Private legal practitioner Oliver Barker-Vormawor has taken on broadcaster Paul Adom-Otchere over his claims that Ghana’s first President, Osagyefo Dr Kwame Nkrumah, did some very bad things that made him “terrible for Ghana.”
Adom-Otchere, during a panel discussion on JoyNews on February 7, 2026, listed the “terrible” things Kwame Nkrumah did, which, according to him, warranted his overthrow on February 24, 1966.
He accused Nkrumah of amending the Constitution of Ghana to make himself lifetime president of Ghana, change the national flag of Ghana and prosecute his political opponents.
In a series of posts shared on Facebook, Barker-Vormawor debunked all the claims made by Adom-Otchere.
Adom-Otchere’s claim of Nkrumah making himself president:
On Adom-Otchere’s claim of Nkrumah making himself president, Barker-Vormawor asserted that the mere fact that Nkrumah’s name was in the Constitution did not mean that he had made himself lifetime president.
He explained that the provision in the Constitution which named Nkrumah was there only to recognise who the first president of Ghana was, put there even before the country’s first presidential election was held.
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“The first daft claim by Paul Adom Otchere is that Nkrumah’s name was written in the 1960 Constitution. So that’s proof that Nkrumah was a life-term president. How very daft. If you know anything about the context of the 1960 Constitution, you would know that the referendum to adopt the 1960 Constitution was held together with the first-ever presidential elections in 1960.
“Nkrumah got 89.07% of the votes. JB Danquah got 10.93%. Now, the draft Constitution made provision for a clause to indicate the name of the first president who would be elected under it, when the draft was being finalised after the referendum. Meaning that if JB Danquah, a candidate as popular as Hassan Ayariga is today, had won that election, his name would have been written in the clause for First President,” Barker-Vormawor wrote.
Amendment of the presidential term limit:
The lawyer also refuted Adom-Otchere’s claim that Ghana’s Constitution was amended in 1964 to make Nkrumah a lifetime president.
He explained that the presidential term limit after the Constitution was amended was still five years.
“Under the 1960 Constitution, the President's term was limited to five years. This was linked to the life-term of Parliament. In fact, it could even be shorter, because in true Westminster format, the President (Prime Minister under British tradition) could dissolve Parliament earlier and call for early general elections. If that happened, the President's term of office also ended. See Articles 11(1)(a) and 23(2) of the 1960 Constitution.
“The big defect of the 1960 Constitution was that, in switching over from the Prime Minister to President, we did not put in place a Vice President; and so there was no mechanism for executive transition in case the president died or resigned his office. To cure this, the 1964 Constitution created a Presidential Commission, which would take over after the President was no longer in office. So, in fact, the 1964 amendments rather fixed a problem in the 1960 Constitution,” Barker-Vormawor wrote.
'Kwame Nkrumah was terrible for Ghana' – Paul Adom-Otchere opines
He added, “Here is the biggest shocker. The 1964 amendment rather gave Parliament the power to impeach the President by resolution on grounds of incapacity or medical infirmity. This did not exist in 1960. Listen, so rather than make Nkrumah a life-term president, it actually gave Parliament the power to remove him. Refer to Section 08 of the amendment which introduced Article 18 of the 1960 Constitution as amended.”
Claim of change of Ghana’s flag:
Barker-Vormawor also refuted the claim that Nkrumah replaced the flag of Ghana with the flag of his party, the CPP.
He indicated that the only change in Ghana’s flag in 1964 was the yellow in the middle being changed to white, with red and green being maintained.
“Please, when people tell you that we changed the flag to CPP's flag, the first reasonable question one should be asking is, ‘What was CPP's flag at the time?’ They won’t know the answer. But I will help you. The CPP's flag since 1948, when the party was founded, was plain white with a red cockerel in the middle.
“How is red, white and green with a black star in the middle the same as a white flag with a red cockerel in the middle?” he quizzed.
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