said Ghana's independence would mean little unless all of Africa became free. Was Ghana right to spend effort and money on the freedom of other African countries? What does solidarity between African countries look like today?