Kwame Nkrumah (1909 - 1972) was a Ghanaian politician, writer and political theorist who led the Gold Coast to independence as Ghana in 1957 and served as its first prime minister and then president. [1] A leading advocate of Pan-Africanism, he pressed for a united Africa and helped found the Organisation of African Unity, while at home his increasingly centralised one-party rule drew sustained criticism before he was deposed by a military coup in 1966. [2]
Early life and education
Nkrumah was born on 21 September 1909 at Nkroful in the Gold Coast, then a British colony. He trained as a teacher at Achimota School and taught in Catholic schools before leaving for the United States in 1935. [1]
He studied at Lincoln University in Pennsylvania and at the University of Pennsylvania, taking degrees in economics, sociology, theology and education, and supported himself with manual work. Moving to London in 1945, he studied at the London School of Economics and Political Science and became active in Pan-African circles, helping to organise the Fifth Pan-African Congress in Manchester alongside George Padmore and W. E. B. Du Bois. [2]
Independence struggle
Recalled to the Gold Coast in 1947 as general secretary of the United Gold Coast Convention, Nkrumah broke with its cautious leadership and in 1949 founded the Convention People's Party, campaigning under the slogan of self-government now. His Positive Action campaign of strikes and civil disobedience led to his imprisonment in 1950. [1]
While still in jail he was elected to the Legislative Assembly in the 1951 elections, which his party won decisively, and he was released to become Leader of Government Business and then prime minister. On 6 March 1957 the Gold Coast became independent as Ghana, the first sub-Saharan African colony to throw off European rule, an event that accelerated decolonisation across the continent. [3]
President of Ghana
Ghana became a republic in 1960 with Nkrumah as president. His government invested heavily in education, health, roads and industry, and built the Akosombo Dam on the Volta River to supply electricity and support aluminium production. [1]
He promoted an ideology he called Consciencism and wrote extensively, including Neo-Colonialism: The Last Stage of Imperialism. He hosted the All-African People's Conference and was a driving force behind the creation of the Organisation of African Unity in 1963. [2]
Domestically his rule narrowed. The Preventive Detention Act allowed imprisonment without trial, opposition parties were suppressed, Ghana was declared a one-party state in 1964, and a cult of personality developed around him. Falling cocoa prices and heavy spending strained the economy. [3]
Overthrow, exile and legacy
In February 1966, while Nkrumah was travelling to China, the army and police seized power in a coup. He took refuge in Guinea, where President Ahmed Sékou Touré named him honorary co-president, and continued writing on revolution and African unity. He died of cancer in Bucharest on 27 April 1972 and was later buried in Ghana. [1]
Nkrumah received the Lenin Peace Prize and, posthumously, South Africa's Order of the Companions of O. R. Tambo. His reputation in Ghana was rehabilitated over subsequent decades, and his arguments for continental integration remain a reference point in African political thought. [2]
