NEVER AGAIN! ... 40 YEARS AFTER THE COUP THAT DERAILED AFRICA'S PROGRESS

New African, Feb 2006 by Ankomah, Baffour

The president forgot to add that the list of factories also included: a shoe factory, a glass factory, a tyre factory, a meat processing factory, two canneries for fruits and tomatoes, a chocolate factory, a radio and TY assembly plant, a gold processing factory (which was abandoned after his overthrow) and many others. This was in addition to building the huge hydro-electric plant at Akosombo, the nation's major source of electricity supply, a motorway from Accra to Tema which was only a few years younger than Britain's first stretch of motorway, the MI; and, expanding at breakneck speed, free educational and medical services that made Ghana a showcase in Africa.

Under Nkrumah, Ghana even had a continental radio station (the External Service of Radio Ghana) that could be heard throughout Africa and beyond, and which hugely helped in the promotion of the African liberation struggle. Nkrumah also opened up Ghana with new roads, housing and telephone services (it was possible then to phone from even village post offices). Sadly after his overthrow, his plans for a "Golden Triangle" of motorways to link up the major cities and towns of Ghana were shelved by the military junta, on the advice of an IMF team that visited the country soon after the coup.

One real lesson of the coup is how Ghana has retrogressed over the last 40 years. For example, Britain's MI motorway is only a few years older than the Tema Motorway, but Britain has since gone on to add scores of new motorways to its network while Ghana, without Nkrumah, hasn't built even a single mile of motorway since.

Back in December 1957, nine months after Ghana's independence, the CIA had prepared a report on Ghana for the American government and intelligence community. The report was right in one huge respect: "Thefortunes of Ghana - the first Tropical African country to gain independence - will have a huge impact on the evolution of Africa and Western interests there. "It was a prediction that didn't take long to come true. Declaring Ghana's independence on 6 March 1957, and speaking without notes, Nkrumah had made two historic statements: "Today, there is a new African in the world, and that new African is ready to fight his own battle and show that after all the black man is capable of manavinz his own affairs. We are going to demonstrate to the world, to the other nations, that young as we are, we are prepared to lay our own foundations. "And then, in the very next line, he delivered an even better punch: "The independence of Ghana is meaningless unless it is linked up with the total liberation of Africa, "he thundered.

Three years later, over 20 other African countries had gained independence and, true to the CIA's prediction, "the fortunes of Ghana" was having "a huge impact on the evolution of Africa and Western interests there". This sent alarm bells ringing in Western capitals and measures were put in place to check Nkrumah's, and by extension Africa's, forward march. In his autobiography published in 1997, Sowing the Mustard seed, President Yoweri Museveni of Uganda, revealed that: "There is now evidence to show that the frustration of [Nkrumah's African unity project] had the backing of American and British imperialism. "And who did they use to achieve this? African leaders themselves!