Anlo Youth Association
The Anlo Youth Association ( AYA ) ( also: Anlo Youth Organization ) was a political party in Ghana in the country's independence process.
The party was founded in 1954. A renaming to Federation of Youth (FY) (also: Federal Youth Organization (FYO)) took place in 1956. The part of the name Anlo goes back to an ethnic group of the Ewe . A dialect of the Ewe is known as Anlo or Anglo . The Anlo-Ewe are an essential part of the Ewe. The Ewe ethnic group lives in the south-east of what is now Ghana and in the south-west of what is now Togo .
Political orientation
The Anlo Youth Association was founded by Modesto Apaloo in the 1954 elections and operated as an advocacy group for the Anlo-Ewe in the southeast of what was then the British colony of Gold Coast . Due to the colonial circumstances, the Ewe were distributed between the British colony of Gold Coast and the French colony in what is now Togo.
In contrast to the Togoland Congress and other groups, the AYA took the view that the Ewe should be completely connected to the Gold Coast; also under the aspect of the upcoming incorporation of the British Trust Territories.
In the elections of 1954, the AYA achieved one of 104 seats in the Legislative Assembley . After the renaming, the Anlo Youth Association as Federal Youth Organization achieved the same result in the elections of July 17, 1956 for the assembly, i.e. one seat.
After independence in 1957
Soon after Ghana's independence on March 6, 1957, a law to prevent discrimination ( Avoidence of Discrimination Act 1957 , CA 38) was passed at the instigation of then Prime Minister Kwame Nkrumah and later President of Ghana . This law prohibited any grouping with an ethnic, religious, regional or similar orientation with effect from December 31, 1957.
The full title of the law read:
Law on the prohibition of organizations that use for propaganda membership of a tribe, region, race or religion to the detriment of a community or to choose people based on their membership of a tribe, region or religion or similar To secure purposes. (Engl .: An Act to prohibit organizations using or engaging in tribal, regional, racial and religious propaganga to the detriment of any community, or securing the election of persons on account of their tribal, regional or religious affiliations and for other purpuse connected therewith . )
The Anlo Youth Association or the Federation of Youth fell under the law due to the clear reference to the tribe of the Ewe and thus became an illegal group almost overnight, although it had been represented in parliament since your elections in 1954. Affected were the Muslim Association Party (MAP), Togoland Congress , Northern Peoples' Party and other organizations as well as Ga Shifimo Kpee .
AYA - United Party
In order to avoid a party ban, various parties formed the United Party (Ghana) in early 1958 . The UP was composed of the following parties and groups:
- National Liberation Movement (NLM)
- Anlo Youth Association (AYA)
- Togoland Congress (TC)
- Northern Peoples' Party
- Muslim Association Party
- Ga Shifimo Kpee
With the founding of the UP, the AYA no longer officially existed. In addition to the successor United Party, there was only the Nkrumahs party in Ghana, the Convention People's Party (CPP) from 1958.