View source for Convention People's Party

{{Short description|Political party in Ghana, formed in 1949}}
{{Multiple issues|
{{Lead too short|date=June 2020}}
{{cleanup|reason=Re-organisation necessary to improve readability|date=August 2020}}
{{POV|date=January 2023}}
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{{Use dmy dates|date=April 2017}}
{{Infobox political party
| name             = Convention People's Party
| logo             = CPP ‒ Convention People's Party logo.jpg
| logo_size        = 150px
| caption          = 
| native_name      = Apam Nkorɔfo Kuw ([[Akan language|Akan]])
| colorcode        = {{party color|Convention People's Party}}
| leader           = Nana Akosua Frimpomaa Sarpong-Kumankumah (Disputed as of December 2023)

National Executive Committee Interim Leadership (Disputed as of December 2023)
| chairman         = Nana Akosua Frimpomaa Sarpong-Kumankumah (Disputed as of December 2023)
| president        = 
| secretary        = 
| spokesperson     = 
| leader1_title    = General Secretary
| leader1_name     = Nana Yaa Jantuah (Resigned in 2023)
| leader2_title    = 
| leader2_name     = 
| leader3_title    = 
| leader3_name     = 
| founder          = [[Kwame Nkrumah]]
| foundation       = {{start date|df=yes|1949|06|12}}. Banned 1966. Refounded 29 January 1996.
| dissolution      = <!--{{end date|df=yes|YYYY|MM|DD}}-->
| merger           = 
| split            = [[United Gold Coast Convention]]
| merged           = 
| headquarters     = {{nowrap|House No. 64, Mango Tree Avenue,}}<br/>Asylum Down, [[Accra]], [[Ghana]]
| slogan           = {{unbulleted list|{{nowrap|"Forward ever, backward never"}}|{{longitem|"Ghana Must Work Again the CPP<br/>{{spaces|2}}is emerging!"}}}}
| newspaper        = 
| youth_wing       = {{longitem|Convention People's Party Youth League}}
| wing1_title      = 
| wing1            = 
| wing2_title      = 
| wing2            = 
| wing3_title      = 
| wing3            = 
| membership_year  = 
| membership       = 
| ideology         = [[Nkrumaism]]<br/>[[Pan-Africanism]]<br/>[[African socialism]]<br/>[[African nationalism]]<br/>[[Left-wing nationalism]]<br/>[[Scientific socialism]]<br/>[[Anti-colonialism]]<br/>[[Anti-imperialism]]
| position         = [[Left-wing politics|Left-wing]] to [[Far-left politics|far-left]]
| national         = 
| international    = [[Socialist International]] (consultative)
| affiliation1_title = 
| affiliation1     = 
| colors           = [[Red]], [[white]] and [[green]]
| seats1_title     = [[Parliament of Ghana|Parliament]]
| seats1           = {{Composition bar|0|275|hex={{party color|Convention People's Party}}}}
| seats2_title     = [[Pan-African Parliament]]
| seats2           = {{Composition bar|0|5|hex={{party color|Convention People's Party}}}}
| symbol           = Red cockerel on a white background
| website          = {{Official URL}}
| state            = Ghana
| flag             = [[File:Convention People's Party (political party).png|200px|border|Flag of the Convention People's Party (Ghana)]]
| footnotes        = 
}}

The '''Convention People's Party''' ('''CPP)''' is a [[Socialism|socialist]] [[political party]] in [[Ghana]] based on the ideas of the first [[President of Ghana]], [[Kwame Nkrumah]].<ref name="auto2">{{Cite ODNB|last=Rathbone|first=Richard|title=Nkrumah, Kwame (1909?–1972), president of Ghana|date=2004-09-23|series=Oxford Dictionary of National Biography|doi=10.1093/ref:odnb/31504}}</ref><ref>{{Cite web |title=Ghana Embassy to The Holy See - History |url=https://www.ghanaembassyholysee.it/ghana/history |access-date=2024-11-19 |website=www.ghanaembassyholysee.it}}</ref> The CPP was formed in June 1949 after Nkrumah broke away from the [[United Gold Coast Convention]] (UGCC).<ref>{{Cite book|date=2007-11-15|title=Kwame Nkrumah. Vision and Tragedy|first=David|last=Rooney|pages=52–72|publisher=Sub-Saharan Publishers|doi=10.2307/j.ctvk3gm60.9|isbn=978-9988-647-81-0|chapter=Secretary of the UGCC}}</ref><ref>{{Cite book|date=2007|title=Kwame Nkrumah. Vision and Tragedy|last=Rooney|pages=74–90|chapter=Birth of the CPP}}</ref><ref>{{Cite book|last=Nkrumah|first=Kwame|chapter=Independence Speech|date=2016-02-04|title=The Ghana Reader|pages=301–302|publisher=Duke University Press|doi=10.2307/j.ctv125jqp2.65|isbn=978-0-8223-7496-1}}</ref>

==Origins==

The Convention People's Party is descended from a line of political movements formed in the early half of the 20th century to spearhead the anti-colonial struggle in the [[Gold Coast (British colony)|Gold Coast]].<ref>{{Cite journal|last=Michel|first=Boris|date=July 2018|title=Anti-semitism in early 20th century German geography. From a "spaceless" people to the root of the "ills" of urbanization|journal=Political Geography|volume=65|pages=1–7|doi=10.1016/j.polgeo.2018.03.006|s2cid=149886373|issn=0962-6298}}</ref> The movement that preceded it was the [[United Gold Coast Convention]] (UGCC) formed in August 1947 and led predominantly by members of the professional and business classes.<ref>{{Cite journal|last=SYMEB|first=STEWART|date=October 1947|title=The Gold Coast Legislative Council|journal=African Affairs|volume=46|issue=185|pages=238–239|doi=10.1093/oxfordjournals.afraf.a093597|issn=1468-2621}}</ref> To expand its support base and step up the struggle for independence, the leadership of the UGCC decided to appoint a permanent general secretary to lead its expansion and step up the pace of change.<ref name="ReferenceA">{{Cite journal|title=Countries at COP24 must urgently step up action to address the climate crisis as the most vulnerable suffer from its escalating impacts|journal=Climate Change and Law Collection|doi=10.1163/9789004322714_cclc_2018-0134-012}}</ref> [[Ebenezer Ako Adjei]], then a young lawyer, was offered the paid secretaryship of the UGCC but he declined the position and instead proposed [[Kwame Nkrumah]], a political activist then in [[London]], for the position.<ref name="ReferenceA"/> Ako Adjei had known Nkrumah as a fellow at Lincoln University in the United States and at the London School of Economics. He was also the past President of the [[West African Students Union]] (WASU) in [[London]] which first hosted Nkrumah when he arrived in Britain from the United States.<ref>{{Cite book|last=Lincoln|first=Abraham|title=Message from the President of the United States : communicating, a copy of a despatch of the 12th ultimo, addresses to the Secretary of State by the minister resident of the United States at Stockholm, relating to an international exhibition to be he|date=1865|publisher=[G.P.O.]|location=[Washington, D.C.]|doi=10.5962/bhl.title.46762}}</ref>

The leadership of the UGCC accepted Ako Adjei's suggestion and agreed to invite [[Kwame Nkrumah]], who already had a wide reputation as an experienced political organizer with a gift for leadership.<ref>{{Citation|last=Glickman|first=Harvey|title=Nkrumah, Kwame (1909–1972)|encyclopedia=Encyclopedia of Leadership|year=2004|location=Thousand Oaks, CA|publisher=SAGE Publications, Inc.|doi=10.4135/9781412952392.n255|isbn=9780761925972}}</ref> Together with [[George Padmore]] and others he had organised in 1945 the [[Fifth Pan-African Congress]] in [[Manchester]], [[England]].<ref>{{Cite journal|last1=Mueller|first1=Susanne D.|last2=Assensoh|first2=A. B.|date=2000|title=African Political Leadership: Jomo Kenyatta, Kwame Nkrumah, and Julius K. Nyerere|journal=The International Journal of African Historical Studies|volume=33|issue=1|pages=235|doi=10.2307/220329|jstor=220329|issn=0361-7882}}</ref> Nkrumah personally drew up the dynamic Declaration to the Colonial Peoples of the World, approved and adopted by the Congress. He was an eminently suitable person to galvanize the mass of the Gold Coast people and the youth to play an active part in the national liberation movement.<ref>{{Citation|title=Kwame Nkrumah|date=2008|work=Proceedings of the XXII World Congress of Philosophy|pages=5–11|publisher=Philosophy Documentation Center|doi=10.5840/wcp22200828606|isbn=978-1-889680-92-7}}</ref><ref>{{Citation|last=Glickman|first=Harvey|title=Nkrumah, Kwame (1909–1972)|encyclopedia=Encyclopedia of Leadership|year=2004|location=Thousand Oaks, CA|publisher=SAGE Publications, Inc.|doi=10.4135/9781412952392.n255|isbn=978-0-7619-2597-2}}</ref>

Initially, Nkrumah was hesitant about accepting the position, being aware that both the composition and objectives of the UGCC fell far short of the radical, political program he envisaged for the Gold Coast and for [[Africa]].<ref>{{Citation|last=Howardsson|first=Óskar|title=Icelander Hesitant About Accepting Pay Raise|work=Icelandic-Canadian oral narratives|year=1991|pages=204|publisher=Canadian Museum of History|doi=10.2307/j.ctt22zmctr.74|isbn=978-1-77282-359-2}}</ref> But after discussion with his colleagues he decided to accept, knowing that it might not be long before he would find it impossible to continue working within the UGCC.<ref name="Louis 38">{{Cite journal|last=Louis|first=Arthur|date=2010-04-07|title=New beginnings|journal=Emergency Nurse|volume=18|issue=1|pages=38|doi=10.7748/en.18.1.38.s19|pmid=20437759|issn=1354-5752}}</ref> On 14 November 1947, [[Kwame Nkrumah]] set sail from Liverpool aboard the SS ''Accra'', accompanied by Kojo Botsio, another friend from [[London]] who was also member of WASU and with that, the beginning of a new chapter in the modern political history of [[Ghana]] begun.<ref name="Louis 38"/>

[[Kwame Nkrumah]] was officially introduced to the UGCC's Working Committee as their Secretary on 28 December 1947 and soon got to work seeking to expand the support base of the UGCC by mobilizing the youth through local youth societies in the Colony (e.g., Apowa Literary and Social Club) and the Ashanti Confederacy<ref>{{Citation|last1=Hughes|first1=Nathan|title=Delivering youth justice through partnership working|work=Social work and multi-agency working|pages=9–28|publisher=Bristol University Press|isbn=978-1-4473-4264-9|last2=Prior|first2=David|year=2008|doi=10.2307/j.ctt1t89c5m.6}}</ref> (e.g., Asante Youth Association- AYA), whose members were farmers, petty-traders, drivers, artisans, school, teachers, clerks and letter-writers, many of whom were the growing number of elementary-school-leavers.<ref>{{Cite book|date=2019|title=School Social Work: A Case Study on Working with At-Risk Youth|doi=10.4135/9781529705287}}</ref>  In the beginning, the UGCC had only a handful of branches in the larger coastal towns and Kibi. It had no official presence in Ashanti and there had been no attempt to enlist support for the organization in the Northern territories.<ref>{{Cite journal|date=2012|title=Unexplored Territories|journal=What if I Had Been the Hero?|doi=10.5040/9781838710224.ch-003|isbn=9781838710224}}</ref> Nkrumah setting about to change this, travelled extensively and organized mass meetings and within six months hundreds of branches of the UGCC had been established throughout the Gold Coast.

==The 1948 riots==
{{main|1948 Accra riots}}
At the time of Nkrumah's arrival in the Gold Coast in late 1947, there was growing discontent among ordinary people with the economy due to shortages of consumer goods and rising prices.<ref>{{Cite journal |title=Figure 1.5. Real consumer prices are rising|doi=10.1787/888933098725}}</ref> Farmers were dissatisfied with the policy of cutting-out cocoa trees ravaged by the swollen-shoot disease with no compensation. Ex-servicemen who had fought in World War II "for King and country" had only been awarded a meagre gratuity and were experiencing the same hardships as the general populace.<ref>{{Citation|title=How Gonzalo Pizarro arrived, with his followers, at a place where Indians had formerly settled but had been driven out in a war, and the Spaniards found a very great quantity of yucas, by means of which they were restored to health and their lives were saved; and of the hardships they went through.|date=2017-05-15|work=Civil Wars of Peru, by Pedro de Cieza de León (Part IV, Book II): The War of Chupas|pages=71–76|publisher=Hakluyt Society|doi=10.4324/9781315572291-22|isbn=978-1-315-57229-1}}</ref>

Neither the chiefs nor the political class championed the growing disaffection in the country and it fell to [[Nii Kwabena Bonnie III|Nii Kwabena Bonne II]], Osu Alata Mantse, to lead the agitation against the growing economic hardship and especially the rising prices of consumer goods. Just over a month after Nkrumah's arrival in the Gold Coast, the growing discontent found expression in a boycott of mostly foreign-owned trading firms organized by Nii Kwabena Bonne on 26 January 1948.

The boycott continued for a month, while its leaders negotiated price reductions with the government and the trading firms in the [[Association of West African Merchants]] (AWAM). There was unrest also among the ex-servicemen and both [[Kwame Nkrumah]] and Dr [[Joseph Boakye Danquah]] addressed them at a rally in [[Accra]] on 20 February 1948. A petition expressing their grievances was drawn up to be presented to the Governor.<ref>{{Cite book|last=Fay|first=Robert|title=African American Studies Center |chapter=Danquah, Joseph Kwame Kyeretwi Boakye|date=2005-04-07|publisher=Oxford University Press|doi=10.1093/acref/9780195301731.013.40948|isbn=978-0-19-530173-1}}</ref>

Nii Bonne's boycott agreed new reduced prices that were to come into effect on 28 February 1948 and the boycott of the foreign trading firms was called off. As fate would have it, however, on that same day, 28 February, the ex-servicemen set off to march to [[Christiansborg Castle]] to present their petition. Their way was blocked by armed police commanded by a British officer, Superintendent Colin Imray. When the marchers refused to halt, Imray gave the order to open fire. Three ex-servicemen – Sergeant [[Cornelius Francis Adjetey|Adjetey]], Private [[Odartey Lamptey]] and Corporal [[Patrick Attipoe|Attipoe]] – were killed and many others were injured. News of the shooting sparked off days of rioting in Accra by already angry crowds incensed at the high price of food, which they blamed on the greed of foreign merchants. Shops and offices owned by foreigners were attacked and looted. Violence spread to other towns.

Faced with widespread disorder, the Governor, Sir [[Gerald Creasy]], declared a state of emergency. Troops were called out, while police arrested so-called trouble makers. The executive committee of the UGCC sent telegrams to [[Arthur Creech Jones]], the then British Secretary of State for the Colonies, asking for a Special Commissioner to be sent to the Gold Coast with power to call a Constituent Assembly.

Leaders of the UGCC — J. B. Danquah, [[William Ofori Atta|Ofori Atta]], [[Edward Akufo-Addo|Akufo Addo]], Ako Adjei, [[Emmanuel Obetsebi-Lamptey|Obetsebi Lamptey]] and [[Kwame Nkrumah]], subsequently known as [[The Big Six (Ghana)|The Big Six]] – were arrested and flown to the Northern Territories, where they were detained for six weeks before being taken to Accra to appear at a Commission of Enquiry set up by the Governor under the chairmanship of Aiken Watson Q.C.

After interrogating the accused, the Watson commissioners concluded that Nkrumah was mainly to blame for the disorders. In their words: "The U.G.C.C. did not really get down to business until the arrival of Mr. Nkrumah on December 16, 1947."<ref name="Howe 1966 13–15">{{Cite journal|last=Howe|first=Russell Warren|date=1966|title=Did Nkrumah Favour Pan-Africanism?|journal=Transition|issue=27|pages=13–15|doi=10.2307/2934195|jstor=2934195|issn=0041-1191}}</ref> They correctly detected that Nkrumah's political objectives were far more progressive than those of his colleagues. They recommended the drafting of a new constitution to replace the outdated Burns constitution. As a result, in December 1948, a constitutional committee was appointed by the Governor under the chairmanship of Mr. Justice Coussey.

The leadership of the UGCC blamed Nkrumah for the riots and some, including Obestebi-Lamptey and William Ofori-Atta, ransacked his house looking for evidence that he was a communist. It was becoming clear that differences between Nkrumah and other leaders of the UGCC would soon make it impossible for them to continue to work together.

Although the detentions increased the popularity of the UGCC leaders, it also led to infighting and finger-pointing among the UGCC leadership and created a split between the conservative intelligentsia of the UGCC who favoured a gradualist approach to independence on one hand, and the radical "Verandah Boys", on the other, who listened willingly to Nkrumah and were opposed to the convention.

The appointment and acceptance of some UGCC members including [[J. B. Danquah]] as members of the Justice Coussey's "Committee on Constitutional Reform" enabled Nkrumah to organize the local youth societies on which the UGCC was based while lawyers of the UGCC, then on good terms with the Colonial administration were absorbed in the Coussey committee meetings.<ref name="Rahman 2007 143–182">{{Citation|last=Rahman|first=Ahmad A.|title=The Watson Commission and the Coussey Committee|date=2007|work=The Regime Change of Kwame Nkrumah|pages=143–182|place=New York|publisher=Palgrave Macmillan US|doi=10.1057/9780230603486_7|isbn=978-1-349-52903-2}}</ref>

In August 1948, the "Committee on Youth Organizations" was formed with [[Komla Agbeli Gbedemah|K. A. Gbedemah]] as chair and [[Kojo Botsio]] as Secretary. [[J. B. Danquah|J.B. Danquah]] and his colleagues had become alarmed at the rapidly growing support of their members for Nkrumah and his dynamic leadership.<ref name="Asiedu-Acquah">{{Citation|last=Asiedu-Acquah|first=Emmanuel|title=Botsio, Kojo|date=2011-12-08|work=African American Studies Center|publisher=Oxford University Press|doi=10.1093/acref/9780195301731.013.48456|isbn=978-0-19-530173-1}}</ref> They disapproved of his founding of the Committee on Youth Organisation (CYO), regarding it as a pressure group advancing Nkrumah's determination to speed up the campaign for self-government. The CYO adopted the slogan "Self-Government Now", in contrast to the UGCC slogan "Self-Government in the shortest possible time". They feared Nkrumah's policy might lead to further disorder and further arrests.

Nkrumah was called before the UGCC Working Committee and suspended from his post as general secretary following questioning about his persistent use of the word "Comrade" as a term of address and his continued connections with the West African National Secretariat in London.<ref>{{Cite journal|date=1980-09-01|title=Address by His Excellency Mr. Shridath Ramphal, Commonwealth Secretary-General|doi=10.14217/9781848593091-9-en|doi-broken-date=1 November 2024 }}</ref>

The UGCC leadership was determined to remove Nkrumah as general secretary. After the publication of the first issue of the ''[[Accra Evening News]]'', founded and managed by Nkrumah and edited by K. A. Gbedemah in September 1948, UGCC's main financier affectionately known as [[Paa Grant]] demanded Nkrumah's removal from office.<ref>{{Citation|last=Biney|first=Ama|author-link=Ama Biney|title=Nkrumah's Politics, 1958–1966|date=2011|work=The Political and Social Thought of Kwame Nkrumah|pages=81–98|place=New York|publisher=Palgrave Macmillan US|doi=10.1057/9780230118645_6|isbn=978-1-349-29513-5}}</ref> At a meeting of the UGCC executive in [[Saltpond]], matters came to a head, with Nkrumah's private secretary being dismissed and Nkrumah himself demoted to the position of treasurer, which he at first refused but later accepted in November 1948.

Nkrumah and his supporters became increasingly exasperated at what they saw as the timidity of the UGCC by mid-1949; with the mass of the people and the youth behind him, Nkrumah and his colleagues were in a strong position to split with the UGCC to form a new party.<ref name="Amoh">{{Cite thesis|title=Kwame Nkrumah, His Afro-American Network and the Pursuit of an African Personality|publisher=Illinois State University|first=Emmanuella|last=Amoh|year=2019 |doi=10.30707/etd2019.amoh.e|doi-access=free}}</ref>

== Birth of the CPP ==

After a three-day meeting of the CYO in early June 1949, in [[Tarkwa]], one faction led by [[Komla Agbeli Gbedemah|K. A. Gbedemah]] and [[Kojo Botsio]] advocated for a clean break with the UGCC while another, led by [[Kofi Baako]]'s faction demanded Nkrumah's reinstatement as general secretary of the UGCC to enable them to capture the convention from within. The compromise reached was that a new party be formed but should retain the name "Convention".<ref>{{Cite journal|last=Magliocca|first=Gerard N.|date=2019-07-10|title=A Faction of One: Revisiting Madison's Notes on the Constitutional Convention|doi=10.31228/osf.io/4vqdw|s2cid=241605702|url=http://osf.io/4vqdw/|journal=Law and Social Inquiry}}</ref>

On 11 June 1949, the Working Committee of the UGCC issued two resolutions declaring that membership of the CYO and the UGCC were incompatible and gave notice that Nkrumah was to be "served with charges" for disregarding "the obligations of collective responsibility and party discipline" and by publishing in The ''[[Accra Evening News]]'', views, opinions, and criticisms, "assailing the decisions and questioning the integrity of the Working Committee", he had undermined the convention, abused its leaders and stolen its ideas.<ref>{{Citation|title=5.28 On the Work Experience of the Party Committee of the Shchekino Chemical Combine with Respect to Mobilizing its Collective of Working People to Expand the Volume of Production by Increasing Labour Productivity 6 October 1969|date=1974-12-31|work=Resolutions and Decisions of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union Volume 5|pages=143–166|editor-last=Schwartz|editor-first=Donald|place=Toronto|publisher=University of Toronto Press|doi=10.3138/9781487599539-009|isbn=978-1-4875-9953-9}}</ref>

A day later, on 12 June 1949, before a crowd of some 60,000 people which had gathered on the Old Polo Ground, the CPP was born and [[Kwame Nkrumah]] resigned as general secretary of the UGCC.  He declared that the CYO had decided to break away from the UGCC to become an entirely separate political party, the Convention People's Party (CPP).<ref>{{Citation|last=Biney|first=Ama|title=From Activist to Leader of the CPP, 1945–1951|date=2011|work=The Political and Social Thought of Kwame Nkrumah|pages=29–45|place=New York|publisher=Palgrave Macmillan US|doi=10.1057/9780230118645_3|isbn=978-1-349-29513-5}}</ref>

Kojo Botsio sent a telegram to the UGCC Working Committee informing them about the formation of the CPP under the chairmanship of Nkrumah with the aim of "Self-Government Now for Chiefs and People of the Gold Coast, a democratic government and a higher living standard for the people". The UGCC<ref name="Asiedu-Acquah"/> Working Committee responded with a statement on 15 June 1949 warning members that the convention had nothing to do with the newly formed CPP, and that Paa Grant expects loyalty from all UGCC members and considers "formation [of a] new political party inimical to interests of [the] country".<ref>{{Citation|title=New Members, Old Motives? Comparing Scottish Green Party Members 1990 and 2002|date=2017-05-15|work=Understanding Political Participation|pages=188–203|publisher=Routledge|doi=10.4324/9781315235394-8|isbn=978-1-315-23539-4}}</ref>

Wiser heads in UGCC understood danger ahead and appealed for a resolution of the conflict. On 26 June 1949, arbitrators were appointed to examine the dispute between Nkrumah and the UGCC Working Committee and an emergency conference of the UGCC, youth groups and the CPP met in Saltpond.<ref>{{Cite journal|last1=David|first1=Scorey|last2=Richard|first2=Geddes|last3=Chris|first3=Harris|date=2018-02-15|title=Part III Dispute Resolution Under the Bermuda Form, 24 The Arbitrators' Ethical Duties|journal=The Bermuda Form|doi=10.1093/law/9780198754404.003.0024}}</ref> But it was too late: the CPP made a clean break with the UGCC at the conference when there was no agreement on the condition that a new Working Committee be elected following Nkrumah's acceptance to disband the CPP and resume general secretaryship of the UGCC.<ref>{{Cite journal|last=D'Alessandro|first=Roberta|date=2017-05-16|title=When you have too many features: Auxiliaries, agreement and critics in Italian varieties|journal=Glossa: A Journal of General Linguistics|volume=2|issue=1|pages=50|doi=10.5334/gjgl.102|issn=2397-1835|doi-access=free}}</ref>

The foundation of the CPP marked a decisive turning point in the history of [[Ghana]], for it led directly to the achievement of Ghana's independence on 6 March 1957.<ref>{{Citation|title=Independence, Coups, and the Republic, 1957–Present|work=The Ghana Reader|year=2016|pages=299–300|publisher=Duke University Press|doi=10.1215/9780822374961-060|isbn=978-0-8223-7496-1}}</ref>

===CPP colours, motto, symbol and structure===

The colours of the party were to be red, white and green, the tri-colour flag in horizontal form with red at the top, white in the center and green at the bottom.

Party motto: ''FORWARD EVER BACKWARD NEVER''

Its symbol: A red cockerel heralding the dawn.

Party branches were to be established in every town and village, throughout the country. It was to be a mass-based party each branch of which was to be administered by an elected Branch Executive committee. There was to be a National Secretariat under the direct supervision and control of the Central Committee of the party.<ref>{{Cite book |title=The Politics of American Jews |first=Herbert F. |last=Weisberg |chapter=Party Identification by Branch of Judaism |doi=10.3998/mpub.10058621.cmp.28 |doi-access=free |date=1990–2017}}</ref>

Members of the first Central Committee were:<ref name="ReferenceB">{{Citation |last=Asiedu-Acquah |first=Emmanuel |title=Edusei, Krobo |date=2011-12-08 |work=African American Studies Center |publisher=[[Oxford University Press]] |doi=10.1093/acref/9780195301731.013.48680 |isbn=978-0-19-530173-1}}</ref>
# [[Kwame Nkrumah]] (Chairman)
# [[Kojo Botsio]] (Secretary)
# [[Komla Agbeli Gbedemah|K. A. Gbedemah]]
# [[N. A. Welbeck]]
# [[Kwesi Plange]]
# [[Kofi Baako]]
# [[Krobo Edusei]]
# Dzenkle Dzewu
# [[Ashie Nikoi]]
# B.E. Dwira

===Positive Action===

The ''Evening News'' became the party's mouthpiece and its full-frontal demands for self-government increased its popularity and demand rose dramatically. Its pithy mottoes were:

* We have a right to live as men
* We prefer self-government with danger to servitude in tranquility
* We have the right to govern ourselves<ref>{{Cite book|last=Rose|first=Nancy L.|title=Economic Regulation and Its Reform|date=2014|publisher=University of Chicago Press|doi=10.7208/chicago/9780226138169.001.0001|isbn=978-0-226-13802-2}}</ref>

The success of the ''Evening News'' encouraged Nkrumah to launch the ''Morning Telegraph'' in Sekondi in 1949 with Kwame Afriyie, who later became party general secretary, as editor. This was followed by the ''Cape Coast Daily Mail'' edited by Kofi Baako. Also B. E. Dwira founded the Freedom Press and Publishing Company in [[Ashanti Region|Ashanti region]], precisely [[Kumasi]], and published the Ashanti Sentinel newspaper with the motto "We Speak the Truth Without Fear". The paper was used to promote the CPP and Nkrumah's ideologies and vision for a better and prosperous [[Ghana]] and [[Africa]]. B. E. Dwira was the first Ashanti regional chairman of the CPP before the demarcation of the [[Brong-Ahafo region|Brong Ahafo Region]] in April 1959. He also was the first Chairman of the Kumasi City Council (now called Mayor of Kumasi).<ref>{{Cite web|title=Davies, Sir William, (7 Oct. 1863 – 17 March 1935), editor Western Mail (Daily), Evening Express and Weekly Mail, Cardiff, 1901–31|date=2007-12-01|work=Who Was Who|publisher=Oxford University Press|doi=10.1093/ww/9780199540884.013.u208381}}</ref>

The CPP suspected the Colonial Government and the Gold Coast establishment wanted to use the Coussey Committee on Constitutional Reform as a ruse to delay indefinitely progress towards independence.  Anticipating that the Coussey constitutional proposals would be unacceptable, plans had been made for Positive Action which Nkrumah explained in a statement written in 1949 entitled "What I mean by Positive Action".<ref name="Rahman 2007 143–182"/>

He listed the weapons of Positive Action as:
* Legitimate political agitation
* Newspaper and educational campaigns
* As a last resort, the constitutional application of strikes, boycotts, and non-cooperation based on the principle of absolute non-violence.
* The final stage of Positive Action would only be employed if all other avenues to achieve self-government had been closed.<ref>{{Cite journal|last=Kaplan|first=Jeffrey|date=1995|title=Absolute rescue: Absolutism, defensive action and the resort to force|journal=Terrorism and Political Violence|volume=7|issue=3|pages=128–163|doi=10.1080/09546559508427309|issn=0954-6553}}</ref>

As expected, the Coussey Committee's constitutional proposals provided for very limited African participation in government and Nkrumah described it as ‘fraudulent and bogus’. The colonial government even sought to limit the proposals further by objecting to the committee's proposal that the Executive Council (i.e. the cabinet) be answerable to the majority African Legislative Council.<ref>{{Citation|work=President Obama|pages=28–56|publisher=University Press of Kansas|doi=10.2307/j.ctv3f8pqm.6|isbn=978-0-7006-2686-1|title=Legislative Proposals|year=2018}}</ref> In a memorandum anticipating the recommendations of the committee, the colonial office argued that "collective responsibility of ministers to the legislature instead of to the Governor was only compatible with the final stage of internal self-government".<ref>{{Cite book|title=Report and Recommendations for the Montana State Park System a report to Governor Judy Martz and the 58th Legislature / State Parks Futures Committee II.|date=2002|volume=2002 |publisher=Montana Fish, Wildlife & Parks|location=Helena, Mont.|doi=10.5962/bhl.title.29825|url=https://www.biodiversitylibrary.org/item/114696}}</ref> Despite the existence of the UGCC and CPP, the colonial government argued there were no organized political parties in the Gold Coast and as such it would be "wrong for H.M.G. to grant to the Gold Coast a degree of self-government greater than accorded Jamaica where parties exist[ed] and where political life was more mature"<ref>{{Citation|title=2. Political Parties|work=Massachusetts State Government|year=1970|place=Cambridge, MA and London, England|publisher=Harvard University Press|doi=10.4159/harvard.9780674864092.c5|isbn=978-0-674-86409-2}}</ref>

The proposals of the Coussey Committee were published in October 1949 but it was clear from the outset that they were at variance with the CPP's campaigning objective of "self-government NOW". Worse still, it confirmed the CPP's suspicion that the colonial government wanted to delay the transition to self-rule.<ref>{{Citation|last=Ward|first=John Manning|title=Responsible Government in Britain|date=1976|work=Colonial Self-Government|pages=172–208|place=London|publisher=Palgrave Macmillan UK|doi=10.1007/978-1-349-02712-5_6|isbn=978-1-349-02714-9}}</ref>

The CPP and the Trades Union Congress organized a mass gathering of some fifty organizations drawn from various trade unions, farmers’ cooperatives and organizations and other educational, cultural, youth, social and women groups in what became known as the "Ghana Representative Assembly".  The UGCC and the Aborigines’ Rights Protection Society were invited but they turned it down.<ref>{{Citation|title=Trade Unions, Democratic Transition and OrganisationalChallenge: The Ghana Trades Union Congress, 1989–2009 145|work=Trade Unions in West Africa|year=2011|publisher=Peter Lang|doi=10.3726/978-3-0353-0166-3/8|isbn=978-3-0343-0117-6}}</ref>

The assembly passed the following resolution:

"That the people of the Gold Coast be granted immediate self-government by the British Government, that is full Dominion status within the British Commonwealth of Nations based on the statute of Westminster. That the assembly respectfully demands the immediate grant and sanction of full self-government for the chiefs and people of the Gold Coast."<ref>{{Cite journal|date=1955|title=A nascent dominion|journal=The Round Table|volume=45|issue=178|pages=149–155|doi=10.1080/00358535508451929|issn=0035-8533}}</ref>

Copies of the resolution were passed to the governing classes including the Governor, the Colonial Secretary, the Legislative Council and the three Territorial Councils of chiefs but they ignored it.<ref>{{Cite journal|date=1954-07-01|journal=Parliamentary Affairs|doi=10.1093/oxfordjournals.pa.a053072|issn=1460-2482|title=Procedure in Colonial Legislative Councils}}</ref>

In the meantime, there was disquiet among the trade unions who demanded the reinstatement of meteorological service workers sacked for going on strike on 5 October 1949 and threatened to call a general strike if their call was not heeded. The CPP leadership travelled across the county mobilizing support for Positive Action and issued an ultimatum to the government to reinstate the meteorological workers by 7 January 1950.<ref>{{Cite journal|date=2016|title=Junior doctors call off January strike action|journal=The Pharmaceutical Journal|doi=10.1211/pj.2016.20200519|issn=2053-6186}}</ref>

On 15 December, the executive committee of the CPP informed the Governor, Sir Charles Arden-Clarke, that unless the legitimate aspirations of the people as embodied in the proposed amendments to the Coussey Committee's report were accepted, the CPP would declare Positive Action. The Governor was given two weeks in which to accede to the CPP's request for the calling of a Constituent Assembly.<ref>{{Citation|title=Narasimha Sarma, Rao Bahadur Sir Bayya, (1867–8 Dec. 1932), President, Railway Rates Advisory Committee, Calcutta; late Member Governor-General's Executive Council|date=2007-12-01|work=Who Was Who|publisher=Oxford University Press|doi=10.1093/ww/9780199540884.013.u214620}}</ref>

Nkrumah met the Colonial Secretary and on the basis of the assurance given that the CPP's. view would be considered by committees on constitutional reform, he agreed to recommend a review of the Positive Action policy to the party's executive committee. Dr J. B. Danquah seized upon this temporary hiatus in the Positive Action campaign and accused [[Kwame Nkrumah]] of "letting the country down by his volte face in calling off positive action in return for empty promises from the Government".<ref name="auto">{{Citation|title=Nkrumah, Dr Kwame, (21 Sept. 1909 – 27 April 1972)|date=2007-12-01|work=Who Was Who|publisher=Oxford University Press|doi=10.1093/ww/9780199540884.013.u158013}}</ref>

Needless to say, after several meetings with colonial authorities it became clear that no progress was being made on the central demand for a constituent assembly or the reinstatement of the meteorological workers. On 8 January 1950, in front of a large CPP crowd at a public meeting in Accra, Nkrumah declared positive action.<ref>{{Cite journal|date=1950-05-01|journal=Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society|volume=31|issue=5|pages=168–171|doi=10.1175/1520-0477-31.5.168|issn=0003-0007|title=The New York Meeting, January 25, 1950|bibcode=1950BAMS...31..168.|doi-access=free}}</ref> He called for a general strike to include all except those engaged in maintaining essential services such as hospitals and water supplies. Shops and offices closed. Roads and rail services came to a standstill.  He travelled to [[Sekondi]], [[Cape Coast]] and [[Takoradi]] to declare Positive Action there too.<ref>{{Citation|title=The railway and harbour workers of Sekondi-Takoradi: a sociological profile|date=1978-11-02|work=Class, Power and Ideology in Ghana|pages=9–23|publisher=Cambridge University Press|doi=10.1017/cbo9780511558863.002|isbn=978-0-521-21806-1}}</ref>

The colonial government responded on 10 January by declaring a state of emergency, banned processions, imposed curfews, and ordered the disconnection of public services in certain areas. The offices of CPP newspapers were raided and closed.<ref>{{Cite journal|last=Sidley|first=P.|date=1997-12-06|title=Researchers' offices raided over banned AIDS drug|journal=BMJ|volume=315|issue=7121|pages=1485–1488|doi=10.1136/bmj.315.7121.1485c|pmid=9420486|pmc=2127921|issn=0959-8138}}</ref>

The CPP and TUC leaders, including [[Bankole Awoonor-Renner]], Tommy Hutton Mills, [[Pobee Biney]] and Kojo Botsio and [[Anthony Woode]] were rounded up and arrested. Two CPP newspapers – The Accra Evening News and the Cape Coast Daily Mail- were banned and their editors J. Markham and [[Kofi Baako]] arrested.<ref>{{Cite book|last=Sherwood|first=Marika|chapter=Awoonor-Renner, Bankole|date=2017-06-30|title=African American Studies Center|publisher=Oxford University Press|doi=10.1093/acref/9780195301731.013.73486|isbn=978-0-19-530173-1}}</ref>

On 19 January, at a meeting of the Legislative Council, the government passed three bills – the Sedition Bill, a newspaper registration bill and a Bill to allow the Governor-in-council to impose curfew in any part of the country without having to resort to emerging legislation.  On 21 January, [[Kwame Nkrumah]] was arrested and tried for inciting an illegal strike and for sedition for an article in the Cape Coast Daily Mail. He was sentenced to three years imprisonment.  Several thousand workers were dismissed from their jobs and many others lost their pension rights.<ref>{{Cite journal|last=Carpenter|first=Bill|date=1979|title=APA Briefly: January Council Meeting|doi=10.1037/e303052005-026}}</ref>

Things would never be the same again. The CPP had shown that an unarmed people could demonstrate the effectiveness of unified effort in the form of Positive Action. Never again would they accept that it was hopeless to challenge a seemingly mighty power structure. The political revolution in the Gold Coast had begun in earnest.<ref>{{Cite journal|last=Bross|first=Kristina|date=2017-08-24|title=Would India had beene never knowne|journal=Oxford Scholarship Online|volume=1 |doi=10.1093/oso/9780190665135.003.0006}}</ref>

==1951 elections==

The imprisonment of the CPP leadership created a political vacuum which the then Governor said he was "anxious to fill without delay" by rallying "moderate opinion in support of the plan for the constitutional advance set out in the Coussey report and His Majesty's Government statement, with a view to encouraging the emergence of a strong moderate party sufficiently cohesive and vocal to deal with such dissident elements as retain any substantial popular following" (emphasis added).<ref>{{Citation|last=Thomsen|first=Danielle M.|title=Ideology, Attitude, and Political Ambition|work=Opting Out of Congress|year=2017|pages=65–80|place=Cambridge|publisher=Cambridge University Press|doi=10.1017/9781316872055.004|isbn=978-1-316-87205-5}}</ref>

In the meantime, K.A Gbedemah who had been released from an earlier arrest in October 1949, kept the central organization of the party running and was in constant touch with Nkrumah who was held in James Fort prison from where messages were smuggled out on toilet paper to party headquarters.<ref>{{Citation|title=Rodgers, George, (7 Nov. 1925 – 15 Feb. 2000), Library Officer, Labour Party Headquarters, 1988–90, retired|date=2007-12-01|work=Who Was Who|publisher=Oxford University Press|doi=10.1093/ww/9780199540884.013.u181557}}</ref> Nkrumah was helped by a friendly warder who managed to smuggle messages to party headquarters, where the work of the CPP was continuing. A concise CPP election manifesto, written on sheets of toilet paper, was delivered to CPP/HQ in this way. CPP manifestos were always short, simple and direct leaving the electorate in no doubt about what a CPP victory would mean. They expressed just what the majority of the people wanted. As 1951 election result showed, the CPP correctly gauged the pulse of the nation.<ref name="ReferenceC">{{Cite journal|title=After CPP Election Win, Promises to Solve Cambodia's Land Grabs Fade Again|journal=Human Rights Documents Online|doi=10.1163/2210-7975_hrd-9983-20180064}}</ref><ref>{{Citation|date=2007-11-15|work=Kwame Nkrumah. Vision and Tragedy|pages=74–90|publisher=Sub-Saharan Publishers|doi=10.2307/j.ctvk3gm60.10|isbn=978-9988-647-81-0|title=Birth of the CPP}}</ref>

In the 1950 municipal elections held in the major cities – [[Accra]] (April), [[Cape Coast]] (June) and [[Kumasi]] (November), – the CPP swept the board with stunning, if unexpected victories. In the Kumasi municipal election, the CPP won ALL contested seats and opposition attempts to attribute this stunning victory to CPP intimidation was swiftly discredited by two European journalists who observed and reported on the elections.<ref>{{Cite journal|last=Asante|first=Lewis|date=2017|title=Regeneration of Urban Market Space in Ghana: A Case of Kotokuraba Market (Cape Coast) and Kumasi Central Market (Kumasi)|journal=24th Annual European Real Estate Society Conference|publisher=European Real Estate Society|doi=10.15396/eres2017_510|doi-access=free}}</ref> In a dispatch by the Governor to the Colonial Office on 2 November he wrote:

"I am informed that the reason for the sweeping success of CPP in obtaining all contested seats was due to real organizing capacity and that the debacle of the opposition was due to apathy and not to intimidation"<ref>{{Citation|last1=Gerner|first1=Mathias|title=Accounting for Real Options in the Due Diligence Process|date=2017-11-22|work=Value in Due Diligence|pages=29–43|publisher=Routledge|isbn=978-1-351-14344-8|last2=Hommel|first2=Ulrich|doi=10.4324/9781351143448-3}}</ref>

The colonial government began to revise its view of the CPP describing it as "clearly more politically skillful than any mere hooligan element could have been".

As plans for the elections to the legislative assembly gathered pace, the CPP took what Governor [[Charles Noble Arden-Clarke|Arden Clarke]] was later to describe as a "decisive stroke" to put up [[Kwame Nkrumah]], who was still serving his term of imprisonment in James Fort,  as the candidate for Accra Central –now part of today's Odododiodoo constituency. Once again the CPP achieved a stunning victory in the February [[1951 Gold Coast legislative election]].  In 1951 the manifesto could be summed up in three words: Self-Government NOW.<ref>{{Cite journal|last=J.B.C.|date=1953|title=Standing Orders of the Legislative Assembly of the Gold Coast (Amended up to October, 1952). (Accra, Gold Coast: Government Printing Dept.1952. Pp. 23.)|journal=American Political Science Review|volume=47|issue=3|pages=904|doi=10.1017/s000305540030123x|issn=0003-0554}}</ref>

The party won the directly elected urban seats with ten times as many votes as those of the combined opposition with Nkrumah polling a massive 22,780 out of the available 23,122 votes in his Accra Central constituency.<ref name="Cambridge University Press">{{Citation|title=Basic Laws of Party Seats and Votes – and Application to Deviation from Proportionality|work=Votes from Seats|year=2017|publisher=Cambridge University Press|doi=10.1017/9781108261128.010|isbn=978-1-108-26112-8}}</ref> In the thirty-three rural seats elected indirectly through electoral colleges, the CPP secured a stunning 29 seats to UGCC's three. In the two-member constituency of the Akim Abuakwa Dr. J. B. Danquah and William Ofori Atta got through by the barest of squeaks – with majorities of 10 and 4 electoral college votes respectively –  in their ancestral homeland. Dr [[Kofi Abrefa Busia|K. A. Busia]] on the other hand, lost his seat and owed his seat in the Legislative Assembly as representative for the Ashanti Confederacy Council.<ref>{{Citation|title=Winners Plus One: How We Get Votes from Seats|work=Votes from Seats|year=2017|publisher=Cambridge University Press|doi=10.1017/9781108261128.009|isbn=978-1-108-26112-8}}</ref>

Soon after the elections, the CPP wrote to the Governor seeking a deputation to discuss the immediate release of [[Kwame Nkrumah]] from prison. So that he did not appear to have been forced, the Governor delayed the decision until after the Territorial Council elections that weekend and then made arrangements for Nkrumah's release for 1 p.m. on the following Monday claiming it was "an act of grace".<ref>{{Cite journal|last1=Sayeed|first1=Khalid Bin|last2=Nkrumah|first2=Kwame|date=1959|title=The Autobiography of Kwame Nkrumah|journal=International Journal|volume=14|issue=4|pages=324|doi=10.2307/40198684|jstor=40198684|issn=0020-7020}}</ref>

==The first All-African Government==

At the age of 39, [[Kwame Nkrumah]] became the Leader of Government Business of the first All-African Government whose other ministers included [[Archie Casely-Hayford]], [[K. A. Gbedemah]], [[Kojo Botsio]], Dr A. Ansah Koi, Dr E. O. Asafu-Adjaye, and Mr J. A. Briamah.<ref>{{Citation|date=2007-11-15|work=Kwame Nkrumah. Vision and Tragedy|pages=92–102|publisher=Sub-Saharan Publishers|doi=10.2307/j.ctvk3gm60.11|isbn=978-9988-647-81-0|title=Leader of Government Business}}</ref>

In February 1952, Nkrumah won a significant concession after he successfully persuaded the colonial administration to amend the 1951 constitution to change his title from Leader of Government Business to Prime Minister, with the Executive Council recast as the Cabinet. From now on, the Prime Minister would rank second to Governor in Cabinet and would preside over the affairs of state in his absence and the first African government would begin to look just like one.<ref>{{Cite book|last=James|first=Simon|chapter=Relations between Prime Minister and Cabinet: From Wilson to Thatcher|date=1995|title=Prime Minister, Cabinet and Core Executive|pages=63–86|place=London|publisher=Macmillan Education UK|doi=10.1007/978-1-349-24141-5_4|isbn=978-0-333-55528-6}}</ref>

The new government got down to work with the approval and implementation of the five-year and accelerated development plan (see next section).  The government set up a social welfare department with community developments teams in rural areas undertaking a myriad of local projects ranging from the provision of local schools, to water and public lavatories in towns and villages across country.<ref>{{Cite book|chapter=Local government|title=Delivering social welfare|year=2016|pages=77–92|publisher=Bristol University Press|doi=10.2307/j.ctt1t899rf.9|isbn=978-1-4473-1921-4}}</ref> A share of the proceeds from higher cocoa prices on the international market was passed on to the farmers, with the [[Cocoa Marketing Board]] paying "an unprecedented price of 80s, a load of the main crops 1951–52". The resumption of the policy of cutting-out swollen-shoot infected trees was also accompanied by increased compensation to farmers affected.<ref>{{Cite journal|last1=Quainoo|first1=A.K.|last2=Wetten|first2=A.C.|last3=Allainguillaume|first3=J.|date=2008|title=The effectiveness of somatic embryogenesis in eliminating the cocoa swollen shoot virus from infected cocoa trees|journal=Journal of Virological Methods|volume=149|issue=1|pages=91–96|doi=10.1016/j.jviromet.2008.01.007|pmid=18294704|issn=0166-0934}}</ref>

In its first year of operation, the Cocoa Purchasing Company set up by the government paid loans of over £1 million to farmers to alleviate decades of farmer indebtedness and although the colonial administration had acknowledged posed a danger to the industry, they had failed to deal with it. While cocoa prices in the international markets were high, the industry, ravaged by the swollen shoot disease, was in decline.<ref>{{Cite journal|date=1952|title=Systemic Insecticides and Swollen Shoot Disease of Cocoa|journal=Nature|volume=169|issue=4300|pages=536|doi=10.1038/169536a0|bibcode=1952Natur.169Q.536.|s2cid=4201318|issn=0028-0836|doi-access=free}}</ref> The Watson Commission had predicted a possible total disappearance "in 20 years" if this was not tackled head-on.

The government kicked-off a number projects including the Volta River hydro-electric project and a new harbour at [[Tema]] with a connecting railway line to [[Accra]]. There were also extensions to [[Sekondi-Takoradi|Takoradi]] harbour and improvements to [[Accra]] harbour.

===The first five-year development plan===
The first five-year development plan of £120 million sterling was approved by the Legislative Assembly on 15 August 1951 and replaced the 10-year Development Plan of £11.5 million sterling drawn up in 1948. By comparison, the 10-year development plan of [[Gordon Guggisberg|Guggisberg]] period between the two world wars (1919 – 1938), had an expenditure of £16.5 million.

The plan concentrated on education (under the Accelerated Plan for Education) communications, public works and general services to prepare the way for Ghana's industrialization drive. The CPP government introduced free and compulsory primary and middle school education which was aimed at the total literacy of the country by 1970.<ref>{{Citation|last=Aziabah|first=Maxwell Akansina|title=Privatisation of Compulsory Education in Ghana: Examining the Developments so Far|date=2017|work=Private Schools and School Choice in Compulsory Education|pages=133–150|place=Wiesbaden|publisher=Springer Fachmedien Wiesbaden|doi=10.1007/978-3-658-17104-9_9|isbn=978-3-658-17103-2}}</ref>

Average capital expenditure per year for the First Development Plan was £15.5 million; 11.2% spent on Agriculture, Forestry and Fishing, and Industry and mining and 88.8% spent on Social Services (Education, Health and sanitation, Housing, Public Administration, Police and Prisons and other Social Services) and Infrastructure (Roads, Railways and Inland waterways, Ports and harbours, Shipping, Posts and Telecommunications, Electricity and Water and Sewerage).<ref>{{Citation|title=Public Expenditure 1870 TO 1939 Housing, Household Environmental Services, Police, Fire and Rescue Services, Administration of Justice, Public Utilities, Infrastructure, Miscellaneous Expenditure|work=The Growth of Public Expenditure in the United Kingdom from 1870 to 2005|date=13 December 2011 |publisher=Palgrave Macmillan|doi=10.1057/9780230367319_6  |isbn=978-0-230-36731-9 |last1=Lee |first1=Clive |pages=104–127 }}</ref>

By the end of 1955, CPP government had achieved the following:

*Education
* Primary schools enrollment doubled; Middle schools enrollment increased by 50%.
*Nine (9) new Teacher Training Colleges; 18 new secondary schools with the number of students attending increased almost 3-fold;Technical training enrolments increased from 180 to 1,400
* Four secondary schools added to [[Achimota School]], the only secondary school offering the Higher School Certificate (A-level): [[Mfantsipim School]], [[Adisadel College]], [[St. Augustine's College (Cape Coast)|St. Augustine's College]] and [[Prempeh College]]
* [[Kumasi College of Technology]] established and also offered the Higher School Certificate
* [[Kumasi]] (1954) and Sekondi (1955) Regional Libraries
* The Ghana Library service
* Agriculture and Infrastructure
* 18 Agricultural stations;11 cocoa stations; 4 Agricultural Training Centers; soil surveys over hundreds of square miles
* 940 wells and 62 bore holes sunk; 7 new pipe-borne water supplies with additional 4 under construction
* 38 miles of new railways; 15 miles re-directed railways with 50 miles under construction; 828 miles of major roads built or reconstructed; 730 miles resurfaced with bitumen; 2 major bridges completed and 60 smaller bridges built; 4 major bridges including [[Adomi Bridge|Adomi bridge]] under construction
* [[Takoradi Harbour|Takoradi harbour]] expanded, and [[Tema Harbour|Tema harbour]] under construction
* [[Komfo Anokye Teaching Hospital|Okomfo Anokye hospital]] construction started; extensions to 15 existing hospitals and 2 health centres near completion
* 270 miles of overhead telephone trunk routes; 140 miles of underground cable; 4,800 new telephones installed (3–fold increase in capacity); 13 new post office buildings completed and the size of the General Post Office doubled
* Construction of Ambassador Hotel started; 15,000 room units of housing for 40,000 people completed
* 60% increase in electricity output 51,000 KW from 32,000 KW

These developments so increased the living standards of ordinary citizens that at independence, Ghana's GDP per capita was £50 compared to about £300 for the [[United Kingdom|UK]], and was higher compared to [[India]], [[Pakistan]] and [[Ceylon]].<ref>{{Cite journal|last=Miles|first=H. E.|date=1915|title=The Wisconsin Continuation Schools|journal=The Elementary School Journal|volume=15|issue=9|pages=476–490|doi=10.1086/454444|s2cid=144825556|issn=0013-5984|url=https://zenodo.org/record/1723633}}</ref>

==1954 elections==
In June 1952, the new Secretary of State for the Colonies [[Oliver Lyttleton]] visited the Gold Coast and agreed to a process of consultation with chiefs and the people to proposal for constitutional changes. On the basis of proposals received from chiefs and a broad spectrum of groups and numerous consultations with the territorial council, the trade union congress and opposition parties, the government published a white paper on constitutional change on 19 June 1953 which were accepted as the basis for the transition to independence in December 1956.<ref>{{Cite journal|title=State Department, Report, Substance of Discussions of State - Joint Chiefs of Staff Meeting, June 27, 1957|journal=Weapons of Mass Destruction|doi=10.1163/9789004346673.wmdo-04_183}}</ref>

On the basis of these proposals, the CPP government introduced a bill in the Legislative Assembly on 10 July 1953, famously dubbed by ''The Evening News'' as the "Motion of Destiny". This called upon Britain to make arrangement for independence. It required all members of the Assembly to be elected directly by secret ballot, and Cabinet members of the Assembly and directly responsible to it. Britain was asked for a clear commitment to independence by naming a date. Britain conceded the demand for independence but insisted on another election first.<ref>{{Cite book|last=Theaker|first=Martin|chapter=Britain and the Limits of Atomic Independence, 1945–1953|date=2018|title=Britain, Europe and Civil Nuclear Energy, 1945–62|pages=25–66|place=Cham|publisher=Springer International Publishing|doi=10.1007/978-3-319-73927-4_2|isbn=978-3-319-73926-7}}</ref>

The first directly held elections in the country's history took place on 19 June 1954 and the CPP won 72 out of 104 seats, the GCP (the last rump of the UGCC) were routed winning only 1 seat and so it was left to the Northern People's Party (NPP) with 12 seats to form the official opposition. Dr J. B. Danquah, and Mr. William Ofori-Atta both lost their seats and Dr K. A. Busia, won his seat by a mere 11 votes. However, the euphoria surrounding this massive victory was soon to turn sour with a sudden turn in events that ushered the country through a period of instability and violence, the like of which had never been seen before or since.<ref name="Cambridge University Press"/><ref>{{Cite book|last=Allen, Frederick Lewis|title=Since Yesterday : the 1930s in America, September 3, 1929--September 3, 1939.|date=26 May 2015|publisher=Open Road Media |isbn=978-1-5040-1138-9|oclc=906704745}}</ref>

===The violent years: 1954–1956===
{{Very long|date=December 2024}}
In March 1954, and before the June elections the government took a decision to fix the price of cocoa at £3.12 shillings in response to the Seers and Ross "Report on Finance and Physical Problems of Development in the Gold Coast" to contain looming inflation. Contrary to inaccurate historical accounts, the CPP did not promise in its manifesto to raise farm gate prices in its 1954 election and in August 1954, Mr. K.A. Gbedemah as finance minister introduced the Cocoa Duty and Development funds bill in parliament based on the cabinet's decision in the March.<ref>{{Cite web|last=Woodfield|first=F. W.|date=1954-03-31|title=Chemical development unit progress report, March 1954|doi=10.2172/10128451|url=https://digital.library.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metadc1318491/}}</ref>

In his presentation to parliament, Gbedemah argued that he was seeking to deal with the ‘fragility’ of the Gold Coast economy highlighted by the Seers and Ross report stemming from an over-reliance on one commodity for nearly 60 percent of export revenues. While cocoa prices were enjoying a boon on the world market in 1954, there was recognition by those who took a long-term view that this was unsustainable (as it turned out prices fell £500 per ton in 1954 to £200 in 1956) and in any case, the farmers needed to be shielded from such fluctuations through a guaranteed farm gate price.<ref>{{Cite web|title=Figure 8. Export commodity prices have turned down recently|doi=10.1787/888932782850}}</ref>

As part of the diversification strategy to reduce the risk of over-dependence, any windfall would be used to expand other sectors of the economy. Naturally the farmers, who wanted a share of higher world prices for their produce were unhappy about this and demanded a repeal of the bill. However, what started out as the natural response of an aggrieved sector of the country over policy was hijacked by disgruntled political activists and leaders with a melange of grievances including those unhappy with Justice Van Lare's report on the allocation of seats for the Legislative Assembly in the 1954 elections.<ref>{{Cite journal|date=2008|title=Survey result: EPA scientists unhappy about political meddling|journal=Physics Today|issue=4 |page=12516 |doi=10.1063/pt.5.022162|bibcode=2008PhT..2008d2516. |issn=1945-0699}}</ref> Some, including B. F. Kusi – who later stood as the parliamentary candidate and become a formidable member of parliament for opposition before and after independence, – challenged the basis of the electoral seat allocation by population. He famously proclaimed: "Ashanti is a nation … Population does not make a country"?<ref>{{Citation|title=Appendix A|work=Democracy, Parliament and Electoral Systems|year=2015|pages=151–158|publisher=Pluto Press|doi=10.2307/j.ctt18fs53z.24|isbn=978-1-84964-220-0}}</ref>

There was also dissatisfaction with the Cocoa Purchasing Company which was accused of using funds to help the CPP during the 1954 elections and disquiet among members of the CPP who failed in the bids to become candidates in the 1954 election and were asked to stand down as independents or face expulsion from the party.<ref>{{Cite book|chapter=Gull, Sir Rupert (William Cameron), (born 14 July 1954), company director|date=2007-12-01|title=Who's Who|publisher=Oxford University Press|doi=10.1093/ww/9780199540884.013.18408}}</ref><ref>{{Cite book|last=De Cruz, Gerald|title=Colliding worlds : memoirs of a Singapore maverick|date=15 April 2009|publisher=Marshall Cavendish International Asia Pte |isbn=978-981-4634-91-5|oclc=893682654}}</ref>

This toxic combination of disgruntled rumps hijacked genuine farmers’ grievances over the proposed fixed farm gate prices for cocoa and used it as an excuse to step up opposition to the elected government and in the process, fomented violence and mayhem that claimed the lives of many men, women and children needlessly.{{citation needed|date=December 2024}}

The National Liberation Movement (NLM) launched in September 1954 under the leadership for the chief linguist of Ashantehene, Baffour Osei Akoto emerged from this disgruntled group, and the rump of the routed political opposition threw in their lot with them. The Asanteman Council and Asantehene lent their support and the NLM became a rallying nationalist organisation that was not only a critic of the democratically elected government but the leading advocate for Ashanti nationalism.<ref>{{Cite journal|last=Aliyu|first=Musa Adamu|date=2018-12-24|title=Safeguarding Democratically Elected Local Government Councils In Nigeria From Abuse|journal=The European Proceedings of Social and Behavioural Sciences|pages=201–208|publisher=Cognitive-Crcs|doi=10.15405/epsbs.2018.12.03.18|doi-access=free}}</ref>

The NLM raided CPP offices in Ashanti and fomented violence indiscriminately and for the first time a group of nationalists in Ashanti decided to break with the consensus on the transitional plans for independence by declaring openly "yeate ye ho".<ref name="Thompson 1995 12–50">{{Citation|last=Thompson|first=Larry|title=Ashanti soll geheilt werden|date=1995|work=Der Fall Ashanti|pages=12–50|place=Basel|publisher=Birkhäuser Basel|doi=10.1007/978-3-0348-6006-2_1|isbn=978-3-0348-6007-9}}</ref>

In March 1955, R. J. Vile, the Assistant Secretary at the Colonial Office gave one of the first independent assessments of the NLM after his visit to the Gold Coast.
"So little is known about the internal politics of the NLM that it is difficult to know the importance of this core determined people, or the kind of control exercised by the Ashantehene over them. It is, however, clear that they have a fair amount of dynamite at their disposal and presumably can easily obtain fresh supplies by theft from the mines.<ref>{{Citation|title=Mayle, Norman Leslie, (1899–7 March 1980), Assistant Secretary, Colonial Office, 1944–59|date=2007-12-01|work=Who Was Who|publisher=Oxford University Press|doi=10.1093/ww/9780199540884.013.u157314}}</ref> They contain a number of thugs who are prepared to use knives and arms of precision. Reports were current in [[Kumasi]] a fortnight ago that the NLM had been smuggling in rifles and machine-guns, and there were other reports that small bands of people were being trained with the object of sending them to [[Accra]] to attack, and possibly murder, Gold Coast Ministers."<ref>{{Citation|title=About how it went (to the best of my knowledge) for the good people who had been captured and were taken to that place [Algiers]|work=The Travels of Reverend Olafur Egilsson|year=2016|pages=26–29|publisher=Catholic University of America Press|doi=10.2307/j.ctt1g69z98.16|isbn=978-0-8132-2870-9}}</ref>

He continued:

"It is possible that Dr. Nkrumah's peaceful approach (described in paragraph 10) may lead to the resolution of the differences between the NLM and the CPP on constitutional matters". Nevertheless, he concluded, ominously, that "it is quite possible that the core of determined young men will take to the forest and engage in guerrilla warfare from there if other methods fail".<ref>{{Cite thesis|title=Household war : guerrilla-men, rebel women, and guerilla warfare in Civil War Missouri|publisher=University of Missouri Libraries|first=Joseph M.|last=Beilein|year=2012 |doi=10.32469/10355/15161}}</ref>

Violence was stepped up and [[Kumasi]] became so dangerous that members of the CPP were in fear of their lives. Local party leaders such as the Ashanti Regional Chairman of CPP, Mr B. E. Dwira of New Tafo were barricaded in their homes and needed protection when they went out. Hon. B. E. Dwira's residence was bombed or dynamited. The CPP regional office was shut down and the local party newspaper "The Ashanti Sentinel" and its publishing house founded by Hon. B. E. Dwira, the Ashanti Regional Chairman of the CPP was bombed and burnt to the ground by NLM party functionaries. Baffour Osei Akoto warned of a possible civil war and a U.K. newspaper described the situation as
"an unseen stealthy backstreet war being waged on Chicago lines with gunmen in fast cars, rifle, shotguns home-made bombs and broken bottles and knives".<ref>{{Citation|title=If All ... Battles ... Were as Well Described|work=The North Reports the Civil War|year=1955|pages=585–612|publisher=University of Pittsburgh Press|doi=10.2307/j.ctt9qh6rh.26|isbn=978-0-8229-7430-7}}</ref><ref>{{Citation|last=Kattelman|first=Beth A.|title=Where Were You When the Lights Went Out?|work=Theatre and Ghosts|year=2014|publisher=Palgrave Macmillan|doi=10.1057/9781137345073_6 |isbn=978-1-137-34507-3|s2cid=183142259 }}</ref>

*The role of Hon. B. E. Dwira in the CPP (CONVENTION PEOPLE'S PARTY).*
Hon. B. E. Dwira (Benjamin Emmanuel Dwira) was the Ashanti Regional Chairman of the CPP, even before the demarcation of the Brong-Ahafo region in April 1959. It was during his regional chairmanship and leadership in Ashanti, that the civil unrest broke out between the CPP and the break away group that largely formed the NLM (National Liberation Movement), as "ya te yeho" or "ma te meho" (literally, "we have broken away" or "we have segregated/separated ourselves" or "I have segregated/separated myself". This led to more brutal, dastard, brazen attacks from the NLM as opposition so-called, against the CPP, particularly in Ahanti Region. Many CPP activists as "Action Troopers", were killed by the NLM functionaries. Hon. B. E. Dwira, personally laid to rest at least 47 out of the 49&nbsp; CPP "Action Troopers" killed by the NLM functionaries.

There were more widespread killings perpetrated and committed by the NLM functionaries against the CPP party members at various locations in Ashanti region, some of which Hon. B. E. Dwira could not get to the bereaved family to help lay the dead to rest. Hon. B. E. Dwira's house was bombed or dynamited by the NLM functionaries, and his publishing company that published and printed the "Ashanti Sentinel"; a newspaper that he founded to promote the CPP and Prime Minister Osagyefo Dr. Kwame Nkrumah's ideologies, programmes, policies, and projects for [[Ghana]] (then Gold Coast) and [[Africa]] was bombed and burnt to the ground by the NLM functionaries.

So much harm and hurt and mayhem did the NLM cause the CPP in [[Ashanti Region|Ashanti region]] that most of the CPP members fled [[Ashanti Region|Ashanti region]] to other towns, villages and cities, in other parts of the country where they were known as "refugees". It was at the height of these political disturbances, disputations, disruptions, destructions and killings perpetrated by the NLM against the CPP members that the 1956 general elections was held to determine which party should lead the country into independence.

Hon. B. E. Dwira, organised the CPP "refugees" on the eve of the election day to come in buses and vans and trains to [[Ashanti Region]] and vote and after go back into hiding if they feared for their lives. The CPP won 8 out of the 21 seats in the elections thereby denying the NLM of the 2/3 (two-thirds) majority in [[Ashanti Region|Ashanti region]] that they had hoped to win; a condition set by the British government to determine the popularity and favourite party to lead the country into independence. On the national level, the CPP won 71 majority out of the 104 seats inclusive of the 8 seats in Ashanti region.

The CPP was given the mandate to lead the country into independence which happened the following year on 6 March 1957. The Prime Minister of [[Ghana]], Osagyefo Dr. Kwame Nkrumah, was full of gratitude and praise to Hon. B. E. Dwira for the brave leadership and chairmanship that he exhibited and demonstrated to help the CPP win the general elections thereby paving the way for Ghana's independence.

A photograph of [[Kwame Nkrumah]] congratulating and thanking Hon. B. E. Dwira in a handshake for the no mean feat achieved was taken at the house of Parliament at Accra in the presence of Hon. Kojo Botsio, E. R. T. Madjitey (first Ghanaian IGP) and others after the election results were declared.

A ballad was also composed in honour of B. E. Dwira dubbed "OKOKODUROFO DWIRA" (BRAVE DWIRA), which was played on air at the Ghana Broadcasting Corporation, during every independence day celebrations and occasion. Hon. B. E. Dwira, was appointed the first Mayor of [[Kumasi]] (then called Chairman of Kumasi City Council) soon after independence in 1957. There are many other positions that Hon. B. E. Dwira held both at home in [[Ghana]] and abroad under the CPP led government and political administration.

He died on 28 March 1985 having contributed so much to his dearly beloved country, [[Ghana]]. He was born on Sunday, 19 September 1909, a day after [[Kwame Nkrumah]] was also born, on Saturday, 18 September 1909. Note: Nkrumah's birthday of 18 September 1909 changed to 21 September 1909, as a result of a mistake in a later registration, which he came to accept himself, since for him it didn't make much difference to his life.

The Governor, Sir Charles Arden-Clarke was pelted with stones when he went to [[Kumasi]] to mediate and seek an end to the violence.  Kofi Banda was shot by a gunman from the Palace of the Chief of Ejisu – a crime for which no one was convicted. Krobo Edusei's sister was shot while preparing food for her children at home and Nkrumah's home in Accra New Town was bombed.<ref name="ReferenceB"/>

The CPP was keen to avoid the ‘Guyana trap’ that would reverse the gains made since 1951 and so its leadership urged restraint. Fourteen months after closing the party's offices in [[Kumasi]], the CPP decided to re-open it and predictably, the occasion was met with violence perpetrated by the NLM. This time, the CPP responded and faced the NLM squarely.<ref>{{Cite journal|date=2012-07-25|editor-last=Graham|editor-first=Scott|title=Let's hope roles dovetail and avoid duplication|journal=Nursing Standard|volume=26|issue=47|pages=1|doi=10.7748/ns.26.47.1.s1|pmid=28072175|issn=0029-6570}}</ref> By December 1955 over 850 cases of assault had been reported in [[Kumasi]] alone of which less than a third had been brought to the courts.
The country was to be put through a protracted debate about federalism which had not been part of any discussion in the Coussey Constitutional proposals or in the most transparent and collective constitutional process of 1954.<ref name="ReferenceD">{{Cite journal|title=Nassir wondered what things would have been like if he had been a country musician instead|doi=10.22582/am.v14i1.272.g668}}</ref>

Three times the NLM refused to attend a meeting with the Governor and Nkrumah to discuss their grievances. The government set up a parliamentary select committee to discuss the NLM's grievances – the opposition in the Assembly, led by Mr S. D. Dombo walked out and NLM boycotted the hearings of the select committee. The Governor went to [[Kumasi]] but he was stoned and humiliated.<ref>{{Cite journal|date=2011|title=Parliamentary Joint Select Committee on Gambling Reform: First Report|doi=10.1037/e504782012-001}}</ref>

Dr K. A. Busia travelled to London to see the Minister of State Alex Lennox-Boyd and requested that a constitutional expert be sent to mediate and yet, the NLM refused to co-operate with Sir [[Frederick Chalmers Bourne|Frederick Bourne]] when he arrived in [[Ghana]]. Although his recommendations were not favourable to the CPP by any means Sir Frederick described the NLM's demands as "an extreme form of federation" which "would introduce an intolerable handicap to the administration of the country".<ref name="auto1">{{Citation|title=Busia, Dr Kofi Abrefa, (11 July 1913 – 28 Aug. 1978), Prime Minister of Ghana, 1969–72|date=2007-12-01|work=Who Was Who|publisher=Oxford University Press|doi=10.1093/ww/9780199540884.013.u152838}}</ref>

The NLM was invited to the [[Achimota]] conference to discuss Sir Frederick Bourne's recommendations but refused to attend and instead insisted on a constituent assembly to draft a new federal constitution.<ref>{{Citation|title=6. Constituent assemblies|date=1978-01-31|work=Economic Constitution of Federal States|pages=62–67|place=Toronto|publisher=University of Toronto Press|doi=10.3138/9781442632424-007|isbn=978-1-4426-3242-4}}</ref>

In the end, Secretary of State for the Colonies decided that the only way to settle the matter was through the will of the people and felt it necessary to hold one last election in 1956. The NLM happily accepted this challenge hoping that the alliances they had built with the other opposition parties would enable them secure victory at the polls.<ref>{{Cite journal|date=1982|journal=Parliamentary Affairs|doi=10.1093/oxfordjournals.pa.a054322|issn=1460-2482|title=Election Campaigns and Opinion Polls: British Political Parties and the Use of Private Polls}}</ref>

===The 1956 elections===
The stage was set for settlement, once and for all, the opposing views of how an independent [[Ghana]] would be governed.  Once again, Mr K. A. Gbedemah led the CPP campaign and challenged the NLM's call for a federal constitution and revealed their true intentions by declaring:, "[w]hat they [NLM] want and have never been able to say openly is that THEY should be in office and not the C.P.P.".<ref>{{Cite journal|last=Weiss|first=Thomas G.|date=2009-01-24|title=Once Again Never Again?|journal=Amsterdam Law Forum|volume=1|issue=2|pages=29|doi=10.37974/alf.56|s2cid=155045474|issn=1876-8156|doi-access=free}}</ref>

Despite the NLM's argument that federalism was a natural way of organizing Ghana's regional and tribal groupings, when it had the opportunity to draft a new constitution for [[Ghana]] in 1969 it proposed a unitary form of government and conveniently side-stepped all of its previous arguments in favor of federation; regional assemblies were not established in the second republic neither were the fixed farm gate prices for cocoa reversed. Much of the basis of the NLM's violent campaign does not appear to been based on any principles but rooted, as Gbedemah had argued, in a deep-seated dislike for the CPP and Nkrumah.<ref>{{Citation|last=Chester|first=Lucy P.|title=Nobody had been paying any attention to the case|date=2017-03-01|work=Borders and conflict in South Asia|publisher=Manchester University Press|doi=10.7765/9781526117632.00014|isbn=978-1-5261-1763-2}}</ref><ref>{{Cite journal|title=Figure 2—figure supplement 1. Puzzle task examples.|doi=10.7554/elife.28974.005|doi-access=free}}</ref>

In the course of the 1956 campaign, Gbedemah declared that if the CPP were defeated in the 1956 elections it would happily be a [[loyal opposition]] to an NLM government and he challenged that leader of the NLM, Dr Busia to give a similar undertaking. In a portent of how the opposition would behave post-independence, Dr. Busia openly declared instead that the NLM would "take steps IN and OUT of the Legislative Assembly" against the CPP, which he described as "evil".<ref name="ReferenceD"/>

The CPP election machine sprang into action, confident of a decisive result but taking no chances. As on previous occasions, the party manifesto was brief, summed up in just seventeen words: Do I want Independence in my life-time? Or do I want to revert to feudalism and imperialism?’ The impractical, divisive option of federalism in a country the size of Ghana was not allowed to cloud the issue.<ref>{{Citation|last1=George-Graves|first1=Nadine|title=What do Women Want, My God, What do they Want?|date=2015-08-01|work=The Oxford Handbook of Dance and Theater|publisher=Oxford University Press|isbn=978-0-19-991749-5|last2=Miranda|first2=Krista K.|doi=10.1093/oxfordhb/9780199917495.013.26}}</ref>

In June 1956, the CPP recorded another impressive victory winning 71 seats including all 44 seats in the Colony and 8 out of the 21 in Ashanti. The NLM failed to win a single seat outside Ashanti. However, for all their appeal to Ashanti nationalism, the CPP won 43 percent of the votes cast in Ashanti, proving once again that although the NLM was predominantly an Ashanti party, not all Ashantis were NLM supporters.<ref name="Thompson 1995 12–50"/>

Once again Dr J. B. Danquah failed to win his seat but that was not the only familiar outcome: again the NLM refused to accept the results of democratic elections and proceeded to derail the transitional plans toward independence. With twisted logic argued that the distribution of the votes in the 1956 election vindicated their position for a federal constitution because the CPP did not win a majority in Ashanti or the Northern Territories.<ref name="ReferenceC"/><ref>{{Cite book|last=Chipp, T. F. (Thomas Ford)|title=The forest officers' handbook of the Gold Coast, Ashanti and the Northern Territories|date=1922|publisher=Published for the Government of the Gold Coast by the Crown Agents for the Colonies|oclc=9676100}}</ref>

==Defeating the NLM separatists and threats of partition==

After the election, Nkrumah tabled the motion for independence on 3 August 1956 but NLM members of the Assembly, including Dr K. A. Busia, Mr Joe Appiah and Mr [[R. R. Amponsah]] walked out in protest and the motion passed 72-0.  As [[Richard Rathbone]] put it: "The newly elected opposition appeared unwilling to accept the results of the election which they signified by walking out of the first session of the newly elected Legislative Assembly. The NLM, once again resorted to its tried and trusted tactics of boycott, lobbying to [[London]] and threatening secession.  … The NLM continued to suggest that it would refuse to operate as a loyal opposition…"<ref>{{Cite journal|last=Jones|first=J. Barry|date=1999|title=The First Welsh National Assembly Election|journal=Government and Opposition|volume=34|issue=3|pages=323–332|doi=10.1111/j.1477-7053.1999.tb00484.x|s2cid=143996304 |issn=0017-257X}}</ref> Just as Dr K. A. Busia had promised during the election campaign.
Nonetheless, soon after CPP government tabling the motion for independence, the Asante Youth Association (AYA) sent a telegram to the Secretary of State for the Colonies on 13 August 1956 stating among other things that "since the C.P.P. Government have declared themselves unwilling to call for consultations before the Motion calling for Independence, [this] shall be considered by Ashanti as repealing the Order in Council of 1901 which annexed Ashanti to the British Crown. Ashanti shall then be Sovereign and Independent state within the Commonwealth."<ref>{{Citation|last=Busia|first=K. A.|title=The Ashanti Confederacy Council|date=2018-08-16|work=The Position of the Chief in the Modern Political System of Ashanti|pages=165–195|publisher=Routledge|doi=10.4324/9781351030823-8|isbn=978-1-351-03082-3|s2cid=217156642}}</ref>

Despite the crushing defeat at the polls, the opposition continued to push for a federal union and made representations to the secretary of Secretary of State for the Colonies in [[London]] and called for a royal commission to look into their grievances and for a postponement of independence until it had reported. This time the British Government refused to indulge the opposition and rejected calls to postpone independence.<ref>{{Citation|title=Declaration of Independence Rejected Slavery Clause (28 June 1776)|date=2009-09-30|work=African American Studies Center|publisher=Oxford University Press|doi=10.1093/acref/9780195301731.013.33576|isbn=978-0-19-530173-1}}</ref> On 17 September 1956, in response to a formal request from the CPP to the British Secretary of State to name a firm date for Independence, the Governor informed Nkrumah that 6 March 1957 had been decided upon. Amid scenes of jubilation, the news was given to the Assembly by Nkrumah on the following day 18 September 1956.<ref>{{Cite journal|date=2019-05-17|journal=Camden |series=Fifth Series|volume=57|pages=139–156|doi=10.1017/s0960116319000150|issn=0960-1163|title=X: Secretary of State for Burma Until Independence: 1947–1948|s2cid=233336955 }}</ref>

The opposition modified their position and demanded constitutional safeguards in the form of regional autonomy and a second chamber among others. The secretary of state persuaded the CPP to negotiate and following lengthy consultations with the opposition, the Asanteman and the territorial Councils, the CPP published on 8 November 1956, what became known was the Revised Constitutional Proposals for the Gold Coast. While the government accepted a measure of devolution it limited the powers of Regional Assemblies and refused to accept the opposition's call for an undertaking that Ashanti's borders would remain inviolable.<ref>{{Cite journal|last=Goodhart|first=C. A. E.|date=2002|title=The Constitutional Position of an Independent Central Bank|journal=Government and Opposition|volume=37|issue=2|pages=190–210|doi=10.1111/1477-7053.00094|s2cid=143386652|issn=0017-257X}}</ref>

In response to the publication of the constitutional proposals, AYA ran a daily half-page advert in the Liberator (the mouthpiece of the NLM) from 9-15 Nov 1956 which declared "ASHANTI AND THE N.T.’S WILL SECEDE FROM GHANA".<ref>{{Cite journal|last1=Apiors|first1=Emmanuel|last2=Suzuki|first2=Aya|date=2018-05-03|title=Mobile Money, Individuals' Payments, Remittances, and Investments: Evidence from the Ashanti Region, Ghana|journal=Sustainability|volume=10|issue=5|pages=1409|doi=10.3390/su10051409|issn=2071-1050|doi-access=free|bibcode=2018Sust...10.1409A }}</ref>

On 18 November 1956, the opposition NLM and the Northern People's Party forwarded a joint resolution to the Secretary of State for the colonies stating:

{{blockquote|"In view of the failure to reach agreement on the constitution we now ask for separate independence for Ashanti and the Northern Territories and for a Partition Commission to divide assets and liabilities of the Gold Coast among its component territories"<ref>{{Cite book|last=Chipp|first=Thomas Ford|title=Forest officers' handbook of the Gold Coast, Ashanti and the Northern Territories.|date=1922|publisher=Waterlow & sons limited|location=London [etc.]|doi=10.5962/bhl.title.45233|url=https://www.biodiversitylibrary.org/bibliography/45233}}</ref>}}

Crucially, the Asanteman Council endorsed this call for partition by requesting that the [[United Kingdom]] take all necessary steps to grant separate independence for Asante and the Northern Territories on 6 March 1957.  Opposition members bragged that they retained the services of lawyers in [[London]] to draw up the necessary legal documents for secession, apply for membership of the [[United Nations]] and plans were underway to build a £500,000 House of Parliament in Ashanti.<ref>{{Cite book|last=Walling|first=Carrie Booth|title=All Necessary Measures|date=2013-07-01|publisher=University of Pennsylvania Press|doi=10.9783/9780812208474|isbn=978-0-8122-0847-4}}</ref>

The CPP was well aware that NLM were only seeking to delay the transition to independence and although it stuck to its guns on the powers on regional assemblies, it compromised on issues relating to future amendments to the Ghana Constitution in the full knowledge that a sovereign and elected national parliament could reverse them, if they were deemed unworkable after independence.<ref>{{Citation|title=Amendments to the Constitution|date=2009-11-15|work=The Annotated U.S. Constitution and Declaration of Independence|pages=219–308|publisher=Harvard University Press|doi=10.2307/j.ctvjk2xzn.7|hdl=2027/hvd.32044103234373|isbn=978-0-674-05447-9|hdl-access=free}}</ref>

So it was that the "Ghana (Constitution) Order in Council", 1957 was agreed.

==Independence==

At midnight on 5/6 March 1957, on the Polo Ground in [[Accra]], Nkrumah proclaimed the Independence of [[Ghana]], To cries of FREEDOM! FREEDOM! FREEDOM! from the huge crowd the British flag was lowered, and the red, green gold flag of [[Ghana]] was raised in its place.
It was the climax of the CPP's epic campaign to bring colonial rule to an end.<ref>{{Citation|title=Appendix B: Journalism Freedom: 1980 to 2008 (Country Ratings from Freedom House) - Ghana|encyclopedia=Encyclopedia of Journalism|year=2009|location=Thousand Oaks, CA|publisher=SAGE Publications, Inc.|doi=10.4135/9781412972048.n512|isbn=9780761929574}}</ref>

The party's first objective, the battle for political freedom had been won, without resort to arms. In the words of Nkrumah on that historic night:
"At long last the battle has ended. And thus [[Ghana]], your beloved country is free for ever."
But there would be further battles in the years ahead to build a new Ghana and to achieve Pan- African objectives. The struggle for economic independence and social justice was only just beginning.<ref>{{Citation|title=Appendix B: Journalism Freedom: 1980 to 2008 Country Ratings from Freedom House Ghana|encyclopedia=Encyclopedia of Journalism|date=2009 |location=Thousand Oaks, CA|publisher=SAGE Publications, Inc.|doi=10.4135/9781412972048.n512|isbn=9780761929574}}</ref>

===Continued threats to national security===

Even after independence, the NLM continued with violence in [[Kumasi]] and there was evidence of arms smuggling across the border from [[Ivory Coast]] to western Asante. Over 5,000 people originally living in Ashanti had been exiled as result of the NLM's violence.<ref>{{Citation|last=Heitz|first=Kathrin|title=Recollections from the times of Independence. Talks with elderly people in western Ivory Coast|date=2013|work=Les indépendances en Afrique|pages=421–435|publisher=Presses universitaires de Rennes|doi=10.4000/books.pur.112349|isbn=978-2-7535-2749-2}}</ref>

While preparations for independence were underway, supporters of the Togoland Congress were busy setting up military training camps in Alavanyo as part of a plot of violent disturbances with elements of the NLM The police moved in to dismantle the camp and in the ensuing riots, three people were killed.  Two members of parliament – S. G. Antor and Mr. Kojo Ayeke – were tried, found guilty and sentenced to six years imprisonment but their convictions were quashed on appeal on a technicality.<ref>{{Cite journal|last1=Jeffery|first1=Bob|last2=Tufail|first2=Waqas|date=2014-01-01|title=The Riots Were Where the Police Were|journal=Contention|volume=2|issue=2|doi=10.3167/cont.2014.020204|issn=2572-7184|doi-access=free}}</ref>

In the meantime a group of young men in [[Accra]] led by Attoh Quarshie formed the Ga Shifimo Kpee ostensibly to defend the interests of the Ga. However this organisation soon took on a violent character, particularly through its revolutionary wing called the ‘Tokyo Joes’ of unemployed school leavers with criminal elements thrown in. They too sympathized with the NLM whose leadership was in attendance at their formal launch in [[Accra]] on 7 July 1957.{{citation needed|date=October 2020}} Members of the Ga Shifimo Kpee circulated forged cabinet papers purporting to show the government was deliberately acting against the interests of the people from the North, the [[Volta Region|Volta region]] and [[Accra]] in an attempt to fan tribal hatred and disturbances.  Intelligence services reported discussions of assassination attempts and plans to kidnap senior members of the cabinet at their meetings, which members of the opposition NLM attended.<ref>{{Cite journal|title=Level of disclosure of private interests by ministers of cabinet members|doi=10.1787/888932709966}}</ref>

In response, CPP supporters in [[Accra]] set up a rival group, the Ga Ekomefeemo Kpee, and the two inevitably clashed notably in a demonstration outside Parliament on 20 August 1957 which led to several people being injured.<ref>{{Cite journal|title= J.C.H.R. News Release - JCHR has noted reports in the media which indicated that several independent candidates were prevented from being nominated by crowds of Jamaica labour Party supporters Dec. 2, 1983, 2 pp.|date=1983|journal=Human Rights Documents Online|doi=10.1163/2210-7975_hrd-0560-0084}}</ref>

In less than year after independence members of the opposition leaders were talking about unseating the government. As early as December 1957, the leader of the opposition NLM. Dr K. A Busia was secretly soliciting funds from the United States government to undermine and destabilize the elected government of his own country.<ref>{{Cite journal|title=guatemalan-opposition-leader-accuses-government-of-destabilizing-the-country-aug-4-1980-2-pp|journal=Human Rights Documents Online|doi=10.1163/2210-7975_hrd-1224-0092}}</ref> According to Mr Wilson Flake, then the US Ambassador to [[Ghana]] (see Foreign Relations, 1955–1957, Volume XVIII, pages 387–388),  the leader of the opposition and member of Parliament approached him and requested "25 thousand dollars in the US to purchase vehicles and hire party workers to offset "dangerous indoctrination" being given by CPP agents who have unlimited funds." This behaviour would have been intolerable in any country.<ref name="ReferenceD"/>

One foreign journalist J. H. Huizinga reported in an Israeli newspaper one such conversation which apparently took place in the first half of 1958:
" In spite of all its professed concerned for democracy, Ghana's Opposition sometimes betrays curious conceptions of the role the servants of the State should play in the political life of the country. Thus, one of its leading members told me that he would welcome a military coup d'état to unseat Nkrumah."<ref>{{Citation|title=Clientelism and Its Determinants|date=2005-08-29|work=Democracy without Competition in Japan|pages=64–89|publisher=Cambridge University Press|doi=10.1017/cbo9780511610660.004|isbn=978-0-521-84692-9}}</ref>

A number of Government intelligence reports confirmed these rumours including one that quite accurately revealed plans coup d'etat involving prominent members of the opposition with assistance from members of the Ghana Army sometime between 13 and 31 December.
Not too long after these reports the security services were tipped off by staff at Badges and & Equipment, a London shop dealing in the sale of military accoutrements, that a man who styled himself as "John Walker", had purchased replica officer uniforms, badges of rank and belts of the type used by the Ghana Army.<ref>{{Citation|title=Crozier, Brig.-Gen. Frank Percy, (1879–31 Aug. 1937), (Hon. Maj.-Gen. Lithuanian Army); late Inspector General Lithuanian Army, and Military Adviser to the Lithuanian Government|date=2007-12-01|work=Who Was Who|publisher=Oxford University Press|doi=10.1093/ww/9780199540884.013.u208138}}</ref> It was established that the afore-mentioned "John Walker" was Mr R. R. Amponsah, general secretary of the United Party who ordered the replica military accoutrements to be shipped to Lome and delivered through relatives of another opposition member, Mr. Modesto K Apaloo, a member of parliament and former deputy opposition leader of the Legislative Assembly.<ref>{{Citation|title=Macartney, Dr (William John) Allan, (17 Feb. 1941 – 25 Aug. 1998), Member (SNP) North East Scotland, European Parliament, since 1994; Deputy Leader, Scottish National Party, since 1992|date=2007-12-01|work=Who Was Who|publisher=Oxford University Press|doi=10.1093/ww/9780199540884.013.u180128}}</ref>

The order of replica Ghana army uniforms, badges of rank and belts by senior members of the opposition might appear innocuous, but they immediately reminded the government and the security services of what happened to the Burmese government in 1946. Members of the opposition members to the government of Burma, dressed in replica uniform of the Burmese army, commandeered an army vehicle, stormed the cabinet room and murdered 14 cabinet ministers.<ref>{{Cite journal|last=Weller|first=Patrick|date=2018-05-24|title=Prime Ministers and Cabinet Government|journal=Oxford Scholarship Online|volume=1 |doi=10.1093/oso/9780199646203.003.0006}}</ref> It later transpired that the opposition had attempted to recruit the Ghanaian commandant at Giffard (now Burma) Camp, Major Benjamin Ahwaitey and other NCOs in the Ghana Army to engage in a similar plot.<ref>{{Cite book|last=Bucy|first=Russell A.|date=2000-05-15|title=Army Base Operations and 0MB A-76: Save Now - Pay Later?|location=Fort Belvoir, VA|doi=10.21236/ada383591}}</ref>

A quasi-judicial Commission set up by the government and chaired by Justice Granville Sharp found unanimously that both Apaloo and Amponsah had "engaged in a conspiracy to carry out at some future date in [[Ghana]] an act for unlawful purpose, revolutionary in character." Majority of the Commission held that Major Benjamin Awhaitey, Mr R. R. Amponsah, Mr. Modesto Apaloo and Mr. John Mensah Anthony (half-brother of Apaloo), were engaged in a conspiracy to assassinate the Prime Minister, Dr Kwame Nkrumah, and to carry out a coup d'état.<ref>{{Cite journal|last=APALOO|first=J.|title=Inaccessible Continuously Stable Strategies|date=2008-06-28|journal=Natural Resource Modeling|volume=18|issue=4|pages=521–535|doi=10.1111/j.1939-7445.2005.tb00170.x|s2cid=153465290 |issn=0890-8575|doi-access=free}}</ref>

In response to these and other disturbances and events, the CPP government took a number of landmark decisions to preserve the security of the state, all of which were subject to extensive debates in parliament and voting.<ref>{{Citation|last=Giannetti|first=Daniela|editor1-first=Jon|editor1-last=Elster|title=Secret Voting in the Italian Parliament|work=Secrecy and Publicity in Votes and Debates|year=2015|pages=108–130|place=Cambridge|publisher=Cambridge University Press|doi=10.1017/cbo9781316015360.006|isbn=978-1-316-01536-0}}</ref>

1. Alhaji Amadu Baba the Zerikin Zongo and Alhaji Othman Larden Lalemi key leaders of the Moslem Association Party who helped the NLM orchestrate violence in Ashanti were deported in line with colonial precedent of sending such unsavoury characters back to their countries of origin. Both men were shown by Justice Sarkodee Addo's Commission (investigating the Kumasi State Council and the Asanteman Council) to have been deeply mired in NLM's violence in Ashanti region and in recruiting non-Ghanaians to carry out acts of terrorism.<ref>{{Citation|last1=Armitage|first1=Cecil Hamilton|work=The Ashanti Campaign of 1900|pages=97–106|place=Cambridge|publisher=Cambridge University Press|isbn=978-1-139-05803-2|last2=Montanaro|first2=Arthur Forbes|title=The March Out from Kumasi|year=2011|doi=10.1017/cbo9781139058032.012}}</ref>

2. The Government set up commissions of inquiry headed by senior judges into affairs of the Abuakwa State Council, Kumasi State Council and the Asanteman Council and they found that in many cases, public money had been illegally diverted to fund the violent activities of NLM's Action Troopers.<ref>{{Cite journal|date=2009-03-18|title=State Council Directory|journal=Juvenile Court Judges Journal|volume=13|issue=1|pages=53–56|doi=10.1111/j.1755-6988.1962.tb00325.x|issn=0022-7153}}</ref>

3. To quell the outbreak of violence and disorder along tribal lines, the Government introduced the Avoidance of Discrimination Act to prohibit the establishment of political parties based solely on ethnic, racial or religious grounds. The Act's immediate impact was to trigger the merger of the NLM, [[Northern People's Party]] (NPP), [[Togoland Congress]], Ga Adangbe Shifomo Kpee combined to form in a single opposition party, the [[United Party (Ghana)|United Party]] (UP).<ref name="The United Wa State Party">{{Citation|title=Relations with the Government and the Opposition|date=2007-12-31|work=The United Wa State Party|pages=46–54|place=Singapore|publisher=ISEAS–Yusof Ishak Institute Singapore|doi=10.1355/9789812304926-008|isbn=978-981-230-492-6}}</ref>

4. In July 1958, the government introduced the Prevention Detention Act to extend the period of pre-trial detention for suspected opposition terrorists, not dissimilar to many of the anti-terrorist legislation passed in countries such as [[United Kingdom]], [[United States of America]], [[Australia]], [[France]] and other countries around the world.<ref>{{Citation|title=Belmarsh in the United Kingdom Courts|work=The Liberty of Non-Citizens : Indefinite Detention in Commonwealth Countries|year=2014|publisher=Hart Publishing|doi=10.5040/9781474201827.ch-006|isbn=978-1-84946-431-4}}</ref>

==CPP – Independent Ghana's first government==

With independence, the CPP government at last had the political power needed to build the economic and social infrastructure necessary for [[Ghana]] to become a modern, progressive state.
The Party inherited an economy developed mainly to serve foreign interests. Education, health and other social needs of the people, improved with the implementation of the CPP's First Development Plan (1951-6), but still fell far below the high standards at which the CPP aimed. Much remained to be done.<ref>{{Citation|last1=Nketiah-Amponsah|first1=Edward|title=State of Ghana's Infrastructure and its Implications for Economic Development|date=2017-02-16|work=The Economy of Ghana Sixty Years after Independence|pages=223–241|publisher=Oxford University Press|isbn=978-0-19-875343-8|last2=Aidam|first2=Patricia Woedem|doi=10.1093/acprof:oso/9780198753438.003.0014}}</ref>

Through Development plans the party was determined to restructure the economy so that the people, through the state would have an effective share in the economy of the country and effective control over it. The needs of the people and not so-called market principles would be the paramount consideration in economic planning.<ref>{{Cite thesis|title=Preaching So People Will Listen: An Analysis Of Design Principles For Effective Communication|publisher=Theological Research Exchange Network (TREN)|first=David A.|last=Daniels|year=2007 |doi=10.2986/tren.001-1192}}</ref>

The Consolidation Plan (1957-9), covered the first two years of Independence, giving time for the government to consolidate in preparation for the launching of a far-reaching Five Year Development Plan (1959–64). Its notable achievements include the establishment of the [[Bank of Ghana]] in July 1957, Black Star Shipping Line with SS Volta River welcomed to home port in December 1957 and opening of Broadcasting House of Radio Ghana early 1958<ref>{{Cite journal|last=Islam|first=Nurul|date=1957-02-01|title=Financing Pakistan's First Five Year Plan|journal=Far Eastern Survey|volume=26|issue=2|pages=17–24|doi=10.2307/3023837|jstor=3023837|issn=0362-8949}}</ref>

The second five-year development plan was launched on 1 July 1959, aimed at (a) achieving economic independence, (b) developing resources to produce a strong, healthy and balanced economy, and (c) reducing economic vulnerability by reducing dependence on cocoa as a single crop.<ref>{{Citation|title=The Second Five Year Plan|date=2012-06-12|work=Soviet Economic Development Since 1917|pages=276–297|publisher=Routledge|doi=10.4324/9780203120828-15|isbn=978-0-203-12082-8}}</ref>

To lay the foundations on which socialism could be built, Ghana's economy was divided into five sectors (with no single person given the exclusive right to produce a commodity in any sector of the economy):
#     State Enterprises;
#     Foreign Private Enterprises;
#     Enterprises jointly owned by the State and foreign private interests;
#     Co-operatives; and
#     Small-scale Ghanaian private enterprise (reserved to Ghanaians to encourage and utilize personal initiative and skill among Ghanaians)<ref>{{Cite thesis|title=A comparative study of productivity and efficiency among State-owned, private and foreign-funded enterprises in China|publisher=The University of Hong Kong Libraries|first=Yuen-wai, Livia|last=Tang|year=2003 |doi=10.5353/th_b2677120}}</ref>

The CPP's major task was rousing the spirit of devotion and sacrifice necessary for the program of development; the rewards of their endeavours being national and individual dignity resulting from the creation and a raised standard of life, that is, wealth with labour. All sections of the community had a part to play in the economic and social revolution. As Nkrumah stated:
"We are now working for [[Ghana]] regardless of party affiliations.<ref>{{Citation|last=Ratner|first=Shanna|title=How Do We Connect with Investors?|date=2019-11-06|work=Wealth Creation|pages=84–101|location=New York|publisher=Routledge|doi=10.4324/9780429289620-6|isbn=978-0-429-28962-0|s2cid=211754555}}</ref> The government will see to it that any sacrifices which the workers, whether by hand or brain, and the farmers may make, will not rob them of the fruits of their labor. The government will ensure that these sacrifices will be made for the benefit of all the people."<ref>{{Citation|date=2014-12-31|work=Do Zombies Dream of Undead Sheep?|pages=ix–x|place=Princeton|publisher=Princeton University Press|doi=10.1515/9781400851928-002|isbn=978-1-4008-5192-8|title=Prelude. Sacrifices Not Made in Vain}}</ref>

The Workers Brigade was formed to absorb 12,000 young men and women among elementary school-leavers, and trained in discipline, responsibility and citizenship, and skills to enable them find employment in agriculture and industry.<ref>{{Citation|last1=Desmarais|first1=Serge|title=Gender differences in employment and income experiences among young people.|work=Young workers: Varieties of experience.|pages=59–88|place=Washington|publisher=American Psychological Association|isbn=1-55798-563-4|last2=Curtis|first2=James|year=1999|doi=10.1037/10309-003}}</ref>

The Ghana Academy of Sciences was established in November 1959 to spearhead Research and Development in [[Ghana]] for modernization of agriculture and industrialization using the country's local raw material.<ref>{{Cite journal|last1=Derbile|first1=Emmanuel K.|last2=File|first2=Dramani J.M.|date=2016-10-17|title=Community risk assessment of rainfall variability under rain-fed agriculture: the potential role of local knowledge in Ghana|journal=Ghana Journal of Development Studies|volume=13|issue=2|pages=66|doi=10.4314/gjds.v13i2.4|issn=0855-6768|doi-access=free}}</ref>

Over 60 new factories opened in 1961 which included; a distillery, a coconut oil factory; a brewery; a milk processing plant; and a lorry and bicycle assembly plant. Agreements signed for the establishment of an oil refinery; an iron and steel works; a flour mill; sugar factory; textile and cement factories in 1961 and the Volta River project was officially launched at [[Akosombo]] in 1961 after successfully negotiating international loans against the active campaign of opposition mounted by Dr. K.A. Busia.<ref>{{Cite journal|last=TAKATSUJI|first=Masamoto|title=Fundamental Study of Plant Factories|date=1989|journal=Plant Factory|volume=1|issue=1|pages=31–47|doi=10.2525/jshita1989.1.31|issn=1884-5312|doi-access=free}}</ref>

In 1961 a new harbor opened and started operating in [[Tema]], and the [[Volta Aluminium Company]] (VALCO) was formed to establish an aluminium smelter at an estimated cost of £100 million in 1962. A Unilever Soap factory started operation at Tema on 24 August 1963.<ref>{{Citation|last=Meijer|first=Maarten|title=Aluminium Smelter Logistics — Can These Bring Real Cost Savings?|date=2011|work=Light Metals 2011|pages=421–423|place=Cham|publisher=Springer International Publishing|doi=10.1007/978-3-319-48160-9_75|isbn=978-3-319-48567-6}}</ref>

===Ghana's Republic===

Three years after Independence, in March 1960, proposals for a republican constitution were published. A plebiscite was then held in April, the result of which made it clear that the people of [[Ghana]] welcomed a republican constitution, and overwhelmingly voted for Nkrumah to become the first president.<ref>{{Citation|date=1966-12-31|work=Law and Social Change in Ghana|pages=390–448|place=Princeton|publisher=Princeton University Press|doi=10.1515/9781400875580-012|isbn=978-1-4008-7558-0|title=Appendix Ii. The Republican Constitution of Ghana. Government Proposals for a Republican Constitution. Selected Legislation}}</ref>

On 1 July 1960, Ghana became a republic. The governor general, [[Lord Listowel]], performed his last duty, the prorogation of parliament. The Republican constitution contained the unique provision that:
"The independence of [[Ghana]] should not be surrendered or diminished on any grounds other than the furtherance of Africa unity, that no person would suffer discrimination on grounds of sex, race, tribe, religion or political belief, and that chieftaincy in [[Ghana]] would be guaranteed and preserved. Freedom and justice would be honored and maintained".<ref>{{Citation|title=Sarkodee-Adoo, Julius, (18 Sept. 1908 – 31 Dec. 1971), Chief Justice, Republic of Ghana, 1964–66 (Judge, Supreme Court, Republic of Ghana, 1960; Puisne Judge, Ghana, 1956)|date=2007-12-01|work=Who Was Who|publisher=Oxford University Press|doi=10.1093/ww/9780199540884.013.u159327}}</ref>

Nkrumah was installed as president at State House on 1 July 1960. On that same day, the new president, accompanied by President Sekou Toure of Guinea and other African leaders, lit the flame of African freedom. This was to be kept burning to symbolize the CPP government's continuing, vigorous Pan-African efforts to bring about the total liberation and unity of the continent.<ref>{{Citation|last=Marah|first=John Karefah|title=From Toussaint L'Ouverture to President Kwame Nkrumah|date=2017-08-09|work=Pan-African Education|pages=128–159|publisher=Routledge|doi=10.4324/9781315162232-9|isbn=978-1-315-16223-2}}</ref>

The second phase of economic transformation
The CPP adopted a program of "Work and Happiness" in 1962 designed to define the lines of national development to be implemented by the seven-year development Plan. The objectives were to build a socialist state devoted to the welfare of the masses, and turning [[Ghana]] into the power house of the African revolution.<ref>{{Citation|title=APPENDIX III. The Second Five Year Plan|date=2015-12-31|work=Tanzania: Party Transformation and Economic Development|pages=474–478|place=Princeton|publisher=Princeton University Press|doi=10.1515/9781400867356-024|isbn=978-1-4008-6735-6}}</ref>

In March 1964, building on the work of previous plans, the Seven Year Development plan was launched. The main tasks of the plan were to:

1. Speed up the growth off the national economy.

2. Embark upon the socialist transformation of the economy through the rapid development of state and co-operative sectors.

3. Eradicate completely the colonial structure of the economy.<ref name="Cheng 135–163">{{Citation|last=Cheng|first=Chu-yuan|title=Socialist Transformation of the Urban Economy|date=2019-03-13|work=China's Economic Development|pages=135–163|publisher=Routledge|doi=10.4324/9780429051975-5|isbn=978-0-429-05197-5|s2cid=195520931}}</ref>

There was to be a period of mixed economy, when a limited private sector would be allowed to operate. During this time, public and co-operative sectors would expand rapidly, particularly in the strategic, productive sectors of the economy. Eventually, with the complete implementation of Development Plans, a fully planned economy and a just society would be established.<ref name="Cheng 135–163"/>

The plan embodied the CPP's Program of Work and Happiness adopted at the party's Congress in July, 1962. A total expenditure £1016.0 million sterling was proposed for the plan out of which the Ghana government was to provide £G475.5 million with an average capital expenditure per year of £G68.0 million; 37.3% on Agriculture and Industry; 62.7% on Social Services and Infrastructure.<ref name="Cheng 135–163"/>

Among the achievements of the period are:

* Establishment of atomic reactor at [[Kwabenya]]
* Aluminium Smelter at [[Tema]]
* Glass Manufacturing Corporation at [[Aboso]]
* Cement works at [[Tema]]
* Government Electronics Industry at [[Tema]]
* Cocoa Processing Factories ([[Takoradi]] and [[Tema]])
* Ghana Publishing Corporation
* Ghana Textile Corporation
* Rattan Factory at [[Asamankese]] in operation in January 1966; five factories at [[Nkawkaw]], [[Enyiresi]], Oppon Valley, Asanwinso and Bobikuma planned to go into operation later in 1966
* Two Coir Fibre Factories with a total capacity each of 990,000 lb. of Coir Fibre and over 1000 lb. of door and floor mats; a factory at Axim with laboratory facilities planned as training centre for Rattan, Bamboo, Coir and wood projects
* Bamboo factories being established as in January 1966 at Manso-Amenfi, [[Assin Foso]] and [[Axim]] to manufacture bamboo cups and trays
* Production to start in 1966 in the following plants: 
* Corned beef factory at [[Bolgatanga]]
* Sugar Factory at [[Akuse]]
* Television Assembly Plant at Tema (Jointly established by the Government of [[Ghana]] and Sanyo planned to be opened in March, 1966)
* Inauguration of completed Volta River Project at Akosombo on 23 January 1966
* 52 State Enterprises in operations<ref>{{Cite journal|last1=Baston|first1=G. D.|last2=Miller|first2=R. L.|date=1966-12-31|title=Unusual operation, KE Reactor, January 16--January 20, 1966|doi=10.2172/10175048|url=https://digital.library.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metadc1386852/}}</ref>

'''Development of industries in all regions''':

* Silos For Food and crop preservation
* Tomato and Mango Factory, [[Wenchi]], [[Brong-Ahafo region|Brong-Ahafo Region]]
* Match Factory, Kade, [[Eastern Region (Ghana)|Eastern Region]]
* Pwalugu Tomato Factory; Upper Region
* Ghana Glass Factory, Aboso and Tarkwa, [[Western Region (Ghana)|Western Region]]
* Akasanoma Radio Factory, Greater-Accra Region
* Gold Processing Factory, Prestea, [[Western Region (Ghana)|Western Region]]
* Meat Processing Factory, [[Bolgatanga]], Upper Region
* Dairy Farm at Amrahia and Avatime
* Paper Processing Factory, Takoradi, [[Western Region (Ghana)|Western Region]]
* Pomadze Poultry Farm, [[Central Region (Ghana)|Central Region]]
* Ghana Cement Factory, [[Sekondi-Takoradi|Takoradi]], [[Western Region (Ghana)|Western Region]]
* Ghana Household Utilities Manufacture, Sekondi, [[Western Region (Ghana)|Western Region]]
* Tema Steel Company, [[Greater Accra Region|Greater-Accra Region]]
* Nsawam Fruit Cannery – [[Greater Accra Region|Greater-Accra Region]]

'''State hotels''':

* Continental, Star, Meridian, Ambassador, [[Greater Accra Region|Greater-Accra Region]]
* Atlantic Hotel, [[Western Region (Ghana)|Western Region]]
* City Hotel, [[Ashanti Region]]
* Catering Rest Houses, Regional Capitals
* Ghana Black Star Line with almost fifteen ships, Takoradi and [[Tema]]
* Ghana Distilleries, [[Greater Accra Region|Greater-Accra Region]]
* Ghana Shoe Factory Kumasi, [[Ashanti Region]]
* Ghana Jute Factory, [[Kumasi]], [[Ashanti Region]]
* Tema Food Complex, [[Greater Accra Region|Greater-Accra Region]]

'''Infrastructure''':

* [[Ghana Atomic Energy Commission]]
* [[Tema Harbour]] and Tema Township 
* [[Akosombo Dam]] (Ghana paid half of the £70 million) 
* Accra -Tema Motorway (originally meant to go through Kumasi to Paga) 
* Accra International Airport -Refurbishment
* Peduasi Lodge for conferences 
* Farmers Council 
* Workers Brigade 
* National Management and Productivity Institute 
* New Army Headquarters in Ho, [[Sunyani]], [[Bolgatanga]], and Takoradi

'''National institutions''':

* Ghana Film Industries Accra
* Ghana Airways Corporation
* Ghana National Trading Corporation
* Cocoa Purchasing Company
* [[Bank of Ghana]]
* National Investment Banks
* Ghana Commercial Bank
* Agricultural Credit and Cooperative Bank (later, Agricultural Development Bank)

The austerity budget and the 1961 workers strike 
In 1961 the CPP government introduced an austerity budget to counter declining world price of cocoa while maintaining planned capital expenditure on economic expansion and industrialisation, including [[Tema Harbour]] and the new township, new industries such as the steelworks, new housing, and new schools, among others.  In response to increases in duty on consumer goods and the introduction of a compulsory saving scheme to quell rising inflation, the railways workers organized a strike to register their opposition to the austerity measures in the budget.<ref>{{Cite journal|date=2018|title=TUNISIA: Tough New Budget Sparks Austerity Protests|journal=Africa Research Bulletin: Economic, Financial and Technical Series|volume=54|issue=12|pages=21963C–21965B|doi=10.1111/j.1467-6346.2018.08106.x|issn=0001-9852}}</ref>

Nkrumah was out of the country at the time, and a delegation of the cabinet sought a meeting with representatives of the Unions but the leaders of the strike refused to meet and the government declared a state of emergency in response to what was an illegal strike under the 1958 Industrial Relations Act. After this, many workers returned to work except in [[Sekondi-Takoradi|Sekondi –Takoradi]] and surrounding areas.<ref>{{Citation|last=Gall|first=Gregor|title=Strike Propensity and Strike Potency|date=2017-11-01|work=The Meaning of Militancy?|pages=131–163|publisher=Routledge|doi=10.4324/9781315196060-7|isbn=978-1-315-19606-0}}</ref>

As time wore on, it became clear that the union leadership had been infiltrated and come under the influence of the opposition United Party. Two leading members of the strike – Ishmaila Annan and Atta Bordoh – were executive members of the United Party in the Western region. Ishmaila Annan had been a member of the Moslem Association Party (before it became part of the U.P.) and was closely associated with the deported Amadu Baba, who orchestrated much of the NLM's violence in the run-up to independence.<ref>{{Citation|title=Annan, Kofi Atta, (born 1938), President, Kofi Annan Foundation, since 2007; Secretary-General, United Nations, 1997–2006|date=2007-12-01|work=Who's Who|publisher=Oxford University Press|doi=10.1093/ww/9780199540884.013.u5557}}</ref>

A week after the strike was declared, the executive of the opposition United Party met in Dr Danquah's House in [[Accra]]. Present at the meeting were the strike leaders, Ishmaila Annan and Atta Bordoh ostensibly in their capacity as party executives and not as trade unionists or strike organisers. However, as Dr J. B. Danquah was later to confirm, the central issues for discussion at the meeting were the railway strike and the 1961-1962 budget.<ref>{{Cite journal|title=taiwanese-opposition-leaders-on-hunger-strike-may-6-1984-1-p|journal=Human Rights Documents Online|doi=10.1163/2210-7975_hrd-1258-0052}}</ref>

At the end of the meeting, the United Party executives issued a press statement calling on the government to recall parliament and revise the budget or resign. In public, however the opposition did not condemn the illegal strike but criticized the government for failing to control it. A week after the executive meeting of the United Party, Dr J. B. Danquah travelled to Sekondi to meet with the strike leaders in Kwesi Lamptey's house in Fijai Secondary School.<ref name="The United Wa State Party"/> Those present included members of the United Party executive, and far from seeking to resolve the dispute, the meeting discussed how to steel the nerves of the striking workers and to persuade them to continue with the dispute and not to respond to Nkrumah's overtures after he had returned from his trip – these included ending the state of emergency and releasing persons arrested.<ref>{{Citation|last1=de Cieza de Leon|first1=Pedro|title=How Tupac Inca again set out from Cuzco, and of the fierce war he waged with those of Huarco; and how, after he had conquered them, he returned to Cuzco|work=Second Part of the Chronicle of Peru|pages=189–193|place=Cambridge|publisher=Cambridge University Press|isbn=978-0-511-69769-2|last2=Markham|first2=Clements R.|year=2010|doi=10.1017/cbo9780511697692.059}}</ref>

It later transpired that members of the opposition helped draft and paid for telegrams on behalf of the unions (using fictional unions names and a private mail bag address belonging to Ishmaili Annan) to International Railway and Maritime workers unions in Nigeria, U.S. and U.K. requesting for funds ostensibly to ensure the "survival of parliamentary democracy"  in [[Ghana]].<ref>{{Citation|title=5. Employees' Unions: An Experiment in Union Democracy|date=2011-01-31|work=Workers, Unions, and Global Capitalism|place=New York Chichester, West Sussex|publisher=Columbia University Press|doi=10.7312/hens14800-006|isbn=978-0-231-51956-4}}</ref> The strike was no longer about workers’ grievances against the 1961 budget, but the survival of parliamentary democracy in [[Ghana]]. It became clear that not only were the U.P. financing the strike, they were involved in the design of an illegal activity that soon took on a politically subversive tone.<ref>{{Citation|title=4. "The very instruments of democracy are often used to oppress them" The Right to Strike during the Progressive Era|date=2019-12-31|work=If the Workers Took a Notion|pages=64–83|place=Ithaca, NY|publisher=Cornell University Press|doi=10.7591/9781501727528-005|isbn=978-1-5017-2752-8|s2cid=240894175}}</ref>

Dr. K.A. Busia, who was in self-imposed exile moved to Lome to provide proximate support to the strikers and subversives, and he was joined by a number of opposition leaders including Obetsebi-Lamptey and Ekow Richardson. Dr. Busia disclosed he had been offered £50,000 to fight the democratically elected government of his country.<ref name="auto1"/>

The government discovered that among the plans of the Lome group was a series of bomb explosions to be launched from neighbouring Togo on national monuments and at the residences of prominent ministers orchestrated by the personal assistant to K. A. Gbedemah (who had by now become estranged from the CPP administration)  Victor Yaw de Grant Bempong.<ref>{{Cite journal|last1=Agbodan|first1=KML|last2=Akpavi|first2=S|last3=Agbodan|first3=KA|last4=Kanda|first4=M|last5=Amegnaglo|first5=KB|last6=Adrou-Aledji|first6=A|last7=Batawila|first7=K|last8=Akpagana|first8=K|date=2020-05-12|title=Description agromorphologique et détermination du potentiel antioxydant des variétés sous-utilisées et nouvellement introduites de maïs, manioc, niébé et piment dans la région Maritime-Est du Togo|journal=African Journal of Food, Agriculture, Nutrition and Development|volume=20|issue=3|pages=15936–15953|doi=10.18697/ajfand.91.18625|issn=1684-5374|doi-access=free}}</ref>

It became clear that as in 1954, when a defeated opposition took advantage of the grievances of farmers to re-launch itself on the political stage, having lost the 1960 elections, they were once gain taking advantage of the genuine grievances of working people about an austere budget to bring down the elected government of [[Ghana]].<ref>{{Citation|title=Makarios Iii, Archbishop, (13 Aug. 1913 – 3 Aug. 1977), Archbishop and Ethnarch in Cyprus, October 1950; elected President of Cyprus in 1959 and took up official duties when Cyprus became a Republic in 1960; re-elected, 1968, 1973|date=2007-12-01|work=Who Was Who|publisher=Oxford University Press|doi=10.1093/ww/9780199540884.013.u157110}}</ref> This time the colonial government was not around to indulge them and the CPP took decisive action and leading members of opposition politicians including Dr. Danquah and Joe Appiah were arrested under prevention detention for the first time in the three years since the Act had been introduction.<ref>{{Cite journal|title=detention-of-dr-chandra-muzaffar-under-the-internal-security-act-oct-30-1987-1-p|journal=Human Rights Documents Online|doi=10.1163/2210-7975_hrd-1184-0092}}</ref>

==Pan-Africanism==

In the wider context, the CPP's Pan-African policy was expressed in the famous words of Nkrumah at the end of his midnight speech at Independence.

‘The Independence of [[Ghana]] is meaningless unless it is linked up with the total liberation of the African continent’<ref>{{Citation|last=Nkrumah|first=Kwame|title=Independence Speech|date=2016-02-04|work=The Ghana Reader|pages=301–302|publisher=Duke University Press|doi=10.2307/j.ctv125jqp2.65|isbn=978-0-8223-7496-1}}</ref>

With Independence, the Party was in a position to embark on a practical program of Pan-Africanism. This involved meaningful support for Africa's freedom fighters and the taking of effective steps to advance African unity.<ref>{{Citation|last=Martin|first=Guy|title=Pan-Africanism and African unity|date=2020-04-30|work=Routledge Handbook of Pan-Africanism|pages=527–535|publisher=Routledge|doi=10.4324/9780429020193-36|isbn=978-0-429-02019-3|s2cid=242635538}}</ref>

In 1957, there were only eight independent African states. They were [[Ghana]], [[Ethiopia]], [[Libya]], [[Tunisia]], [[Morocco]], [[Egypt]], [[Liberia]] and [[Sudan]]. Most of the African continent was yet to be liberated. The last [[Pan-African Congress]] had been held in Manchester, England in 1945.<ref>{{Citation|title=The Sixth Pan-African Congress of Manchester in 1945|date=2015-09-23|work=Pan-Africanism: Political Philosophy and Socio-Economic Anthropology for African Liberation and Governance|pages=57–270|publisher=Langaa RPCIG|doi=10.2307/j.ctvh9vvnj.8|isbn=978-9956-762-20-0}}</ref>

The CPP government was determined to reactivate the Pan-African Movement on the soil of [[Africa]] its true home. Practical steps were taken.<ref>{{Cite journal|last1=Otu|first1=Akaninyene|last2=Elston|first2=James|last3=Nsutebu|first3=Emmanuel|date=2015|title=Sepsis in Africa: practical steps to stem the tide|journal=Pan African Medical Journal|volume=21|page=323|doi=10.11604/pamj.2015.21.323.6462|pmid=26587170|pmc=4633776|s2cid=18046438|issn=1937-8688|doi-access=free}}</ref>

1. In April 1958 the Conference of African Independent States was held in [[Accra]]. The eight states agreed to co-ordinate economic planning; to improve communications; to exchange cultural and educational information; to assist liberation movements by providing training and other facilities. Most important was the adoption of the formula of one man one vote as an objective of the liberation movement. This gave the liberation movement direction and cohesion.<ref>{{Citation|last=Mohamed Salih|first=M.A.|title=Varieties of African liberation movement governments|date=2017-09-08|work=National Liberation Movements as Government in Africa|pages=17–32|location=New York|publisher=Routledge|doi=10.4324/9781315101361-2|isbn=978-1-315-10136-1}}</ref>

2. In December 1958, the All-African People's Conference was held in [[Accra]]. This Conference represented Africa's freedom fighters, nationalist parties, trade unions, co-operative and youth movements throughout Africa. It was the first time that freedom fighters from European colonies and white-minority regimes in Africa had met together to discuss common problems and to formulate plans. History was made when the Conference endorsed the right of the unliberated to use all methods of struggle, including armed struggle, if non-violent methods to obtain freedom had failed.<ref>{{Cite book|last=Mironova|first=Vera|date=2019-06-20|title=From Freedom Fighters to Jihadists|doi=10.1093/oso/9780190939755.001.0001|isbn=9780190939755}}</ref>

At the Conference were Patrice Lumumba, Kenneth Kaunda, Kanyama Chiume, Tom Mboya, Oginga Odinga, Joshua Nkomo and many others who were to become notable political leaders.
Conference members returned to their countries with a common purpose to liberate their countries. They were inspired as never before, and confident in the CPP government's commitment to the Pan-African struggle. On obtaining independence, they were to follow Ghana's example in making their territories base areas for freedom fighters. [[Ghana]] had become the pace-maker of the Pan-African Movement.<ref>{{Citation|title=Of the Many Who Returned and Yet Were Dead|work=The Philosophy of War and Exile|year=2014|publisher=Palgrave Macmillan|doi=10.1057/9781137351227_6 |isbn=978-1-137-35122-7 |last1=Gertz |first1=Nolen |pages=118–149 }}</ref>

1. Among liberation movements which received aid and training in [[Ghana]] during the government of the CPP were:

* [[African National Congress|ANC]] (African National Congress)
* PAC (Pan Africanist Congress)
* ZANU (Zimbabwe African National Union)
* ZAPU (Zimbabwe African People's Union)
* MPLA (Popular Movement for the Liberation
of Angola)

* SWAPO (South West African People's Organisation
* FRELIMO (Front for the Liberation of Mozambique)<ref>{{Citation|last=Young|first=Eric|title=Popular Movement for the Liberation of Angola|date=2005-04-07|work=African American Studies Center|publisher=Oxford University Press|doi=10.1093/acref/9780195301731.013.42973|isbn=978-0-19-530173-1}}</ref>

===Steps towards African unification===

1. Ghana-Guinea Union, November 1958
This was to mark the start of the actual process of unification by setting up a nucleus union which other states could join as and when they wished. The CPP and the PDG (Parti Democratique de Guinee) shared the same Pan-African objectives, and followed a similar path of social and economic development.<ref name="ReferenceE">{{Cite journal|date=1962|title=Ghana-Guinea-Mali Union (Union of African States)|journal=International Organization|volume=16|issue=2|pages=443–444|doi=10.1017/s0020818300011206|s2cid=249407946 |issn=0020-8183}}</ref>

2. Ghana-Guinea-Mali Union, April 1961
This was formed when President Modibo Keita of Mali joined President Sekou Toure of Guinea and President Nkrumah in [[Accra]] and agreed on a Charter for the Union of African States (UAS) which was open to other states to join. The UAS reaffirmed support for the liberation movement and agreed that an African Common Market should be formed.<ref name="ReferenceE"/>

3. Ghana-Congo Agreement, August 1960
The outcome of a secret meeting in [[Accra]] between Nkrumah and Patrice Lumumba, then Prime Minister of the Congo. They agreed to form a political union, a republican constitution within a federal framework. The capital to be Kinshasa (then Leopoldville). The Agreement was never implemented because of the fall of Lumumba's government the following month and his subsequent assassination.<ref>{{Citation|title=8. Africans against Lumumba|date=2015-12-31|work=Death in the Congo|pages=122–134|publisher=Harvard University Press|doi=10.4159/harvard.9780674735729.c11|isbn=978-0-674-73572-9}}</ref>

The CPP government, throughout its tenure of power, demonstrated time and again the possibility of achieving a degree of unity between states with differing historical backgrounds, language, culture and institutions.<ref>{{Citation|title=Chapter 4: Political Institutions: Provincial And Central Government|date=2018-12-31|work=Culture and Power in Traditional Siamese Government|pages=55–82|place=Ithaca, NY|publisher=Cornell University Press|doi=10.7591/9781501719110-006|isbn=978-1-5017-1911-0|s2cid=228495789}}</ref> As expressed by Nkrumah: ‘The forces that unite us are intrinsic, and greater than the superimposed influences that keep us apart. It is not just our colonial past, or the fact that we have aims in common. It is something which goes far deeper. I can best describe it as a sense of oneness in that we are Africans’<ref>{{Cite journal|last=Oppy|first=Graham|date=2004-02-12|title=Can we Describe Possible Circumstances in which we would have Most Reason to Believe that Time is Two-dimensional?|journal=Ratio|volume=17|issue=1|pages=68–83|doi=10.1111/j.1467-9329.2004.00237.x|s2cid=144264145 |issn=0034-0006|url=https://figshare.com/articles/journal_contribution/2004246|url-access=subscription}}</ref><ref>{{Citation|last=Higgins|first=E. Tory|title=How We Get Along|date=2019-08-01|work=Shared Reality|pages=251–276|publisher=Oxford University Press|doi=10.1093/oso/9780190948054.003.0012|isbn=978-0-19-094805-4}}</ref>

===The Organisation of African Unity (OAU), May 1963===

The foundation of the OAU was the culmination of the CPP government's initiative to establish the political machinery for the unification of Africa. The Charter of the OAU was signed in Addis Ababa on 25 May 1963 by the Heads of State and Governments of 32 African independent states.<ref>{{Cite journal|date=1993|journal=African Yearbook of International Law Online |volume=1|issue=1|pages=295–309|doi=10.1163/221161793x00152|issn=1380-7412|title=African Charter on the Rights and Welfare of the Child (Adopted by the Twenty-Sixth Session of the Assembly of Heads of State and Governments of the OAU - July, 1990, Addis Abeba)}}</ref>

All the signatories were agreed on the principles of African liberation and unity. But they differed on questions of procedure and priorities. While some advocated a gradualist approach, emphasis being on economic, cultural and regional groupings, others led by [[Ghana]] considered it essential to provide political machinery to plan liberation and development on a continental scale.<ref>{{Citation|last=Adum-Kyeremeh|first=Kwame|title=Political action in sports development during the National Liberation Council Era in Ghana|date=2019-04-01|work=Sports in African History, Politics, and Identity Formation|pages=59–72|location=Abingdon, Oxon|publisher=Routledge|doi=10.4324/9780429508110-5|isbn=978-0-429-50811-0|s2cid=159449288}}</ref> It was consistently the Party's view that Africa's huge natural and human resources could only be developed to the full for the well-being of the African people as a whole if Africa was united.<ref>{{Citation|title=Natural Resources in Africa|date=2005-04-07|work=African American Studies Center|publisher=Oxford University Press|doi=10.1093/acref/9780195301731.013.42656|isbn=978-0-19-530173-1}}</ref>

These differences and the lack of provision for an All-African High Command to provide strength to enforce OAU decisions meant that the Charter was one of intent rather than of positive action. Later OAU Summit Conferences also failed to agree to the setting up of effective political machinery.<ref>{{Citation|last1=Sesay|first1=Amadu|title=The OAU and African Conflicts|date=2019-07-15|work=The OAU After Twenty Years|pages=35–62|publisher=Routledge|isbn=978-0-429-31326-4|last2=Ojo|first2=Olusola|last3=Fasehun|first3=Orobola|doi=10.4324/9780429313264-3|s2cid=211396443}}</ref>

The final OAU Summit held during the period of CPP government was in [[Accra]] in 1965. The Party's attempt to establish a full-time OAU Executive Council narrowly failed to obtain the required number of votes.<ref>{{Cite journal|date=2001-04-01|title=Conference paper. Special OAU/UNHCR meeting of government and non-government technical experts on the 30th anniversary of the 1969 OAU Refugee Convention: report of the meeting held in Conakry, 27-29 March 2000|journal=Refugee Survey Quarterly|volume=20|issue=1|pages=3–29|doi=10.1093/rsq/20.1.3|issn=1020-4067|doi-access=free}}</ref>

Nkrumah predicted that the continued failure of [[Africa]] to unite would mean ‘stagnation, instability and confusion, making [[Africa]] an easy prey to foreign interference and confusion’. He warned that the independent states would be ‘picked off one by one’. As he remarked in 1965: "It is courage that we lack."<ref>{{Cite journal|last=Beermann|first=Jack Michael|date=2013|title=The New Constitution of the United States: Do We Need One and How Would We Get One?|journal=SSRN Working Paper Series|doi=10.2139/ssrn.2353376|issn=1556-5068|url=https://scholarship.law.bu.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1058&context=faculty_scholarship|url-access=subscription}}</ref>

===African Personality===

The concept of the African Personality is an important aspect of CPP thinking. Nkrumah described it as a "reawakening consciousness among Africans and peoples of African descent of the bonds which unite us — our historical past, our culture, our common experience and our aspirations". It was expressed by the CPP government through:

1. Africanisation to break down old colonial structures and personnel in the civil service, armed forces and police. To eradicate the "colonial mentality". It was not based on racism. Foreigners were welcomed to work in [[Ghana]] provided they were sincerely committed to CPP objectives.<ref>{{Citation|date=1944-12-31|work=British Colonial Theories 1570-1850|pages=126–152|editor-last=Innis|editor-first=Harold|place=Toronto|publisher=University of Toronto Press|doi=10.3138/9781487589394-006|isbn=978-1-4875-8939-4|title=Iv. The Old Colonial System: Basic Objectives, Conceptions, Policies}}</ref>

2. Bureau of African Affairs in [[Accra]] set up to administer to the needs of Africa's freedom fighters.<ref>{{Citation|title=Exhibition Set-up in Accra and Model-making in Vienna|date=2017-01-23|work=[APPLIED] FOREIGN AFFAIRS|editor-last=Mueller|editor-first=Baerbel|place=Berlin, Boston|publisher=De Gruyter|doi=10.1515/9783035608786-089|isbn=978-3-0356-0878-6}}</ref>

3. Institute of African Studies opened in 1963 as part of the [[University of Ghana]]. Attached to the institute was the School of Performing Arts. A Dance Ensemble and a national Orchestra were formed to express both modern and traditional culture.<ref>{{Cite journal|last1=Nii-Dortey|first1=MN|last2=Arhine|first2=A|date=2010-07-26|title=The Performing Arts and the Post-Colonial Ghanaian Experience: The Ghana National Symphony Orchestra in Perspective|journal=Research Review of the Institute of African Studies|volume=26|issue=1|doi=10.4314/rrias.v26i1.56954|issn=0855-4412}}</ref>

4. First Africanist Conference in [[Accra]] 1962 to plan a comprehensive programme of research into all aspects of Africa's history, culture, thought and human and material resources. Results of research to be published in an Encyclopedia Africana. Eminent US scholars Dr W. E. B. DuBois and Dr [[Alphaeus Hunton|W. Alphaeus Hunton]] had years before the conference been invited to [[Ghana]] to work on the project.<ref>{{Cite journal|last1=Lash|first1=John S.|last2=DuBois|first2=W. E. B.|date=1957|title=Thought, Research, Action: Dr. DuBois and History|journal=The Phylon Quarterly|volume=18|issue=2|pages=184|doi=10.2307/273196|jstor=273196|issn=0885-6826}}</ref>

5. Links with peoples of African descent in the Diaspora. [[Ghana]] during the time of the CPP government was described as ‘the very fountainhead of Pan-Africanism’. (Malcolm X after a visit to [[Ghana]] in 1964)
6. George Padmore Research Library on African Affairs opened in Accra in 1961<ref>{{Citation|last=Lake|first=Obiagele|title=Toward a Pan-African Identity|work=The Ghana Reader|year=2016|pages=369–373|publisher=Duke University Press|doi=10.1215/9780822374961-078|isbn=978-0-8223-7496-1}}</ref>

==African Voice in World Affairs==

The emergence of a distinctive African voice in world affairs was something new in international relations. It was another direct result of CPP policy after Independence, which generated a remarkable succession of developments throughout [[Africa]] and the Diaspora.
Africans were no longer prepared to be silent spectators in world affairs.<ref>{{Cite journal|last=Napier|first=C.J.|date=October 2016|title=African Independence; How Africa shapes the world|journal=South African Journal of International Affairs|volume=23|issue=4|pages=545–546|doi=10.1080/10220461.2016.1266963|s2cid=157249330|issn=1022-0461}}</ref>

==Non-Aligned Movement==

[[Ghana]] and African countries obtained independence soon after they emerged on the world political scene when the "cold war" between the US and the USSR dominated international affairs. The nuclear arms race was at its height. The world seemed on the brink of war. The Non-Aligned Movement offered hope of a Third Force holding the balance of power and thus avoiding war.<ref>{{Citation|last=Bluth|first=Christoph|title=Russian Strategic Arms Policy after the Cold War|date=2019-07-16|work=The Nuclear Challenge|pages=41–70|publisher=Routledge|doi=10.4324/9781315194325-3|isbn=978-1-315-19432-5|s2cid=211381143}}</ref> In this political climate, newly independent states of [[Africa]] and [[Asia]] adopted a non-aligned stand.
Among the most notable leaders of the Non-Aligned Movement were President Nkrumah representing the CPP government, President Jawaharlal Nehru of [[India]], President Abdul Nasser of [[Egypt]], President Tito of [[Yugoslavia]] and President Sukarno of [[Indonesia]].<ref>{{Citation|date=2016-12-31|work=Myanmar's Foreign Policy under President U Thein Sein: Non-aligned and Diversified|pages=12–15|place=Singapore|publisher=ISEAS–Yusof Ishak Institute Singapore|doi=10.1355/9789814762267-005|isbn=978-981-4762-26-7|title=Relations with India}}</ref>

==Relationships with Asia and Latin America==

In May 1965, the CPP government hosted the 4th Afro-Asian Solidarity Conference. Nkrumah emphasized how much more effective Africa's human and material resources would be when mobilized under a continental Union Government.<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://www.nber.org/system/files/working_papers/w15496/w15496.pdf|last=Hall|first=Robert|date=2009|title=By How Much Does GDP Rise if the Government Buys More Output?|location=Cambridge, MA|doi=10.3386/w15496|doi-access=free}}</ref>

Nkrumah, Ben Barka, leading Moroccan opposition figure, and Fidel Castro were responsible for the formation of Organisation of Solidarity with the Peoples of [[Africa]], Asia and Latin America (OSPAAL) which sought to maintain independence from both the USSR and [[China]]. At that time, relations between [[China]] and the USSR were very strained.<ref>{{Cite journal|date=1976|title=Middle East — Africa — Latin America — Asia — USSR|journal=International Review of the Red Cross|volume=16|issue=186|pages=468–475|doi=10.1017/s0020860400012110|issn=0020-8604}}</ref>

==The CPP and the United Nations Organisation (UNO)==

The emergence of a meaningful African voice in the largest of international bodies, the UN, may be traced to the period of the CPP government.<ref>{{Cite journal|last1=Olmstead|first1=Sheila M|last2=Stavins|first2=Robert N|date=2007-01-21|title=A Meaningful Second Commitment Period for the Kyoto Protocol|journal=The Economists' Voice|volume=4|issue=3|doi=10.2202/1553-3832.1230|s2cid=155632523|issn=1553-3832}}</ref>

The Ghana government actively supported the peace-keeping work of the UN in the Congo between 1960 and 1964. Ghanaian troops formed part of the UN operation when Lumumba in 1960 appealed for military assistance after Moise Tshombe announced the secession of Katanga.
But having supported UN intervention, Ghana¬ian troops found themselves part of a UN force engaged in operations which resulted in the fall and consequent murder of Lumumba, the leader of the very government which had sought UN support. The experience confirmed the CPP view that African solutions had to be found for African problems.<ref>{{Cite book|last=Briscoe|first=Neil|chapter=The UN Operation in the Congo, 1960–64|date=2003|title=Britain and UN Peacekeeping|pages=94–131|place=London|publisher=Palgrave Macmillan UK|doi=10.1057/9780230005730_5|isbn=978-1-349-51202-7}}</ref>

In 1963, the Ghanaian delegation at the UN discussed with the Africa Group a plan for an All-African force to be sent to the Congo. The establishing of an All-African High Com¬mand to maintain peace in [[Africa]] instead of relying on outside forces such as the UN or NATO remained a key objective of the Party.<ref>{{Cite journal|date=2010-12-31|title=UN and African peace operations|journal=Africa Renewal|volume=24|issue=4|pages=15|doi=10.18356/6e97a2dc-en|issn=2517-9829}}</ref>

==The CPP and the Commonwealth==

Ghana remained a member of the Commonwealth throughout the years of CPP government and its role was critical in the work of Commonwealth Conferences when African issues were discussed. This became very apparent during the time of the crisis in (then) [[Rhodesia]] when it became clear in 1964 that the settler government was moving towards a [[unilateral declaration of independence]] (UDI).<ref>{{Cite journal|date=2008|title=When Superconductivity Became Clear (to Some)|journal=Physics Today|issue=1 |page=21200 |doi=10.1063/pt.5.021825|bibcode=2008PhT..2008a1200. |issn=1945-0699}}</ref>

At the 1965 Commonwealth Conference in [[London]], African and Asian countries agreed a common line in opposing UDI. This was largely a result of Nkrumah's efforts. The Conference agreed that the principle of one man one vote should be applied to Rhodesia, and that there should be unimpeded progress to majority rule.<ref>{{Cite journal|last=Roy|first=C. W.|date=1997-09-06|title=Common criteria for providing powered wheelchairs should be agreed by wheelchair service centres|journal=BMJ|volume=315|issue=7108|pages=605–606|doi=10.1136/bmj.315.7108.605a|pmid=9302976|pmc=2127397|issn=0959-8138}}</ref>

When in 1965 UDI was declared, the CPP government drew up proposals for joint action by African states to assist in the overthrow of the [[Ian Smith]] settler regime, and to go to the help of any African state attacked or threatened by it. In addition, [[Ghana]] indicated an intention to leave the Commonwealth.<ref>{{Citation|last=King|first=Tiffany|title=Settler Colonialism and African Americans|date=2019-05-29|work=African American Studies|publisher=Oxford University Press|doi=10.1093/obo/9780190280024-0071|isbn=978-0-19-028002-4}}</ref>

The reputation of [[Ghana]] was further enhanced when largely owing to the efforts of Nkrumah, apartheid [[South Africa]] was forced to leave the Commonwealth. [[Ghana]] could not remain a member of an organisation containing the racialist minority government of [[South Africa]]. The British government had to choose between [[Ghana]] and [[South Africa]]. Britain chose [[Ghana]]. It was a measure of the stature of the CPP government. Britain knew that if [[Ghana]] left the Commonwealth, many African states would follow Ghana's lead.<ref>{{Citation|last1=Ababio|first1=Ernest Peprah|title=A Comparative Analysis of Local Government in Ghana and South Africa|date=2017-09-25|work=Public Administration in Africa|pages=187–207|publisher=Routledge|isbn=978-1-315-08932-4|last2=Asmah-Andoh|first2=Kwame|doi=10.4324/9781315089324-10}}</ref>

==Attempts to destabilize the CPP Government==

In late 1961, only a few months after the Opposition inspired and sponsored Railway Strike, [[Accra]] witnessed a series of bomb outrages organized by the Opposition based in Lome. These bomb outrages preceded the planned visit of Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II in 1962, and were designed by the Opposition to create the impression of [[Ghana]] being unsafe for the visit.<ref>{{Cite journal|last=Ionescu|first=Ghiţa|date=1993-01-01|title=Her Majesty the Queen|journal=Government and Opposition|volume=28|issue=1|pages=3–10|doi=10.1111/j.1477-7053.1993.tb01302.x|s2cid=24523426 |issn=0017-257X}}</ref> The now infamous Kulungugu bomb outrage followed in August 1962, and led to the brutal and cowardly murder of a young girl carrying a bouquet of flowers meant for Nkrumah, in which a bomb had been concealed by the Opposition. Following the Kulungugu bomb outrage, a series of organized grenade attacks occurred in [[Accra]], one of these targeted Young Pioneers children on a route march near the Princess Marie Louise Children's hospital.<ref>{{Citation|last=Young|first=Ken|title=Borrowing the bomb|date=2016-07-22|work=The American bomb in Britain|publisher=Manchester University Press|doi=10.7765/9781526100658.00015|isbn=978-1-5261-0065-8}}</ref> The Opposition Member of Parliament R. B. Ochere and UP activist Yaw Manu pleaded guilty for their role in the Kulungugu bomb, and as Dennis Austin stated in "Politics in Ghana 1946 – 1960" published in 1964: "That the plots [Kulungugu and the other bombing outrages] had been hatched in Lome and elsewhere by former Opposition members – notably Obetsebi Lamptey – was clear".<ref>{{Citation|last=Austin|first=Dennis|title=Opposition in Ghana: 1947–67|date=1971|work=Studies in Opposition|pages=248–266|place=London|publisher=Palgrave Macmillan UK|doi=10.1007/978-1-349-01158-2_14|doi-broken-date=1 November 2024 |isbn=978-1-349-01160-5}}</ref>

In January 1964, an assassination attempt on Nkrumah by the armed Constable Ametewee on duty at Flagstaff House resulted in the killing of Superintendent Salifu Dargati. In course of these terrorist bombing outrages by the Opposition, a death toll of 30 Ghanaians, men, women and children, had been recorded with over 300 injured and maimed for life.<ref>{{Cite journal|last=Dumas|first=Agnes|date=2018-07-01|title=Gender Inequalities in Health Over the Life Course. Attitudes Towards III-Health in Men and Women Treated for Childhood Cancer|journal=[[Swiss Journal of Sociology]]|volume=44|issue=2|pages=281–300|doi=10.1515/sjs-2018-0013|s2cid=81525126|issn=2297-8348|doi-access=free}}</ref>

All these terrorist bomb outrages at destabilizing the CPP government were to be followed by the subversion and overthrow of the CPP government in February 1966.<ref>{{Cite book|last=Dupuy|first=Alex|chapter=The Lavalas Government and Its Overthrow: February to September 1991|date=2019-04-18|title=Haiti in the New World Order|pages=115–135|publisher=Routledge|doi=10.4324/9780429039447-6|isbn=978-0-429-03944-7|s2cid=197831074}}</ref>

===24 February 1966===

While on his way as leader of the British Commonwealth mission to seek a resolution to the Vietnam crisis, the CPP government was overthrown by a military junta and members of the Ghana Police who had since 1964 at least, been working with the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) of the United States to bring about a change in government.<ref>{{Cite book|chapter=Chapman, Maj. Gen. Clive, (Chip), (born 27 March 1959), Senior British Military Advisor, United States Central Command, 2010–12; Consultant, Skarbek Associates, since 2013|date=2010-12-01|title=Who's Who|publisher=Oxford University Press|doi=10.1093/ww/9780199540884.013.u251014}}</ref>

For some hours, the presidential Guard Regiment of Flagstaff House resisted fiercely, but was eventually forced to surrender. There was no popular participation in the coup. The ordinary people were initially stunned.<ref>{{Cite journal|last=Clarke|first=John|date=2013-05-10|title=In Search of Ordinary People: The Problematic Politics of Popular Participation|journal=Communication, Culture & Critique|volume=6|issue=2|pages=208–226|doi=10.1111/cccr.12011|issn=1753-9129}}</ref>

The military/police junta co-opted key members of the opposition such as Dr. K. A. Busia, who was on the junta's political committee, and Mr. Victor Owusu, who became the military junta's attorney general. The Preventive Detention Act was repealed and replaced by the Preventive Custody Degree with two modifications: (1) detainees could make no appeal and (2) there was no requirement to inform them as to why they were being arrested.<ref>{{Cite journal|date=1999|title=Guinea-Bissau - Military Junta: Agreement between Te Government of Guinea-Bissau and the Self-Proclaimed Military Junta|journal=International Legal Materials|volume=38|issue=1|pages=28–29|doi=10.1017/s0020782900012857|s2cid=249000430 |issn=0020-7829}}</ref>

Troops and police rounded up key CPP personnel and flung them into prison. Practically the entire Party leadership throughout the country was arrested. Included were all cabinet ministers, members of Parliament, officials of CPP and all its subsidiary, associate organisations including trade union leaders.<ref>{{Cite journal|date=1937-03-01|title=The Visit of An All-Party Group of Members Of Parliament to Spain: Report|journal=International Affairs|doi=10.1093/ia/16.2.305a|issn=1468-2346}}</ref>

With Nkrumah out of the country en route to Vietnam with peace proposals, with all the key points in [[Accra]] seized, and with the CPP leadership arrested, immediate effective resistance was out of the question. The military / police junta installed itself in power, declaring the CPP government abolished and the Party banned. Members of the CPP were banned from participating in party political activity for the next thirteen years until 1979.<ref>{{Citation|title=Introduction: Political Criticism and the Party-State|date=2019-06-15|work=Speaking Out in Vietnam|pages=1–11|place=Ithaca, NY|publisher=Cornell University Press|doi=10.7591/9781501736391-004|isbn=978-1-5017-3639-1|s2cid=238086797}}</ref>

==Conakry and the wilderness years==
The party lived on in Conakry, Guinea where Nkrumah and his entourage stayed from 1966 to 1972 at the invitation of President Sekou Toure and the PDG. It lived on underground in [[Ghana]], surfacing from time to time under different party names. The CPP remained alive and grew even stronger in the Pan-Africa Movement, for the reactionary coup in [[Ghana]] was not a domestic matter affecting only the people of Ghana. The coup was to have, repercussions for the whole of the African people, on the continent and worldwide.<ref name="auto2"/>

Nkrumah and his entourage arrived in Guinea on 2 March 1966 and in an unprecedented expression of Pan-Africanism, Nkrumah was appointed co-president in Conakry, and became the central point both for the effort to restore constitutional government in [[Ghana]] and for the continuance of CPP Pan-African objectives.<ref name="Howe 1966 13–15"/>

The struggle was pursued through:

1. Organisation: The preparation of practical plans for a return to [[Ghana]] and the restoration of constitutional government.

2. Broadcasts to the people of [[Ghana]] by Nkrumah on Guinea's Voice of the African Revolution.

3. Close contact with CPP support groups both inside [[Ghana]], in the [[United Kingdom|UK]], in the Diaspora, throughout Africa and elsewhere.

4. Books, pamphlets and statements by Nkrumah. These were published by Panaf Books Ltd., a company establishment in the [[United Kingdom|UK]] to publish and distribute the works of Nkrumah's since his previous [[United Kingdom|UK]] publishers were not willing to publish his writings after the fall of his government.<ref name="Amoh"/>

5. The magazine Africa and the World, a London-based monthly magazine, founded in 1960 and sponsored by the CPP government. It had a world-wide readership and a high reputation for progressive and accurate reporting. After the coup the magazine managed to continue publishing the truth about Ghana and Africa until 1971 when lack of funds forced it to close.<ref>{{Cite book|last=Hadjor|first=Kofi Buenor|date=1989 |title=Nkrumah & Ghana: The Dilemma of Post-Colonial Power|publisher=Routledge|doi=10.4324/9780203038079|isbn=9780203038079}}</ref>

A Political Committee was formed by members of Nkrumah's entourage, as part of a politicization program. Its first task was to examine the causes and aftermath of the Coup in [[Ghana]]. What were the internal and external forces behind it? What lessons could be learned?
These were the questions discussed among Party members in [[Ghana]] and elsewhere. How, when Ghanaians enjoyed one of the highest standards of living in Africa, could there have been sufficient Ghanaians, willing to collude with the CPP government? Why the defections of some key CPP officials? How was it that the Party's extensive program of political education failed to prevent the coup?<ref>{{Cite journal|last1=Nwakasi|first1=Candidus C.|last2=Scott Brown|first2=J.|last3=Anyanwu|first3=Phillip|date=2019-10-02|title=What could be influencing older Ghanaians outpatient care utilization rate?|journal=Ghana Medical Journal|volume=53|issue=3|pages=217–225|doi=10.4314/gmj.v53i3.6|pmid=31741494|pmc=6842734|s2cid=208169446|issn=0016-9560|doi-access=free}}</ref>

The following were among some of the conclusion reached by the Political Committee

1. The main external forces behind the coup were the intelligence agencies of the US, Britain and West Germany.

2. There were certain deficiencies: in the Party, its integral "wings" and in the Civil Service, state corporation, armed forces and police. For example, there was mismanagement of some state farms, waste of equipment, inefficiency and lack of ‘political orientation’.<ref>{{Citation|last=Pitney|first=John J.|title=What If There Were No Welfare State?|date=2015-02-24|work=What if the American Political System Were Different?|pages=215–242|publisher=Routledge|doi=10.4324/9781315698212-9|isbn=978-1-315-69821-2}}</ref>

Underlying most of the Political Committee's Report and recommendations for action on the Party's return to power was the need to stress the importance of educating the masses to know and understand the policies and method of the CPP, necessary to build a society based on Pan-African socialist principles.<ref>{{Citation|title=Educating the Masses: Socialist Realist Art|date=2008|work=Art Power|publisher=The MIT Press|doi=10.7551/mitpress/7469.003.0015|isbn=978-0-262-27444-9}}</ref>

It was a lack of political awareness among the people and not any underlying fault of party principles and policies.

==CPP Overseas==

Through meetings, demonstrations, seminars and so on, and their bulletin The Dawn, member of the Party in [[London]] showed their continuing loyalty to the CPP, refusing to accept the military junta's assertion that the Party was abolished.

The CPP. Overseas issued a statement on the same day as the coup (24 February 1966), condemning the military action and pledging support for the constitutional government.

==External Nkrumah groupings==
From 1966 onwards, Nkrumaists in Britain, Europe, throughout Africa and elsewhere formed organisations committed to the political philosophy of Nkrumah. Each claimed to be the authentic voice of Nkrumaism. But they differed in their interpretation of the term, what it implied, and also the procedures to follow. They spoke of "Nkrumaism" rather than the CPP.
Disunity of the various groups each claiming to be Nkrumaist was caused largely by lack of ideological clarity. Confusion concerning Nkrumaist parties which mushroomed in [[Ghana]] over the years was also a factor in continued frustration and failure to unite.<ref>{{Cite book|last=Grilli|first=Matteo|chapter=Between Diplomacy and Revolution (1963–1966)|date=2018|title=Nkrumaism and African Nationalism|pages=261–331|place=Cham|publisher=Springer International Publishing|doi=10.1007/978-3-319-91325-4_6|isbn=978-3-319-91324-7}}</ref>

==The Death of Kwame Nkrumah==

"The Greatest African", the words which Sekou Toure ordered to be inscribed on the coffin of Nkrumah, died at 8:45 am on 27 April 1972, in Bucharest, Romania. He had been unwell for some time but had refused to leave Guinea for medical treatment until August 1971.

On 30 April, three days after his death, [[Kwame Nkrumah]] returned to Africa. The Guinean government had arranged for his body to be preserved, placed in a special coffin and flown to Conakry.

For two days, on 13 and 14 May 1972, funeral ceremonies were held in Conakry, attended by representatives of liberation movements, governments, progressive parties and movements from [[Africa]] and elsewhere.<ref name="auto"/>

On 7 July 1972, after weeks of negotiations between the Guinean government and the military regime in [[Ghana]], the coffin of [[Kwame Nkrumah]] was flown to [[Accra]].  Flags flew at half mast while the coffin was lying-in-state at State House and a memorial service was held. Then on 9 July it was taken to Nkroful where it was placed in a tomb on the site of his birthplace.<ref name="auto2"/>

The final resting place of "The Greatest African" and founder of the Convention People's Party, is in a marble mausoleum in a beautiful Memorial Park on the site of the Polo Ground in [[Accra]], where [[Kwame Nkrumah]] declared the Independence of [[Ghana]] on 6 March 1957. The Re-interment ceremony took place on 1 July 1992, the thirty-second anniversary of the Republic of Ghana.<ref>{{Cite journal|last=Elias|first=T. O.|date=1957|title=Ghana: Autobiography of Kwame Nkrumah|journal=African Affairs|volume=56|issue=224|pages=238–239|doi=10.1093/oxfordjournals.afraf.a094495|issn=1468-2621}}</ref>

==1979–1981: Back in Government==

Although the ban on party politics was lifted by the military regime of General Akuffo in the late 1970s, the CPP remained banned and the party name and symbol could not be used. The CPP regrouped in the [[People's National Party (Ghana)|People's National Party]] (PNP) under the leadership of [[Imoru Egala|Alhaji Imoru Egala]], who had become the father of the party. He, however, remained ineligible to contest in the 1979 election as result of the party political decrees of the National Liberation Council that overthrew the CPP in 1966.<ref>{{Cite journal|last1=Arian|first1=Asher|last2=Shamir|first2=Michal|date=2008|title=A Decade Later, the World Had Changed, the Cleavage Structure Remained|journal=Party Politics|volume=14|issue=6|pages=685–705|doi=10.1177/1354068808093406|s2cid=144231226|issn=1354-0688}}</ref>

In his place, Dr. Hilla Limann was elected the party's presidential candidate while Egala tried to clear his name. The PNP won the 1979 elections and Dr. Hilla Limann became president of [[Ghana]]. Unfortunately however, on 31 December 1981, his government was overthrown by Flight Lieutenant Jerry John Rawlings, who went to govern the country first as military dictator in the Provisional National Defence Council (PNDC) and as first president of the fourth republic leading the National Democratic Party (NDC) he founded while in office.<ref>{{Citation|title=Limann, Dr Hilla, (1934–23 Jan. 1998), President of Ghana, 1979–81|date=2007-12-01|work=Who Was Who|publisher=Oxford University Press|doi=10.1093/ww/9780199540884.013.u180007}}</ref>

==The Fourth Republic==

When the ban on party politics was lifted again in 1992, the CPP was unable to organise and rally around any leader. Imoru Egala had died, and, although Hilla Limann was still alive, he was not accorded the recognition as leader of the party.<ref>{{Citation|last=Musella|first=Fortunato|title=Leader and Party: Still an Oxymoron?|work=Political Leaders Beyond Party Politics|year=2018|pages=1–29|place=Cham|publisher=Springer International Publishing|doi=10.1007/978-3-319-59348-7_1|isbn=978-3-319-59347-0}}</ref>

A number of splinter groups emerged, including the [[People's National Convention (Ghana)|People's National Convention]] (PNC) led by Hilla Limann, the [[National Convention Party (Ghana)|National Convention Party]] (NCP) led by Kow Nkensen Arkaah, who later became vice president to Rawlings, the [[People's Heritage Party]] and many others led by previous party stalwarts such as the former Minister for Education Kwaku Boateng. All the splinter parties contested the 1992 elections and lost massively.<ref>{{Citation|title=Obote, Dr (Apollo) Milton, (28 Dec. 1924 – 10 Oct. 2005), President of Uganda and Minister of Foreign Affairs, 1980–85; former Leader, Uganda People's Congress Party|date=2007-12-01|work=Who Was Who|publisher=Oxford University Press|doi=10.1093/ww/9780199540884.013.u28679}}</ref>

There were realignments before the 1996 election, but with the exception of the PNC, now led by Edward Mahama, most of the other Nkrumaist parties had entered a ‘Grand Alliance’ and supported the presidential ambitions of the leader of the [[New Patriotic Party]], John Agyekum Kufour.<ref>{{Cite book|title=Party over Section|pages=86–102|publisher=University Press of Kansas|doi=10.2307/j.ctt1x76czw.8|isbn=978-0-7006-2538-3|chapter=The Work to be Done|first=Joel H.|last=Silbey|year=2017}}</ref>

On 22 August 2020, Ivor Greenstreet was elected as the flag bearer for the 2020 elections. He garnered 213 votes and his competitors split the votes as Bright Akwetey gathered 27 and Divine Ayivor had 14 votes. Ivor Kobina Greenstreet represented the party in the 2016 elections hence this forms the second time he represents the party at the national level.<ref name=":0">{{Cite news|last=Nyabor|first=Jonas|date=22 August 2020|title=Ivor Greenstreet gets landslide victory to become 2020 CPP flagbearer|work=Citi Newsroom|url=https://citinewsroom.com/2020/08/ivor-greenstreet-gets-landslide-victory-to-become-2020-cpp-flagbearer/|access-date=22 August 2020}}</ref>

===Campaign to lift the ban on the CPP===

Resistance to the banning of the CPP dates back to the February 1966 coup when the CPP government was overthrown and all political activity banned.
For many years, while military regimes were in power, opposition to the ban had to be covert. Later, when political activity was permitted, attempts were openly made to get the ban in the CPP lifted. The matter was pursued through the Ghana judiciary, but without success.<ref>{{Citation|last=Bourne|first=Angela K.|title=Ban regimes and banned parties in Spain, the United Kingdom and Germany|date=2018-07-11|work=Democratic Dilemmas|pages=40–53|location=Abingdon, Oxon|publisher=Routledge |series=Routledge Studies in Extremism and Democracy|doi=10.4324/9781315708836-3|isbn=978-1-315-70883-6|s2cid=158923121}}</ref> Nevertheless, Nkrumaists in [[Ghana]] and overseas continued to work tirelessly, organising pressure groups, appeals, demonstrations, petitions and so on. It was a campaign destined never to end until victory, when Nkrumaists could once again gather under the banner of the "C.P.P.", the historic Party name indelibly imprinted in the minds off all true Nkrumaists.<ref>{{Citation|last=Ameriks|first=Karl|title=Once Again|date=2019-11-07|work=Kantian Subjects|pages=71–86|publisher=Oxford University Press|doi=10.1093/oso/9780198841852.003.0005|isbn=978-0-19-884185-2}}</ref><ref>{{Citation|last=Kraus|first=Jon|editor2-first=Peter H|editor2-last=Merkl|editor1-first=Kay|editor1-last=Lawson|title=EIGHTEEN. Political Party Failures and Political Responses in Ghana|date=1988-12-31|work=When Parties Fail|pages=464–502|place=Princeton|publisher=Princeton University Press|doi=10.1515/9781400859498.464|isbn=978-1-4008-5949-8}}</ref>

===The Convention Party (CP)===

In 1998, with parliamentary and presidential elections due to take place in December 2000, it was essential to register a party without further delay, to allow sufficient time to organise an efficient election campaign. If the "CPP" could not be registered, then the nearest equivalent had to be chosen.<ref>{{Cite journal|date=2000-01-01|title=The Parliamentary and Presidential Elections in Mozambique, 3–5 December 1999|journal=Commonwealth Election Reports|doi=10.14217/9781848597174-en|doi-broken-date=1 November 2024 |isbn=9781848597174|issn=2310-1512}}</ref>

The Convention Party was reborn on 11 August 1998 when the party received its final certificate of registration from the Electoral Commission. In the words of an Nkrumaist: "The CP is the CPP" It was the mainstream Nkrumaist formation, comprising the PHP, NIP, PPDD, the Nkrumaist Caucus, NCP, and sections of the PNC. The Party retained the cockerel symbol of the CPP, and its motto: "Forward Ever, Backward Never". The experienced CPP veteran Kojo Botsio was appointed interim chairman of the Party.<ref>{{Citation|title=Party Organisation – Cave Or Caucus?|date=2012|work=The Liberal Unionist Party|publisher=I.B. Tauris & Co. Ltd.|doi=10.5040/9780755622931.ch-004|isbn=978-1-84885-917-3}}</ref>

Impetus for the merger of Nkrumaist forces which resulted in the formation of the CP had come from the grassroots, notably from the youth. This augured well for the future, as did the CP's clearly stated adoption of Nkrumaism as its political philosophy.<ref>{{Cite journal|last=Morgan|first=Jason|date=2019-12-24|title=The Apollo Conundrum: The Moon Clearly Had a Magma Ocean. Did Earth?|journal=Ess Open Archive ePrints |volume=105 |doi=10.1002/essoar.10501480.1|bibcode=2019esoar.10501480M |s2cid=214136354}}</ref>

===The CPP is un-banned===
Before the 2000 elections, however, the CPP was un-banned and has since contested the 2000 and 2004 election.{{citation needed|date=November 2024}}

=== Key dates in the Party's history ===

In the history of every country there are landmark dates marking decisive turning points. Landmark dates in Ghana's history are all connected with the CPP.

* 12 June 1949: Birth of the CPP
* 6 March 1957: Independence
* 1 July 1960: Republic Day
* 24 February 1966: Re-Dedication Day
* 12 June 1999 50th: birthday of the CPP

'''Party calendar'''

* 24 February Re-Dedication Day
* 6 March Independence Day
* 27 April Founder's death
* 12 June Party's anniversary
* 1 July Republic Day
* 21 September Founder's birthday

'''Years of publication'''
* 1945 – ''Towards Colonial Freedom''
* 1957 – ''Autobiography'' ("To my Mother")
* 1961 – ''I Speak of Freedom'' (Dedicated to "Patrice Lumumba, late Prime Minister of the Republic of the Congo, and to all those who are engaged in the struggle for the political unification of Africa").
* 1963 – ''Africa Must Unite'' ("Dedicated to George Padmore (1900-1959), and to the African that must be").
* 1964 – ''Consciencism: Philosophy and Ideology for Decolonisation''
* 1965 – ''Neo-Colonialism: The Last Stage of Imperialism'' ("This book is dedicated to the Freedom Fighters of Africa living and dead").
* 1966 – ''Challenge of the Congo: A Case Study of Foreign pressures in an Independence State'' ("A Ahmed Sekou Toure Mon Frere de Combat Au Bureau Politique national du Parti Democratique de Guinee, et au Vaillant Peuples de Guinee, Aux Peuples Africains et aux Courageux Militants pour la Cause Secree du progress African dans la Liberte et La Liberte et l’Unite du Continent").
* 1966 – ''Axioms: Freedom Fighters Edition''
* 1967 – ''Voice from Conakry''
* 1968 - ''Dark Days in Ghana'' ("To [[Charles Barwah|Major General Barwah]], Lieutenant S. Arthur and Lieutenant M. Yeboah and all Ghanaians killed and injured resisting the traitors of the 24th February 1966").
* 1968 – ''Handbook of Revolutionary Warfare: A Guide to the Armed Phase of the African Revolution'' ("To the African guerrilla").
* 1968 – ''Ghana: The Way Out'' (pamphlet); ''The Spectre of Black Power'' (pamphlet); ''The Struggle Continues'' (pamphlet)
* 1969 – ''Two Myths'' (pamphlet); ''The Big Lie'' (pamphlet)
* 1970 – Revised edition of ''Consciencism''<ref>{{Cite book|chapter=4. THE CONGO CRISIS AND ITS REPERCUSSIONS, July 1960–February 1961|date=1969-12-31|title=Ghana's Foreign Policy, 1957-1966|pages=115–161|place=Princeton|publisher=Princeton University Press|doi=10.1515/9781400876303-008|isbn=978-1-4008-7630-3}}</ref>
 
At the [[elections in Ghana|elections]] on 7 December 2004, the party won three out of 230 seats. Its candidate in the [[2004 Ghanaian presidential election|presidential elections]], [[George Aggudey]], won only 1.0% of the vote.{{citation needed|date=November 2024}}

In the [[2008 Ghanaian presidential election|2008 presidential]] and [[2008 Ghanaian parliamentary election|parliamentary elections]], the party won one parliamentary seat for Kwame Nkrumah's daughter, [[Samia Nkrumah]], in the [[Jomoro (Ghana parliament constituency)|Jomoro constituency]]. The presidential candidate, [[Paa Kwesi Nduom]], performed below expectation, receiving 1.4% of total valid votes.<ref>{{Citation|last1=Holian|first1=David B.|title=Candidate Character Traits in Presidential Elections|date=2014-10-03|pages=1–21|publisher=Routledge|isbn=978-1-315-76908-0|last2=Prysby|first2=Charles L.|doi=10.4324/9781315769080-1}}</ref>

In June 2018, the party was admitted in the [[Socialist International]] as consultative member.<ref>{{Cite web|url=http://socialistinternational.org/viewArticle.cfm?ArticleID=2555|title=Socialist International - Progressive Politics For A Fairer World|website=socialistinternational.org|access-date=2018-07-17}}</ref>

In December 2023, the National Executive Committee, a meeting of representatives from different regional committees and organs of the party, passed a resolution attempting to dissolve the national leadership after accusing them of financial malpractice, administrative incompetence, and the sale of party data to [[Alan John Kyerematen]]'s Movement for Change prior to the [[2024 Ghanaian general election|2024 election]]. The NEC formed a 13-member interim body to manage affairs for the foreseeable future until a new leadership is elected.<ref>{{Cite web |last=DGN Online |date=12 December 2023 |title=CPP dissolves national leadership amidst damning allegations |url=https://www.modernghana.com/news/1278148/cpp-dissolves-national-leadership-amidst-damning.html |access-date=19 January 2024 |website=Modern Ghana}}</ref> Subsequently, the General Secretary, National Treasurer, National Organizer, National Organizer for Women, and National Organizer for youth all resigned, while the Party Chair Nana Akosua Frimpomaa Sarpong-Kumankumah disputed the allegations and refused to resign.<ref>{{Cite web |last=GNA |date=11 December 2023 |title=Nana Frimpomaa still Chair and Leader of CPP – Concerned NEC Members |url=https://www.modernghana.com/news/1279153/nana-frimpomaa-still-chair-and-leader-of-cpp.html |access-date=19 January 2024 |website=Modern Ghana}}</ref> Reactions within the party were split, with some in the Elder Council and National Executive Committee maintaining support for Chair Nana Frimpomaa on the grounds that her removal was conducted improperly and went against the party's constitution,<ref>{{Cite web |last=Donker |first=Isaac |date=20 December 2023 |title=Forcing our chairperson out of office unconstitutional — CPP Council of Elders |url=https://www.modernghana.com/news/1281194/forcing-our-chairperson-out-of-office-unconstituti.html |access-date=19 January 2024 |website=Modern Ghana}}</ref> while regional chapters from Ashanti and the [[Northern Region (Ghana)|Northern Region]] sided with the NEC interim leadership and announced that they would discipline any party members in their region that interact with the old leadership.<ref>{{Cite web |last=Akonnor |first=Enock |date=12 January 2024 |title=CPP Executives threaten sanctions against members engaged illegalities with former National Chairperson |url=https://www.modernghana.com/news/1285100/cpp-executives-threaten-sanction-against-members.html |access-date=19 January 2024 |website=Modern Ghana}}</ref><ref>{{Cite web |last=Acquah II |first=Osei Kofi |date=12 January 2024 |title=We recognize decision of NEC, fully support stepping aside of former national executives — CPP Northern Region |url=https://www.modernghana.com/news/1285102/we-recognize-the-decision-of-nec-and-fully-support.html |access-date=19 January 2024 |website=Modern Ghana}}</ref> Despite the leadership crisis, the party affirmed that these developments would not affect their preparations for the general election that will be held later this year.<ref>{{Cite web |last=GNA |date=8 December 2023 |title=Resignation of our national officers won't affect 2024 preparations – CPP |url=https://www.modernghana.com/news/1278696/resignation-of-our-national-officers-wont-affect.html |access-date=19 January 2024 |website=Modern Ghana}}</ref>

==National Executives==
The Convention People's Party holds its national delegates convention every fours to elect a new set of executives to lead.

It held its most recent election at the Eastern region on 22 August 2020 to elect a flagbearer and set of executives to lead the party.<ref name=":0" />

Below were the current national executives elected:

{| class="sortable wikitable"
|-
! National Position
! Officer/s
|- 
|'''Chair'''
|Nana Akosua Frimpomaa Sarpong–Kumankumah <small>(Disputed)</small>
|-
|rowspan=3|'''Vice Chair'''
|Onsy Kwame Nkrumah <small>(First)</small>
|-
|Emmanuel Ogborjor <small>(Second)</small>
|-
|J. B. Daniels <small>(Third)</small>
|-
|'''General Secretary'''
|Nana Yaa Akyimpim Jantuah <small>(Resigned 2023)</small>
|-
|'''Treasurer'''
|Emmanuel Opare Oduro <small>(Resigned 2023)</small>
|-
|'''National Organizer'''
|Moses Ambing Yirimbo <small>(Resigned 2023)</small>
|-
|'''National Organizer for Women'''
|Hajia Aisha Sulley <small>(Resigned 2023)</small>
|-
|'''National Organizer for Youth'''
|Osei Kofi Aquah <small>(Resigned 2023)</small>
|}

== Election results ==

===Presidential elections===
{| class="wikitable" style="text-align:center"
! rowspan="2" |Election
! rowspan="2" |Candidate
! rowspan="2" |Running mate
! colspan="2" |First round
! colspan="2" |Second round
! rowspan="2" |Result
|-
!Votes
!%
!Votes
!%
|-
! align="center" | [[1960 Ghanaian presidential election|1960]]
| rowspan="2" align="center" | [[Kwame Nkrumah]]
|
| align="center" | 1,016,076
| align="center" | 89.07%
| colspan="2" |—
|'''Elected''' {{Y}}
|-
! align="center" |[[1964 Ghanaian constitutional referendum|1964]] {{small|(referendum)}}
|
| align="center" |2,773,920
| align="center" |99.91%
| colspan="2" |—
|'''Elected''' {{Y}}
|-
! align="center" |[[2000 Ghanaian general election|2000]]
| align="center" |[[George Hagan (politician)|George Hagan]]
|Alhaji Ibrahim Mahama
| align="center" |115,641
| align="center" |1.78%
| colspan="2" |—
|'''Lost''' {{N}}
|-
! align="center" |[[2004 Ghanaian general election|2004]]
| align="center" |[[George Aggudey]]
|Bright Kwame Ameyaw
| align="center" |85,968
| align="center" |1.00%
| colspan="2" |—
|'''Lost''' {{N}}
|-
! align="center" |[[2008 Ghanaian general election|2008]]
| align="center" |[[Paa Kwesi Nduom]]
|
| align="center" |113,494
| align="center" |1.34%
| colspan="2" |—
|'''Lost''' {{N}}
|-
! align="center" |[[2012 Ghanaian general election|2012]]
| align="center" | [[Michael Abu Sakara Foster]] 
|Nana Akosua Frimpomaa
| align="center" | 20,323
| align="center" | 0.18%
| colspan="2" |—
|'''Lost''' {{N}}
|-
! align="center" |[[2016 Ghanaian general election|2016]]
| rowspan="2" align="center" | [[Ivor Greenstreet]]
|[[Gabby Nsiah Nketiah]]
| align="center" | 25,552
| align="center" | 0.24%
| colspan="2" |—
|'''Lost''' {{N}}
|-
! align="center" |[[2020 Ghanaian general election|2020]]
|Emmanuel Bobobe
| align="center" | 12,200
| align="center" | 0.09%
| colspan="2" |—
|'''Lost''' {{N}}
|-
! align="center" |[[2024 Ghanaian general election|2024]]
|Nana Akosua Frimpomaa
|Wayoe Ghanamanti
| align="center" | 23,991
| align="center" | 0.21%
| colspan="2" |—
|'''Lost''' {{N}}
|}

=== Parliamentary elections ===
{| class="wikitable" style="text-align:center"
!Election
! colspan="2" |Votes
! %
!Seats
!+/–
!Position
!'''Result'''
|-
! rowspan="2" |[[1951 Gold Coast legislative election|1951]]
|Urban areas
|58,585
|91.31%
| rowspan="2" |{{Composition bar|34|38|hex={{party color|Convention People's Party}}}}
| rowspan="2" |{{increase}} 34
| rowspan="2" |{{increase}} 1st
| rowspan="2" {{yes2|Supermajority government}}
|-
|Rural areas
|1,950
|71.88%
|-
![[1954 Gold Coast legislative election|1954]]
| colspan="2" |391,817
|55.44%
|{{Composition bar|72|104|hex={{party color|Convention People's Party}}}}
|{{increase}} 38
|{{steady}} 1st
|{{yes2|Supermajority government}}
|-
![[1956 Gold Coast legislative election|1956]]
| colspan="2" |398,141
|57.10%
|{{Composition bar|71|104|hex={{party color|Convention People's Party}}}}
|{{decrease}} 1
|{{steady}} 1st
|{{yes2|Supermajority government}}
|-
![[1965 Ghanaian parliamentary election|1965]]
| colspan="2" |
|
|{{Composition bar|198 |198 |hex={{party color|Convention People's Party}}}}
|{{increase}} 121
|{{steady}} 1st
|{{yes2|Sole legal party}}
|-
! colspan="8" |Banned 1966 refounded 29 January 1996.
|-
![[2000 Ghanaian parliamentary election|2000]]
| colspan="2" |285,643
|4.37%
|{{Composition bar|1|200|hex={{party color|Convention People's Party}}}}
|{{decrease}} 5
|{{steady}} 3rd
|{{no2|Opposition}}
|-
![[2004 Ghanaian parliamentary election|2004]]
| colspan="2" |247,753
|2.88%
|{{Composition bar|3|200|hex={{party color|Convention People's Party}}}}
|{{increase}} 2
|{{steady}} 3rd
|{{no2|Opposition}}
|-
![[2008 Ghanaian parliamentary election|2008]]
| colspan="2" |252,266
|2.95%
|{{Composition bar|1|200|hex={{party color|Convention People's Party}}}}
|{{decrease}} 2
|{{steady}} 3rd
|{{no2|Opposition}}
|-
![[2012 Ghanaian general election|2012]]
| colspan="2" |81,009
|0.73%
|{{Composition bar|1|200|hex={{party color|Convention People's Party}}}}
|{{steady}}
|{{steady}} 3rd
|{{no2|Opposition}}
|-
![[2016 Ghanaian general election|2016]]
| colspan="2" |69,346
|0.64%
|{{Composition bar|0|200|hex={{party color|Convention People's Party}}}}
|{{decrease}} 1
|{{decrease}} 4th
|{{eliminated|Extra-parliamentary}}
|-
![[2020 Ghanaian general election|2020]]
| colspan="2" |11,105
|0.08%
|{{Composition bar|0|200|hex={{party color|Convention People's Party}}}}
|{{steady}} 0
|{{decrease}} 6th
|{{eliminated|Extra-parliamentary}}
|-
![[2024 Ghanaian general election|2024]]
| colspan="2" | 4,375
| 0.04%
|{{Composition bar|0|200|hex={{party color|Convention People's Party}}}}
|{{steady}} 0
|{{steady}} 0
|{{eliminated|Extra-parliamentary}}
|-
|}

== See also ==
*[[Nkrumah government]]

==References ==
{{Reflist}}

Sources:
1. [https://adesawyerr.wordpress.com/2017/03/01/history-of-the-cpp/ History of the CPP]
2. Kwame Nkrumah, Ghana: The Autobiography of Kwame Nkrumah, 1956
3. Kwame Nkrumah, I Speak of Freedom, 1962
4. Kwame Nkrumah, Africa Must Unite, 1962

==External links==
*[https://cppfreedom.com/ CPP website.] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200728133622/https://cppfreedom.com/ |date=28 July 2020 }}
*[http://www.ghanaweb.com/GhanaHomePage/republic/cpp.php Convention People's Party page at GhanaWeb.]
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{{s-ttl|title=Governments of Ghana<br />First Republic |years=1960 &ndash; 1966}}
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[[Category:1949 establishments in Gold Coast (British colony)]]
[[Category:1966 disestablishments in Ghana]]
[[Category:1996 establishments in Ghana]]
[[Category:African resistance to colonialism]]
[[Category:Consultative member parties of the Socialist International]]
[[Category:Formerly banned socialist parties]]
[[Category:Nkrumaist political parties]]
[[Category:Pan-Africanism in Ghana]]
[[Category:Pan-Africanist political parties in Africa]]
[[Category:Parties of one-party systems]]
[[Category:Political parties disestablished in 1966]]
[[Category:Political parties established in 1949]]
[[Category:Political parties established in 1996]]
[[Category:Political parties in Ghana]]
[[Category:Resistance to the British Empire]]
[[Category:Socialist parties in Ghana]]