On the night of March 5, 1957, as Ghana prepared to break free from colonial rule, Osagyefo Dr. Kwame Nkrumah stood before a jubilant crowd and declared:

"From now on, there is a new African who is ready to fight his own battle and show that after all, the black man is capable of managing his own affairs."

These words echoed across the African continent, inspiring other nations to seek their own liberation. However, 68 years later, the question remains: Has the black man proven capable of managing his own affairs?

Ghana was the first country in sub-Saharan Africa to gain independence from colonial rule. The fight for independence had begun decades earlier, with the people of the Gold Coast advocating for African representation in governance. By the 1920s, local resistance to British rule had intensified, and after World War II, African political parties were allowed to contest elections.

Despite this progress, the British colonial government preferred to work with conservative African chiefs and a small elite class, rather than granting full self-governance to the people. This led to the emergence of Kwame Nkrumah and his Convention People's Party (CPP), which launched a nationalist movement demanding immediate independence.