Comrades, are you ready? I bow with humility and awe – “sebe o taflatse”- before speaking about the dark days of the tyrannical rule of Osagyefo Dr. Kwame Nkrumah, the celebrated “African of the Millennium,” whose full record cannot be sanitised by renaming Kotoka International Airport to preserve his stature.
In the interest of Ghana and Africa, we must ask: what outcome was expected when the Osagyefo, by illicit contrivance and in
defiance of parliamentary sanctity, declared himself President for Life? Is Ghana not a nation that prides itself on tikoro nko agyina?
And in our cherished Ananse fables, does any one person possess all wisdom?
When Dr. Nkrumah and his chorus of sycophantic CPP “veranda boys” gleefully ostracised the elected opposition from Parliament and engineered a one-party state, that act — by parliamentary fiat and constitutional constriction — was Ghana’s first effective coup d’état.
If General Akufo’s removal of General Acheampong is remembered as a “palace coup,” what then was Nkrumah’s expulsion of the opposition, an institution essential to democracy?
It was Nkrumah who set the stage for the inevitable Kotoka coup de grâce, at a time when “Ghana, we now have freedom” had become hollow under oppressive rule.
Political detainees and ordinary citizens languished in prisons under the PDA, many emerging maimed and broken.The economy was in decline, and Ghanaians were told to “tighten their belts” — a familiar precursor to coups.
Nkrumah’s Achilles heel was his intolerance of a small but principled opposition led by the equally iconic sociologist Dr. K. A. Busia, who insisted on African democratic principles and stood courageously against authoritarianism, communism, and atheism. Ghana descended into fear under a despotic leader.
I grew up in a Ghana where Nkrumah was revered as a deity, surrounded by yes-men and a vast network of spies, including indoctrinated Young Pioneers who chanted, “Nkrumah is our Messiah.
Nkrumah is our God, Nkrumah never dies.” Whispering his name in your own bedroom could be deemed subversive.
Children in school would chant, “Nyame ma yen toffee – silence. Nkrumah ma yen toffee!” and Children in school would chant, “Nyame ma yen tollee — silence. Nkruman ma yen totee! and teachers would rain sweets upon them as though manna had fallen from heaven.
Does our national anthem not call on God to help us “resist oppressor’s rule”? Perhaps divine justice played a role in Nkrumah’s overthrow.
Even Nkrumah’s most strategic projects — Akosombo, VRA, Atomic Energy, TOR — were funded by Western loans.
Why then the shock at CIA involvement, when Nkrumah openly courted the Soviet Union, China, Cuba, and Vietnam at the height of the Cold War?
Today, contradictions stand side by side: the Nkrumah Mausoleum and Interchange are surrounded by J. B. Danquah Circle and Obetsebi Lamptey Circle — men who, according to von Fleischer, were effectively “murdered” under the PDA. Ako Adjei Interchange honours the very man who brought Nkrumah into politics, later jailed under suspicion of the Kulungugu bombing.
Busia Highway honours the opposition leader forced into exile. Sir Arku Korsah has a street named after him despite being dismissed as Chief Justice for refusing to convict Nkrumah’s own ministers.
Are all these landmarks to be renamed to render Nkrumah’s legacy pure?
There is a simplistic misreading of KIA as glorifying coups. Does the NDC — born of coups and protected by constitutional indemnity — reject its own origins? Why celebrate 4th June and 31 st December despite Supreme Court injunctions?
Kotoka’s symbolism represents historical complexity and a reminder that no presidency is absolute.
Renaming cannot erase the fact that Kotoka’s action re-opened the door to multi-party democracy.
Even the NDC’s own chairman, Asiedu Nketia, has said “tofiakwa” to a Mahama third term. How then could Nkrumah — no matter his vision — rule Ghana indefinitely?
We must not indulge collective amnesia by reverting to a bland “Accra International Airport.” To forget history is to repeat it.
Pre-independence politics was violent on all sides.
We must not tell a one-sided story that absolves the CPP of its own excesses.
President John Mahama’s reset agenda must focus on building bridges and moving Ghana forward with honesty and unity.
