THE NEW GOLD COAST

            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.

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