Ghana, Nkrumah and the Accra Riots
"Ex-servicemen, boycotts and a very British ambush."
The riots the empire pretended were nothing. And the man who turned them into a whole new country.
Drink pairing · A very cold Star lager, no glass.
Full show player. This exact episode drops on Spotify Mon 23 June.
The setup
By 1948 the Gold Coast is still officially a British colony, but the war has changed everyone in it. Thousands of Ghanaian ex-servicemen have come home from fighting for the Empire in Burma and East Africa, and they want the pensions they were promised. What they get instead is a very British runaround.
Meanwhile Accra is expensive, imports are rigged, and a boycott of European and Syrian shops is quietly organising itself in the markets. Nobody in Whitehall is really paying attention. They are about to.
The march
On 28 February 1948, a group of ex-servicemen sets off to deliver a petition to the Governor at Christiansborg Castle. It is meant to be orderly. Superintendent Colin Imray decides it is not, opens fire, and kills three men: Sergeant Adjetey, Corporal Attipoe and Private Odartey Lamptey.
Accra ignites. Shops burn. The boycott and the shootings collide into three days of rioting that leaves 29 people dead and the myth of a calm, grateful colony in ashes.
Enter Nkrumah
The British arrest six leaders of the UGCC, the 'Big Six', and lock them up. One of them, a young general secretary called Kwame Nkrumah, walks out of detention with something the others do not have: a plan, a newspaper, and no intention of asking politely again.
Within two years he has broken from the UGCC, launched the CPP, called for 'Self-Government Now', and turned a colonial riot into the opening chapter of African independence.
Why it still matters
The Accra Riots are where the polite, gradualist story of decolonisation dies. Everything after 1957 in West Africa, and a lot of what happens further south, runs through this week in Accra.
Sergeant Adjetey
Gold Coast ex-serviceman
Shot dead on the road to Christiansborg, 28 February 1948.
Superintendent Colin Imray
British colonial police officer
Gave the order to open fire on the ex-servicemen's march.
Kwame Nkrumah
General Secretary, UGCC → founder of the CPP
Walked out of British detention with a plan and a newspaper.
Governor Sir Gerald Creasy
Governor of the Gold Coast
Blamed 'communist agitators' and lost the plot in real time.
The Watson Commission
British inquiry, 1948
Quietly admitted the empire had it coming.
Full biographies in the reading list below ↓
"The Empire kept promising that patience would be rewarded. Accra ran out of patience on a Saturday afternoon."
— Sarah
"Seek ye first the political kingdom, and all other things shall be added unto it."
— Kwame Nkrumah
"Every independence movement on this continent owes Sergeant Adjetey a drink."
— Line
- 00:00Cold open: three men, one petition
- 04:12What the Gold Coast actually looked like in 1948
- 12:40The boycott nobody in London took seriously
- 22:05Superintendent Imray pulls the trigger
- 31:18The Big Six and a very useful arrest
- 41:50Nkrumah breaks the UGCC
- 48:30Verdict, and one last drink
- §01Watson Commission Report (1948)
- §02Kwame Nkrumah, Ghana: The Autobiography of Kwame Nkrumah (1957)
- §03Richard Rathbone, Nkrumah and the Chiefs (2000)
- §04Jean Allman, The Quills of the Porcupine (1993)
We read the books so you can pretend you did at dinner.
Read the full transcript▾
SARAH: Welcome back to Bar Afrique, the podcast where we drink and decolonise, in that order. I'm Sarah.
LINE: And I'm Line. And tonight we are pouring a Star lager, no glass, because we are in Accra in 1948 and we are about to watch the British Empire lose the plot in public.
SARAH: Set the scene for me. It's February 1948. What does the Gold Coast actually look like?
LINE: On paper it looks like a jewel. Cocoa exports through the roof, Takoradi harbour full of ships, a colonial administration that keeps writing reports to London saying everything is fine. In reality it is a pressure cooker. Prices are up. Imports are rigged by a handful of European and Syrian firms. And a whole generation of Ghanaian men have just come back from fighting for the Empire in Burma and East Africa, and they cannot get the pensions they were promised.
SARAH: The ex-servicemen. Because we always forget this bit. Africans fought in the Second World War. In huge numbers.
LINE: Huge. Around 65,000 Gold Coasters served. They came home expecting the deal to be honoured. What they got was a runaround. Forms lost. Payments delayed. Officers explaining, with a straight face, that the pension they earned in the Burmese jungle was somehow not applicable in Accra.
SARAH: So on 28 February, a group of them decide to march.
LINE: Peacefully. With a petition. To Christiansborg Castle, to hand it to the Governor. It is meant to be orderly. It is orderly. And then Superintendent Colin Imray, of the Gold Coast Police, decides it is not, and opens fire.
SARAH: Three men die. Sergeant Adjetey. Corporal Attipoe. Private Odartey Lamptey. Say their names.
LINE: Say their names. Because everything that happens next — the riots, the boycott exploding, the Watson Commission, Nkrumah walking out of detention with a plan — all of it runs through those three men on the road to Christiansborg.
SARAH: And this is where I want to sit for a minute. Because in the British telling, this becomes a story about 'unrest'. Passive voice. As if the unrest just, you know, happened. Weather.
LINE: Weather. Exactly. Nobody pulled a trigger in the British version. There was simply an atmospheric disturbance in West Africa in February 1948.
SARAH: And meanwhile Accra is on fire.
LINE: Accra is on fire. The boycott that had been quietly organising in the markets for weeks — a boycott of European and Syrian shops over prices — collides with the shootings, and you get three days of rioting. 29 dead. Shops burned. The myth of the calm, grateful colony in ashes.
SARAH: And then the British do the thing they always do when they've lost the plot. They arrest the wrong people.
LINE: The Big Six. Six leaders of the United Gold Coast Convention, the UGCC. Lock them up. And one of them is a very young, very impatient general secretary called Kwame Nkrumah. And when Nkrumah walks out of detention, he does not walk back into the UGCC. He walks into history.
[Full transcript continues in the episode. This is the opening. Grab a drink.]
Transcripts are lightly edited for readability. If you spot a typo, tell us kindly.
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