'Our father gave his life for this mission' - Samia Nkrumah details horrific 1964 assassination attempt

Samia Nkrumah, daughter of Ghana’s first President Kwame Nkrumah, has recounted in vivid detail how her father survived an assassination attempt in January 1964.

Speaking at the Padmore-Du Bois-Nkrumah Lecture organised by the Kwame Nkrumah Memorial Park, on September 18, 2026, Samia recalled the terrifying moment when the then-president returned home covered in blood after surviving the attack.

“Our father gave his life for this mission,” she said, urging a new generation to revisit his ideas and adapt them to Africa’s present circumstances.

“What I saw together with my older brother is our father entering the house covered in blood with his cheek almost falling out,” she recounted.

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She added that had it not been his father’s trusted bodyguard, Salifo Degazi, who took the bullet for her father, Dr Nkrumah would have been exterminated on that day.

Degazi, she said, “immediately moved to protect the president, taking the bullet and dying at the scene”.

Samia said her father then confronted the alleged assassin and managed to overpower him despite being more than 50 years old at the time.

The attacker, however, reportedly bit Nkrumah hard on one of his cheeks in an attempt to escape, leaving the wound that caused the bloodstains on his white suit.

“He bites our father hard in one of his cheeks and he pulls the cheek out almost,” she said.

Beyond recounting the attack, Samia used the experience to reflect on what she described as her father’s determination to advance Africa’s economic independence.

She said Nkrumah and other African leaders believed the continent could only achieve meaningful development by working together, building industries and infrastructure, and planning collectively.

She also called for the Pan-African spirit of previous generations to continue inspiring efforts toward African development.

FKA/VPO

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