One can only stand in awe at how much Ghana has transformed into a beautiful country with many wonderful sites to behold.
A brief tour around Ghana, especially the major cities, will certainly prove to you that Ghana is developing at a very fast rate.
Though there is still a whole lot of infrastructural work to be done in the country, these pictures speak a lot about our past and where we are headed.
As part of the Ghana Month Diary, here are some photos of Ghana before and after independence compiled by The Ghana Report
- Airport Residential Area
This sparsely populated, residential area is located about 10km northeast of the city centre close to Kotoka International Airport and it is largely inhabited by Ghanaians and foreigners.
It has numerous offices including those of international NGOs and many embassies are located here too. Housing is mostly in low-rise apartment blocks built during the colonial era and renovated to meet modern standards. Most properties have security guards.
The roads are good and lined with trees, making the area feel breezy and cool. There are a number of schools and shops as well.
- Kwame Nkrumah Interchange(Now Circle Dubai)
The Kwame Nkrumah Interchange is seen as the biggest interchange in West Africa.
The facility, which is in honor of the country’s first president Dr. Kwame Nkrumah, surely adds to Ghana’s image as a gateway to the sub-region.
The presence of ancillary facilities such as a police station, mini-clinic for emergency cases, fire service posts, and a modern lorry park also adds convenience to road users.
Dr. Nkrumah’s statue at the place has added more color to the edifice. The statue invokes the memory of the Pan- Africanist, who turned Accra into the mecca of nationalism during the period of the nationalist struggle.
- Parliament House of Ghana
This is the official seat of the speaker of parliament. The building was first designed and built by Ghana’s first president Dr. Kwame Nkrumah.
- Accra post office(formerly Gold Coast post office)
The first “modern” British Post Office in Ghana was set up by the British colonial settlers in Cape Coat on the then Gold Coast in 1853. That post office was primarily concerned with exchanging mail between the Gold Coast and the United Kingdom.
By 1873 the postal service had expanded to include other towns in the colony including Elmina and Keta.
In 1877 after the colonial government decided to move the capital from Cape Coast to Accra, the headquarters of the postal service was set up in Accra.
Plans were put in place to construct a building befitting the status of the Central Post Office, and the building was completed in the 1880s.
The cinema often showed major filmed productions from India, America, and other parts of the world and operated in Ghana for some years.
But through the years, urbanization cropped in, forcing the cinema to fold up with no chance of re-emerging on the entertainment scene.
- Osu Ebenezer Presbyterian Church
The Presbyterian church, Ebenezer Congregation is located at Osu, Accra. It was established by the Basel Evangelical Mission Society, based in Switzerland.
The congregation began worshipping in a chapel located at the castle , around 1843. The current stone-masonry building was erected between 1898 and 1902 in the heart of Osu and has become a major landmark.
The building which dates back over one hundred years is a site of memory and record of early interaction between missionaries and communities on the coast of what is present day Ghana.
- Korle-Bu Teaching Hospital
Korle Bu Teaching Hospital, the premier tertiary healthcare facility in Ghana, was established on October 9, 1923. The facility was built under the administration of Sir Frederick Gordon Guggisberg, then, the Governor of the Gold Coast, as a General Hospital to attend to the health needs of the people.
Korle Bu, in the local Ga parlance, means ‘the valley of the Korle Lagoon’.
Shortly after its establishment, Korle Bu witnessed an increase in hospital attendance as a result of the proven efficacy of hospital-based treatment. This surge in accessing the hospital’s services used to cause serious congestion compelling the Government to set up a committee to assess and make recommendations for its expansion in 1953.
The Task Force’s recommendations were accepted and new structures such as Child Health, Maternity, Medical, and Surgical Blocks were added to the Hospital. This increased Korle Bu’s initial 200-bed capacity to 1,200.
The Hospital gained teaching hospital status in 1962 when the School of Medicine and Dentistry, formerly the University of Ghana Medical School, was established to train doctors.
- Achimota Senior High School
Prince of Wales College and School, later Achimota College, was founded in Achimota, Gold Coast (now Ghana) in 1924 by Sir Gordon Guggisberg, the British Governor of the Gold Coast (1919-1927), as an elite secondary school based on the British model of public education.
Governor Guggisberg urged local Gold Coast residents to create the institution to provide teacher training, technical training, and secondary schooling for the colony.
The Governor’s request came after a committee he appointed in 1920 to investigate education in the Gold Coast, recommended establishing a secondary boarding school.
- Light House
The lighthouse is an iconic landmark in James town, located on the Prof. Atta-Mills high street in Accra.
The monument consists of a tower and adjoining maintenance. It was first built by the British in 1871, three years before they established the Gold Coast colony, and was a symbol of their expanding colonial ambitions on the West Coast of Africa.
- Sir Frederick Gordon Guggisberg Statue at Korle BuTeaching hospital
Governor Sir Frederick Gordon Guggisberg’s statue at Korle Bu Teaching Hospital, Accra was inaugurated in 1974 on the occasion of the 50th anniversary of the founding of the hospital.
The Korle Bu Teaching Hospital is one of several monuments in Ghana representing the outstanding contributions of Sir Frederick Gordon Guggisberg (1869 — 1930).
Sir Gordon Guggisberg invested his life fully to lay a solid foundation upon which Ghana has been built.
- Presbyterian Boys’ Boarding School(Osu Salem School)
The Presbyterian Boys’ Boarding School (Osu Salem Presbyterian Middle Boys’ School) was the first European -style middle boarding school to be established in Osu, Accra, Ghana.
The boarding school was founded by the Basel Mission of Switzerland in November 1900.
- Interior of Christiansborg Castle(Osu castle)
The Christiansborg Castle is located off the shores of the vibrant suburb of Osu in the capital, Accra.
In 1661, Jost Cramer, the Danish governor of the Cape Coast fort, Fort Fredericksburg, obtained the site for 3,200 gold florins from the then Paramount Chief Okaikoi of the Ga ethnic group.
At this site, the Danes built a stone fort in 1659 to replace the earthen lodge that had earlier been erected by the Swedish African Company.
They named it Christiansborg, meaning ‘Christians fortress’, after the King of Denmark, Christian IV, who passed away in 1648.
