Africa wants freedom. Africa must be free. Oracles indicated that Kwame Nkrumah was a devil.
Mr. President, Mr. President, there is a coup. I've never seen such an explosion of joy. Accra, Ghana's capital city and the largest city in the country.
The word Accra is believed to originate from the Akan word Nkran, meaning ants. It is no wonder that you will see men and women hustling and bustling under the blazing sun to earn a penny or two. In these very streets walked a great man. A man who led Ghana's liberation struggle.
His name? Kwame Nkrumah. It was during his reign that Ghana made great developmental strides, like the building of the Tema Township, the Accra-Tema Motorway, Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology, the great Akosombo Dam, And of course, his key role in the formation of the Organization of Africa Union. With Kwame Nkrumah beyond the borders of Ghana, he is hailed for his achievements. This decade is the decade of Africa independence.
Forward then to independence, to independence now. Tomorrow, the United States of Africa. To him, Africa Union was a passion, and I think he's right. Look at what is happening in Africa now. Congo, the richest country, what is there now?
Warlords all over with this private enterprise from outside. They do what they like. I mean, look at what is happening. in all Africa.
He had, he foresaw that if we didn't come together, we would be in our present state. Dr KB Asante was the Secretary of State during Kwame Nkrumah's rule. Here he recounts Nkrumah's character.
He could be charming when he wanted to, but normally as someone who worked with him, he was what I would call a charming, hard taskmaster. He was a good dancer and he liked music, yes, and we would hear music. I remember how he liked music around us.
His smile was infectious. Perhaps you didn't hear what I said. That was the charm of Nkrumah, a man who was very committed to Africa. Nkrumah lived and died in Africa.
In September of 1909, in a village in the Gold Coast, as Ghana was called then before independence, a son was born. Francis New Year Kofi Ngonyoma, to his father a goldsmith and his mother a retail trader. This name later changed to Kwame Nkrumah.
Nkrumah was educated at the prestigious Achimota College in 1930. and thereafter became a teacher. Nkrumah was a very ordinary human being. He was human like all of us.
He was born in a very small, tiny village in the western region of Ghana. He had his education, Catholic education, went to Achimota School, initially wanted to be a Catholic priest, and eventually taught in the Achimota School, which was the most prestigious high school under the colonial rule. At the age of 26, Nkrumah left the Gold Coast to study at Lincoln University in the USA.
He read widely from the literature of Karl Marcus and Marcus Gave. And from then on, ideals of socialism became appealing to him. Nkrumah was very much inspired by...
Marcus Gave and the whole idea of return to Africa and black freedom. That inspired him a lot too. So he knew about all those things. That would have fueled his ideas for a kind of pan-Africa consciousness and the need to rally a wide range of people in pursuit of what he wanted.
In the United States of America, He came across writings of George Padmore and Cole who were in the Pan-Africa movement, WE, Du Bois and all. And eventually in 1945 he linked up with them in Manchester, United Kingdom, where they organized the 5th Pan-Africa Congress. And they decided to accelerate the struggle for liberation of Africa.
As men of thought and action, they exerted great influence on the young Nkrumah. His ideas for the unity of all Africas later came to be known as Pan-Africaism. In his book, I Speak of Freedom, Nkrumah wrote, Divided we are weak, united Africa could become one of the greatest forces for good in the world. After 12 years of being away from the colony, Nkrumah was invited to become the Secretary General of the first ever political party in the Gold Coast, the UGCC. Nkrumah and the founding members of the party were later known as the Big Six.
1948 was the year that saw the Gold Coast go through perennial unrest that resulted to boycotts and mass action. Goods that were brought in by Asian, Lebanese and European traders were too expensive for the locals to afford. There was a boycott of British goods because people felt that the association of West Africa merchants, which included all the British and expatriate firms, had raised prices far beyond the capacity of Ghanaians. The colonial government blamed the leaders of the UGCC for stirring up trouble and this led to the arrest of Dr Nkrumah and the UGCC party members. They were imprisoned in James Fort and were charged with instigation, looting and rioting.
The imprisonment did not deter Nkrumah from his continued opposition against British rule. His arrest did not in any way dampen enthusiasm within the party that he had founded, largely because some of the activists remained outside the prison wall. 1951 was the year that saw the Gold Coasters voting for self-rule. By this time Kwame Nkrumah had split from the UGCC to form his party, CPP. In 1951, The party that he formed out of the United Gold Coast Convention, which was the convention of the First Party, won a landslide victory in the general elections, and he became the leader of government business, or more or less the prime minister of the Gold Coast at the time.
CPP had a big following. The youth particularly believed in Kwame Nkrumah. and his ideologies and actively campaigned for his release. After the party's landslide victory, the pressure on the colonial government to free Nkrumah increased. A huge crowd cheers as Kwame Nkrumah leaves James Fort Prison, freed by the governor as an act of grace on the eve of the inauguration of the new constitution.
The British governor, Samir Charles Arden Charles, eventually recognized him as the Prime Minister. Between 1945 and 1965, a significant number of Africa countries gained independence from European colonial powers. Ghana became the first Africa country south of the Sahara to gain independence on 6th March 1957. Get your independence official Ghana Ghana is the name We wish to proclaim we will be We dedicate ourselves not only in the struggle to emancipate all the territories in Africa.
Our independence is merely less or less than the length of the border of the Africa continent. Jerry Rawlings, a former head of state, remembers the mood of the time. We were playing football and I could hear the siren and everybody sort of stopped wherever they were listening to the siren.
But of course, I mean, not me. I was chasing after the ball and I found out. I was the only one chasing after the ball while everybody was listening to the siren when I ran into a barbed wire. And that's the scar I have here, yeah, on that day.
Those who have hats on, take off your hats and let the band play the national anthem. And from now on, that national anthem is the national anthem of the Gogo to be played on all... The mood was electrified. Everybody was seeing the dawn of a new beginning.
This was the day on which he said that the Africa was capable of governing himself. And he said that we as Africas should be allowed to make our own mistakes. That was an incredible day.
Freedom served as an inspiration to other Africa countries struggling against colonial rule and as a result, Ghana occupied a central role in the fight against imperialists. On 31st December 1957, while in office as Prime Minister, Kwame Nkrumah quit the Bachelor's Club. Fatiha Ritz and Kwame Nkrumah became husband and wife a few hours after she landed in Accra from Egypt.
This was a marriage that baffled many. It was not understood why Kwame Nkrumah asked for a bride from Egypt. She did not speak English.
and neither did Kwame speak Arabic. My mother was a young woman from a different culture. She left her family to come and her home base to come and live here. So I think it was a challenging marriage in a sense, but I think I remember her saying she would do it all over again. He, I think, did not marry her because she was in love.
I think he just felt that it was time for him because of his position. He was then Prime Minister and then eventually became President in 1906. I think he needed to have that image. Together they had three children, Gamal, Samir and Sekou. From a previous relationship, he fathered a son, Francis Nkrumah.
We had an ordinary childhood in the sense that our father, when he was at home, he was a very modest, simple man. So I remember playing around him, all of us. But I remember little things.
I came insisting on giving us a spoon of honey because it was good for us. It wasn't long before that Kwame Nkrumah's regime started going through the mill. By declaring Ghana a one-party state, he was perceived as a dictator.
So with a one-party system, everything became all Nkrumah and that was wrong. But you see, that again is a total misunderstanding of Africa history. Almost all of the Africa states which broke away from the colonial yoke established one-party states.
Do you think a one-party state is good for democracy? If it wasn't democracy, then they should have left us with their colonial masters. They did not force us.
I waited one day when it was a good mood alone, then I said, why do you want a one-party state? Then he said, you know, I have a... I established so many industries and institutions and I don't have enough competent people to mandate.
Many of the people who can do this are in the opposition and that was why later I found the only way out was to have a one party state so we all belong. His predicament did not end there. He went ahead and implemented the Preventive Detention Act. This gave him power to detain anyone he deemed a threat without a trial.
All his bills were passed through Parliament, even preventive detention bills. He didn't just get up and say, I Kwame Nkrumah from today I'm having this law. No, he went through the process, went to Parliament, and Parliament passed the preventive detention bill. The elite in those days were against this dictatorial type of governors.
And so the opposition to Kwame Nkrumah increased. How can the person who led us to struggle for the right to elect our own leaders become a dictator? The person who led us in struggle to assert our right as human beings become a dictator? Strange, strange logic, strange definitions. It was his own people, his own government that gave him away because he was becoming a nuisance.
Nkrumah walked in the gardens of Flagstaff House, which served as his residence. He was the target of a failed assassination attempt. One day he was walking from his office, you know, from his house to his office.
and the policeman opened fire on him. What was he to do with that policeman? Give him a bouquet of flowers and kiss him on the cheeks for attempting to assassinate him? I don't understand these noises about dictatorship.
In August 1962, Kwame Nkrumah was returning from Apovolta, present-day Burkina Faso. A grenade was concealed in a bouquet of flowers and given to a school pupil to present to him. It exploded. It was at that point that the bomb was true.
It caught him. The girl who was going to present the flower died on the spot. The fragments went into all his body from his navel down. Alhaj Suleymana Yeremia was detained during Kwame Nkrumah's regime. He was accused of being behind the bombing.
You in Ghana here just mentioned the bomb and my name was one. When you look at the trial, I was not alone. If it were you, what are you going to say?
Do you take it? Or you leave it? At that point too, it was a matter of death.
When you assign it to me, I would not accept it. But there is every indication that says that I was the one. Ghana's economic condition started to get bleak.
Cocoa, its primary export, had started experiencing a decline in the world market. Unemployment was on the rise. The state enterprises that were established soon collapsed and food prices increased.
At one time we had the highest per capita income in Africa. Ghana for the first time was rationing soup, milk and other things that we were buying at the Accra Sports Stadium. That was not befitting of Ghana. Meanwhile, Nkrumah funded Guinea with 10 million pounds from Ghana's coffers, making this the worst economic blunder of that time. Guinea had to be told that they have support and all Africa should know that we are together, that we should help each other.
So to me it wasn't the amount of, but the symbolic gesture of great importance. His efforts to rescue Guinea did not in any way repair his already damaged reputation with the people of Ghana. And what that meant was even the most trusted friend in his government could end up being a threat. We cannot, under any circumstances, allow imperialists and new colonialists to interlock with traitors in our midst to deflect us from the path of duty and progress. On the 21st of February 1966, President Kwame Nkrumah flew out of Accra on a plane bound for Hanoi, Vietnam.
Ironically, he had gone on a peace mission, but in his own backyard it was all but peaceful. Three days later, on the morning of 24th February 1966, The self-proclaimed president for life, Osagiefo Kwame Nkrumah, was ousted in a military coup. The overthrow of Dr Kwame Nkrumah, I had never seen such an explosion of joy.
We were in prison when we heard that. You can see in the prison, people were weeping, weeping because of joy. The prison was full.
As for people who died there, you cannot count them. They were weeping when they heard Kwame Nkrumah was overthrown. Oh, we remember the whole day, the whole event. As I said, I was a little over five, so mercifully our father was not in town. He was out of the country.
we woke up at the sound of gunshots. Because of my age I wasn't aware of what was going on. But she said I was then asking the soldiers who used to guard the presidential palace, that's Flaxer Founce, why they were not saluting me on that morning. Because I was not aware of what was going on, that they were overthrowing Nkrumah. I remember mother the first thing she did, two things she did in fact.
One, she told us to pray and we prayed. Remember we knelt down and prayed. When we finished she said, okay now even if they fire at you, nothing will happen to you.
is passing through a revolutionary period. The Americans did not like Nkrumah because of the regime he was trying to plant in Ghana, which may encourage Africa states to do the same, and also because of the help that was given to Africa countries to be that independent. I used to hear KB Asante talk about the CIA. Of course. It was not like the CIA just came and jumped in.
No. So it didn't matter where the support came from. From the CPP, they were prepared to grab it. In Ghana we have a proverb or a saying that when the bird stays too long on the tree, it invites a stone. He went into exile in Guinea, where his friend and liberation comrade, Secu Ture, gave him refuge and made him co-president.
In April of 1972, Kwame Nkrumah drew his last breath in a hospital in Bucharest, Romania. Until he met his death, Kwame Nkrumah had survived five assassination attempts, and that is why the phrase, Kwame Nkrumah never dies, was coined. Earlier in the day we were told that our father would be coming home.
Yes, and of course we were excited. And we all dressed in our finest clothes. Yes, and you're right, I remember our mother looking particularly good in her chiffon dress. And by the end of the day, an envoy came with this unbelievable news that our father had passed on.
So according to the records he died of cancer but his a few people who were close to him in Guinea are also saying that he could have been poisoned. There was no reaction. to his death. There is a maker cabral who said that Nkrumah died out of a cancer of betrayal and there was a lot of betrayal in Nkrumah's days. When the Pope came to us, he said that Nkrumah died because of a cancer of the throat or some other disease.
No, Nkrumah was killed by the cancer of betrayal. I, Robert Gabriel Mugabe, do swear... People who say Kwame Nkrumah is good and practicing his ideology, I would say Mugabe.
Mugabe was grateful to Kwame Nkrumah. But look at Mugabe's style of government. Is it successful? That is the true Nkrumahist, a pan-Africaist who believes in the true identity of the Africa.
Yes, it's good, but practically... Carmen Nkrumah went down the books of history. as the firebrand in Africa's liberation struggle. His vision for a United States of Africa continues to be realized. The reality is that it didn't stay on.
Madiba is gone. Nkrumah is gone. Sekou is gone.
Samir Marshall is gone. Nasser of Egypt is gone. That is our reality. Our task is to create a new core of leaders, visionary leaders, leaders who want to see Africa free. who want to help Africas to develop confidence in themselves, in their culture, in the food they eat, in the way they dress, in the way they walk, and the way they talk.
Leaders who want to encourage Africas to take control of their own resources. We need to engineer those new leaders. That is the task. I've told you he was a fine man. Nkrumah was dedicated to politics.
He loved the nation. He loved Africa. He married Africa. He lived and died in politics.
The Africa we have today is the legacy he left behind and a constant reminder that indeed Kwame Nkrumah never dies. land of freedom Toils of the brave and the sweat of the alley boss Toils of the brave which have brought results