Togoland Congress

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The Togoland Congress ( TC ) was a political party in Ghana in the phase of the independence process until the end of 1958. In the elections for the legislative assembly ( Legislative Assembley ) were on June 15, 1954 and also on July 17, 1956 of the Togoland Congress respectively won two of the 104 seats in the People's Assembly.

Foundation and goals of the TC

The Togoland Congress was founded in 1951 as a strengthening union of various groups, some of which have existed in today's Volta Region since the early 1940s. Groups that had risen up in the Togoland Congress include the Togoland Union (founded in 1943), Togoland Youth Conference and the United Nations Association of Togoland . SG Antor became chairman.

The area of ​​today's Ghana and Togo is where the Ewe settled . As a result, this ethnic group was spread over two different colonial areas at the time. The British colony of the Gold Coast was in what is now Ghana, and in what is now Togo, under French administration, there was a colony that was completely separate from the Gold Coast. Representatives of the Ewe nation were thus confronted with the emerging problem of a people in two states. The Togoland Congress pursued the goal of founding a state as part of a three-state solution. From the perspective of the Togoland Congress, the Ewe should receive their own national territory in their traditional settlement area in the border area between today's Ghana and Togo.

The Togoland Congress stood against the parties Anlo Youth Association and Convention People's Party of Kwame Nkrumah , who were seeking a connection to the Gold Coast with the British Trust Territory. Other voices feared a predominance of the Anlo ethnic group within the Ewe and wanted a two-state solution to separate the Anlo from the other groups of the Ewe.

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 enacted by the then Prime Minister Kwame Nkrumah and later President of Ghana . This law prohibited any grouping with an orientation based on 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 Togoland Congress fell under the law due to the clear reference to a region 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), Anlo Youth Association (AYA), Northern Peoples' Party and other organizations as well as Ga Shifimo Kpee .

TC - 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:

With the founding of the UP, the Togoland Congress officially no longer existed. In addition to the successor United Party, there was only the Nkrumahs party in Ghana, the Convention People's Party (CPP) from 1958.

See also

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