Ask someone what 4th August stands for in this country and in five out of ten times, he/she wouldn’t know!
Ironically, I was being regaled, at the time, with the national anthems of the nations whose sports prowess was being celebrated on TV as their national anthems blasted out. I longed to hear mine on 4th August, as the Olympic Games went on. But sadly, it was a forlorn hope!
Which leads me to wonder: what would ‘The Big Six’ think of us if they were to be enabled to see what we have made of the nation they so bravely won for us – with sleepless nights and other perils that constituted personal sacrifices for them?
In 1947 (the year in which they formed the United Gold Coast Convention on 4th August) there were very few tarred roads in the country. The radio was controlled by the British against whose continued ruling of Gold Coast the UGCC was fighting. Newspapers were few.
So the UGCC’s organisational work was done largely by word of mouth. The leadership spoke largely at private meetings, explaining what they were about hurriedly and then dispersing into the night. For there were informers (as traitorous as today’s galamseyers) who would not scruple to betray them to the police, for holding meetings without a “permit”! Being caught at such an “illegal” gathering was punishable by a fine or imprisonment.
However, undeterred by these problems, the UGCC had, within a year of its formation, become known to most inhabitants of the Gold Coast. I was in “Standard Two” (Class Five of primary school) when the 28th February shooting of Ex-Servicemen, which the British blamed on the UGCC, took place.
Our class teacher, Mr F G Osei (he hailed from the small village of Agyepomaa, near Asiakwa) described to us, in dramatic terms, how the ‘Big Six’ were arrested merely because they wanted the British to honour the terms of “The Bond of 1844”.
They had signed it with some of our “Chiefs” and it was to allow the British to rule us for one hundred years, after which they would go back. The one hundred years had passed in 1944, yet the British didn’t want to honour their word!
British dishonour was accentuated by the fact that Gold Coasters who had fought for the British during the Second World War, had been “cheated” of the pensions promised them.
On the 28th of February 1948, the Gold Coast Ex-Servicemen’s Union organised a march to the Christiansborg Castle, at Osu, in Accra to present a petition to the Governor demanding that their pensions be paid.
At the Christiansborg Crossroads, near the Castle, armed policemen, led by a British officer, Superintendent Imray, ordered them to turn back. The ex-soldiers refused, whereupon Superintendent Imray shot three of them dead.
News that the British had killed people who had fought for them in Burma spread round the country. Widespread rioting ensued, in which shops owned by European and Lebanese merchants were looted. A general strike followed.
Convinced that the looting and the strike had been organised by the leadership of the UGCC, the British arrested six of them – Dr J B Danquah, Edward Akufo-Addo, William Ofori Atta, Emmanuel Ako Adjei, Obetsebi Lamptey and Kwame Nkrumah. But unrest continued in the country and the British were forced to set up a “Constitutional Commission” to enquire into the political future of the country.
This Commission, under Mr Justice Coussey, took evidence from all the political actors of the Gold Coast and recommended that steps should be taken to install an African Government in the Gold Coast without delay. The British accepted the recommendations, and the first African Government was installed in 1951. It was headed by Dr Kwame Nkrumah of the Convention People’s Party, as “Leader of Government Business.” On March 6, 1957, independence was granted to the Gold Coast, with its name changed to “Ghana.”
As I asked above, suppose any of the leaders who fought valiantly to achieve independence for us were to be enabled to see us today, what would they do?
I suggest that they would weep and weep and weep. For they and their predecessors (in the Aborigines Rights Protection Society, for instance) had spent money and time to fight the British and get them to relinquish control of our lands. But look at what we have made of the land, on gaining control of it!
The very basis of our ability to stay alive – the water we drink and the land on which we grow our food – are being destroyed with merciless abandon by criminals called “galamseyers”. Yet we are being deceived into accepting such murderous activities as galamsey, so long as they are cloaked in nice-sounding terms, such as “small-scale mining” and/or “artisanal mining.”
The utter devastation which the galamseyers have wrought upon our nation, should make us root them out of our society mercilessly. For there were anti-social practices in our past, too, as in every society. What was done was to regard the offenders as rapists, wayfarers or highwaymen and – punish them severely to deter others from following suit. Offenders were put in wooden stockades, tortured and sometimes killed. So, no-one ever wanted to do anything that would make him or her be classified as ᴐddaduani [occupant of the wooden stockade; i.e. culprit.
We would be very foolish indeed to imagine that we can live in a society that does not punish those who only think of their needs, and who do not scruple to destroy water and land, in seeking to satisfy their selfish lust for money.
By Cameron Duodu