Of independence squandered: Freedom betrayed, development vanquished
When Ghana gained its independence from British colonial rule on March 6, 1957, it stood at the same stage of development as South Korea with an income per capita of just $200.
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The odds even favoured Ghana; it had a more highly educated elite and the Korean peninsula had been ravaged by war. Sixty years later, Ghana’s income per capita in 2015 was a miserable $1,480, according to the World Bank. South Korea’s was off the charts at $25,977.
We have not done as well economically as we should have; we have squandered 60 years of independence. We can’t even produce matches and tooth picks; we import them! So what went wrong? Theories or postulates abound and can be grouped into two schools of thought.
Externalist orthodoxy
The externalist orthodoxy maintains that most of Africa’s woes – and for that matter Ghana’s – have been caused by such external factors as the lingering effect of the slave trade, the legacies of colonialism, and on just international economic system, inadequate foreign aid, neocolonialism and so on. African leaders loved this orthodoxy, which held much sway in the post-colonial era, because it shielded and absolved them from responsibility for the mess they created. They could always blame somebody else except themselves for Africa’s woes.
Internalist doctrine
The internalist doctrine holds that while external factors had played a role, the internal factors have been far more significant in the ruination of post-colonial Africa. These internal factors include bad leadership, military vandalism, corruption, senseless civil wars, capital flight, repression and so on. Since 1960, there have been exactly 235 African heads of state. Most people won‘t be able to name 10 who were good leaders, let alone 20. Even if one could name 20, that would mean that the vast majority – over 90 per cent – were utter failures. There have been 11 Ghanaian heads of state, six of them military. Try and name three who were good leaders.
Former military dictator Yahya Jammeh had to be chased out of the Gambia by the Economic Community Of West African States (ECOWAS) forces in January 2017. Why didn’t Col al-Gaddafi relinquish or share political power after 40 years in office to save Libya from destruction? Back in 1986, Prez Yoweri Museveni of Uganda declared that; “No African head of state should be in power for more than 10 years!” We cheered wildly. Thirty-one years later, he is still President!
We fought for our freedom from white colonial rule but true freedom never came to much of Africa. At independence, we traded one set of masters (white colonialists) for another set of masters (black neo-colonialists) and the oppression and exploitation of the African people continued unabated. For many Africans, independence was in name only, totally meaningless.
African nationalist
African nationalist leaders who demanded democratic systems from the colonialists never bothered to establish them after independence. From Ghana to Tanzania and Zambia, they banned opposition parties, declared their countries one-party states and themselves Presidents for life. In 1990, some 30 years after independence, only four African countries were democratic – Botswana,the Gambia, Mauritius and Senegal. In January 2017, only 16 out of 54 countries are democratic.
Today, most Africans live under tyranny. where is the freedom they fought for from colonial rule?
Development did not come to much of Africa after independence either. Asked to develop their economies, African leaders and the ruling elite develop their pockets. According to the World Bank, corruption alone costs Africa $148 billion a year, which may be compared to the $35 billion in total amount of foreign aid Africa receives from all sources yearly. Obviously, if Africa can stanch the scourge of corruption, it will find more than enough resources to finance its development.
Since independence, we have been waging a coconut war on corruption. The first official salvo into corruption by the Nkrumah regime was the Commission of Enquiry into Alleged Irregularities and Malpractices in Connection with the Issue of Import Licences (1964 Akainyah Report). This was followed by The Commission of Enquiry into Trade Malpractices in Ghana (1965 Abrahams Report). Then before he was overthrown, The Commission of Enquiry into Irregularities and Malpractices in the Grant of Import Licences (1967 Ollennu Report).
They concentrated mainly on trade transactions because there were import controls to ensure that the country imported only those commodities, inputs and spare parts vital for development. But importers bribed government officials to secure the import licences they needed to import anything. These Commissions dutifully submitted their reports to the government at the time. They were accepted and then shelved to gather dust.
Nkrumah never punished his own corrupt ministers. The most brazen and notorious was the Minister of Agriculture, Krobo Edusei. In 1963, he tried to import a £3 million gold bed into Ghana. Public outrage forced him to rescind the order.
For nearly a decade, little effort was made to fight corruption until Col I.K Acheampong set up The Committee of Enquiry into Trade Malpractices - by the Ashkar Group of Companies (1973 Gaisie Report). Nothing much happened until Jerry Rawlings burst onto the scene. In 1979, he executed by firing squad former heads of state and some top military officers for corruption. The supreme irony was that his own PNDC regime became the most corrupt in Ghana’s history. Under pressure from Western donors, Rawlings set up the Commission on Human Rights and Administrative Justice (CHRAJ) in 1994. When the Commission indicted four corrupt ministers in 1996, President Rawlings issued A Government White Paper to exonerate them! Then he established the Serious Fraud Office Report, 1999. It did not stop the haemorrhage.
The discovery of oil in 2004 was received with fanfare but the money was embezzled before the oil was pumped out.
Even though Chapter 24 of the 1992 Constitution and the Public Office Holders (Declaration of Assets and Disqualification) Act, 1998 (Act 550) require public officials to declare their assets but few do, and nobody holds them accountable.
“Despite being a model for stability in the region, Ghana, together with other six African countries, has significantly declined. The rampant corruption in Ghana led citizens to voice their frustrations through the election, resulting in an incumbent President losing for the first time in Ghana’s history.”
Ghost workers are another vehicle used to defraud the government. In 2013, over 6,000 ghost workers were discovered on government payrolls and their salaries collected by living workers. Judges too were on the take, some caught on camera demanding bribes.When ghost workers were discovered of the Ministry of Education in 2013, the offending officers were allowed to offer only an apology. No effort was made to recover the loot.
"Africa does not need strong men; it needs strong institutions," President Obama lectured Ghana's Parliament in July 2009. But today, we do not have the strong institutions that we need to fight corruption because "every institution in Ghana is corrupt," Mr Ken Agyapon, an opposition MP, claimed in 2014. So the country which Obama hailed as a gateway to Africa in 2009 now seeks an International Monetary Fund (IMF) bailout. Freedom and justice – our national motto – have thoroughly been squandered.
