How Ghana became a Nation
Our nation started as a land of many small ethnic groups such as the Ewe, Nzema, Ga, Dagomba, Asantes and others. The different ethnic groups did not have a sense of oneness or nationalism to bring them together as one people.
These separate groups of people were being ruled by their own chiefs. Around the 15th century, some white men reached our land on their way to the eastern part of the world. They saw that there was abundance of commodities which they were going to look for in the east on our land.
These white men who were from Portugal then settled on our land because of the great abundance of resources our land had. They called our land, the Gold coast because there was lots of gold in abundance. They were other commodities like ivory, timber and food stuffs. They traded with our people by taking their gold, ivory, timber etc in exchange for gin, gun, drinks, tobacco, gun powder and clothes. This type of trade is known as barter trade because it does not involve money, only the exchange of goods.
The Portuguese started making huge profits that attracted the attention of other European countries like Denmark, Holland, Britain, France and others who came and settled in the country. The white men started fighting among themselves because each wanted to secure their trade with our people. Due to these conflicts, many of the white men left the country leaving the British who then became in charge of the country.
The British became interested in ruling our people in addition to their trading activities. They wanted to rule the country so that they would be able to trade with the local people effectively. The government of Britain then sent a governor to the country to rule. The governor chose some people to help him rule. Most of these people were whites. The governor set up two councils; The Executive council and the Legislative council. The early educated men of our people stood up against the idea of the British ruling them completely without the involvement of the local people. They demanded that our people should have equal number of seats in the two councils just as the white people.
Later on, these educated people changed their demands. They now wanted total freedom and to rule themselves. The British tried to meet their demands by rather giving the local people more seats in the legislative and executive councils. These educated people pressed on with their demands and in 1947, they formed the first political party known as the United Gold Coast Convention (U.G.C.C) which had the motto self government within the shortest possible time. Some of the leaders of the party were J.B. Danquah, Ako Adjei ,Edward Akufo Addo, Obetsebi Lamptey. The party needed a secretary. Ako Adjei suggested Dr. Kwame Nkrumah who was studying in England. Dr. Nkrumah came back to Ghana and was made the general secretary of the party. He brought many changes to the party which made him more popular than the other leaders of the party.
He went throughout the country explaining issues to the local people and bringing them to join the party. However, Dr. Nkrumah wanted self rule immediately, whiles the other leaders wanted it to be a gradual process. This thought difference brought disagreements and conflicts between Dr. Nkrumah and the other party leaders.
He left the U.G.C.C. and formed his own party called the Convention People’s Party (C.P.P). The C.P.P convinced the people to get self-rule at once. They asked the people not to go to work to force the British to give them self rule. The C.P.P traveled all over to tell the people more about how the British were treating the country badly. The U.G.C.C did the same thing too. These nationwide activities of the parties made many of our people feel that we should rule ourselves. The British then arrested Dr. Kwame Nkrumah after he asked the people not to go to work. The British were also afraid of his popularity among the people. The C.P.P pressed on for an election to rule the country. Whiles in prison, Dr. Nkrumah contested in an election for a seat which he won eventually.. There was great pressure on the British government for a general election. They organized a general election which was won massively by Nkrumah’s C.P.P. He was released after he had won the election .The C.P.P. formed their own government to rule the nation. On the 6th of March 1957 our country was declared independent and the British no longer had power over the country.
Ghana became a republic on the 1st of July 1960 with Dr. Kwame Nkrumah as the first president of the republic of Ghana.