Traditional chiefs in Ghana in 2015. *Photo from Wikipedia
March 6 is Independence Day, celebrates the independence of Ghana from the UK in 1957.
The territory of present-day Ghana has been inhabited for millennia, with the first permanent state dating back to the 11th century. Numerous kingdoms and empires emerged over the centuries, of which the most powerful was the Kingdom of Ashanti.
Beginning in the 15th century, numerous European powers contested the area for trading rights, with the British ultimately establishing control of the coast by the late 19th century. Following over a century of native resistance, Ghana’s current borders were established by the 1900s as the British Gold Coast.
On March 6, 1957, it became the first Sub-Saharan African nation (*Sub-Saharan Africa: the area of the continent of Africa that lies south of the Sahara) to become independent of European colonization.
Ghana, officially the Republic of Ghana, is a unitary presidential constitutional democracy, located along the Gulf of Guinea and Atlantic Ocean, in the subregion of West Africa. Ghana is bordered by the Ivory Coast in the west, Burkina Faso in the north, Togo in the east and the Gulf of Guinea and Atlantic Ocean in the south.
In commemoration of the day, we introduce you to a Ghanian percussionist who’s been in Japan since 2004.
*Click a photo below to see his story!
“Ghanians don’t kill each other. Ghana is less safe than Japan, but it’s peaceful.” – Winchester Nii Tete
*Reference: Wikipedia
