Watch Gamal Nkrumah’s resurfaced account of the 1966 coup

A 2007 interview with the late Gamal Gorkeh Nkrumah has resurfaced following his death, with the journalist recounting how his mother refused to leave her children behind when a military coup toppled his father’s government in 1966.

Gamal, who said he was six years old at the time, described the day as a frightening experience that remained vivid in his memory decades later.

Dr Kwame Nkrumah's son is dead - Report

Narrating the incident in an interview with Democracy Now, he said that his father, the late Dr Kwame Nkrumah, was away on a state visit to China when the coup broke out on February 24, 1966, so his mother, Fathia Nkrumah, sought help from Egypt to get them out of Ghana.

He said his five-year-old sister, Samia Nkrumah, cried throughout the ordeal, while his two-year-old brother, Sekou Nkrumah, was too young to understand what was happening.

“This is the only day that perhaps I remember from dawn to dusk. It was a terrible experience for a child of six,” he recalled.

He said his mother contacted Egypt’s then President, Gamal Abdel Nasser, at about 4:00 am to inform him about the gunfire and apparent coup, who then promised to send a plane to evacuate the family.

Gamal recounted how the family left the presidential palace, then known as Flagstaff House, at about 6:00 am.

He stated that they went first to the Egyptian Embassy in Accra and later to police headquarters, where his mother was questioned.

He added that his family was eventually taken to the airport, where the Egyptian plane was waiting.

HE indicated that the coup plotters initially wanted Fathia to leave without her children.

“At first, the coup plotters did not want to release us, the children. They wanted my mother to travel alone, and she refused point blank. She said that she had to have her children with her, and we did eventually board the plane,” he recounted.

Gamal said they arrived in Egypt at dawn the following day.

During the same interview, he also alleged that former US President George Bush was involved in the plot to overthrow his father.

He said his conviction was reinforced when Bush was appointed director of the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) in 1976, ten years after the coup that toppled Kwame Nkrumah.

Gamal Nkrumah to be buried on October 17

“Well, it is no secret that George Bush, the father, was behind that particular project to topple Kwame Nkrumah and surely enough, he was rewarded after the coup by being made director of the CIA, and his political career took off after that day.

“The papers and documents of the time that were embargoed are now available — anybody can have access to those papers in Washington at the Library of Congress and read. Any serious student of history who’s interested in this particular episode would find ample evidence in those documents in Washington,” he claimed.

Watch the video below:



MAG/VPO

Inside Ghana’s Abandoned Engineering Powerhouse: What Went Wrong?