Rawlings blasts Kufuor, others for 'desecrating' Nkrumah’s graveyard

Ex-President Jerry John Rawlings has slammed ex President J.A Kufuor and his successors for demeaning the legacy of Ghana’s first President Dr Kwame Nkrumah legacy by desecrating his graveyard.

According to him, ex-President Kufour during his reign supervised the terrible handling of the Kwame Nkrumah Mausoleum in Accra which is a tourist attraction.

…Many years later when Dr Kwame Nkrumah’s wife, Fathia Nkrumah also died former President Kufuor laid her coffin in the same dugout where Nkrumah had been buried and he feigned to have been mourning her and we all fell for it and joined in the mourning with out handkerchiefs wiping our tears. From that moment, that National Monument to honour that man became a family graveyard. Do you see how his grave was desecrated?

He added: “Ex-Presidents Mills and Mahama claim they’re Nkrumahists, you have chopped into the man’s name. All these were done before your eyes while in power and they didn’t see? The compound is big, you could have dug a hundred and one holes and put Madam Fathia also there. Build a three-story building there, you did not have to do that under the same monument under which Dr Kwame Nkrumah was,” Ex-President Rawlings fumed.

The Kwame Nkrumah Mausoleum and memorial park is located in downtown Accra, the capital of Ghana.

It is dedicated to the prominent Ghanaian leader Kwame Nkrumah.

The mausoleum designed by Don Aurthur, houses the body of Dr Kwame Nkrumah and his wife Fathia Nkrumah, it is meant to represent an upside down sword which in the Akan culture is a symbol of peace. The mausoleum is clad from top to bottom with Italian marble, with a black star at its apex to symbolize unity. The interior of the Mausoleum boasts marble flooring and a mini mastaba looking marble grave marker surrounded by river washed rocks.