Word: busia
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Dates: during 1970-1979
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Those shrewd, buxom pillars of Ghanaian commerce, the market mammies, turned out by the thousands last week to celebrate the sudden, bloodless coup that had deposed the civilian government of Prime Minister Kofi Busia. Their faces powdered white with talcum and wood ash, the women carried placards supporting the military junta headed by Colonel Ignatius Acheampong and urging the execution of his enemies. One angry sign read CRUCIFY AFRICA, referring to General Akwasi Afrifa, a hero of the 1966 coup against Kwame Nkrumah who is now in prison, accused by the new government of trying to assassinate Acheampong and restore...
...euphoric mob reaction was understandable. Since his election in 1969, Busia had gradually lost popularity by imposing harsh fiscal measures -including a 48% currency devaluation last month-to rescue an economy still reeling from the extravagances of the Nkrumah era. The real question now, however, was whether Acheampong would be able to handle the economy as well. Even while calling upon Ghanaians to "sweat" and sacrifice, he increased the pay of lower-ranking civil servants and lowered basic food prices to their pre-devaluation levels with the help of a huge government subsidy...
Last Straw. But there was more to the coup than that. In his drive for progress, Busia had left a trail of resentment and unrest. He sacked 600 civil servants (mostly for political reasons), threatened to fire judges who were uncooperative, imposed a special "development" tax of 1% to 5% on incomes of more than $ 1,000 a year, and banned the import of 150 items ranging from cigarettes to new automobiles. Last month, in what proved to be the last straw, Busia devalued Ghana's currency by a whopping...
...Many of Busia's troubles were not of his own making. Since he came to power, the world price of cocoa, Ghana's chief export crop, has dropped from more than $ 1,000 a ton to as low as $466 last month. More important, Busia inherited a staggering national debt of more than $1 billion from the Nkrumah regime, which he had tried desperately to reduce. The price was the allocation of a quarter of this year's budget to interest and debt repayment, and postponement of other national priorities...
...junta announced that the Ghanaian Parliament had been dissolved, and that the constitution had been "withdrawn." Before flying to the neighboring Ivory Coast, Busia declared in London that the Ghanaian people would resist "this selfish and senseless coup and overthrow it." His statement was mostly wishful thinking. Accra was so quiet that the junta did not even bother to impose a curfew...