The Sunday News
Ghana: A pedagogy of African liberation
Pursuant to last week’s inaugural installment on the role of Ghana as a pedagogical template of African liberation; this second and final submission of this elapsing series is an analytical dispatch of Ghana’s indelible pioneering strides in enacting the realism of decolonisation in Africa.
Against this historical gaze to reality, it is important to consider the lucrative consequence of the establishment of the Convention People’s Party (CPP) in 1949. With Nkrumah at the helm of the CCP’s leadership, the wave of change was not only inevitable in Ghana. It is this same upsurge of change which had ignited its mutilating effect to the travesty of imperialism to the entire continent. Ghana’s experience dovetailed the synergising effect of the entirety of Africa’s consciousness to imperial “otheredness” of the majority. As such, Ghana undoubtedly deserves an accolade for being a tutoring symbol of the African revolution. It is from Ghana’s example that the only logical and consequential thinking alternative for the oppressed was the universal Afro-determination to repel the lawfulness of imperialism. However, this same anti-colonial avalanche from Ghana stretched to Zimbabwe with an amplified impact which could be best situated in our immediate historical experience inspired by our forefathers between 1893 and 1896. This was clearly pronounced by the formation of the Southern Rhodesian National Congress (SRNC) in 1948 right up to the birth of Zanu in 1963. Therefore, Ghana is a “book of a nation”, hence the need for re-reading of the 6th of March not only as a historic or prosaic symbol of Ghana’s freedom. However, the 6th of March is a significant pan-Africanist and decoloniality effigy.
Ghana: Africa in transition
In the late 40s Nkrumah’s influence was diffusing into the entire African space, the rulers of the then Gold Coast realised that their political opposition was escalating, then they called for the drafting of a New Constitution that was going to guarantee decentralisation of power. Under this new constitution, voting rights were confined to those who owned property. Nkrumah opposed this and formed the People’s Assembly composed of civil society organisations, trade unions, farmers and other African societies. In conflict with the newly drawn constitution, the People’s Assembly demanded universal suffrage with no regard of property qualifications, total self-governance of the state other than power decentralisation. The colonial administration denounced the new Constitutional terms demanded by Nkrumah and his movement in October 1949.
The rejection of the People’s Assembly’s constitutional alterations led to Nkrumah’s call for “Positive Action” in January 1950.
Positive Action involved acts of public insubordination, non-cooperation, boycotts, and strikes. In response to the positive action, the imperialist administration arrested Nkrumah again and many of his supporters. Nkrumah was sentenced to three years in prison. Under the ever increasing weight of both international protests and internal resistance, the British decided to pull out of the Gold Coast. They organised the first general election to be held under universal franchise. This election took place from the 5th to the 10th of February in 1951. Though in jail, Nkrumah won the election, with the CPP assuming 34 out of 38 elected seats in the Legislative Assembly. In that same month, Nkrumah was released from prison, and was summoned to form the first African government of the Gold Coast. The newly elected Legislative Assembly was the new government led by Nkrumah. A year later, the constitution was amended to pave way for the office Prime Minister, and on 21 March Nkrumah was elected to that post which he assumed soon after this election. During this transition to independence he was faced with three main tasks: firstly he had to learn the art of Governance. Facilitating the unification of the nation of Ghana from the four territories of the Gold Coast was his second obligation. Above all he needed to win his nation’s total independence and in his words total independence meant political and economic freedom.
On the 6th of March in 1957 Ghana became the first African nation to be free from colonial domination. In 1963 Nkrumah worked on the amendment of the constitution, whose aftermath enabled him to assume the Presidential seat. That same year he fostered Ghana’s membership to the newly founded Organisation of African Unity (OAU) of which he was a co-founder.
Nkrumah introduced a new domestic policy that led to advancements in the country’s education, communication and other civil service systems. Improvements in the social welfare systems were a prominent feature of Nkrumah’s government.
Commerce also asserted its stand during the reign of Nkrumah and Ghana’s economy epitomised the greater extent to which economic self-sufficiency was possible for Africa.
This threatened the British administrative governments that had seized control of the continent following the Berlin enablement. The colonialist then employed a new strategy of granting mild legislation that claimed to promote majority rule.
Instantly, the British colonial government in Southern Rhodesian initiated the same in 1961. The British parliament ordered the amendment of the Rhodesia government’s constitution to pave way for Black majority political participation, contrary to the terms of the 1923 constitution that was highly repressive.
The newly imposed constitution had a narrow franchise that gave little political participation for Africans. The motive behind these British governments’ tactic was to calm the revolutionary tide that was slowly eroding the imperialist political power in Africa. Empirically speaking, there was need for such a reform to come into place because the British political control was about to kick the bucket. Hence, it had to be swiftly resuscitated by any means possible and this was one of them.
The intensifying Pan-Africanist pressure transcended Ghana to other African patriots of Rhodesia like Joshua Nkomo. As a result, the British government began soliciting measures to guarantee political freedom of Rhodesia’s majority. This indicates that the independence of Ghana immensely contributed to the spread of Pan-Africanism in Africa. The early days of this revolutionary tide also reached Tanganyika, Kenya and the present day Democratic Republic of Congo. This also goes on to indicate that Pan-Africanism changed the colonial political climate in Africa and anticipated for true change.
Ghana: Have we lived the dream of Nkrumah?
At 60 Ghana, like many other African countries has been a motley representation of development and impediments. At the same time, Ghana has been distinguished by democratic stability, financial anguishes, corruption and public service delivery challenges. Just like Zimbabwe, Ghana has been an epicentre of neo-colonial power contestations. One of the constant readers of this column, Ronald Moyo responded to last week’s piece indicating that:
“… Group identities (in this regard African identity) are about routes than roots. Africa is in a state of becoming. What then do we say about the future? Should we sweat with historical narrations yet the oppressor is using the same energy to invent resources and plans to oppress us? Are we not over emphasising the “victory” which in actual sense we should be using only as reference as we map the way forward?”
This view has a fair share of validate, but it is not wholly accurate to ignore the African memory to legitimise the blame of ineptitude on the African nation state and forget that we are in this present condition as a race because of a history oppression and our gross experience with imperialism.
Therefore, Africa’s crises needs to be appreciated from a holistic perspective beyond demonising the current status quo.
Instead, we need to be introspectively audit the targets to map the way for uhuru guided by the past. Through that process we will be able to identify the missing pieces of the puzzle as highlighted by a colleague and a religious follower this column, Prof Dingilizwe Zvavanhu. In response to last week’s article, he noted:
“I remain clear that one way to kill the revolution is to ignore the vices of the establishment or even praise the vices. A well-established revolution can only be destroyed from within. That is why I have always said the biggest sellouts are some pan-Africanists. The biggest enemies are within the movement. Those are people I fear the most. Even worse is the fact that those internal destroyers may not even be aware that they are destroying. They think they are consolidating the revolution and taking it forward. That is the most irredeemable enemy within.”
With Ghana at 60, Pan-Africanists must be able to intellectually, politically and culturally reposition themselves in favour of the continent’s development aspirations. Through his writing, Nkrumah left a wealthy intellectual heritage for pan-Africanism. Therefore, as we consider Ghana’s role as an epistle of pan-Africanism we need to go back to all writings by Nkrumah and read every word with an intention of cautiously listening to his wisdom. It’s certain, this wisdom will elevate Africa to greater heights.
Mayibuye!
