59 Years of nationhood: Achievements, failures and opportunities
Exactly 59 years ago today, Ghana officially broke away from the shackles of colonialism to herald a day when Ghanaians could take their destinies into their own hands to determine the course of their own lives.
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On that memorable day, an illustrious son of the land, Osagyefo Dr Kwame Nkrumah, made some declarations.
He did say that “At long last, the battle has ended and thus Ghana, our beloved country, is free forever.”
That statement came from a man seen to be a visionary across the entire African continent and indeed beyond. It gave a picturesque view of the possibility of freedom for other colonised countries, as was the case at the time.
Another statement of inherent and proactive profundity that he made on the night of the proclamation of independence was that “the independence of Ghana is meaningless unless it is linked up with the total liberation of the African continent.”
The Big Six
The processes that led to the declaration of independence could not have occurred but for the contributions of some notable personalities who, in addition to Dr Nkrumah, are referred to as the Big Six.
Clearly, the fight for independence did not start and end on March 6, 1957. It was a chain of processes that began early on.
After his reign as the First Prime Minister, which was truncated in February 1966, the country has witnessed a chequered political history with military take-overs, at a point in time, from a constitutionally-elected government.
The last military takeover occurred on December 31, 1981 when the then Flight Lieutenant Jerry John Rawlings overthrew the constitutionally elected Dr Hilla Limann and brought the Provisional National Defence Council (PNDC) to power.
Return to democracy
Through some local and international overtures and covertures, the country resorted to the path of democracy, with the first elections being held in December 1992.
Since then, it has always been a forward democratic march for the country, with power alternating between the two dominant political parties of the National Democratic Congress (NDC from 1992 to 2000) and the New Patriotic Party (NPP from 2001 to 2008) and then again the NDC (from 2009 to date).
Elections are scheduled for November this year.
But for a good number of people, our joy as a country ought not lie in how old we have become but in taking stock of where we have come from, what we have achieved, what our failures have been and the opportunities that are available to us as we progress into the future.
What have we achieved?
Our prowess as a country that is dedicated to the observance of multi-party democracy and its entrails, which has culminated in successfully holding six general elections, comes into sharp focus.
Although there were some challenges at some points, that has not reversed our gains.
Ghana’s credentials as an oasis of peace and stability in a relatively troubled sub-region and continent will probably be the most prime achievement that the rest of the world will applaud.
Undoubtedly, Ghana has made some other modest gains. It is a lower middle-income economy, but it is regrettable that these gains, if not managed well, will be eroded.
Challenges
We seem to view national issues with political lenses, hence our inability to provide objective contributions for development, which has resulted in a blame game.
After 59 years of independence, we still have a difficulty with our financial discipline, as the country has signed a bail-out agreement with the International Monetary Fund (IMF).
More so, the country’s entanglement in fiscal deficit, which is causing a lot of socio-economic hardships to the citizenry, with the attendant problem of economic bleakness, poses a clear and present danger to our national aspirations.
Many have asked why in the midst of a plethora of natural resources the country struggles to feed its own and have had to resort to external borrowing to the point where it had to go Heavily Indebted Poor Country (HIPC), but even beyond that, things seem not to have changed.
One school of thought has attributed that to the absence of a long-term development plan that ought to guide all succeeding governments, regardless of which political party is in power.
However, I daresay that our collective unity as a country would determine our strength and our ability to weather the storms of adversity.
If for nothing, the power crisis that has engulfed the country since 2012 has shown that national issues are not peculiar to only political groupings.
Opportunities
At 59, a lot abounds for the country in the area of agriculture and if we are able as a nation to grow enough to feed ourselves and export the excess, then our dependency on loans would be reduced drastically.
That in concert with the prudent management of other natural resources, including our oil and gas finds, would prop up the economic indicators to the level where the theories of macro and micro economics would translate from being academic models into a betterment of life for the ordinary person.
I can only wonder the vision that Dr Nkrumah saw of Ghana when he made those declarations on the eve of independence. I still wonder what he would say if he came back to life today.
That notwithstanding, I still believe in the capability of the Black man and I believe in our ability to remain resilient in our quest to achieve the best for our country but much, in arriving at such an end, would depend on our choices as a people.
God bless our homeland Ghana and make our nation great and strong.
Writer’s email: [email protected]
