Refusing International Debt and the Postcolonial Politics of Yentua in 1970s Ghana

Abstract

In 1972 the government of Ghana refused to repay loans contracted on the international debt market. As a pivotal moment in the history of decolonization, the policy of Yentua, or ‘We Shall Not Pay’, marked an unprecedented move in Ghana’s relationship with its foreign creditors. Eight years of debt negotiations had exposed the persistence not only of Western financial economic and political control, but also of debt as a mechanism to assert neocolonial power. At the same time, negotiations opened up the possibility of challenging creditors and the continuing relationships of dependency, violence, and extraction. While across Africa the 1970s were marked by increasing economic uncertainty and militarism, this situation did not diminish the will of the Ghanaian public to reimagine the emancipatory potential of debt repudiation. At public events, in the press, and in the streets, students, chiefs, journalists, intellectuals, and trade unionists demanded accountability and criticized international as well as domestic policies they believed were transforming Ghana into a ‘beggar nation’. Ultimately, it was constant public pressure on the leadership and broad-based support that made Yentua possible. This history is a powerful reminder that global financial systems, however abstract, impersonal, and impenetrable they may seem, can be shaped by individuals and movements.