Happy Independence Day Ghana

“Two men in a burning house must not stop to argue” - Ghana Proverb

(Ghana Flag (1957-Present))

Ghana is located in West Africa.

(Map of where Ghana is in Africa)

It’s capital is Accra. Its largest city is Kumasi. Its official language is English. The country is 92,099 square miles. 98.4% of the population is African while 1.6% is other races. 71.2% of Ghana practices Christianity, and 17.6% practice Islam. The total population of Ghana is about 27 million people. There are 2 seasons in Ghana the wet and dry season, since it is a tropical country. Ghana has a Unitary presidential constitutional republic.

(Accra, Ghana’s capital)

Ghana’s food consists of an assortment of soups and stews with varied seafoods and most Ghanaian soups are prepared with vegetables, meat, poultry or fish. The dish, Banku is a common Ghanaian starchy food made from ground corn, and cornmeal based staples, dokonu  and banku are usually accompanied by some form of fried fish or grilled tilapia and a very spicy condiment made from raw red and green chillies, onions and tomatoes.

(Ghanaian cuisine)

The Ghanaian national literature radio programme and accompanying publication Voices of Ghana was one of the earliest on the African continent. The most well known type of clothing in Ghana is the Kente cloth. Kente is a ceremonial cloth hand woven on a horizontal treadle loom and strips measuring about 4 inches wide are sewn together into larger pieces of cloths.

(Kente cloth)

Ghanaian music incorporates several distinct types of musical instruments such as the talking drum ensembles, Akan Drum, goje fiddle and koloko lute, court music, including the Akan Seperewa, the Akan atumpan, the Ga kpanlogo styles, and log xylophones used in asonko music. In Ghana Association soccer is the most spectated sport. The national men's football team is known as the Black Stars.

(Ghana’s national soccer team)

From the 5th to 15th centuries Ghana was inhabited and ruled by several different kingdoms. Such as the Ashanti Empire, the Akwamu, the Bonoman, the Denkyira, and the Mankessim Kingdom.

(Ashanti people of Ghana)

In the 15th century the Akan people in Ghana, made contact with the Portuguese and started to trade with them. In 1598 the Dutch joined the Portuguese with trade with the people of Ghana. Other European countries joined in with the trading. More than 30 forts and castles were set up by these European invaders in Ghana, and they brought the slave trade into Ghana. In 1874 the British took control of Ghana, now known as the Gold Coast. There were several wars between the British and the Ashanti tribe of the Gold Coast. These wars lasted from 1824 to 1901.

(Queen Yaa Asantewaa, leader of the Ashanti tribe against the British)

In 1946 Kwame Nkrumah became the first Prime Minister of the Gold Coast and formed the Convention People's Party (CPP). On March 6th 1957 The Gold Coast declared its independence from Great Britain and changed its name to Ghana.

(The Gold Coast flag, under British colonization)

The flag of Ghana, consisting of the colors red, gold, green, and a black star, became the new flag in 1957. The flag was designed by Theodosia Salome Okoh. The red represents the blood that was shed towards independence, the gold represents the industrial minerals wealth of Ghana, the green symbolises the rich grasslands of Ghana, and the black star is the symbol of the Ghanaian people and African emancipation.

(Theodosia Okoh, Designer of the Ghana flag)

In 1960 Kwame Nkrumah was declared the first President of Ghana.

(Kwame Nkrumah)

Nkrumah was the 1st African head of state to promote Pan-Africanism.Nkrumah merged the teachings of Marcus Garvey, Martin Luther King, Jr. and  W. E. B. Du Bois into the formation of 1960’s Ghana.

(Nkrumah (Left) and Dr. King (Right))

Dr. Kwame Nkrumah and his government was overthrown by a GAF military operation codenamed "Operation Cold Chop" coup while Nkrumah was abroad with Zhou Enlai in the People's Republic of China for a fruitless mission to Hanoi in Vietnam to help end the Vietnam War on 24 February 1966. There was a series of alternating military and civilian governments from 1966 to 1981. Flight Lieutenant Jerry John Rawlings of the Provisional National Defense Council (PNDC) gained power in 1981.

(Jerry John Rawlings)

The economy suffered a severe decline soon after. A new Constitution of Ghana restoring multi-party system politics was promulgated in the Ghanaian presidential election in 1992. Rawlings was elected president in 1992 and again in 1996. John Agyekum Kufuor of the New Patriotic Party (NPP) was sworn into office as president of Ghana on 7 January 2001. He won again in 2004. John Atta Mills of the National Democratic Congress (NDC) became the Ghanaian presidential in 2008. John Dramani Mahama became president on July 24th 2012.

(John Dramani Mahama)

Today marks the 59th anniversary of Ghana’s independence and we would like to say happy independence day Ghana.

Videos of Ghana’s Independence

• https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wOEdJDdz690  “Ghana's independence 6th March 1957”
• https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QyKlmtEjhho  “ Ghana independence day”