Question

Explain the reasons for Nkrumah’s downfall and eventual overthrow from power in 1966.

Answer 1

Reason for downfall:
Role of Foreign Agents: It seems established that British and American imperialist circles, as well as the CIA and the British Secret Service, conspired with the military in bringing Nkrumah down.

Type of Mixed Economy: Ghana’s economic structure was a queer mixture of “welfare socialism” of the type seen in Western Europe and typical neo-colonialism. Such a combination hardly seems possible.

Parallel Private Enterprise: Quite a number of Ghanaian businessmen started up private concerns of their own, especially in consumer goods. As the socialist, democratic revolution grew and spread, there remained an under-lying potential for counter-revolution which proved to bring down Nkrumah easily.

Failure to Disarm Generals: As the coup plotters were later to allege, Nkrumah’s reign of terror created fear and panic among the populace. General insecurity created by mistrust came to take over from the well-knit Ghanaian society.

Lessons of the coup: A series of military coups (a quick and decisive seizure of governmental power by a strong military or political group) in the neo-colonialist states controlled by French imperialism like Dahomey, Central African Republic, and Upper Volta; the way Ian Smith could get away with his Unilateral Declaration of Independence, and now the overthrow of Nkrumah, all point in the same direction-a seemingly uninterrupted wave of counter-revolution is sweeping Africa. Only the military coup in Nigeria can be listed as a partial exception.

Nkrumah was a very complicated man. The times were turbulent and unpredict-able and his undertaking was of extraordinary complexity, His successes, his pan-African enthusiasm, the political galvanization of a very diverse, multifaceted society, the attainment of independence for Ghana and his early economic achieve¬ments have earned him an important place in history.

His failure emphasizes the extreme fragility of the developing world. It is a world with little or no tolerance for political, economic, social or natural shortcomings. Nkrumah’s serious shortcomings resulted in his political destruction and the near-devastation of magnificent land and people.