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Ghana: Modern Ghana
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The Empire of Ghana has no geographical connection with the modern African state of that name. Rather, its boundaries would have included most of modern Mali and parts of modern Senegal and Mauritania. Modern Ghana, formerly the Gold Coast during the Colonial Era, was named after this great state of African antiquity.
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Ghana (Wagadu), the earliest known empire of the western Sudan, first entered the historical consciousness of North Africa near the end of the eighth century but probably originated long before. The empire's legacy is still celebrated in the name of the Republic of Ghana; apart from this... modern-day and ancient Ghana share no direct historical connections. Despite early texts that discuss ancient Ghana, such as The Book of Routes and Kingdoms by the eleventh-century Andalusian geographer Abu cUbayd al-Bakri, it remains very much an enigma. Famous to North Africans as the "Land of Gold," Ghana was said to possess sophisticated methods of administration and taxation, large armies, and a monopoly over notoriously well-concealed gold mines. The king of the Soninke people who founded Ghana never fully embraced Islam, but good relations with Muslim traders were fostered. Ghana's preeminence faded toward the end of the eleventh century, when its power was broken by a long struggle with the Almoravids led by Abdullah ibn Yasin.
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Formed from the merger of the British colony Gold Coast, The Empire of Ashanti and the British Togoland trust territory by a UN sponsored plebiscite, Ghana became the first democratic sub-Sahara country in colonial Africa to gain its independence in 1957. Kwame Nkrumah, founder and first president of the modern Ghanaian state, was not only an African anti-colonial leader but ... one with a dream of a united Africa which would not drift into neo-colonialism. He was the first African head of state to espouse Pan-Africanism, an idea he came into contact with during his studies at Lincoln University in Pennsylvania (United States), at the time when Marcus Garvey was becoming famous for his "Back to Africa Movement." He merged the dreams of both Marcus Garvey and the celebrated African-American scholar W.E.B. Du Bois into the formation of the modern day Ghana. Ghana's principles of freedom and justice, equity and free education for all, irrespective of ethnic background, religion or creed borrow from Osagyefo Dr. Kwame Nkrumah's implementation of Pan-Africanism.
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Ghana became independent on March 6, 1957, when Great Britain relinquished its control over the Colony of the Gold Coast and Asante, the Northern Territories Protectorate, and British Togoland. After independence, the CPP Government under Kwame Nkrumah sought to develop Ghana as a modern, semi-industrialized, socialist state. In 1966, the Ghanaian Army and police overthrew Nkrumah's regime. The leaders of 1966 coup established the new government around the National Liberation Council (NLC) and pledged an early return to a duly constituted civilian government. Ghana's government returned to civilian authority under the Second Republic in October 1969 after a parliamentary election in which the Progress Party won. On August 31, 1970, Edward Akufo-Addo was elected President of Ghana.
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Modern Ghana comprises the former British colony of the Gold Coast and the former mandated territory of British Togoland. It is bordered by the Côte d'Ivoire on the west, Burkina Faso on the north, and Togo on the east. The coastal region and the far north of Ghana are savanna areas; in between is a forest zone. The country's largest river is the Volta; the damming of the river for a hydroelectric station at Akosombo (1964) created the enormous Lake Volta. In addition to the capital (Accra), other important cities are Kumasi, Tema, Sekondi-Takoradi, Cape Coast, and Tamale.
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As was the case in many sub-Sahaan African countries the rise of a national consciousness in Ghana developed largely in the twentieth century in response to colonial policies. The call to freedom came from a few elites but it was only after World War II that the concept of independence captured the imagination of large numbers of people and gained popular support. Differences existed between the two leading political parties ... on such issues as the timetable for independence and the powers to be vested in the modern state.
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Modern Ghana