Ghana: Independence
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When it became independent, Ghana was also the richest black African country outside of South Africa. But Nkrumah wanted to make sure that Africa would keep its independence. He tried to build up new industries so that Ghana would not have to buy everything from Britain or Europe. To be really independent Nkrumah knew Ghana would need a strong economy.
By 1966, the Akosombo dam was finished and so Nkrumah could open the Volta River project in January. The giant project was designed to provide electricity for an aluminium industry, as well as for domestic purposes.
Nkrumah was thrown out of office by the army the next month. He was out of the country trying to stop a war between Vietnam and America when the army took over the country, on 23 February 1966. He retired to live in Guinea, and died of cancer in Bucharest in Romania on 22 April 1972.
In the seventies, junior officers in the army were angry about corruption and dictatorship in Ghana. They started plotting to take over the country from the army generals. Their leader was Flight Lieutenant Jerry Rawlings. On 15 May 1979, junior officers including Flight Lieutenant Jerry Rawlings were arrested.
But the army rebelled and rescued Rawlings from prison on 4 June. Rawlings had the generals shot. Then he returned the country to civilian rule on 24 September 1979.
On 31 December 1981 Jerry Rawlings led another army takeover. This time it was Rawlings who was taking over from the civilian politicians. Rawlings was very radical at first and wanted Ghana to join forces with Libya and their leader Muammar Gadaffi. His policy was very anti-Western at first, but quickly he chose a more conservative path.
Rawlings agreed to open talks with the International Monetary Fund about Ghana's debts in August 1982. The IMF said that Ghana would have to reduce government spending. In April 1983 Rawlings did as he was told and cut spending in the budget. That made the vast majority of Ghanaians a lot worse off.
By 1989 many Ghanaians were angry about the government cuts. They were angry that the International Monetary Fund was telling their government what to do. It felt like they had been colonised all over again. The IMF was making them even poorer than they already were.
Jerry Rawlings was frightened of what the people might do. He started a programme to soften the blow of the IMF cuts. The Programme of Action to Mitigate the Social Cost of Adjustment 'Pamscad' was started in January 1989. It was a series of local community projects. Ghanaians thought that at least Rawlings was trying to do something for them and in November 1992 he was elected president of Ghana with 58.3 percent of the vote.
The people who ran the International Monetary Fund were very proud of what they had done in Ghana. They said the Ghana was a model of good government in Africa. But ordinary Ghanaians were not so pleased. Poverty led people to fight each other over resources. In February 1994, two thousand died in ethnic clashes in the Northern Territories.
Ghanaians are still very angry about poverty. Many of them are so desperate that they will risk their lives to try to stop the policy of the government and the IMF. In May 1995, one hundred thousand Ghanaians demonstrated in the capital Accra. They wanted Jerry Rawlings to stop doing what the IMF told him to do. On their banners they had a slogan: 'You may as well kill me now'.