Ghana Marks 106th Birthday of First President Dr. Kwame Nkrumah Today

Today September 21 marks the 106th birthday of Ghana’s first President, Osagyefo Dr. Kwame Nkrumah.

In 2010, the late Ghana's President, John Mills of blessed memory, instituted the “Founders Day” to celebrate the birthday of Dr. Kwame Nkrumah.

The declaration of the day, generated the debate as to whether he is indeed the founder of Ghana or there were others, for instance other members of the 'Big Six' who equally deserve to be recognized as Founders.

Osagyefo Dr Nkrumah is recognized as a great man, more specifically a great Pan-Africanist of no mean repute.

In 1957, Osagyefo Dr. Nkrumah declared that Ghana's independence was meaningless unless it was linked with the total liberation of Africa.

The African Union has erected a statue to his honor at Addis Ababa. He also received other recognitions in Africa and globally.

Osagyefo Dr. Nkrumah was born as Kofi Nwiah at Nkroful in the Western Region of Ghana. After training as a teacher at Achimota College, Accra and teaching for a while, he left for further studies in the United States of America, where he stayed for more than a decade.

He later left for the United Kingdom to continue his studies. While there he helped to organise the momentous fifth Pan-African Congress in 1945.

Dr Nkrumah returned to the then Gold Coast in 1947 at the invitation of the pro-independence nationalist movement, the United Gold Coast Convention (UGCC) to be its General-Secretary.

He was arrested with five other leading members of the UGCC, for political reasons in 1948 and they became known as "The Big Six".

He stayed with the UGCC till 1949 when he broke away with others to form the Convention People's Party (CPP) which eventually led the Gold Coast to independence.

He died 43 years ago at the age of 63 in Bucharest, Romania where he had gone for medical treatment.

God bless Ghana, God bless Africa.

GBC's Newsdesk Report