August 4 is very significant in the history of Ghana. Three historically important milestones took place on this day.
It was the day Ghana changed from driving left to right. The United Gold Coast Convention (UGCC) which started the struggle for independence as the first political organisation was also formed on August 4. Again, the Gold Coast Aborigines’ Rights Protection Society (ARPS) established to safeguard against the large-scale expropriation of African lands by European entrepreneurs or officials was formed on the same day.
Under a sustained large-scale campaign called, “Operation Keep Right,” Ignatius Kutu Acheampong’s National Redemption Council (NRC), switched road commuters in the country from driving on the left to right effective August 4, 1974.
Drivers, pedestrians, school children, and ordinary citizens readily learnt the new rules of the road, coded in the phrase “Nifa, Nifa” or “Nyimfa, Nyimfa, Na Nyen” (Twi: “Right is right”).
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The reason, according to the government, was that by continuing to drive on the left Ghana not only reinforced its history as a British colony, but it also isolated itself from its neighbours and limited its potential for economic growth and development.
The switch to the new system brought significant practical benefits, clearing the way for the initial phases of the Trans-African Highway Project and establishing the infrastructure needed for new types of regional economic collaboration. These changes were formalized in the creation of the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) in 1975.
The massive success of the changeover baffled observers who had earlier predicted doom.
“We were prepared to make it work. Hence the success,” a Ghana Private Road Transport Union (GPRTU) official in a media chat recently said.
Politically, Ghana’s struggle against colonial rule started on August 4, 1897, with the formation of the ARPS under John Mensah Sarbah, lawyer and politician.
Though the Society started as an anti-colonial organization aimed at preventing the wholesale expropriation of African lands by European entrepreneurs or officials; it later also campaigned against the exclusion of qualified Africans from the colonial administration.
Until the 1930s when the Gold Coast Aborigines’ Rights Protection Society came to an end, it was the voice of Africans in the colonies.
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Political groups abound in the British colony, but the United Gold Coast Convention was the first nationalist movement with the goal of achieving self-government “in the shortest possible time”.
It was founded on August 4, 1947, by educated Africans and merchants, including Joseph Boakye Danquah, George Alfred Grant (known as Paa Grant), Edward Akufo-Addo, Emmanuel Obetsebi-Lamptey, and William Ofori Atta.
Paa Grant popularly known as “the father of Gold Coast politics”, was the first president of the United Gold Coast Convention (UGCC) in August 1947.
In 1948 following disturbances that led to the killing of three World War II veterans, the colonial government detained six leaders of the UGCC. The six, in Ghana’s political history, are known as the BIG SIX. They are: Kwame Nkrumah; Joseph Boakye Danquah; Emmanuel Obetsebi-Lamptey; Ebenezer Ako-Adjei; William Ofori Atta; and, Edward Akufo-Addo
The tireless efforts of the BIG SIX and many others led to the achievement of Ghana’s independence on March 6, 1957.