ABSTRACT
The winner-take-all practices in Ghana were characterized by a rapid overcentralization of executive political power, the elimination of opposition parties, and the emasculation of the judiciary and legislature, which were accompanied by a repressive police system in which thousands of citizens were detained without trial. The regional assemblies, which had been provided for in the Independence Constitution as a compromise solution to meet the aspirations of those who had demanded federalism, were to be set up after independence. As early as 1955, Kwame Nkrumah had assured the country that his government was in favor of “a reasonable degree of devolution of power to regions.” In 1958, the Convention Peoples Party-dominated Parliament enacted the infamous Preventive Detention Act, which empowered government to detain anyone without trial for up to five years, and as this could be renewed, theoretically an individual could be detained for life.
