Ghana: 50 years since Independence

Forward ever. Al Ahram 8 - 14 March 2007 Issue No. 835
Gamal Nkrumah examines the significance of Ghana's golden jubilee independence celebrations

Kwame Nkrumah, understood that politics is about the possible. He knew what his people wanted: independence from colonial rule. "Today, I must pay homage to the first president of Ghana, Kwame Nkrumah, and his colleagues of the United Gold Coast Convention (UGCC) who in 1947 launched the last phase of the process towards independence," acknowledged the current Ghanaian President Ageykum Kufour at celebrations marking the commemoration of Ghana's golden independence jubilee. What Kufour failed to note was that Nkrumah soon after his return to Ghana after studies overseas in the United States and Britain, outmaneuvered his colleagues at the UGCC, an elitist group of Africans who had profited from colonial rule.

(Click here to read more)