The socio-political role of the Ghana Armed Forces(Page 23)March 13, 2008

Article: Michael Donkor

GHANA is now 51 years old. Among the institutions that are celebrating are the Ghana Armed Forces (GAF), which have played various roles towards the attainment of independence and the administration of the country thereafter.
The genesis of the establishment of the GAF can be traced to the colonial days when the colonial masters formed troops, mostly Ghanaians, to serve and protect their interest so long as they continued to colonise the Gold Coast, now Ghana.
One infamous incident which always reminds Ghanaians of the critical role Ghanaian soldiers have played in the attainment of independence is the Christianborg cross-road shooting incident in 1948.
This incident marked the first major step towards the struggle for Ghana’s independence.
At the end of the second world war, there was an increased agitation by anti-colonial movements for independence for the colonies in South East Asia and Africa.
Ghanaian war veterans of the Royal West African Frontier Force (RWAFF) who had fought so gallantly alongside their allies and received commendation were demobilised at the end of the war when they were only paid a pittance, by way of war gratuity, of about one shilling a day.
The ex-servicemen were naturally not happy with the gratuity.
They thought the British government which then ruled the Gold Coast would, in appreciation of their sacrifices, pay them something appreciable.
In addition to this, several appeals made by the soldiers to the authorities fell on deaf ears.
After waiting for a period of time in anticipation that a reasonable war benefit would be paid to them, the ex-servicemen decided that a direct approach should be made to the British governor and commander in chief of the Gold Coast Regiment, Sir Gerald Creasy.
It was in the process of making this direct approach in a protest march to the Christianborg Castle to present a petition that a British police officer opened fire, killing three of the ex-servicemen.
This infuriated the people of the Gold Coast who rose up to demand for an immediate self government.
The war veterans and some Ghanaian military personnel and their counterparts from the civilian populace in active politics like Dr Kwame Nkrumah then pressed home their demand for an immediate independence.
When Ghana was granted independence in 1957, Dr Kwame Nkrumah became its first President with the Convention People’s Party (CPP) as the ruling party.
The military for one reason or the other took over the administration of the country from the constitutionally elected government.
Four military regimes have taken over the administration of the country since the country gained political independence.
On February 24, 1966, the GAF and the police overthrew the government of Dr Kwame Nkrumah. A National Liberation Council (NLC), headed by Lt. General Joseph Arthur Ankrah, was formed to administer the country. General Ankrah was removed from office in April 1969 and Lt. General Akwasi Amankwa Afrifa became Chairman of the NLC, which later gave way to a three-man Presidential Commission with General Afrifa as chairman.
The commission paved the way for a general election in 1969, which brought into power the Progress Party government, with Dr Kofi Abrefa Busia as Prime Minister and Mr Edward Akufo-Addo as President.
The GAF again took over the reins of government on January 13, 1972, and Colonel (later General) Ignatius Kutu Acheampong, became the Head of State and Chairman of the National Redemption Council (NRC). The name of the NRC was later changed to the Supreme Military Council (SMC). General Acheampong was replaced by General F.W.K. Akuffo in a palace coup in July 1978. The SMC was overthrown on June 4, 1979, in a mass revolt of junior officers and men of the Ghana Armed Forces. Following the uprising, an Armed Forces Revolutionary Council (AFRC) was set up under the chairmanship of Flt. Lt. Jerry John Rawlings. The AFRC carried out a house-cleaning exercise in the armed forces and society at large, while restoring a sense of moral responsibility and the principle of accountability and probity in public life. The AFRC was in office for only three months and, in pursuance of a programme already set in motion before the uprising, allowed general election to be held. On September 24, 1979, the AFRC handed over power to the civilian administration of Dr Hilla Limann, leader of the People's National Party which had won the elections.
The Limann administration was overthrown on December 31, 1981 in another coup by Mr ( Flt. Lt.) Rawlings who had left the military after the handover to the PNP. Mr Rawlings became the chairman of a nine-member Provisional National Defence Ruling Council (PNDC) with Secretaries of State in charge of the various ministries being responsible to the PNDC.
But neither military nor civilian governments during the next 15 years were able to deal successfully with the host of problems Nkrumah was claimed to have bequeathed. In particular, under the Supreme Military Council (1972-78), Ghana's economic and political situation deteriorated at an alarming rate. The 1970s were a period of steadily falling agricultural production, manufacturing output, and per capita income.
Declining cocoa production and exports were accompanied by a corresponding rise in smuggling of the crop to neighbouring countries, especially Cote d'Ivoire, and largely accounted for chronic trade deficits. Personal enrichment and corruption became the norm of government.
Beyond these serious problems loomed much larger issues that needed to be addressed if Ghana were to resume its position at the forefront of Africa's leading nations. Among these were the fear of an overly centralised and authoritarian national executive, the burden of accumulated foreign debt, and the need to forge a nation from Ghana's diverse ethnic and regional interests. In particular, the challenge was to devise a system of government that would bridge the enormous gap that had developed between the political centre and society at large.
For most Ghanaians, the nation-state by the late 1970s had become a largely irrelevant construct that had ceased to provide economic benefits or opportunities for meaningful political participation. As a consequence, local, ethnic, and regional interests had become much more prominent than those of Ghana as a whole.
Such were the challenges that lay before the group of military officers who seized power at the end of 1981. During its first year, the Provisional National Defence Council (PNDC) spoke vaguely about socialism and established people's and workers' defence committees and extra-judicial public tribunals as a way to involve Ghanaians in public administration.
In 1983 however, the council, under its leader, Jerry John Rawlings, abandoned its socialist leanings and negotiated a structural adjustment programme with the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund as the best and perhaps only method of rejuvenating the economy. Called the Economic Recovery Programme, it was designed to stimulate economic growth and exports, to enhance private initiative and investment, and to reduce the role of the state in economic affairs.
On the one hand, Ghana's Structural Adjustment Programme was and continues to be one of a half dozen models for such programmes backed by international lending agencies. It succeeded in reversing the downward trend in production and exports, especially in the cocoa, mining, and timber industries. During the 1980s, gross national product grew at annual rates of five per cent or more a year, per capita income slowly began to rise, and inflation abated. Since 1990, economic growth has slowed, but trends in the economy remain positive.
Despite problems and shortcomings, the government of the present Fourth Republic, which succeeded the PNDC in 1993, remains committed to it.
In April 1992, a new constitution that called for an elected national parliament and chief executive won overwhelming approval in a national referendum. Political parties, banned since 1982, were the mechanism through which the system was to work.
On the whole, Ghana's economy seemed to be headed in the right direction in the mid-1990s, even if sustained economic recovery was not yet a reality more than a decade after introduction of the Economic Recovery Programme and even if the country continued to rely on cocoa, gold, and timber for most of its foreign currency earnings. Nonetheless, in spite of real problems, Ghana was still the model for structural adjustment in Africa in the eyes of Western lending institutions.
By mid-1995, Ghana had emerged at the forefront of change in sub-Saharan Africa. Its structural adjustment programme was a model for other developing nations on the continent, and its pursuit of popular, representative government and democratic institutions made it a pacesetter in the political realm. Endowed with both human and natural resources and with a political leadership seemingly determined to reverse decades of economic and political decline, Ghana had the potential to become one of Africa's leading nations once again. Whether Ghana would resume its status as the "Star of Black Africa" envisioned by Kwame Nkrumah, is beginning to manifest in the administration of President John Agyekum Kufuor and his New Patriotic Party (NPP).
The country has for the past three years enjoyed ???a stable macro-economy?? with massive infrastructure development.
The GAF have since pledged their loyalty to defend the constitution of the country and partner democratic governments by ensuring that there is peace and stability at all times to enable these governments to develop the country.