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We have a bad past that we must acknowledge — a past of political victimisation, political vindictiveness and intolerance; a past of political stigmatisation, a past that had rendered our political terrain unstable over the years and which made it difficult to promote national cohesion, progress and development.

Since the violent overthrow of the First Republic under Dr Kwame Nkrumah on February 24, 1966 and the stigmatisation of his regime which followed, successive governments have consistently pursued a cynical agenda of not giving credit to their predecessors.

The military government which succeeded the Convention People's Party government of Dr Nkrumah bestowed on itself the acclaim, Liberators. So the National Liberation Council (NLC) did not see anything good about the Nkrumah regime, not even the solid foundation it laid in the various sectors of national development, including education, agriculture and industry.

The short-lived regime of the Progress Party (PP) under Dr Kofi Abrefa Busia which sprouted from the ashes of the NLC could not find any kind words for its predecessors, not even the NLC which made it easy for the PP to gain political power.

When General Ignatius Kutu Acheampong emerged on the scene with his Redeemers on January 13, 1972, it was like nothing good ever happened in this country until their arrival. General Acheampong, then a Colonel, was on record to have justified the coup that even the few amenities the military was enjoying were denied them by the Busia regime.

General Acheampong's own National Redemption Council (NRC) matured and transformed itself into the Supreme Military Council (SMC) as a way of sidelining junior officers from the realm of things. When Gen. Acheampong was overthrown in a palace coup in 1978, to be replaced by SMC II, he was described by his colleagues in SMC I as a dictator who was running a one-man show.

Incidentally, both General Acheampong, who led SMC I, and General F.W.K. Akufo, who led SMC II, and their other colleagues on the council were cut down by bullets of the firing squad at the Teshie Shooting Range during the infamous house cleaning era under the Armed Forces Revolutionary Council (AFRC) led by Flt. Lt. J. J. Rawlings.

Dr Hilla Limann's People's National Party (PNP) which assumed political power in September 1979 had hardly planted its feet in the ground when its mandate was rudely and cruelly terminated on December 31, 1981 to herald the 'Revolution which ended all revolutions'— the 31st December Revolution.

After that, it took 11 long years before constitutional rule was restored on January 7, 1993, spearheaded by the National Democratic Congress (NDC), an offshoot of the Provisional National Defence Council (PNDC).

Throughout these periods of political turbulence which saw numerous change-overs, there was one thing which remained constant. None of the governments was modest enough to acknowledge the achievements of its predecessors.

Since most of the changes came as a result of military coups, it was always characteristic of the new administration to justify its intervention by condemning everything about the previous government.

The cumulative effect of that phenomenon was that the nation never built upon its past achievements. Successive governments never continued where others left off, with each new government starting something new which was hardly ever completed.

Kwame Nkrumah's educational policy which was the envy of many countries and which set Ghana on a cracking pace ahead of its contemporaries; his agricultural programmes which attracted the Malaysians to come and understudy our agricultural system and to return home with oil palm seedlings from our nurseries; the ambitious industrialisation policy of that regime which saw Ghana at par with South Korea, India and other emerging industrial nations in the 1960s were all abandoned.

More than 45 years after Nkrumah's overthrow, Ghana has started talking about going nuclear in power generation when the Ghana Atomic Energy Commission was set up in the 1960s by Dr Nkrumah to manage the Kwabenya Atomic Reactor which had, as part of its objective, the generation of energy for the country's industrial growth.

General Acheampong's 'Operation Feed Yourself' which attracted the youth of the day to participate in the building of the Dawhenya Irrigation Project in the 1970s could have been sustained instead of being abandoned after his overthrow.

His regime also saw the introduction of the low-cost housing concept which witnessed the construction of modest housing units in various regional and district capitals to cater for public servants serving in those communities. That concept was abandoned and the best other governments could do was to sell this housing units to the highest bidders.

Several other development projects under different regimes went the same way and the nation was the loser.
With the restoration of civil, democratic rule in 1993, many Ghanaians thought our politicians would break away from that negative past but it seems that enlightenment has not reached us yet.

We have witnessed two major changes of government since the 1992 Constitution was promulgated. The first was in 2001 when the NDC lost power and handed over to the New Patriotic Party (NPP). The second was a few months ago when the NPP was also swept out of office and had to hand over to the NDC.

Interestingly, when the NPP came to power, they hardly saw anything good in the previous administration. Everything had to be created anew.

It was like the economy had collapsed, the educational system was not working, food production had gone down, unemployment was high and poverty was everywhere.  Continued    Source: myjoyonline - Myjoyonline.com

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