NKRUMAH MEMORIAL RECEPTIVE FACILITY

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OSAGYEFO DR. KWAME NKRUMAH

(Born September 1909, Nkroful, Gold Coast — died April 27, 1972, Bucharest, Rom.) Nationalist leader and president of Ghana (1960 – 66). Nkrumah worked as a teacher before going to the U.S. to study literature and socialism (1935 – 45). In 1949 he formed the Convention People's Party, which advocated nonviolent protests, strikes, and noncooperation with the British authorities. Elected prime minister of the Gold Coast (1952 – 60) and then president of independent Ghana, Nkrumah advanced a policy of Africanization and built new roads, schools, and health facilities. After 1960 he devoted much of his time to the Pan-African movement, at the expense of Ghana's economy. Following an attempted coup in 1962, he increased authoritarian controls, withdrew from public life, increased contacts with communist countries, and wrote works on political philosophy. With the country facing economic ruin, he was deposed in 1966 while visiting Beijing. 

Born into the small Nzima ethnic group Nkrumah studied and worked in the USA and Britain and became a significant figure in pan-Africanist circles in both. He returned home in 1947 to become general secretary of the newly established United Gold Coast Convention (UGCC). Following disagreements with more conservative members of the UGCC he broke away in 1949 to form his own Convention People's Party (CPP). Under his leadership the CPP built a mass base of support becoming the leading nationalist party in the territory. Following success in the 1951 elections he became leader of government business, and the following year Prime Minister. The CPP maintained its majority electoral support and at independence in 1957 he became Prime Minister of the new state of Ghana. Following constitutional change in 1960 he became the country's first President.

Nkrumah's career after independence combined an international and a domestic role. At the international level he was he most important African nationalist leader of his generation and was inspirational throughout Africa. He was the leading supporter of pan-African unity and worked tirelessly, but ultimately unsuccessfully, to bring about the political union of the emerging states of Africa. Domestically his rule was predominantly negative. He inherited one of the strongest economies in Africa but by the time he lost power Ghana was plunging towards economic collapse as a result of the inefficiency and corruption of its, predominantly state-run, economic enterprises. His regime became increasingly authoritarian. As early as 1958 he introduced a preventative detention act which allowed for arrest without charge and imprisonment without trial. Potential centres of opposition including the trade unions, the judiciary, and the universities were brought under tight government control and the media was rigidly censored. In 1964 he declared a single-party state and installed himself as "President for Life". His self-granted titles included "the redeemer" and "the initiator of the African personality". He is credited with writing a large number of books but most (if not all) were ghost-written for him by his acolytes.

In 1966 he was overthrown by a military coup d'état whilst he was attending a meeting in Beijing. At the invitation of his close friend President Sekou Toure he went into exile in Guinea and subsequently died of cancer in a Romanian hospital in 1972. His international reputation and prominence greatly outstripped his domestic political performance.

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