Page 12 - Afrika Must Unite

xiv INTRODUCTION
The only cloth we produced was hand-woven kente, traditional
and exclusive. We were without most of the raw materials
necessary to industrial production. Though there had been
geological surveys of our sub-soil, we were unaware whether
these materials existed or not, as the reports had been
scrupulously withheld. We were reliant upon the outside
world, and more particularly upon the United Kingdom, for
practically everything we used in our daily life.
Among our roads were those called ‘political roads’, the old,
worn and sometimes untarred colonial roads. There were also
the new roads, built since 1951, when my Party entered upon
government. There was Takoradi harbour and the new harbour
and port under construction at Tema. We had a telegraph and
telephone system. We had an efficient administrative machine,
but one adjusted to the needs of colonial rule and decidedly not
the most suitable for the new requirements of independent
statehood.
As a heritage, it was stark and daunting, and seemed to be
summed up in the symbolic bareness which met me and my
colleagues when we officially moved into Ghristiansborg Castle,
formerly the official residence of the British governor. M aking
our tour through room after room, we were struck by the general
emptiness. Except for an occasional piece of furniture, there was
absolutely nothing to indicate that only a few days before people
had lived and worked there. Not a rag, not a book was to be
found; not a piece of paper; not a single reminder that for very
m any years the colonial administration had had its centre
there.
T hat complete denudation seemed like a line drawn across
our continuity. It was as though there had been a definite
intention to cut off all links between the past and present which
could help us in finding our bearings. It was a covert reminder
that, having ourselves rejected that past, it was for us to make our
future alone. In a way it hinged with some of our experience
since we had taken office in 1951. From time to time we had
found gaps in the records, connecting links missing here and
there which made it difficult for us to get a full picture of certain
im portant matters. There were times when we had an inkling of
m aterial withheld, of files that had strayed, of reports that had