J. B. Danquah Stood For Multi-Party Democracy & Economic Independence of Ghana: Razak Kojo Opoku Writes

Ghana’s first President, Dr. Kwame Nkrumah, and his political party Convention People’s Party (CPP) did well in pushing for the political independence of Ghana. However, 65 years after the political independence, the country is still struggling to achieve economic independence largely due to the 27 years of PNDC/NDC1/NDC2 and other years wasted on military interventions, which truncated Ghana’s democracy at various stages.

The political history of Ghana is completely incomplete without fully recognizing the huge significant contributions of Dr. J. B. Danquah. Apart from being the doyen of Gold Coast politics, Dr. J. B. Danquah is also widely considered as the senior pioneer pathfinder and original founder of Ghana’s multi-party democracy anchored on rule of law.

His political rival – Dr. Kwame Nkrumah – was strongly against multi-party democracy. Dr. Kwame Nkrumah was for monocracy leading to an entrenched practice of one-party state which in one way or the other undermines the country’s efforts to achieve economic independence under Dr Nkrumah.

However, for Ghana to achieve economic independence, we need to fully adopt and implement the philosophy of Dr. J. B. Danquah which is outlined under the policy of full private sector participation in the national economy, trade liberalization, individual financial liberty and domestic revenue mobilization.