In July 1972, a mere seven months after taking over leadership of the country in a military coup, the National Redemption Council and its leader, Col. Ignatius Kutu Acheampong, announced that Ghana was going to drive on the right-hand side of the road. By continuing to drive on the left, Acheampong and the NRC argued, Ghana not only reinforced its history as a British colony, but it also isolated itself from its neighbors and limited its potential for economic growth and development. A massive campaign, Operation Keep was scheduled to culminate on August 4, 1974, when road signs and drivers would switch to the other side of the road in a massive feat of social and infrastructural engineering. Drivers and pedestrians alike were called on to learn the new rules of the road, embodied in the phrase Nifa, Nifa (Twi: Right, Right) or Nyimfa, nyimfa, na nyen (Twi: is right). Ghana would, quite literally, be on a new path.Acheampong's military coup was only the most recent in a series of relatively short-lived government takeovers-both democratic and dictatorial. For Acheampong's allies and much of the Ghanaian public, economic decline was a symbol of persistent state failure to address the deleterious effects of what Bayart terms extraversion-the externally-oriented political and economic orientation of many postcolonial African states, mobilizing resources from their (possibly unequal relationship) with the external environment in a manner that both builds on and pre-dates colonial governance.1 In centralizing state power and harnessing that power to encourage domestic production, the Acheampong regime drew on Nkrumahist theories of scientific socialism and critiques of neocolonialism while crafting their own unique technopolitical program.2 The NRC's critiques rang hollow when they also ultimately proved unable to turn around the country's economy, despite nearly a decade of reform.These theories of extraversion, and concomitant political critiques of corruption and state failure, are widely cited as explanations of what Chazan and Pellow describe as an era of decline in Ghana.3 This narrative of postcolonial decline frames the Acheampong government as a failed, authoritarian state, limited by its own grandiose visions, inefficiency, and flawed policy; the legacy of colonial underdevelopment; and global shifts in the politics of economic exchange. However, in framing economic success by using the language of state power, these critiques fail to acknowledge the power of workers in producing these changes. Workers were crucial in shaping postcolonial economies; by constructing and regulating infrastructural technologies, and defining the values and practices of economic productivity, workers played a central role in Ghana's postcolonial economic history.In this article, I analyze the political debates, labor mobilization, and economic policy surrounding Operation Keep Right to present an alternative narrative of postcolonial politics and labor culture. In particular, I argue that Operation Keep Right highlights the importance of entrepreneurial African drivers in shaping a system and practice of governance rooted in the informal economy of mobile workers.4 In contrast to wage laborers, who relied on the state to ensure the stability and security of their work, commercial drivers in Ghana sought to preserve and enhance their economic autonomy, even in the context of widespread economic decline. Capitalizing on the flexibility of their work, derived in large part from the inherently mobile nature of their labor, drivers managed the realities of economic crisis, which restricted the accessibility of vehicles, spare parts, and petrol as well as increased the cost of doing business.5 The most talented drivers built on decades of skill and professionalism, establishing businesses that profited even as the rest of the country faltered.6At the height of economic crisis, I argue, postcolonial governments like Col. …