In Celebration of Kwame Nkrumah’s Exemplary Performance on Behalf of Unitary Ghana During 1951 – 1966
This paper is a continuation of “Quantum Leap in Education Under Kwame Nkrumah and the CPP (1951 – 1966)”.
For generations and hundreds of years before independence in 1957, the Gold
Coast/Ghana, contributed in no small measure to the development or Europe and that same Great Britain, from London all the way to Singapore. Yes, Singapore, where former President Kuffour stood the other day and proudly christened a drilling ship in his own name while parroting that 60-year sorry sad and sorry song.
Ghana, let all of the jokes be on them!
Let all of the jokes be on the tradition that stood against the Unitary Ghana concept and in dark corners of foreign embassies and capitals from Lome, to Lagos, to Monrovia, to London, aided and abetted the maiden overthrow of that duly elected government of Ghana through the barrel of the gun and hollow cups of coup plotter narratives most of whose truth and fidelity have since 1966 fallen apart as more reliable data information have become available for even the lazy to know.
The Akufo Addos, the Bawumias, the Rawlings, the Kuffours, and the Amoako-Baahs love to parade around town with coup-plotter narratives and sundry data hollering that Kwame Nkrumah’s Ghana was had a super high, unsustainable national debt, that Ghana was “broke”, in 1966.
When you invest in infrastructure, human capital, and a multitude of social systems to uplift all your people into citizens of the modern world regardless of which corner they come from, or reside, when you still have between $11M and $111 million in your bank accounts (according to whatever source you prefer), and your national investments are just beginning to bear fruits for your new nation, when you’ve not even drawn $11.2 million in approved credit for a power dam, what kind of person says their country was broke, particularly in 2000, and beyond?
Sure, in the early- to mid-1960s, Ghana had economic problems just as any other country. The price of cocoa had been “engineered” downward as punishment for Ghana’s strife for economic development, respect, and independence.
And much promised economic development aid had been withheld.
As we observed in the “60-Year Old Mad Men” series, when Kwame Nkrumah’s government was overthrown, Ghana owned an amount from all sources that was less than 30% of Ghana’s annual GDP at that time. In comparison, the British national debt-to-GDP ratio was a high 75%.
However, by one account, Ankrah told the world Ghana was indebted to foreign creditors to the tune of £400,000,000, and thus justification for the coup. If that was true, Ankrah might just have said Ghana owned over $1 billion (actually, $1,121,203,066), to foreign creditors.
That was a fat lie!
The loud talk about a huge Ghana national debt under Kwame Nkrumah had all turned into cow dung by the time the rest of the NLC found out Ankrah was a bigger crooks than themselves.
In fact, months after the overthrow, the aid promised Ankrah had not arrived, except for some cartons of milk. And 1966 would turn out to be the year the US did not import anything from the NLC’s Ghana.
Even so, without borrowing, the NLC still found money in Ghana’s accounts to pay every soldier on every the payroll, no deductions for a shared national burden, thank you, for another 9 months.
In fact, for all that talk in the ears of the Johnson-Nixon government about expelling every single Chinese and Russia technician many of whom were actually assisting Ghana’s industrialization effort by training Ghanaians, constructing factories, silos, bridges, roads, etc., and adding value to primary goods to boost Ghana’ GDP, the NLC themselves, soon after those expulsions, had many an about face. They requested many of the same people they’d just expelled to return to Ghana.
So much for faux coup plotter economics!
SOCIO-ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT (SELECTED HIGHLIGHT)
In a previous essay, we argued that during the period 1957 through 1966, from independence day to the year Kwame Nkrumah was overthrown, the number of hospital beds in Ghana increased dramatically. From a low 0.50 per 1,000 of the population for the entire country, it more than tripled to nearly 1.8 beds per 1,000 of the population.
In 2013, forty-seven years after the overthrow of Kwame Nkrumah, there were just about 0.85 hospital beds per 1,000 of the population, indicating a gross failure to add to hospital bed capacity anywhere commensurate with the rate of growth in the population. Further, while the number of doctors per 1,000 of the population in Ghana did not see a negative dive, it was still not inspiring given the promise to Ghana by Kwame Nkrumah.
You see, by 1959, there were 0.5 doctors per 1,000 of the population. Six (6) short years later, in 1966, there were 0.8 doctors per 1,000 of the population, an increase of approximately 0.3 doctors per 1,000 of the population. During 2013, there were an estimated 0.1 doctors per 1,000 of the population, representing a failure to meaningfully add to the number of doctors in Ghana anywhere commensurate with the rate of growth in the population. In short, whereas during 1960-1966 the increase in doctors per 1,000 of the population was 0.3 those 6 years, the increase in the number of doctors per 1,000 of the population the entire 47 years after the overthrow of Nkrumah was 0.2.
Take all of that to the bank, partner!
CONCLUSION:
And so”…'(w)hile the detractors of African independence (were) predicting that the continent will revert to the jungles once it (was) left on its own people’s rule, Ghana (was) wasting no time refuting that “prophecy”…(mid-1960s)…. Instead, with its own financial and manpower resources and technical and financial aid from the U.S. and other nations around the world, (Ghana…was…) toiling around the clock, building an industrial economy the likes of which colonial Africa had never seen….’.
Dear Reader, that was precisely the planned industrial, economic developmental, and social take-off for Ghana as reported by Ebony Magazine in 1964. By 1966, Kwame Nkrumah’s development plans and investments in the People of Ghana and facilities, had begun to bear fruits for Ghana on more fronts than they could count.
In our “Only mad 60-year olds fault Kwame Nkrumah” series of essays, we argued that in actuality, the objective data shows that under Kwame Nkrumah, Ghana actually witnessed sharper increases in GDP per capita during 1963-1965, compared to Singapore during the same period; that there was sudden loss of economic performance beginning with the overthrow of Kwame Nkrumah in February of 1966.
For Ghana, the period 1962-1965 can actually be represented as the beginning of the lift-off of Ghana’s economic and industrial revolution, until the Johnson CIA-sponsored coup d’état in 1966. Between 1960 and 1966, when Nkrumah was overthrown, Ghana’s Gross Domestic Product (GDP) increased 47%, from $181.00 to $266.00. By 1964, Nkrumah’s development plans had begun to bear fruits for Ghana as the GDP figures confirm.
Seven (7) years after the overthrow in 1973, GDP per capita was still $5 less, compared to 1966. Thirty (30) years after the overthrow, Ghana’s GDP per capita had increased just 80%, from $214.00 to $386.00 (compared to 47% just six years before the overthrow, from 1960-1966), as you can see.
Sadly, all of that success and promise, the “Take-Off” of Ghana’s economic revolution, was stolen from Ghanaians through that Johnson-CIA-induced coup d’état. That overthrow was fronted by a soldier-police “Benedict-Arnold”-elite NLC group (Ankrah-Afrifa-Kotoka-Nunoo-Ocran-Deku-Harlley, and rascal Busia), a traitor bunch who lied to Ghana and the entire world.
Yes, there are facts (data); and there are coup plotter narratives.
Ghana, which one do you want to believe?
So it goes!
SOURCES/NOTES
1. Prof Lung, Quantum leap in education under Kwame Nkrumah and the CPP (1951 – 1966), http://www.ghanaweb.com/GhanaHomePage/NewsArchive/Quantum-Leap-in-Education-Under-Kwame-Nkrumah-and-the-CPP-1951-1966-514207.
1. Prof Lungu. 2015. GhanaHero.com (http://www.ghanahero.com/Visions/Nkrumah_Legacy_Project/Prof_Lungu/There_Was_No_Dum-Sor_Under_Kwame_Nkrumah-v2.pdf/).
2. KATH/Gee Hospital Still Is Another Kwame Nkrumah Sika Duro (Final)
http://www.ghanahero.com/Visions/Nkrumah_Legacy_Project/Prof_Lungu/KATH_Gee_Hospital_Still_Another_Nkrumah_Sika_Duro_Final.pdf
3. Ebony Magazine. Ghana’s Industrial Revolution: Nation Toils to Close the Technology Gap, May 1964.
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