Samia, Sekou Nkrumah debate on whether Kwame Nkrumah was a dictator

Two children of Ghana’s first president, Kwame Nkrumah, have had a moment on camera where they strongly argued out why they believe that their father was either a dictator or not.

Samia Yaba Nkrumah and Sekou Nkrumah were granting an interview to JoyNews when the issue of the governance style of their late father came up.

In the video clip culled from a yet-to-aired full interview on the channel, the two vocal siblings broke down their individual arguments on what they thought made up for the dictatorial style, or not, of Kwame Nkrumah.

The younger of the two, Sekou Nkrumah, started the debate by stating how Nkrumah declared himself a life president, a quality that made his style dictatorial.

“Nkrumah introduced the one-party state. Nkrumah became life president. These are facts; it’s not what you read. And I’m saying that, that is dictatorial but I’m saying it’s because of his socialist path for our development; not only for Ghana, but Africa.

“Yes, he was a Marxist intellectual and he chose the socialist path… so it was dictatorial but it doesn’t mean that it is wrong because that was his philosophy, and people have their philosophy, as today we have the multiparty system. That was inherited from the Western system but Nkrumah was against that; he didn’t believe that. He developed to a point where he realised socialism is the path,” he stated.

Cutting through his train of thoughts, Samia Nkrumah, who is a former Member of Parliament for Jomoro, disagreed.

She argued that Kwame Nkrumah, by going through parliament to implement everything that he did during his presidency, practiced a system of democracy.

She also stressed that if that was not the case, he would not have successfully gone through electioneering processes with his party, the Convention People’s Party (CPP).

“He believed in democracy that’s why everything was pushed through parliament… every legislation, everything he promoted was done through parliament. This is a man who won three elections with his party…” she stated

“So, you disagree with the word dictatorial?” the reporter clarified from her.

“Strongly! Strongly! Because the manner in which he introduced most of his policies; everything actually, was pushed through parliament. So, he used constitutional means and we can check the records.

“So, are we saying that today when any government of the day pushes through things that the opposition vehemently opposes, that they are dictatorial?” she added.

As if to concede that he had lost the debate, Sekou Nkrumah interjected with a final line that would bring back smiles to their faces:

“I don’t agree with you, but I guess people differ, even siblings.”

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