Ghana@50: Jamaican View

Ghana's 50th anniversary of independence

Our Premier Norman Manley shared a flight to Africa with Martin Luther King for Ghana's independence on March 6, 1957. Ghana was the first Black African state to gain independence from colonial rulers. Jamaica was still five years and five months away from its own independence, an event in which Norman Manley, himself, played a leading role.

When King visited Jamaica in 1965, he recalled the shared trip in a warm letter to Manley, then Leader of the Opposition in the first parliament of independent Jamaica. "As I saw you in the audience during several of my appearances, I thought of the time that we travelled to Africa together, and my mind inevitably led me to think of the many things that have happened in the world since that trip to Ghana in 1957. Two of those things were, of course, Jamaican Independence in 1962 and the Civil Rights Act in the United States in 1964."

Ghana's 1957 break with colonial rule, a little Reuters report tucked away on page C6 of Monday's Gleaner [March 5] reminds us, triggered a wave of independence movements and liberation struggles. There are 53 independent states on the African continent today, very few of them really prosperous or stable.

Founding Father Kwame Nkrumah's dream of a New Africa, strong, free, and prosperous, was soon derailed in Ghana as his autocratic rule led to persecution of opponents and his profligate spending brought the country's economy to the brink of collapse. Nkrumah was overthrown in a coup in 1966, the first of many.

Some years ago we had coup leader and head of state Flight Lieutenant Jerry Rawlings here as guest of honour at our own Independence celebrations. I thought it most inappropriate. Rawlings, who led two 'booms' but restored democratic elections in 1992 and has been the longest serving head of state with 19 of the 50 years, has publicly shunned the 50th anniversary celebrations in protest over the state of the country.

Endemic political violence

Minus the coups, but think of our endemic political violence, Jamaica's independence history resembles Ghana's quite a lot in failed eco-nomic promise after a promising start.

A BBC report for the 50th anniversary says, "[Nkrumah] had ambitious plans for his small, freshly -liberated country. His aim was to develop Ghana as an industrialised, unitary socialist state - and to do it fast." Sounding very much like our Michael Manley of the 1970s.

By purest coincidence, Mr. Manley died on Ghana's independence day in 1997, and 10th anniversary tributes ran in the press on Tuesday. Among them, "you extolled the virtues of self-confidence in the search for solutions" and "you stood tall on the world stage." That too was Nkrumah. And Ghana has given the world the last secretary-general of the UN, Kofi Annan.

Nkrumah had big dreams for Ghana: "It should become the gateway of Africa," says K.B. Asante, who worked alongside the first president for a number of years, the BBC reports.

Poverty was to be eradicated through industrialisation to improve agriculture. There were to be seats of higher learning, and no barriers to education.

Preventative Detention Act

But only one year after independence, Nkrumah had got Parliament to agree to the Preventative Detention Act. He could now detain anyone who opposed his ideas for up to five years without trial.

"Many people still have a wrong view of him," says R.R. Amponsah, one of his main political opponents at the time.

"He was an autocrat and dictator. People still think Ghana would be a place of roses if he had stayed in power. That's not true at all. There were shortages and people were generally happy that he was no longer in charge of affairs."

Amponsah was falsely charged with organising a coup against the Government, and imprisoned without trial for over six years.

By 1964, Ghana was a one-party state, and Nkrumah life president.

As the country celebrates 50 years of independence this year, it ranks No. 136 out of 177 countries on the U.N. Human Development Index but is ahead of all but five sub-Saharan African states. Not the worst; but the Nkrumah dream and the promise of first independence await a fuller fulfilment.