Stable Anniversary

The recorded radio beat of tom-toms throbbed through the city of Accra (pop. 200,000). Barelegged, toga-clad Ghanaians danced down to the beach for a mass picnic, snaked through the streets in roaring torchlight procession, cheered the unveiling of a larger-than-lifesize statue of Prime Minister Kwame Nkrumah, 48, "Founder of the Nation."

In honor of the first anniversary of Ghana's independence, Accra's first traffic lights blinked on. Crowds gathered at street corners far into the night, cheering as cars were brought to a stop by the red and encouraging them to move on the green. At one of the anniversary's innumerable ceremonies, Nkrumah presented his handsome young Egyptian bride Fatia to his countrymen. (They have dubbed her "Mammy Water." the local word for mermaid.) Welcoming such specially invited representatives of "the oppressed peoples of Africa" as Tanganyika's Julius Nyerere, Kenya's Tom Mboya and Zanzibar's Ali Mushin, Nkrumah said: "We here in Ghana should not fail to realize the unique position of responsibility in which the achievement of our independence has placed us."

Imposing Gains. The picture of Ghana on its first birthday was encouraging. U.S.-educated Kwame Nkrumah and his ministers have proved that a West African country can govern itself. Prudently making the most of cocoa's reviving market in a world of sinking commodity prices, Nkrumah has built Ghana's gold and dollar reserves to nearly $600 million and used Ghana's rising income to finance a long-range development program (ports, roads, schools). Fortified by a two-thirds majority in Parliament, he has imposed stability and order in a nation of six main tribes, three religions, 65 dialects.

Nkrumah was convinced that to establish his infant government's authority he had to smash the tribal power of the chiefs, particularly over land tenure, and substitute the political power of his party machine. He summarily deported five tribal leaders, highhandedly displaced local officers and replaced them with his own men, concentrating on the center of resistance in the cocoa-rich Ashanti country.

Such methods roused a storm of anxious outcry among Britons who had most ardently urged Ghana's readiness to take its place in the British Commonwealth of Nations. But Nkrumah persisted, and last month was rewarded when his party gained a surprise majority in local elections in Kumasi, the traditional stronghold of Ashanti opposition. The chiefs' hold was broken, and Ghanaians appear to have accepted the change with no more than a murmur.

Jungle Kibbutzes. In spite of Soviet propaganda and missions, Ghana has yet to establish even diplomatic ties with Moscow. Nkrumah still wants his economic aid to come in the form of investments from the West: the British have no thought of pulling out of an expanding economy which, with Malaya's, now provides 22% of their hard-currency income. Though Nasser would doubtless like to capitalize on Nkrumah's Egyptian marriage to enlist Ghana in his bloc, Nkrumah has skillfully walked a tightrope between Egypt and Israel, has asked and obtained Israeli help in setting up a shipping line, and brought in an Israeli technician to discuss setting up kibbutz-like communal farms in Ghana's jungles.

Next month Nkrumah will play host in Accra at a conference of seven other African nations. Last week he accepted President Eisenhower's invitation to pay an official visit to Washington next July. After graduating in 1939 from Lincoln University in Oxford, Pa., Nkrumah won a bachelor of theology degree from the same university, and later took a master's degree in philosophy from the University of Pennsylvania. "It will give me the greatest pleasure," said Nkrumah. "to visit the United States, where I spent the greater part of my university life."

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