Kwame Nkrumah (First President of Ghana)

Summary

• Kwame Nkrumah was born on September 21, 1909, in Nkroful, Gold Coast (now Ghana).
• The Ghanaian nationalist leader led the country’s drive for independence from Britain and presided over its emergence as the new nation of Ghana.
• He ruled the country from independence in 1957 until he was overthrown by a coup in 1966.
• Drawn to politics, Nkrumah travelled to United States to further his studies.
• In 1947, Nkrumah returned and became General Secretary of United Gold Coast Convention (UGCC).
• When extensive riots broke out in 1948, the British colonial authorities arrested Nkrumah with executive members of UGCC known later as the “Big Six.”
• He formed Convention Peoples Party (CPP) in 1949 with the Committee on Youth Organization (CYO)
• While in prison, Nkrumah led the CPP to achieve a stunning victory in the February 1951 elections. He was freed to form a government, and he led the colony to independence in 1957.
• Nkrumah organized a conference of the 32 independent African States in Addis Ababa in 1963; OAU was formed at this conference.
• Nkrumah was overthrown in a Military Coup d’état in 1966 while on trip to Hanoi, Vietnam. He left for Guinea and lived there as Co –President of Guinea.
• He died April 27, 1972, Bucharest, Romania.
• In 2009, President John Atta Mills declared 21 September as Founder’s Day, a statutory holiday in Ghana to celebrate the legacy of Kwame Nkrumah.

Quotes

“I am not African because I was born in Africa but because Africa was born in me.”

“It is far better to be free to govern or misgovern yourself than to be governed by anybody else.”

“Those who would judge us merely by the heights we have achieved would do well to remember the depths from which we started.”

“Countrymen, the task ahead is great indeed, and heavy is the responsibility; and yet it is a noble and glorious challenge – a challenge which calls for the courage to dream, the courage to believe, the courage to dare, the courage to do, the courage to envision, the courage to fight, the courage to work, the courage to achieve – to achieve the highest excellences and the fullest greatness of man. Dare we ask for more in life?”

“It is clear that we must find an African solution to our problems, and that this can only be found in African unity. Divided we are weak; united, Africa could become one of the greatest forces for good in the world.”

“Freedom is not something that one people can bestow on another as a gift. Thy claim it as their own and none can keep it from them.”

“For centuries, Europeans dominated the African continent. The white man arrogated to himself the right to rule and to be obeyed by the non-white; his mission, he claimed, was to “civilize” Africa. Under this cloak, the Europeans robbed the continent of vast riches and inflicted unimaginable suffering on the African people.”

“We all want a United Africa, United not only in our concept of what unity connotes, but united in our common desire to move forward together in dealing with all the problems that can best be solved only on a continental basis.”

“The masses of the people of Africa are crying for unity.”

Some of his works

Africa must unite; Class struggle in Africa; I speak of freedom; Rhodesia file; Dark days in Ghana; Towards colonial freedom; Voice from Conakry etc.

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