Nkrumah didn’t die of skin cancer – Sekou insists

Dr. Sekou Nkrumah, the last son of Ghana’s first President, Dr. Kwame Nkrumah, insists his father died of prostate cancer and not skin cancer.

“I stand by what I said that Nkrumah died of prostate cancer and not skin cancer,” he stressed.

According to him, “once you develop cancer and it’s not treated, it can spread and create other complications. So for example, people who have breast cancer can end up having other complications, for example, collapsed lungs that is caused by chemotherapy so…its very dishonest to try to say that somebody for example was suffering from prostate cancer but then died of other complications”.

He noted that his father started suffering from prostate cancer “from 1970 and by 1972, it had spread” because “he didn’t treat it properly” thus necessitating his movement from Guinea Conakry, where he lived in exile after his overthrow in 1966, to Bucharest, Romania for proper treatment, but died nonetheless because it was too late.

Dr. Sekou Nkrumah’s clarification about what killed his father comes on the heels of former Chief of Staff, Nana Ato Dadzie’s comments that Sekou Nkrumah himself appears to be ignorant of what actually killed his father.

Nana Ato Dadzie’s comment was in response to Dr. Sekou Nkrumah’s challenge to the governing National Democratic Congress to make public the cause of the late President Mills’ death.

Speaking on Joy FM’s news analysis programme ‘newsfile’ on Saturday July 27, Nana Ato Dadzie contested Dr. Sekou Nkrumah’s knowledge of his own father’s death and used that as a basis to question the latter’s justification in demanding details of the cause of President Mills’ death.

“Sekou says that his father died of prostate cancer, but we all do know that skin cancer was a major factor,” Mr. Ato Dadzie insisted on the programme.

His intervention was a sequel to fellow discussant Kweku Baako Jnr’s assertions that the August 11, 1962 Kulungugu bombing incident, which was an assassination attempt on Dr. Kwame Nkrumah, was “part of the reasons why he died”.

The New Crusading Guide Newspaper Editor-in-Chief said despite earlier claims by officialdom that Dr. Nkrumah escaped the assassination attempt unscathed, he sustained injuries which later played a role in his death.

According to the former Chief of staff, “what killed Kwame Nkrumah is a myth up to today,” because his death has been ascribed to so many reasons including skin cancer.