Politics and Government in African States

1960 - 1985

Peter Duignan, Robert H. Jackson, Peter Duignan, Robert H. Jackson

• Editore: Routledge
• Anno: 2022
• ISBN:
  9781000632095
• Edizione: 1
• Argomento: Politique et relations internationales
• Categoria: Politique africaine

Originally published in 1986, Politics and Government in African States 1960-1985 deals with the politics of sub-Saharan African states since independence. Each chapter considers the formal structure of government at the time of independence and traces the subsequent changes. Each chapter also describes the development of the state machinery, the civil service, the parastatals, defence and police forces, party structure, the political opposition and trade unions. The economics of African states are dealt with insofar as they affect politics and government.

1WEST AFRICA: NIGERIA AND GHANA

A. H. M. Kirk-Greene

Introduction

When Britain handed over power to her first tropical African colony in 1957, the Gold Coast was widely recognized as Britain’s model colonial possession on the continent. It had more schools and health services per capita and a better road system than any other British territory in Africa. It also boasted a robust, non-plantation, peasant economy, a prosperous middle class, a distinguished history of higher education, an able administrative elite, and a widespread respect for representative institutions. These attributes together placed the Gold Coast (in Lord Hailey’s authoritative judgment) in the most prominent position among British African dependencies in terms of progress made toward the attainment of “political self-government.”¹

When Ghana celebrated its twenty-fifth anniversary on 6 March 1982, however, the country was experiencing its sixth change of regime under its tenth head of state. (Three heads of state had been executed before a firing squad, and the most famous of them had died in exile.) It had just experienced its fourth military coup d’etat. Refugees, exiles, emigrants, and political prisoners were numbered in hundreds of thousands. The economy, crippled by years of escalating national debts, had seemingly stagnated to the point of no return. (Accra urged its once exultant embassies to celebrate a purposely low-profile silver jubilee.)

In contrast, twenty-one years after achieving independence, neighboring Nigeria — early on nicknamed the Giant in the Sun and later widely recognized by the sobriquet Africa’s Giant — had overcome a secessionist movement, healed the wounds of a civil war, and seen its number of universities quadruple and its student population increase tenfold. It had a revenue budget of 12 billion (as compared to a budget in the mere millions at independence in 1960). Lagos had been lavishly hosting dozens of international conferences for some time.

Table 1: Outline of Political Chronologies

	Ghana		Nigeria
6 March 1957	Independence (CPP: Kwame Nkrumah)	1 Oct. 1960	Independence (NPC/NCNC: Abubakar
1 July 1960	Becomes a republic		Tafawa Balewa)
24 Feb. 1966	Kotoka coup {NLC) overthrows Nkrumah	1 Oct. 1963 15 Jan. 1966	Becomes a republic Military under Ironsi
17 April 1967	Ankrah succeeds Kotoka		takes over government
22 April 1969	Afrifa succeeds Ankrah	29 July 1966	Gowon succeeds Ironsi
1 Oct. 1969	Return to civilan rule under Kofi Busia (PP)	6 July 1967–12 Jan. 1970	Nigerian civil war (Biafra)
13 Jan. 1972	Acheampong coup (NRC)	29 July 1975	Murtala Mohammed succeeds Gowon
27 April 1972	Death of Nkrumah in exile	13 Feb. 1976	Obasanjo succeeds Murtala Mohammed
5 July 1978	Akuffo (SMC) succeeds Acheampong	1 Oct. 1979	Return to civilian rule under Shehu Shagari (NPN)
4 June 1979	Rawlings I coup (AFRC)	1 Oct. 1983	Installation of Shehu
24 Sept. 1979	Return to civilian rule under Hilla Limann (PNP)	31 Dec. 1983	Shagari for second term Buhari coup
31 Dec. 1981	Rawlings II coup (PNDC)	27 Aug. 1985	Babangida coup
Notes:
CPP = Convention People’s Party
NLC = National Liberation Council
PP = Progress Party
NRC = National Redemption Council
SMC = Supreme Military Council
AFRC = Armed Forces Revolutionary Council
PNP = People’s National Party
PNDC = Provisional National Defense Council
NPC = Northern Peoples’ Congress
NCNC = National Convention of Nigerian Citizens
NPN = National Party of Nigeria

Table 2: Selected Basic Indicators for Ghana and Nigeria, 1979

Country	Area (in sq. km)	Population (millions)	Life expectancy	Per capita (GNP)	Average annual growth in GNP	Average annual rate of inflation 1970–1979	Average annual growth of agriculture 1970–1979	Percentage of labor force in agriculture 1960 1979
Ghana	239,000	11.3	49 yrs.	$400	−0.8%	32.4%	-0.2%	64%	54%
Nigeria	924,000	82.6	49 yrs.	$670	+ 3.7	19.0	−0.3	71	55
Source: Accelerated Development in Sub-Saharan Africa, World Bank, 1981.

The intent of this historical assessment at the end of two decades of independence is not to contrast Nigeria’s meteoric rise to the status of economic giant and acknowledged leader of black Africa with Ghana’s dramatic plunge from a position of initial external admiration and great internal expectation to an abyss of bankruptcy. To do so would be to ignore Nigeria’s present grave economic problems painfully symbolized in its decision to celebrate the 1984 anniversary of independence in a low-key manner unknown since the dark days of the Biafran war. Rather the object of this essay is to indicate the fluctuations of fate and fortune to which West Africa’s two major independent states have been subjected and to draw attention to the differing ways in which common or comparable problems have been handled by the two governments. Further, we seek to understand why there have beenmore “Ghana tragedies” than “Nigerian triumphs” among independent African nations in the quarter-century since that heady midnight hour of March 5, 1957. In other words, why has the continent experienced the horror and shame of Amin’s Uganda and Nguema’s Equatorial Guinea, the brief but bloody glory of Bokassa’s Central African Empire, war-torn Sudan and Ethiopia, sinister Zaire and gruesome Guinea (together ranked near the bottom of the list by Amnesty International in terms of human rights), indigent Tanzania and the one-man Malawi, crippled and dependent Mozambique, bizarre and coup-drunk Togo, Dahomey-Benin and Upper Volta, and erupted Chad? We must first identify what has happened before we can attempt to diagnose why.

This essay, then, is less a synchronic political or economic comparison of Ghana and Nigeria than a diachronic comparison of the history of the two countries since independence. We seek to elaborate upon and understand two sharply polarized scholarly assessments of West Africa — to contrast Ken Post’s optimistic assessment that “the inner reality is a basic political — indeed, philosophical — question: how may a decent life be ensured for the citizens of the State, and in ensuring this decent life, how may effciency be balanced against the Rule of Law and protection from arbitrary action?”² with John Dunn’s blunt verdict (delivered less than a generation later) that, when one evaluates the performance of West Africa’s rulers in the postcolonial period, “sadly, the blame is simpler to allocate than the praise.”³

GHANA

It was Kwame Nkrumah — founding father, first prime minister and finally inaugural president of Ghana from 1951 to 1966 — who inspired David Apter to introduce to the African scene the Weberian concept of the charismatic leader.⁴ Within three years of the ousting of Osagyefo the Savior, the military who had overthrown him felt satisfied that, by eradicating Nkrumaism and proscribing all those who had been associated with his philosophy, they could not only bring about the rebirth of Ghana, but eradicate the nightmare of 1957–1966 and ensure that it could never happen again. At the end of 1983 — fourteen years and nine heads of state later — Ghana appeared to be as far from regeneration as ever. Already, mass memory (proverbially short) reveres the seemingly legendary years of Nkrumah’s romantico-spectacular leadership, when West Africans could hold their heads high and be proud that they came from Ghana. Yet in 1969 the Ankrah-Afrifa military regime had little doubt about who should be its candidate for prime minister of the putative Second Republic. Professor Kofi Busia — a quiet intellectual, a long-time leader of the opposition to Nkrumah, and a one-time administrator brought up in the British colonial tradition of order and good government — epitomized the opposite of everything the flamboyant Golden Boy of Africa had stood for: here was the embodiment of democratic championship and unobtrusive leadership.

But Ghana’s Second Republic was even more short-lived than its first, and from 1972 to 1979 the country was once again under military rule. The back-to-civilian-rule election of 1979 was a concession wrung from the stonewalling General Acheampong and his equally reluctant successor, General Akuffo, by the determination of a bold bourgeoisie to end military rule. On the very eve of this election the army intervened once again. Flight-Lieutenant Jerry Rawlings postponed rather than canceled the impending general election. Three months later, in the wake of a rigorous and often insensitive “house-cleaning” exercise aimed at purging the country of corruption in high places, he handed back power. Nevertheless, the incoming President of the Third Republic, Dr. Hilla Limann (perhaps considered safe because he was so unknown and so inexperienced in politics), was left in no public doubt that he was head of state by grace of Jerry Rawlings, who would always be watching from the wings. The military (and Jerry Rawlings) were back in control within two years — as of December 31, 1981. Five recorded (and several rumored) coup attempts have taken place since then. This, added to Ghana’s record of six heads of state dead within a decade, suggests that the country has yet to solve its fundamental problem: how to make the activities of the head of state coincide with the best interests of modern Ghana. Equally important is the question of who can fill the top position to the satisfaction of the nation.

The Legislature

Ghana has demonstrated a phenomenon familiar to independent Africa — namely a shrinking of the arena for meaningful participation and a constriction of the freedom of electoral choice.⁵ This de-democratization has occurred in the commonplace West African progression ...