UGCC@78: Ghanaian leaders hate freedom, but help celebrate it (Part I)

Seventy-eight years ago, on August 4th, 1947, the first political party in Ghana, the United Gold Coast Convention (UGCC), a pioneering force that ignited the flames of self-determination, was established to advocate for independence.

The UGCC was not just a party; it was a bold declaration that the Gold Coast deserved liberty, dignity, and a future governed by its citizens.
The UGCC did not fight only for symbolic freedom. Its vision included something much bigger: the sanctity of individual rights, the protection of property rights, the promise of free markets that empower rather than exploit, and the pursuit of prosperity as a shared responsibility.

This anniversary arrives amid a time of national reflection. There is increasing concern about the decline of moral standards, the growth of unchecked partisanship, and the ongoing issue of unrestrained partisanship that undermines public trust in our democracy.

What happens when Ghanaians never learn true history? When truth is erased and lies take over reality? When the current generation is taught to believe that nothing happened toward independence until Kwame Nkrumah arrived, that the ‘slow politics’ of the ‘UGCC elites’ was meant to deny Ghanaians independence, that individual freedom is dangerous, individual initiative is selfishness, and that those who prefer the free market are greedy. No doubt, our flawed democracy is rooted in the old languages and attitudes of the past.

Independence was fought to free Ghanaians from an oppressive colonial government. However, after independence, Nkrumah established a constitutional government that held more power than the colonial rulers did. Nkrumah’s socialist model, although idealistic at that time, solidified the colonial bureaucracy and diminished individual initiative. Over time, this led to:

• Overreliance on government jobs and subsidies

• Weak private sector development

• Corruption and patronage politics

• Suppression of dissent and civic autonomy

The UGCC’s vision was the opposite: liberty, enterprise, and ethical pluralism. Reclaiming that vision is not nostalgia — it is a strategic necessity.

Ghana illustrates how central government planning and corrupt, oppressive leadership can crush a nation. What happened? How did Ghana — in 2025 — get so far from the dream of establishing a free society? Answer: Our politicians did not want one.

They wanted a dependent collective. They wanted power concentrated in a few people, and that meant establishing a central coercive state — one that replaces empowerment with dependency and weakens the core ideals of multi-party democracy.
This is an undeniable part of our history. The country’s vast natural wealth — gold, diamonds, bauxite, and timber — was never used to help lift people out of poverty.

Rather, under the guise of giving Ghana to Ghanaians, politicians launched a campaign of systemic erosion of the freedoms of citizens: weaponizing state agencies, expanding surveillance on citizens, empowering partisans, and feeding partisan antagonism.

Kwame Nkrumah’s regime was a Trojan horse operation. Today, that horse still lurks within Ghana’s walls. Our politicians do not truly lead Ghana; instead, they prepare it for neo-colonial domination. Instead of fostering indigenous entrepreneurship, the state favoured large government-linked trading corporations, weakening domestic entrepreneurial capacity.

After independence, Nkrumah decided to dismantle the lively, local, and informal economy run by individuals, sometimes even destroying it. Today, we continue to dismantle them.

The indigenous free informal economy thrived in colonial Ghana, with traders traveling across the country carrying goods and services. These traders did not need a chief’s permission to trade or do business. Chiefs did not set prices; the market did that.

The point is that since independence, Ghanaian politics has encouraged people to lose their individual identities in a nonexistent collective state. But democracies are not states.

A state is a self-organising system, and our failure to adequately understand the character of democratic politics means that our politicians strive to control wealth creation and power, the only thing worth dying for. Currently, there is no shortage of less principled individuals fighting for that power. Do you still wonder why thugs seek to control our elections?

Contrary to the atomized individuals criticized by UGCC opponents, individual liberty and property are not enemies of civil society; big government is the true foe that fractures connections between people by consolidating power and resources into the hands of politicians and their allies.

History demonstrates that Danquah’s warnings that our Presidents could become untouchable, with control over appointments, Parliament, and the judiciary, have become reality.

The writer, Kwadwo Afari, is the National Protocol Director of the New Patriotic Party (NPP).