From Tetteh Quarshie to Atomic Junction: Inside Kwame Nkrumah's 'botched' science city project

As historians dig deep to understand the scope of Kwame Nkrumah’s excellence and ideas for the country, new things continue to emerge that lend credence to his coronation as the African Man of the Millennium.

An interesting revelation made about Kwame Nkrumah by Ghanaian engineer and author Eric Atta Sonno is that Ghana's first president pictured the country as the hub of scientific and technological works in Africa.

Eric Atta Sonno, in a 2021 Citi TV interview, detailed how Kwame Nkrumah had designated a large part of Accra as the ‘Science City’ of Africa.

The area, which stretches from the current Tetteh Quarshie Interchange to Atomic Junction, was supposed to be a place where key scientific installations and institutions were planted to engineer Ghana’s development.

According to him, Kwame Nkrumah, in his speech at the inauguration of the Ghana Academy of Science (now Ghana Academy of Arts and Sciences), detailed a plan to make Accra the bedrock of Ghana’s scientific and technological advancements.

“If you read his speech when he was setting up the Academy of Science, you could see where he was going. From Tetteh Quarshie Roundabout to Atomic Energy, he was intending to develop it into a science city.

“CSIR was going to be there, Ghana Standards Authority, Atomic Energy, University of Ghana, etc. were going to be there. It was going to be a science city. He believed that we could not develop without industrialisation, which was driven by technology and technology was driven by science,” he said.

Dr. Lloyd Amoah, who was a guest on the show, quoted Kwame Nkrumah as saying, “I can see African cities springing up to become the metropolis of scientific architecture.”

EK/ ADG