African socialism : the theory and practice of Kwame Nkrumah

Abstract

For about a decade, Kwame Nkrumah was independent Ghana’s foremost public figure. Firstly in his capacity as Prime Minister from 1957, when Ghana formally became independent, and then as President of the Republic of Ghana from 1960 to 1966, Nkrumah attracted world wide interest as the leader of the first independent black African nation, and as the flamboyant spokesman for African Unity and African Socialism. Nkrumah’s fall from power, when he was toppled by a military coup on February 24, 1966, released a flood of theories and assertions as to the nature of his government during his decade of power. A substantial proportion of such theories described Nkrumah as exercising dictatorial powers, creating a personality cult around himself, and suppressing any murmur of dissent. Colonel Akwasi Afrifa, a leading figure in the military coup, is one such critic. He asserted that Nkrumah’s rule was characterized by "the terror of one-man rule, and the misery of dictatorship". Nkrumah, having become the symbol of emergent Africa, "built a cult of personality around himself, and ruthlessly used the powers invested in him by his own constitution. He developed a strange love for absolute power"