Madam Samia Yaba Nkrumah, the daughter of Ghana’s first President, Dr Kwame Nkrumah, has called on the youth of the country to study and read the exact words of his father in order to understand his policies and ideologies.
Madam Nkrumah spoke to the DAILY HERITAGE as part of the GH Heritage Month which seeks to bolster interest in Ghana’s rich heritage.
Below is the full text of the interview:
Daily Heritage (DH): Good afternoon and thank you for welcoming us to your home.
Samia Nkrumah (SN): You’re welcome. It’s my pleasure.
DH: Madam Samia, how is your family and where are they now?
SN: I believe they’re all quite well and only one of them is in the country now, that is, our senior brother, Prof. Francis Nkrumah; he’s the first. We are three from Fathia Nkrumah but the senior is in Cairo, Egypt, then you have me, number two, then Sekou, who is in the United States now. So it’s Prof. Francis and I who are in Ghana at this moment.
DH: You mentioned your mum, Mrs Fathia Nkrumah; did she enjoy privileges as a former first lady from the previous governments when she was alive?
SN: After the illegal overthrow of my father we went to Egypt where we sought refuge. Then we came back in 1975 when the Acheampong government invited us back. Yes, we were well taken care of, but things got very difficult for all Ghanaians during Rawlings’ first and second coups and mother couldn’t stay and she went back to Egypt.
DH: When she left for Egypt, was she still taken care of?
SN: No, when she left Ghana in 1981 that was it. She wasn’t taken care of.
DH: How was life growing up under an African hero like Dr Nkrumah?
SN: The last time I saw him, I was five-and-a-half-years-old so I was very little. It wasn’t exactly growing up with him. But growing up with him in the background was a different matter. He was such a huge figure, a great Pan-Africanist. Certainly we felt his presence, even though he was not with us. When we were growing we had his book, his writings, and he was a prolific writer. I don’t know, but as a Head of State to publish so many books while he was in power was something special.
DH: Was the family in Ghana when Dr Nkrumah was overthrown?
SN: We were in Ghana, but as you know he was out of the country to broker a peace deal between Washington and Hanoi. We were here the whole day and we were ‘rescued’ by the Egyptian government and we were taken out of the country and we were allowed to leave on an Egyptian flight to Cairo. Mother requested the Egyptian government to come and help, though we were not harmed by the military.
DH: How did you feel on that day?
SN: I was terrified and cried the whole day. For a five-year-old girl to have soldiers pointing guns at her, that is a bad experience for every growing girl. We were taken from one palce to another with soldiers giving a lot of instructions. They did all that so that we leave the Flagstaff House with nothing except the clothes on our bodies, and we left Ghana with nothing. It was difficult but we overcame it.
DH: While Dr Nkrumah was in exile, was he still communicating with the family?
SN: Yes. We were in Cairo and he was in Conakry, Guinea. He actually called us that first night when we arrived in Egypt. He called us to reassure us that things would be fine and check how we were doing. I remember what he said to me, he spoke to every one of us and when it got to my turn, he said, “Yaba, don’t be afraid, be strong”. I cherish that message and I like to take it with me. I like to take it that everyone should be strong.
DH: What did Dr Nkrumah stand for?
SN: He stood for African freedom, political, economic, cultural. He always said political freedom was the first step to take. When he became Head of State, the policies he was implementing were geared towards helping us to achieve what we called economic freedom. He wanted freedom from the dominance of foreign interest, and control. Gaining political independence was important and the first step because you will have the right to decide for yourself what to do with your resources.
You need to gain control of your economy. Your economy cannot be in the hands of foreigners and you can’t remain under the dictate of the IMF. I think if he was looking at us he will be shocked about what is going on here because we have surrendered our resources to foreigners and they tell us what to do. No, that was not what Ghana was made to do; it was meant to be a truly sovereign state.
Ghana was about to take off economically under Kwame Nkrumah because we were in control of our resources. His focus was how to make life better for Ghanaians. If we had six years of Nkrumah’s policy, I believe things wouldn’t have been like this. After 1966, Ghana became ‘For Sale’. He warned us that dark days would come because we had abandoned his ideologies. A small section about his policies was to get free education and see how happy we were when the President introduced the free SHS policy.
When you imbibe his ideologies, you will get the courage to demand certain things and make certain changes. The mantle is on the youth now to take charge.
DH: What will Dr Nkrumah be proud about this current Ghana?
SN: Hmm! He will be proud that a lot of people got free education under the guidance of his government. Most importantly he will be proud of the unity in the country. He tried to fight tribalism and he went a long way to make us a united country. He helped us stay as a strong and united country to fight against the influence of foreigners. It’s not about the man Nkrumah but it’s about his ideas.
DH: What is the unique story about Kwame Nkrumah that has not been told yet?
SN: Oh dear! This was the man that was voted ‘The African of the Millennium’ by the BBC in 1999, I think. What we know about him has been said, maybe certain information like the Peduase Lodge story that was where I was born. Actually that land was given to Kwame Nkrumah by the chiefs, he built a small house there, and then he gave it back to the state. He said that if people had taken the time to disclose what he had in his will they will have realised that he wanted to give the little he had to the state and the party he left behind. He wasn’t selfish.
DH: Growing up, we heard a lot of myths about Kwame Nkrumah which tried to portray him as a bad person. For example, he was labelled a polygamist and a dictator. We will be glad if you use this opportunity to clarify things, was he a polygamist and a dictator?
SN: (Laughed). We’ve heard plenty of such stories about him even in some Social Studies and History textbooks that our children use in schools. I can recall that one of the leaders of the coup, Colonel Acheampong, in a letter, said they would make sure that all the traces of Dr Nkrumah ideals would be wiped off so that younger people would not know about him. They want us to turn against his ideals but they didn’t know that was where the real freedom lies. You cannot substantiate all the allegations they made against him. The man was so eloquent and I will like the youth to read about his version of things and compare which of the two (what you have read and what you have heard) makes sense.
Why will a dictator not harness a lot of wealth? Why will a dictator refuse to sign a death warrant to execute people who attempted to kill him? He was a selfless leader and I believe all the stories about him to justify their coup but that coup can’t be justified. The damage that that coup brought was unbelievable. They burnt his books and we are going to make sure we bring back his books.
DH: Dr Nkrumah was a busy man, what does he do during his free time?
SN: I wish I knew but I do remember him playing tennis, walking or jogging a bit, and I know he liked his food, he liked his fufu and abonubunu soup. And being a typical Nzemaman, he finished off with this white rice. He will have the rice in a separate bowl then he will take it in his hands and mould it into a ball and eat it. That served like a dessert for him and it was fascinating.
DH: What do you wish the younger generation would learn about Dr Kwame Nkrumah?
SN: I just want them to read about the man, read his own words and not what people are saying about him.
DH: Was he a pro-feminist? Did he try to promote women in leadership?
SN: Definitely. He brought a bill which encouraged women to enter into Parliament. There were ten women in parliament then with one representing each region.
DH: Do you think the Founder(s) Day debate is necessary?
SN: It is a very destructive and useless debate at this point of our situation. Sometimes I think if Kwame Nkrumah was looking down, he won’t be happy at us debating on this issue rather than implementing his policies and ideologies. The debate should be on Kwame Nkrumah’s policies and not on who founded the country, historical facts cannot change. Ghana was founded on the ideals and policies that Kwame Nkrumah put forward.
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