Fifteen African Journalists from Sierra Leone, Benin, Mali, Ghana , Nigeria and Liberia have toured the Kwame Nkrumah Memorial Center where he was buried during their two week training program in Accra Ghana.
Entering the centre Journalists were welcomed by the confidential desk used by the Late Kwame Nkrumah when he was the President of Ghana.
Moving round the centre Journalists saw pictures in black and white and some coloured of Late Nkrumah when he was giving his last seasonal address to the house of Parliament before the coup which ousted him.
Pictures of Nkrumah tabling the motion of destiny for independence at the legislative on 1975. Pictures he took on 25th May 1963 with the emperor Haile Selassie during the formation of the OAU in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia and also pictures of his dead body flown from Bucharest in Romania in April 1972 were also shown to the visiting group of journalists.
At the other end of the centre in the same room, is his metallic coffin containing the embalmed body, his walking sticks given to him by a friend in New York in 1961; a ‘sese’ stool given to him by his grand mother whilst he was a young boy; his pen and his tomb.
It could be recalled that Kwame Nkrumah became the first prime and later president of Ghana. He was born on September 21, 1909, at Nkroful in what was then the British-ruled Gold Coast, the son of a goldsmith. Trained as a teacher, he went to the United States in 1935 for advanced studies and continued his schooling in England, where he helped organize the Pan-African Congress in 1945. He returned to Ghana in 1947 and became general secretary of the newly founded United Gold Coast Convention but split from it in 1949 to form the Convention People’s party (CPP).
After his ‘positive action’ campaign created disturbances in 1950, Nkrumah was jailed, but when the CPP swept the 1951 elections, he was freed to form a government, and he led the colony to independence as Ghana in 1957.
A firm believer in African liberation, Nkrumah pursued a radical pan-African policy, playing a key role in the formation of the Organization of African Unity in 1963.
As head of government, he was less successful however as time passed he was accused of forming a dictatorship. In 1964 he formed a one-party state, with himself as President for life, and was accused of actively promoting a cult of his own personality.
Overthrown by the military in 1966, with the help of western backing, he spent his last years in exile, dying in Bucharest, Romania, on April 27, 1972. His legacy and dream of a “United States of African” still remains a goal among many.