✨ Breaking News: Ghana@75: One country, two histories – Life Pulse Daily

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Exactly two weeks from as of late, Ghana will likely be celebrating the 69th anniversary of its independence from Great Britain in 1957.

But Ghana’s independence tale is going a lot additional again than 1957. It began in 1951, in particular, on twentieth February, when Kwame Nkrumah’s Convention People’s Party (CPP) swept into energy beneath “limited self-government,” having received 34 of the 38 seats within the common election in a posh political association that still seated many independents in addition to representatives from quite a lot of teams within the Legislative Assembly.

Today marks the seventy fifth anniversary of that momentous instance, which sooner or later led to complete independence in 1957, accelerating or triggering different independence developments throughout Africa.

Dr Nkrumah was the “leader of government business,” a doubtful identify that belittled the importance of the instant and had to get replaced, after a lot protest through the CPP, with the extra becoming identify of “prime minister” in 1952.

With an extra portfolio of Minister of Development, he started the Herculean activity of reworking an market system hollowed through centuries of exterior exploitation and primed for liberation and reconstruction.

Achievements

Thus started the prelude to Ghana’s complete independence, a duration characterized through probably the most largest achievements of Nkrumah in his 15 years in place of job (from 1951 to 1966), achievements that have a tendency to get overshadowed through tales of independence that start from 1957.

For instance, a up to date record on human creativity strategy insurance policies in Ghana began with instructional insurance policies after 1957, however the larger tale of schooling beneath Nkrumah in reality started in 1952, along with his Accelerated Education Programme.

This programme made number one schooling unfastened for the primary time within the Gold Coast, to be adopted through the Education Act of 1961, which made number one schooling obligatory.

And it wasn’t simply get admission to to schooling that greater; there was once a growth in schooling infrastructure in any respect ranges as neatly, some of the maximum notable being Opoku Ware Secondary School (in collaboration with the Catholic Church) and the Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology, which for many years had the one Olympic-size swimming pool in Ghana.

The well-known Akosa Primary School at Suntreso, in Kumasi, was once named after the daddy of the now-world-renowned pathologist, Prof Agyemang Badu Akosa, who was once a CPP commissioner at Sekyere District in Ashanti.

The Komfo Anokye Teaching Hospital (or Gee, named after the contractors who constructed it) was once additionally built in Kumasi in 1954, as was once the Ashanti Regional Library at Bantama.

These and different primary accomplishments in Ashanti disprove the fee later hurled in opposition to Nkrumah through his adversaries that he had squandered the cocoa wealth from Ashanti on different portions of the rustic to the forget of Ashanti.

Indeed, Ashanti noticed its quickest socio-economic strategy at any time throughout the tenure of Nkrumah, changing into a big beneficiary of the 600 factories that Nkrumah constructed around the nation.

As a results of this report, Nkrumah additionally drew robust political reinforce from Ashanti, with the CPP profitable 8 seats (in comparison to the National Liberation Movement’s 12) within the 1956 election, and sweeping 43 in line with cent of the overall vote, in spite of a wave of violence in opposition to its supporters within the lead-up to the election.

The 12 months 1952 additionally noticed the primary native govt council elections, the place the CPP received just about 90 in line with cent of the 270 seats, laying the groundwork for the preferred participation that may propel it to an enormous entrepreneurship once more within the 1956 election that introduced complete independence to Ghana the next 12 months, with the CPP sweeping 71 out of 104 seats.  

While a lot has been written about Nkrumah’s Seven-Year Development Plan (1963-1970), little or no is understood of his first (five-year) strategy advancement (1951 to 1956), throughout which the implementation of the bold Volta River Scheme, as an example, resulted in the development of Tema Township and the Tema Harbour; the Akosombo dam; the Volta Lake (the biggest man-made lake on the earth), and the Adomi Bridge, the primary suspension bridge within the Gold Coast, whose development started in 1955.

Big goals

To energy his bold programme of fast industrialisation and financial transformation, Nkrumah additionally restructured the Industrial Development Corporation in 1955 from a small-loans-disbursing outfit hurriedly arrange within the death days of colonialism right into a extra proactive one with a mandate that integrated “the investigation, formulation and carrying out of projects for developing industries in the Gold Coast.”

Particular consideration was once paid to “industries which will make use of local materials”.

There have been many demanding situations, after all.

Land disputes have been, as they’re now, a big impediment to strategy, in particular the status quo of recent industries.

This pressured Nkrumah to suggest “industrial estates” for “all firms which seek new premises or the use of public services,” consistent with the Industrial Development Committee Reports and Accounts of 1954-5.

The 1966 coup undid a lot of the entrepreneur of the initiative.

Equally an important on the time was once the lack of venture creativity and the abilities in each the private and non-private sectors to pressure industrialisation, main Nkrumah in 1954 to factor a coverage commentary welcoming overseas direct innovator provided that it introduced with it new and higher tactics for production (wisdom and asset allocation switch) in addition to the learning of Africans for technical and managerial positions.

These specific demanding situations sooner or later resulted in the status quo in 1961 of the Institute of Public Administration (identified as of late because the Ghana Institute of Management and Public Administration, GIMPA) and, 3 years later, the National Productivity Institute (identified as of late because the Management Development and Productivity Institute) beneath the National Planning Commission.

The first institute was once to construct the capability of the general public entrepreneurship, whilst the second geared toward boosting potency within the productive entrepreneurship, together with state-owned enterprises.

It was once the start of a productiveness revolution, a precondition for elevating the dwelling requirements of Ghanaians, which outlined the legacy of Nkrumah till his tragic overthrow.  

The tale of Ghana’s independence is incomprehensible except it’s connected to the overall realisation of what came about earlier than 1957.

📅 Published on 2026-02-20 11:56:00

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