[12][13] Initially, Nkrumah was hesitant about accepting the position, being aware that both the composition and objectives of the UGCC fell far short of the radical, political program he envisaged for the Gold Coast and for Africa.

[15] On 14 November 1947, Kwame Nkrumah set sail from Liverpool aboard the SS Accra, accompanied by Kojo Botsio, another friend from London who was also member of WASU and with that, the beginning of a new chapter in the modern political history of Ghana begun.

Just over a month after Nkrumah's arrival in the Gold Coast, the growing discontent found expression in a boycott of mostly foreign-owned trading firms organized by Nii Kwabena Bonne on 26 January 1948.

The executive committee of the UGCC sent telegrams to Arthur Creech Jones, the then British Secretary of State for the Colonies, asking for a Special Commissioner to be sent to the Gold Coast with power to call a Constituent Assembly.

B. Danquah, Ofori Atta, Akufo Addo, Ako Adjei, Obetsebi Lamptey and Kwame Nkrumah, subsequently known as The Big Six – were arrested and flown to the Northern Territories, where they were detained for six weeks before being taken to Accra to appear at a Commission of Enquiry set up by the Governor under the chairmanship of Aiken Watson Q.C.

Nkrumah was called before the UGCC Working Committee and suspended from his post as general secretary following questioning about his persistent use of the word "Comrade" as a term of address and his continued connections with the West African National Secretariat in London.

As plans for the elections to the legislative assembly gathered pace, the CPP took what Governor Arden Clarke was later to describe as a "decisive stroke" to put up Kwame Nkrumah, who was still serving his term of imprisonment in James Fort, as the candidate for Accra Central –now part of today's Odododiodoo constituency.

[66] In February 1952, Nkrumah won a significant concession after he successfully persuaded the colonial administration to amend the 1951 constitution to change his title from Leader of Government Business to Prime Minister, with the Executive Council recast as the Cabinet.

[63][76] In March 1954, and before the June elections the government took a decision to fix the price of cocoa at £3.12 shillings in response to the Seers and Ross "Report on Finance and Physical Problems of Development in the Gold Coast" to contain looming inflation.

[77] In his presentation to parliament, Gbedemah argued that he was seeking to deal with the ‘fragility’ of the Gold Coast economy highlighted by the Seers and Ross report stemming from an over-reliance on one commodity for nearly 60 percent of export revenues.

However, what started out as the natural response of an aggrieved sector of the country over policy was hijacked by disgruntled political activists and leaders with a melange of grievances including those unhappy with Justice Van Lare's report on the allocation of seats for the Legislative Assembly in the 1954 elections.

[81][82] This toxic combination of disgruntled rumps hijacked genuine farmers’ grievances over the proposed fixed farm gate prices for cocoa and used it as an excuse to step up opposition to the elected government and in the process, fomented violence and mayhem that claimed the lives of many men, women and children needlessly.

[citation needed] The National Liberation Movement (NLM) launched in September 1954 under the leadership for the chief linguist of Ashantehene, Baffour Osei Akoto emerged from this disgruntled group, and the rump of the routed political opposition threw in their lot with them.

It was at the height of these political disturbances, disputations, disruptions, destructions and killings perpetrated by the NLM against the CPP members that the 1956 general elections was held to determine which party should lead the country into independence.

The CPP won 8 out of the 21 seats in the elections thereby denying the NLM of the 2/3 (two-thirds) majority in Ashanti region that they had hoped to win; a condition set by the British government to determine the popularity and favourite party to lead the country into independence.

[92] Dr K. A. Busia travelled to London to see the Minister of State Alex Lennox-Boyd and requested that a constitutional expert be sent to mediate and yet, the NLM refused to co-operate with Sir Frederick Bourne when he arrived in Ghana.

Opposition members bragged that they retained the services of lawyers in London to draw up the necessary legal documents for secession, apply for membership of the United Nations and plans were underway to build a £500,000 House of Parliament in Ashanti.

[citation needed] Members of the Ga Shifimo Kpee circulated forged cabinet papers purporting to show the government was deliberately acting against the interests of the people from the North, the Volta region and Accra in an attempt to fan tribal hatred and disturbances.

[114] In response, CPP supporters in Accra set up a rival group, the Ga Ekomefeemo Kpee, and the two inevitably clashed notably in a demonstration outside Parliament on 20 August 1957 which led to several people being injured.

[116] According to Mr Wilson Flake, then the US Ambassador to Ghana (see Foreign Relations, 1955–1957, Volume XVIII, pages 387–388), the leader of the opposition and member of Parliament approached him and requested "25 thousand dollars in the US to purchase vehicles and hire party workers to offset "dangerous indoctrination" being given by CPP agents who have unlimited funds."

[121] A quasi-judicial Commission set up by the government and chaired by Justice Granville Sharp found unanimously that both Apaloo and Amponsah had "engaged in a conspiracy to carry out at some future date in Ghana an act for unlawful purpose, revolutionary in character."

To quell the outbreak of violence and disorder along tribal lines, the Government introduced the Avoidance of Discrimination Act to prohibit the establishment of political parties based solely on ethnic, racial or religious grounds.

Its notable achievements include the establishment of the Bank of Ghana in July 1957, Black Star Shipping Line with SS Volta River welcomed to home port in December 1957 and opening of Broadcasting House of Radio Ghana early 1958[130] The second five-year development plan was launched on 1 July 1959, aimed at (a) achieving economic independence, (b) developing resources to produce a strong, healthy and balanced economy, and (c) reducing economic vulnerability by reducing dependence on cocoa as a single crop.

"[134] The Workers Brigade was formed to absorb 12,000 young men and women among elementary school-leavers, and trained in discipline, responsibility and citizenship, and skills to enable them find employment in agriculture and industry.

In response to increases in duty on consumer goods and the introduction of a compulsory saving scheme to quell rising inflation, the railways workers organized a strike to register their opposition to the austerity measures in the budget.

[93] The government discovered that among the plans of the Lome group was a series of bomb explosions to be launched from neighbouring Togo on national monuments and at the residences of prominent ministers orchestrated by the personal assistant to K. A. Gbedemah (who had by now become estranged from the CPP administration) Victor Yaw de Grant Bempong.

While some advocated a gradualist approach, emphasis being on economic, cultural and regional groupings, others led by Ghana considered it essential to provide political machinery to plan liberation and development on a continental scale.

[182] Nkrumah, Ben Barka, leading Moroccan opposition figure, and Fidel Castro were responsible for the formation of Organisation of Solidarity with the Peoples of Africa, Asia and Latin America (OSPAAL) which sought to maintain independence from both the USSR and China.

[203] Underlying most of the Political Committee's Report and recommendations for action on the Party's return to power was the need to stress the importance of educating the masses to know and understand the policies and method of the CPP, necessary to build a society based on Pan-African socialist principles.

[1] The final resting place of "The Greatest African" and founder of the Convention People's Party, is in a marble mausoleum in a beautiful Memorial Park on the site of the Polo Ground in Accra, where Kwame Nkrumah declared the Independence of Ghana on 6 March 1957.