What’s in a Regime Change? Analysing the Social History of Transformation in a “Problematic Region”

The south of Ghana’s Volta Region, a theatre of secessionist mobilisation under colonial rule and an area of oppositional activity under the Nkrumah regime, is a privileged test case for social and political change during the early phase of the “long 1970s” (between 1966 and 1972). At the same time, it is one of Ghana’s regions for which better analysis of the regional archives (the Ho Branch of the PRAAD) makes a huge difference. This article discusses the effect of the regime change after Kwame Nkrumah’s 1966 overthrow with recourse to these abundant archival records, interpreting security fears, local panics against secessionism, and the redefinition of opposition. It also approaches social change in the fields of “traditional policy,” in terms of modified discussions of legitimacy of chiefs and contenders for chieftaincies, and of cross-border contraband and its local impact. This study examines the three fields in light of the expectations of 1966 as principal argument, and in relation to the xenophobic policy introduced by Kofi Busia’s PP government in 1969.