Editing History of Ghana (section)

==Independence==
On 3 August 1956, the new assembly passed a motion authorizing the government to request independence within the British Commonwealth.<ref>{{cite news |url=https://select.nytimes.com/mem/archive/pdf?res=FA0E16F8395C127A93C6A91783D85F428585F9 |title=Gold Coast Asks For Its Freedom; Accra Assembly, 72-0, Under Opposition Boycott, Votes Formal Plea to Britain |last=Brady |first=Thomas F. |date=4 August 1956 |newspaper=The New York Times}}</ref> On 18 September 1956 the British set 6 March 1957, the 113th anniversary of the Bond of 1844, as the date that the [[Gold Coast (region)|Gold Coast]], [[Ashanti (Crown Colony)|Ashanti]], the [[Northern Territories of the Gold Coast (British protectorate)|Northern Territories]] and [[British Togoland]] would together become a unified, independent country within the [[British Commonwealth of Nations]] under the name [[Ghana]].<ref>{{cite news |url=https://select.nytimes.com/mem/archive/pdf?res=F10813FB3C5A177B93CBA81782D85F428585F9 |title=British Set March 6 As Date of Freedom For the Gold Coast; Gold Coast Gets Date Of Freedom Pledge Is Welcomed |last=Ronan |first=Thomas P. |date=19 September 1956 |newspaper=The New York Times}}</ref> Kwame Nkrumah continued as prime minister, and [[Elizabeth II|Queen Elizabeth II]] as head of state, represented by the [[Governor-General of Ghana]], Sir [[Charles Noble Arden-Clarke]]. Ghana remained a constitutional monarchy and parliamentary democracy until 1960, when after a [[Ghanaian constitutional referendum, 1960|national referendum]], Ghana was declared a republic.<ref name=ig>McLaughlin & Owusu-Ansah (1994), "Independent Ghana".</ref>

The Second Development Plan of 1959–1964 followed the Soviet model, and shifted away from expanding state services toward raising productivity in the key sectors. Nkrumah believed that colonialism had twisted personalities, imposing a competitive, individualistic and bourgeois mentality that had to be eliminated. Worldwide cocoa prices began to fall, budgets were cut, and workers were called upon for more and more self sacrifice to overcome neocolonialism.<ref>{{Cite journal |title=Figure 3. Clone size distribution P(X&gt;x) for colonies grown on smooth (a) and rough (b) substrates |journal=eLife |doi=10.7554/elife.44359.021|doi-access=free}}</ref> Nkrumah drastically curtailed the independence of the labor unions, and when strikes resulted he cracked down through the Preventive Detention Act.<ref>Ahlman, ''Living with Nkrumahism'' (2017) ch. 4.</ref>
[[File:Kwame Nkrumah (JFKWHP-AR6409-A).jpg|thumb|[[Kwame Nkrumah]], pictured in 1961]]

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.<ref>{{Citation|title=I Believed All Poets Were Dead|work=Protection Spell|year=2017|pages=64|publisher=University of Arkansas Press|doi=10.2307/j.ctt1hch7t1.40|isbn=978-1-61075-610-5}}</ref> Expansion of secondary schools became a high priority in 1959–1964, along with expansion of vocational programs and higher education.<ref>{{cite book|author=Betty Grace Stein George|title=Education in Ghana|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=IAgjJCXER2kC&pg=PA44|year=1976|publisher=U.S. Office of Education|page=44}}</ref>

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. Indeed, the enemies could be anywhere and dissent was not tolerated.<ref>Jack Goody, "Consensus and dissent in Ghana." ''Political Science Quarterly'' 83.3 (1968): 337–352. [https://www.jstor.org/stable/2147503 online]</ref> Nkrumah's regime enacted the Deportation Act of 1957, the Detention Acts of 1958, 1959 and 1962, and carried out parliamentary intimidation of CPP opponents, 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.<ref>{{cite book|author=Harcourt Fuller|title=Building the Ghanaian Nation-State: Kwame Nkrumah's Symbolic Nationalism|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=NNUaBgAAQBAJ&pg=PA78|year=2014|publisher=Palgrave Macmillan US|pages=78–79|isbn=9781137448583}}</ref> 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.<ref name="nga">McLaughlin & Owusu-Ansah (1994), "Nkrumah, Ghana, and Africa".</ref>

===Pan-Africanist dream===

The pan-Africanist 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.<ref>{{Cite journal |title=Unlearning the Modern |journal=British Art Studies |date=September 2019 |doi=10.17658/issn.2058-5462/issue-13/floe-elliott/p12 |doi-access=free}}</ref> 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.<ref>{{Cite journal|last=Herve|first=Julia|date=July 1973|title=Kwame Nkrumah: His Last Views of African Struggle|journal=The Black Scholar|volume=4|issue=10|pages=24–27|doi=10.1080/00064246.1973.11431328|issn=0006-4246}}</ref> As he put it, "the independence of Ghana would be meaningless unless it was tied to the total liberation of Africa."<ref name=nga />

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.<ref name="Cornell University Press">{{Citation|title=Introduction: Phan Châu Trinh And His Political Writings|date=31 December 2018|work=Phan Chau Trinh and His Political Writings|pages=1–56|editor-last=Sinh|editor-first=Vinh|place=Ithaca, NY|publisher=Cornell University Press|doi=10.7591/9781501719417-005|isbn=978-1-5017-1941-7|s2cid=239299593}}</ref> His dream for Africa was a continuation of the pan-Africanist dream as expressed at the Manchester conference.<ref>{{Cite journal|last=Mackintosh|first=John P.|date=January 1968|title=Education and Changing West African Culture, Creating Political Order: The Party-States of West Africa, Political Change in a West African State: A Study of the Modernization Process in Sierra Leone and Dream of Unity: Pan-Africanism and Political Unification in West Africa|journal=International Affairs|volume=44|issue=1|pages=133–134|doi=10.2307/2613582|jstor=2613582|issn=1468-2346}}</ref> The initial strategy was to encourage revolutionary political movements in Africa. The CIA believed that Nkrumah's government provided money and training for pro-socialist guerrillas in Ghana, aided after 1964 by the Chinese Communist government. Several hundred trainees passed through this program, administered by Nkrumah's Bureau of African Affairs, and were sent on to countries such as Rhodesia, Angola, Mozambique, Niger and Congo.<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://www.cia.gov/library/readingroom/document/im-ghanas-freedom-fighters-camp-and-chinese-communists|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160918132741/https://www.cia.gov/library/readingroom/document/im-ghanas-freedom-fighters-camp-and-chinese-communists|url-status=dead|archive-date=18 September 2016|title=IM: GHANA'S FREEDOM FIGHTERS' CAMP AND THE CHINESE COMMUNISTS {{!}} CIA FOIA (foia.cia.gov)|website=www.cia.gov|access-date=18 January 2017}}</ref> Politically, Nkrumah believed that a Ghana, Guinea, and Mali union would serve as the psychological and political impetus for the formation of a [[United States of Africa]]. When Nkrumah was criticized for paying little attention to Ghana or for wasting national resources in supporting external programmes, he reversed the argument and accused his opponents of being short-sighted.<ref name=nga />

===Tax protests===
The heavy financial burdens created by Nkrumah's development policies and pan-African adventures created new sources of opposition. With the presentation in July 1961 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 programmes. Their reaction set the model for the protests over taxes and benefits that were to dominate Ghanaian political crises for the next thirty years.<ref name=nga />

CPP backbenchers and UP representatives in the National Assembly sharply criticized the government's demand for increased taxes and, particularly, for a forced savings programme.<ref>{{Cite journal|title=2.2. The fiscal deficit and government debt have sharply increased during 2006-09 |journal=OECD Economic Surveys |date=2010 |doi=10.1787/888932325045}}</ref> 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.<ref name=nga />

=== Growth of opposition to Nkrumah ===
Nkrumah's complete domination of political power had served to isolate lesser leaders, leaving each a real or imagined challenger to the ruler. After opposition parties were crushed, opponents came only from within the CPP hierarchy. Among its members was [[Tawia Adamafio]], an Accra politician.<ref>{{Citation|chapter=Members, Leaders and the Distribution of Power within Parties|doi=10.4135/9781446222003.n7|title=The Modern British Party System |year=2007|pages=190–217|location=London|publisher=SAGE Publications |isbn=9780803979444}}</ref> Nkrumah had made him general secretary of the CPP for a brief time. Later, Adamafio was appointed minister of state for presidential affairs, the most important post in the president's staff at Flagstaff House, which gradually became the centre for all decision making and much of the real administrative machinery for both the CPP and the government.<ref name="BIRTH OF THE CPP">{{Citation|date=15 November 2007|work=Kwame Nkrumah. Vision and Tragedy|pages=74–90|publisher=Sub-Saharan Publishers|doi=10.2307/j.ctvk3gm60.10|isbn=978-9988-647-81-0|title=Birth of the CPP}}</ref> The other leader with an apparently autonomous base was John Tettegah, leader of the Trade Union Congress. Neither, however, proved to have any power other than that granted to them by the president.<ref name=gon>McLaughlin & Owusu-Ansah (1994), "The Growth of Opposition to Nkrumah".</ref>

By 1961, however, the young and more radical members of the CPP leadership, led by Adamafio, had gained ascendancy over the original CPP leaders like Gbedemah. After a bomb attempt on Nkrumah's life in August 1962, Adamafio, [[Ako-Adjei|Ako Adjei]] (then minister of foreign affairs), and [[H. H. Cofie-Crabbe|Cofie Crabbe]] (all members of the CPP) were jailed under the Preventive Detention Act.<ref name="BIRTH OF THE CPP"/> The first Ghanaian Commissioner of Police, [[E. R. T. Madjitey|E. R. T Madjitey]], from Asite in Manya-Krobo was also relieved of his post. The CPP newspapers charged them with complicity in the assassination attempt, offering as evidence only the fact that they had all chosen to ride in cars far behind the president's when the bomb was thrown.<ref name=gon /><ref>{{Cite journal|title=COSATU condemns the assassination attempt against President Nicholas Maduro of Venezuela|journal=Human Rights Documents Online|doi=10.1163/2210-7975_hrd-9885-20180017}}</ref>

The accused were brought to trial before the three-judge court for state security, headed by the chief justice, Sir [[Kobina Arku Korsah|Arku Korsah]]. When the court acquitted the accused, Nkrumah used his constitutional prerogative to dismiss Korsah.<ref>{{Citation|title=Korsah, Sir (Kobina) Arku, (3 April 1894–25 Jan. 1967), first Chief Justice of the Republic of Ghana, 1960–63, retd|date=1 December 2007|work=Who Was Who|publisher=Oxford University Press|doi=10.1093/ww/9780199540884.013.u52708}}</ref> Nkrumah then obtained a vote from the parliament that allowed retrial of Adamafio and his associates. A new court, with a jury chosen by Nkrumah, found all the accused guilty and sentenced them to death. These sentences, however, were commuted to twenty years' imprisonment.<ref name=gon /><ref>{{Cite journal|title=A Jury May Have Sentenced a Man to Death Because He Is Gay. It's Time for a Federal Court to Hear His Bias Claim.|journal=Human Rights Documents Online|doi=10.1163/2210-7975_hrd-9970-20180016}}</ref>

Corruption had highly deleterious effects. It removed money from the active economy and put it in the hands of the political parties, and Nkrumah's friends and family, so it became an obstacle to economic growth.<ref>{{Cite journal|last1=Gründler|first1=Klaus|last2=Potrafke|first2=Niklas|date=2019|title=Corruption and economic growth: New empirical evidence|journal=European Journal of Political Economy|volume=60|pages=101810|doi=10.1016/j.ejpoleco.2019.08.001|s2cid=202309767|issn=0176-2680|url=https://www.cesifo.org/DocDL/cesifo1_wp7816.pdf}}</ref> The new state companies that had been formed to implement growth became instruments of patronage and financial corruption; civil servants doubled their salaries and politicians purchase supporters.<ref>{{Citation|last=Verhey|first=Luc|title=Civil Servants and Politicians|work=Civil Servants and Politics|year=2013|place=Basingstoke|publisher=Palgrave Macmillan|doi=10.1057/9781137316813_3 |isbn=978-1-137-31681-3}}</ref> Politically, allegations and instances of corruption in the ruling party, and in Nkrumah's personal finances, undermined the very legitimacy of his regime and sharply decreased the ideological commitment needed to maintain the public welfare under Ghanaian socialism.<ref>John Mukum Mbaku, "Corruption in Africa–Part 1." ''History Compass'' 7.5 (2009): 1269–1285.</ref>

Political scientist Herbert H. Werlin Has examined the mounting economic disaster:
<blockquote>Nkrumah left Ghana with a serious balance-of-payments problem. Beginning with a substantial foreign reserve fund of over $500 million at the time of independence, Ghana, by 1966, had a public external debt of over $800 million.....there was no foreign exchange to buy the spare parts and raw materials required for the economy.<ref>{{Cite journal|title=Figure 2.9. The balance of payments and foreign exchange reserves |journal= |date=11 January 2010 |doi=10.1787/777672602333}}</ref> While inflation was rampant, causing the price-level to rise by 30 per cent in 1964–65, unemployment was also serious....Whereas between 1955 and 1962 Ghana's GNP increased at an average annual rate of nearly 5 per cent, there was practically no growth at all by 1965....Since Ghana's estimated annual rate of population growth was 2.6 per cent, his economy was obviously retrogressing. While personal per capita consumption declined by some 15 per cent between 1960 and 1966, the real wage income of the minimum wage earner declined by some 45 per cent during this period.<ref>Herbert H. Werlin, "The consequences of corruption: The Ghanaian experience." ''Political Science Quarterly'' 88.1 (1973): 71–85 quoting pp 73–74 [https://www.jstor.org/stable/2148649 Online]</ref></blockquote>

In early 1964, in order to prevent future challenges from the judiciary and after another [[Ghanaian constitutional referendum, 1964|national referendum]], Nkrumah obtained a constitutional amendment allowing him to dismiss any judge. Ghana officially became a [[one-party state]] and an act of parliament ensured that there would be only one candidate for president.<ref>{{Cite ODNB|last=Rathbone|first=Richard|title=Nkrumah, Kwame (1909?–1972), president of Ghana|date=23 September 2004|series=Oxford Dictionary of National Biography|doi=10.1093/ref:odnb/31504}}</ref> Other parties having already been outlawed, no non-CPP candidates came forward to challenge the party slate in the general elections announced for June 1965.<ref>{{Citation|title=Euroscepticism and the Referendum Party|date=11 January 2013|work=British Elections and Parties Review|pages=111–126|publisher=Routledge|doi=10.4324/9780203044896-13|isbn=978-0-203-04489-6}}</ref> Nkrumah had been re-elected president of the country for less than a year when members of the National Liberation Council (NLC) overthrew the CPP government in a military coup on 24 February 1966. At the time, Nkrumah was in China. He took up asylum in Guinea, where he remained until he died in 1972.<ref name=gon /><ref>Albert Kwasi Ocran, ''A myth is broken: an account of the Ghana coup d'état of 24th February, 1966'' (Longmans, 1968).</ref>