63rd Independence Anniversary : Social Justice Movement Wishes Ghanaians

On this august day of 6^th March 2020, the Social Justice Movement of Ghana (SJMG) is minded to extend fraternal greetings to all Ghanaians and groups who made the independence of Ghana on the 6^th of March 1957 possible. Our fraternal and comradely greetings go to the working people, represented by the Trade Union Congress of Ghana (TUC), the peasant farmers across the length and breadth of Ghana, the African people in the diaspora world, that is the people of African descent in Trinidad and Tobago, Jamaica, St. Kitts, Guadaloupe, Haiti and so on, whose contributions in diverse ways made the 6^th of March 1957 a reality. We cannot also fail to pay glowing tribute to Nkrumah’s Convention Peoples’ Party (CPP) which spearheaded the struggle for independence.

Today 6^th March 2020 marks the 63^rd Anniversary of Ghana’s independence. It is a day for us not only to celebrate but to reflect on how far we have come since independence on 6^th March 1957. On that fateful day, Dr. Kwame Nkrumah’s clarion call was “Seek ye first the political kingdom and all else shall be added onto you."

Taking over the colonial political apparatus, the Convention Peoples’ Party (CPP) under the leadership of Osagyefo Dr. Kwame Nkrumah sought to use it to undertake far reaching policies and programmes: the establishment of import-export substitution industries, the nationalization of key sectors of our mineral resources and the expansion of our educational, social and health services. The programmes were meant to improve the livelihood of our people and disentangle us from the stranglehold of the colonial economy.

It is important to point out however that, nation states like Ghana, which arose after colonial rule were structured on the basis of a compromise. In Ghana, the political superstructure was ceded to the petite bourgeoisie, while colonial authorities (imperialism) held on to the economic base: a key and decisive aspect in the running of the state machinery. In the nation state of Ghana therefore, there were two masters, Nkrumah and the CPP who theoretically controlled the state political machinery and International capitalism which controlled the economy and bureaucracy (civil service and security forces). There were obvious advantages in the new constitutional arrangement which could advance and propel a meaningful socialist agenda. Nkrumah could take the process of decolonization further by eliminating vestiges of racism, and feudal practices in the countryside, reduce the power of chiefs, speed up the emancipation of women and strike at superstition and myths by guiding the state along the path of secularism.

But while independence offered obvious opportunities, it was bristling with hazards, emanating from the agents of imperialism like the JB Danquahs, the Kofi Abrefa Busias and all the reactionary elements whose commitment to the ethos of the colonizers was unflinching. It was this class of people imbued with the philosophy of the free market economic system which reversed the revolutionary course started by Nkrumah on 24^th February 1966.

Since the overthrow of Nkrumah to the present day, the Ghanaian economy has continued to be under the iron grip of foreign control. The dominant classes that have ruled since 1966 do not question why all their policies and programmes have failed to bring about economic development.

The two political parties, the New Patriotic Party (NPP) and the National Democratic Congress (NDC) are the two dominant parties that have occupied the Ghanaian political space since 1992. Under them politics has been reduced to the struggle of the two to capture state power not because they want to use it to bring about any meaningful structural change in the economy that would benefit the people. The acrimony between them has a single purpose of capturing the levers of state power to pilfer economic resources.

This explains why the two parties have supervised and superintended over abominable levels of poverty, corruption and nepotism over the years. Our youth complete schools without jobs; while the mass of people submit to curable diseases like malaria, typhoid and common cold. because the NHIS is nothing to talk about. In spite of this the NPP and NDC have never had cause to question the root cause of our underdevelopment which is the dependent nature of our economy.

The effect of this domination is that the advanced capitalist countries continue to rob us. They wax fatter and fatter even as we grow thinner and thinner. Ghana and other African countries since Nkrumah’s overthrow have become more and more entrapped in these relations of exploitation. Ghana has become an economic satellite of the advanced capitalist states like Britain, America, France, Japan and so on. But economic control cannot be sustained without political control, so the ruling parties of Ghana after the CPP was ousted; ceded parts of the country to the ruling authorities in America for military use, thereby putting the entire population of Ghana in the frontline of terrorist attacks. With all this Ghana has become a ridiculous imitation of the way of life of the ruling class of Europe and America.

Internally politics has become a conduit for the two main political parties to loot state coffers. Corrupt governments wield power and use their positions to grow wealthy out of the handshakes they get for their services as intermediaries between the multinational corporations and the people. The result is that our people have become extremely poor; and the NPP and NDC have become so alienated from the people to the extent that the electorate has become disenchanted with elections.

It is to fight against the dependency of our economy on foreign capital that the SJMG was formed. We are currently working with other progressive organizations and individuals to provide an alternative to the decadent current political system. We have the objective of taking control of our country from the parties that believe in the new liberal economic ideology. The cheeky ease and arrogance with which they have taken over the control of some of the smaller parties is something that must be defeated. We know that the NPP and NDC as neo-colonial parties will not and never confront the control of our economy by foreign concerns. And why should they do so?. They also benefit immensely from managing the neo-colonial state. That is why they will gleefully adhere to policies and programmes dictated by the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the World Bank (WB). The two institutions were created to establish the hegemonic control of the United States of America (USA) and Western Europe over African resources.

On this important day of our independence, we are calling on the mass of our people to reflect on the root cause of our problems and together find ways to solve our problems in order to bring social and economic justice to our people.

The SJMG, is calling on all progressive and nationalistic forces to come together and form a political party that will provide an alternative to the hegemony of our politics by the two decadent and neo-colonial parties of the NPP and NDC.

The SJMG together with the Concerned Nkrumaists of North America (CNNA), the Osageyfo Youth Movement, Afram Progressive Forum, Convention for Progressive Organisations, Heritage Pan African Revolution and as well as other groups are engaged in discussions on how to provide an alternative to the NPP and NDC.

We in the SJMG are willing and prepared to work with organisations such as the Peoples’ Democratic Movement (PDM), the Kwame Nkrumah Ideological Institute, progressive organisations and individuals who are ready to walk along the path towards our second independence. By this we mean building a country that controls its natural and human resources for the betterment of its people. In a nutshell the construction of a socialist society. We also believe in the Pan-Africanist project, that together with other African states we can defeat imperialism and bring social and economic justice to the whole of Africa. Now is the time more than ever before for Africans to work towards the control of their resources. We have to stop lamentation and agonizing and take concrete steps for our own development. Nobody can do this for us, unless ourselves.

We must work together in a united party with clear pro-people political programme that clearly provides alternatives to disengage us from foreign control. It is a matter of priority for us to eschew individualism and petty party formations and work together to salvage Ghana from the disaster that the NPP and NDC have plunged us so far into.

Issued on Friday, 6^th March 2020, Bolgatanga, Upper East Region.

Please contact the following for further information:

Nyeya Yen 0200133091, Aidan Adongo 0541140922 & Hillary Adongo 0247483235