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They
Stole Ghana’s Industrial Revolution as Nation Toiled
to Close Technology Gap!
Prof. Lungu
July 14, 2016
"....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...].... " (Ebony Magazine report, May
1964; plus commentary by Prof Lungu, 2 June 2016).
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 totalling 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, and residential needs.
And
so, we thought it was fortuitous when we found an
article in the May, 1964 issue of Ebony Magazine,
published 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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Subj: They Stole
Ghana’s Industrial Revolution as Nation Toiled to
Close Technology Gap! (Definitive Serial).
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June 16.
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