General News of Monday, 6 March 2006
Source: --
In 1957, the former British African colonies of the Gold Coast and Togoland became the independent state of Ghana.
Throughout the country today, especially in the regional and district capitals, pupils and students would take part in national parades to mark the 49th anniversary of the independence of the Gold Coast, after more than a century of colonial bondage, marked by the Bond of 1844, when on March 6, 1957, Osagyefo Dr Kwame Nkrumah proclaimed that the country was free at last.
Ghana Celebrates Independence: 6 March 1957 (BBC) -- The people of Ghana have been celebrating the end of colonial rule and the dawn of their independence.
Most workers have been given the day off - tens of thousands have gathered in the capital, Accra, to greet the independent country's first prime minister, Dr Kwame Nkrumah.
The Duchess of Kent has been attending the celebrations. Last night, she opened the Independence Monument, erected near the spot where in 1948 members of the Ghanaian ex-servicemen's union were shot when marching to present a petition to the British Governor.
The Gold Coast Legislative Assembly was prorogued at midnight to cheers from the waiting crowd outside.