What's in a Name?

Five decades ago, on the 6th March 1957, the British colony of the Gold Coast became independent and assumed the name Ghana.

So why was the name Ghana was assumed? There are mainly three reasons.

1.       Ghana was not ethnically specific to any of the country’s ethnic groups.

2.       The example of Ancient Ghana was something the new emerging nation wanted to emulate (Geographically, the old Ghana is 500 miles north of the present Ghana, and occupied the area between Rivers Senegal and Niger) Ancient Ghana was a great African empire that endured for three centuries.

3.       Some of the founding fathers of Ghana argued that the Akan (an ethnic group in Ghana) of the Gold Coast, who constituted nearly 45% of the population, were descendants of the ancient Ghana Empire

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