Accra-Ghana, March 06, GNA – On March 6, 1957, Ghana became the first country in sub-Saharan Africa to gain independence from her colonial masters, the British.
Led by the charismatic leader, Dr Kwame Nkrumah and the Convention People’s Party (CPP), Ghana became a beacon of hope for many Africans who were still under colonial rule.
Dr Nkrumah saw independent Ghana as a spearhead for the liberation of the rest of Africa from colonial rule and establishment of a socialist African unity under his leadership.
After the founding of a republic in 1960, the State became identified with a single political party (the CPP), with Nkrumah, as life president of both, taking ever more power for himself.
By 1966, his administration had come under serious criticism over alleged haphazard and corrupt administration, massive foreign debts, and declining living standards.
In February, while Nkrumah was in Beijing, army and police leaders rose against him, and his regime was replaced by a National Liberation Council chaired by Lieutenant General Joseph A. Ankrah.
The machinery of government was overhauled and conservative financial policies introduced. But General Ankrah failed to redeem a promise to restore parliamentary democracy, and in barely three years after taking over power, he gave way to the dynamic young brigadier Akwasi Amankwaa Afrifa, a principal leader of the coup, in 1969.
Under Brigadier Afrifa’s rule, a constituent assembly produced a constitution, ushering Ghana into a second republic, and a general election was held in August 1969.
This resulted in a substantial victory for the Progress Party (PP), led by Kofi Busia, a university professor who had consistently opposed Nkrumah.
Busia became Prime Minister, and a year later a former chief justice, Edward Akufo-Addo, was chosen President.
The second republic also didn’t last. The civilian regime, handicapped by the burden of foreign debt it had inherited and the low prices then obtained by cocoa on the world market, was slow to produce the results expected of it.
In January 1972, impatient army officers intervened again, and the government was ousted by a National Redemption Council (NRC) of military men chaired by Col. Ignatius Kutu Acheampong.
This led to a raft of restrictions imposed by the NRC, including dissolution of the national assembly, public meetings prohibited, political parties proscribed, and leading politicians imprisoned.
In July 1972, a retroactive Subversion Decree was enacted under, which military courts were empowered to impose the death penalty for offenses such as subversive political activity, robbery, theft, and damaging public property, and, from 1973, for the spreading of rumours and profiteering.
In 1975 the NRC was reorganised to include some civilians, but ultimate power was given to a Supreme Military Council (SMC).
In 1977, the SMC proposed a “Union Government to which everybody will belong,” with no political parties and the military sharing in government with civilians, but a national referendum held to approve this served mainly to show the unpopularity of the SMC.
Acheampong was replaced as SMC chairman by Lieutenant General Frederick W.K. Akuffo.
In 1979, as the economy floundered, the government of the generals was overthrown by young officers and noncommissioned officers, led by an air force flight lieutenant, Jerry John Rawlings.
General Acheampong and Akuffo were executed, and a quick return to parliamentary government was organised with Dr Hilla Limann as President, but at the end of 1981, Rawlings again overthrew the government for failing to meet expectations.
Rawlings’ second military coup established a Provisional National Defense Council as the supreme national government; at local levels, people’s defense committees were to take the campaign for national renewal down to the grass roots.
J.J Rawlings, in 1992, ushered Ghana into its fourth republic following the establishment of the 1992 Constitution.
Rawlings won the elections held in 1992 on the ticket of the National Democratic Congress (NDC), a party he founded, and governed till 2000 when he handed over power to his political opponent, John Agyekum Kufuor of the New Patriotic Party (NPP).
President John Agyekum Kufuor ruled between 2001 and 2009.
In 2008, Professor John Evans Atta Mills became the third President under the fourth republic, but his tenure was short-lived.
He died on July 24, 2012 while still in office, and was succeeded by Vice President, John Dramani Mahama.
John Mahama won the subsequent election held in 2012, to become the fourth President under the fourth republic.
He, however, lost the bid for a second term in 2016, losing to the NPP’s Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo.
With President Akufo-Addo’s two terms of office, four each, nearing it’s end, Ghanaians would be electing a new leader come December 2024.
