Ghana’s significance

The local news media reported that President Obama was to start a heavy schedule last week with a trip to Russia, and then Italy and Ghana.

At first glance, the trip to Ghana appeared to be a holiday event, unrelated to the trips to Russia and Italy. For example, in Russia, Obama attended a summit meeting with Russian President Dmitri Medvedev to sign an agreement to commit to “a year-end deal to slash nuclear stockpiles by about a third.”  Given Ghana’s lack of known involvement in the arms race, many are wondering about the reason for Obama’s visit to the West African nation.                                                                         

Certainly, Obama’s visit to Ghana is very much in line with his trips to Russia and Italy because Ghana, in the past, had an important but little-known involvement in nuclear proliferation. In the 1960s, then Ghanaian President Kwame Nkrumah’s government built a nuclear reactor at Kwabenya, Ghana, reportedly for peaceful purposes like producing electrical power. The reactor was put in place with the assistance of socialist nations, but the project was halted after Nkrumah was overthrown in a military coup in 1966.

Recently, there were rumors about the project being revived. Obama might discuss its implications with Ghana’s President John Atta Mills.              

Meanwhile, Obama’s choice of Ghana for his first official visit to sub-Saharan Africa has also raised eyebrows because his late father was born in Kenya. The theory is that by going to Ghana first instead, he will be able to tie future increases in aid to African countries to improved governance. After all, Ghana is known to be a leader in Africa in achieving peaceful democracy, with the country’s two major political parties (the ruling NDC and the opposiing NPP) alternately winning the presidency.                                               

Also, some experts feel that a forceful presence by Obama sends a message that the U.S. will not take a back seat to China, which is known to have increased its role in Africa through trade and aid arrangements. They remember how, with Russian encouragement, China gained a diplomatic and economic foothold in Eastern Africa when it built the Tanzam Railway line for Tanzania and Zambia.                                                       

After interacting and having hard-nosed discussions with Ghana’s leaders about several important international issues, Obama would be accompanied by first lady Michelle Obama as well as their two daughters – Sasha and Malia – to visit historic Ghanaian places like the Christiansborg Castle in Accra and former European castles (or forts) at Elmina and Cape Coast, both of which, as trading posts, were used to keep slaves before they were transported to the New World.

This aspect of Obama’s trip is, in some respects, similar to the holiday trip of former President George W. Bush and then first lady Laura Bush to Ghana, although this one has both a good omen and strategic and economic implications.     

A.B. Assensoh is a professor in the African American and African Diaspora Studies Department, and Yvette M. Alex-Assensoh is an associate professor of Political Science and Dean of the IUB Office for Women's Affairs.