CHEYE MAXWELL HUDI
IS THE INDEPENDENCE OF GHANA REALLY MEANINGLESS?
In that wake of; colonialism, neo-colonialism, nepotism, despotism,
sectionalism and imperialism, the first president of the then gold
coast, H.E. DR. KWAME NKRUMAH uttered the now famous expression, “the
independence of Ghana is meaningless unless it is linked up with the
total liberation of the African continent”. Indeed this expression was a
part of a liberation speech on 6th of March 1957 delivered by the
African hero. This year as Ghanaians celebrate independence, 59 years
after this prophecy, it still remains a puzzle whether the political
prophet’s words have outlived their usefulness in the African soil. The
African continent has seen the revolution of all independent African
states, just like the proponent of “united states of Africa” marginally
envisioned. One therefore would expect the black generation to yield the
dividends of this blood-shared achievement but it is in fact
unfortunate to conceive such a hypothesis. The rate of economic growth
and the poor management of our resources have marked the dawn of a new
era. Also, we now live in a country of anti-Nkrumaism, and an era of
western leadership with an aggravated form of elusive democracy. Ghana
has now become a country I describe as the adulterated gold coast or
better still the westernized gold coast. Thus after a bloody toil for
independence, Ghanaians today prefer to be under colonization. Perhaps,
independence was not necessary after all, as some Ghanaians shamelessly
put it.
The rate of Ghana’s economic growth and the poor utilization
of the country’s resources are major setbacks of independence. During
the 1800’s and 1900’s, history will testify that even under colonial
rule, the nation enjoyed a proper management and a significant
utilization of her resources. Immediately after independence, there was
massive development in the gold coast. Many of such developmental public
utilities are still very visible and of great benefit to Ghanaians. A
good number of roads and schools constructed by DR. Nkrumah and the
British rulers are still in good shapes whiles recently constructed ones
are rather fast deteriorating. Contractors are awarded contracts to
many of these projects through bribery and corruption and with no regard
for merit. The end product of this is a mere wastage of resources on
poorly executed projects by contractors. Also, all the state-owned
companies established by Dr. K. Nkrumah are now either under private or
foreign control. Natural resources like; gold, cocoa, bauxite, salt and
timber were controlled by state-owned companies and that was a major
source of income to the government. Perhaps, successive governments
after Nkrumah can be questioned for such an action that seeks to deny
the country of her most endowed resources.
Moreover, Ghana practices
a worse form of democracy. Abraham Lincoln writes, “Democracy is;
government of the people, by the people and for the people”. Over the
years, Ghana’s democracy has in fact been deficient of the latter of
Abraham Lincoln’s democracy. For Ghana’s democracy, I put it this way,
“government of the people, by the people and for the privileged”. Poor
Ghanaian folk continue to vote only to empower and enrich insatiable
politicians. The meager resources amassed by the government are rather
used in filling political pockets at the expense of teething economic
woes. It is observed that, the political minorities in a bid to also win
power are always working against national development. This is intended
to create pot-holes on their opponent’s successes. I now understand why
Dr. Nkrumah (who I call Ghana’s prophet) suggested a one party state
for Ghana. There are Ghanaian who are currently making a name out of
publicly hitting hard and lambasting the incumbent government for
Ghana’s economic challenges. But what are we doing to help ourselves?
Virtually tired of doing nothing! It is even un-Ghanaian to rejoice at
the multitude of challenges facing a preponderance of the Ghanaian
populace. In fact, Ghana’s independence appears meaningless because we
do not have true leaders but politicians. History again will teach us
that Dr. Nkrumah was a true leader. Hence, a national recognition of his
comprehensive visions per patriotism should awaken us to return to a
meaningful path of independence.
Another setback after
independence is the attitudinal outcry of Ghanaian for re-colonization.
With no iota of doubt, I can say that Ghana is independent just on
paper. The invasion and infiltration of every aspect of life by foreign
controllers are a crystal display in the Ghanaian society. It is
shameful that after 58 years of independence, Ghana still rely on
Chinese and Europeans; to build our schools and roads, to mine our gold
and choose a greater proportion and to legally steal our oil to their
countries whiles we die of energy cries. Now we can pay heed to Dr. K. Nkrumah's paradox of “poverty in the midst of abundance and scarcity in
the midst of plenty in Africa”. It also goes without saying that, Ghanians have developed a pleasant taste for foreign elements. Even
though Ghanians are very much capable of producing the best of
materials, Ghana totally depends on imported goods and materials. This
creates the room for western acculturation and influences that relegates
us again to colonialism. In that regard, independence becomes
meaningless, and we have to blame ourselves for our actions and
in-actions that steal our collective joy.
In a nutshell,
independence was a great success story for Ghana’s development but the
successive leaders have painted that to be mirages. I strongly believe
that, by virtue of the ideals and philosophy of Dr. K. Nkrumah, his
military overthrow reversed Ghana’s forward match to accelerated
development. Some Ghanaians today even harbor the agenda of denigrating
what Dr. Nkrumah stood for, but lest they succeed in re-writing the
history of Ghana in sheer partisanship. Indeed, Kwame Nkrumah never
dies!!! The ungrateful Ghanaian says; Nkrumah lavished Ghana’s capital
extravagantly for fellow Africans freedom at the detriment of Ghana’s
development. But let’s not forget that, “the slave who stands and see
his fellow slave cast into a shallow grave should know that he will be
buried in same manner when his day is ripe”. Thus, Nkrumah was a true
African. Ghanaian leaders must emulate the good example of Nkrumah.
Ghana must change her course now and do things in the interest of the
poor masses rather than private interest. Ghanaians must show patriotism
like Dr. K. Nkrumah and Dede Ayew did. And also, Ghanaians must
believe in themselves and do things right so that we do not inform the
white man that we cannot coach our national team on the world’s stage
like Kwesi Appiah proved. This alone Ghana can enjoy a meaningful
independence even without a United States of Africa (USA). The
independence of Ghana was really destined to be meaningful to Ghanaians.
I love all fellows reading this article. LOVE IS A BLESSING!! Please forget not to leave your comments behind. Thank you.
feeling blessed.
