Economic, social and political developments in Ghana: A relook at the Guggisburg era in the Gold Coast (1919-1927)

Abstract

In Africa and most countries of the developing world, infrastructural projects are mostly carried out with the goal of eradicating poverty, misery, diseases and deprivation, as well as to ensure equity in the sharing of national cake. Therefore, right after colonization of Africa, the colonial authorities set in motion the process of providing one infrastructural project or the other in their colonies. Typical examples were construction of roads and railways, harbours, pipe borne water, electricity, construction of school buildings, hospitals or dispensaries, sinking of wells and the like. Though, these projects were seen to be woefully inadequate by some African Historians, who have been critical of the colonial administrations’ provision of the so called infrastructural projects as tools for exploitation of the resources of the colonies for the benefit of their home country, to the neglect of the improvement of the circumstances of the colonial subjects or territories. This paper using primary and secondary data examines the developments that occurred in Ghana in the economic, social and political spheres focusing on the era of Guggisberg as the Governor of Colonial Ghana (the Gold Coast) from 1919 to 1927 and discusses its implication for the current political gimmick