Kwame Nkrumah Failing to Modernize Ghana

Kwame Nkrumah Failing to Modernize Ghana
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Kwame Nkrumah Failing to Modernize Ghana
The Gold Coast was granted independence in 1957 and joined the Commonwealth as Ghana. Kwame Nkrumah served an imprisonment term for incitement and served as its prime minister. He was freed to head the new administration after his convention People's Party won the polls from incarceration to power, which he controlled for fifteen years. However, since the country's 1957 independence celebrations and inauguration as its first president three years later, Nkrumah has been criticized for being an authoritarian leader or essentially a dictator. Isolationist foreign policy, neocolonialism view, and social policy overreliance are why Kwame Nkrumah failed to modernize Ghana.
The Organization of African Unity (OAU) was established due to Nkrumah's foreign policy, which attempted to unite African states in opposition to imperialism and exploitation. He spent much of his energy on the Pan-African movement after 1960, which hurt Ghana's economy and development (Ahlman, 2021). Nkrumah strongly believed that Ghana should play a major role in global development. His personality unquestionably influenced Ghana's foreign affairs since he believed he had a particular purpose for Africa that could only be properly accomplished with his leadership at the top. Some of Nkrumah's compatriots were divided and enraged by his ideas about African unity and his methods to achieve his goals in foreign affairs. However, his combative attitude frequently left Ghana economically and diplomatically isolated. Due to his allegiance to communist states, Western countries were reluctant to offer investment and aid, hampered Ghana's economic development even more. During his time as president of Ghana, Kwame Nkrumah's foreign policy, especially his support for communist and socialist nations, caused Ghana to become economically and diplomatically isolated. This separation significantly impacted the growth of Ghana and its connections with other countries. Concerning Ghana's alleged Cold War affiliations to communist regimes, Western nations were reluctant to offer aid, investment opportunities, and commerce (Boogaart, 2019). As a result of its exclusion from Western governance and financial relationships, Ghana could not access economic opportunities and resources that would have helped its endeavors to modernize. Ghana's economic progress was hampered by a lack of backing from Western countries, which were significant suppliers of financial aid, investment, and development opportunities. In addition to Nkrumah's government's reliance on financial support and assistance from socialist nations, it faced unmanageable debt loads and economic difficulties.
In essence, Kwame Nkrumah faced difficulties modernizing Ghana because he believed in neocolonialism and his strategy for combating it. Soon after gaining independence, Africans realized that a new form of imperialism was being conducted against their home nations by their former colonizers and some other industrialized nations after most African countries. It is important to note that, despite neocolonialism being a covert replication of former colonial ...