They Stole Ghana’s Industrial Revolution as Nation Toiled to Close Technology Gap!
By: Prof Lungu
“….While the detractors of African independence are predicting that the continent will revert to the jungles once it is left on its own people’s rule, Ghana is wasting no time refuting that “prophecy”…. Instead, with its own financial and manpower resources and technical and financial aid from the U. S. and other nations around the world, it is 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 take-off for Ghana…By 1964, Nkrumah’s development plans had begun to bear fruits for Ghana…Sadly, all of that success and promise, the Take-Off of Ghana’s industrial revolution, was stolen from Ghanaians with an aggressive coup d’état…]…. ” (Ebony Magazine report, May 1964; plus commentary by Prof Lungu, 9 Sep 16-rev).
As far as we are concerned, critics, including those who call themselves “learned”, those who will attempt to compare Ghana to Singapore (or Korea, for that matter) looking at the window when Kwame Nkrumah was at the helm of government in Ghana, can never prove their case. In our series “Only mad 60-year olds fault Kwame Nkrumah for Ghana’s development quagmire” essays on that topic, we proved that their thesis is false at best, and a fraud, at worst.
There is no data to support their thesis. Rather, on all important metrics, the data shows that Kwame Nkrumah’s performance and leadership of Ghana was superior during that same “window”. Fact is, 40 years and counting, none of those critics have ever presented data that actually, fairly, rationally, compared “equal” data precisely for the period Kwame Nkrumah’s CPP ruled Ghana, compared to the same period under Lee Kwan Yew, of Singapore.
In our “Only mad 60-year olds fault Kwame Nkrumah” essays, we proved that in actuality, the objective data that shows that under Kwame Nkrumah, Ghana actually witnessed sharper increases in GDP per capita during 1963-1965, compared to Singapore for 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 Industrial Revolution”. That is, until the CIA-sponsored coup d’état in 1966.
Regrettably for Ghanaians and Ghana’s “industrial revolution”, one of the major reasons documented in official US State Department records for the overthrow of Kwame Nkrumah is this:
The Johnson administration and CIA, at the same time they were branding Martin Luther King a communist, positively did not want Kwame Nkrumah to receive any credit, to earn “political capital”, in the minds and faces of Ghanaians and Africans for the biggest industrial project in Sub-Sahara Africa. That project, the Akosombo Hydro Electric Dam, was planned as the major driver for Ghana’s “Industrial Take-Off”. It was officially commissioned 22 January, 1966. Practically 1 month and 2 days later, Kwame Nkrumah was overthrown.
In “There Was No ‘Dum-Sor’ Under Kwame Nkrumah!”, we noted last year that:
“…the comprehensive, integrated “Akosombo Hydo Electric Power-Volta Lake-VALCO” project was the planned industrial, agricultural, and service industry ‘take-off’ initiative for the fast-track development of Ghana in accordance with the vision of Dr. Kwame Nkrumah…”
We stand by that statement!
Fact is, in all of the 80 plus years the British controlled Gold Coast, the British never bothered to construct an oil refinery in their “Crown Colony.” Yet, the same British, in 1936, constructed that massive (54.39 square kilometer (21 square mile)) naval base in Singapore. That project cost the British and its Empire, the Gold Coast included, a whopping £60 million…($3.8 billion in 2016 dollars), cementing Singapore as a major commercial, trading, and industrial port, at that time. (Using Nkrumah’s back envelop calculations, the Gold Coast probably contributed 25% of that £60 million).
On the other hand, per credible sources and data, the cost for the most expensive industrial project the British ever constructed in the Gold Coast, ever, the Takoradi port, probably did not exceed £3 million.
And all of that, exactly to the penny, was paid for by the People of the Gold Coast.
As one authority observed 10 years after the overthrow:
“…from 1919 to 1928 because of trade recession after the first world war, he …(Gordon Guggisberg)… retained the construction of the Port with two other projects namely, 4800 km motor roads construction and the Kumasi/Accra railway line…The funds for the three projects totaling about £12million were generated locally and farmers contributed a great deal of it…”.
The Akosombo Hydro Electric Power project was constructed with $324 million. Even now, though poorly managed and maintained over the years, Akosombo still provides enormous benefits to Ghana’s industry, service, residential, economic, and social needs.
And so, we thought it was fortuitous when we found an article in the May, 1964 issue of Ebony Magazine, published a mere 2 years before Nkrumah’s overthrow. The Ebony magazine article was titled, “Ghana’s Industrial Revolution: Nation Toils to Close the Technology Gap.” Luckily, Google Books (weblink), has excepts of that Ebony report, also referenced below, #3).
READ EBONY, May, 1964:
“….While the detractors of African independence are predicting that the continent will revert to the jungles once it is left on its own people’s rule, Ghana is wasting no time refuting that “prophecy” with words. Instead, with its own financial and manpower resources and technical and financial aid from the U. S. and other nations around the world, it is toiling around the clock, building an industrial economy the likes of which colonial Africa had never seen….”.
Dear reader, that period represented the second year, the beginning actually, of dramatic increase in economic productivity for Ghana: through industry, hard work, and belief by Ghanaians in themselves.
READ EBONY FURTHER:
“…Key projects in Ghana’s effort to close the technology gap that separates it from the industrial world community are the already completed $81 million Port of Tema and the giant $210 million Volta River dam to be operational in 1966. The Tema harbor and adjacent Tema town, built on a site once occupied by a tiny fishing village, were officially opened early in 1962. Where only a decade ago indigenous fishermen had plied their ancient craft, thousands of Ghanaian men and women work today in ultra-modern industrial plants, live in comfortable homes and spend leisure hours in modern recreation….Ghana’s people know that much work remains yet to be done. But, they are willing to keep up the hectic pace until the last vestiges of their colonial past have been removed. Said one young Ghanaian woman in summing up the spirit of her generation: “We in Ghana have accepted the principal of hard work as the only solution to a better way of life…” (Ebony, May 1964).
Dear Reader, that was precisely the planned industrial take-off for Ghana.
And it did, for Ghana!
By 1964, Nkrumah’s development plans had begun to bear fruits for Ghana as GDP figures confirm. Sadly, all of that success and promise, the Take-Off of Ghana’s industrial revolution, was stolen from Ghanaians through that Johnson-CIA-induced coup d’état. That overthrow was fronted by a soldier-police Benedict-Arnold-elite group (Ankrah-Afrifa-Kotoka-Nunoo-Harlley, and rascal Busia), a traitor bunch who lied to Ghana and the entire World.
Yes, Ankrah-Afrifa-Kotoka-Nunoo-Harlley, and rascal Busia, lied to Ghanaians.
Yes, beginning somewhere is 1963 and ending in February, 1966, they planned and stole Ghana’s “Industrial Revolution” as Ghana, under Kwame Nkrumah, “toiled to close technology gap”.
SOURCES/NOTES
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. David Meredith. The Construction of Takoradi Harbour in the Gold Coast 1919 to 1930: A Case Study in Colonial Development and Administration. 1976, Transafrican Journal of History, Vol. 5, No. 1 (1976), pp. 134-149.
3. Ebony Magazine. Ghana’s Industrial Revolution: Nation Toils to Close the Technology Gap, May 1964. (https://books.google.com/books?id=V80UF6hDhCcC&pg=PA154&lpg=PA154&dq=While+the+detractors+of+African+independence+are+predicting+that&source=bl&ots=P6JctfuJZb&sig=PBNNtVCXtoWa9Ojcr_co8jRxN3Q&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwi-m87kmozNAhXJ8z4KHaJ0BXUQ6AEIIDAA#v=onepage&q=While%20the%20detractors%20of%20African%20independence%20are%20predicting%20that&f=false/).
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Brought to you courtesy www.GhanaHero.com©11 Sep 16-rev.
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