Kwame Nkrumah

Kwame Kofi Nkrumah (born Nwia Kofi Nkrumah, ən-KROO-mə; 21 September 1909 – 27 April 1972), baptised Francis, was a Ghanaian politician, political theorist, and revolutionary. He served as Prime Minister of the Gold Coast from 1952 until 1957, when it gained independence from the United Kingdom. He was then the first prime minister and then the president of Ghana, from 1957 until 1966. An influential advocate of Pan-Africanism, Nkrumah was a founding member of the Organisation of African Unity (OAU) and winner of the Lenin Peace Prize from the Soviet Union in 1962. After twelve early years abroad pursuing higher education, developing his political philosophy, and organising with other diasporic pan-Africanists, Nkrumah returned to the Gold Coast to begin his political career as an advocate of national independence. He formed the Convention People's Party, which achieved rapid success through its unprecedented appeal to the common voter. He became Prime Minister in 1952 and retained the position when he led Ghana to independence from the United Kingdom in 1957, a first in sub-Saharan Africa at the time. In 1960, Ghanaians approved a new constitution and elected Nkrumah as president. His administration was primarily socialist as well as nationalist. It funded national industrial and energy projects, developed a strong national education system and promoted a pan-Africanist culture. Nkrumah had a vision to consolidate African countries under a single continental leadership (that was socialist in nature) with himself as president of this bloc. Under Nkrumah, Ghana played a leading role in African international relations and the Pan-Africanist movement during Africa's decolonisation period, supporting numerous liberation struggles. The anti-socialist Western nations saw the Kwame Nkrumah Ideological Institute (KNII) as a sympathetic base for military support to African nationalists and hence as a problematic threat. After an alleged assassination plot against him, coupled with increasingly difficult local economic conditions, Nkrumah's government became increasingly authoritarian in the 1960s, as he repressed political opposition and conducted elections that were neither free nor fair. In 1964, a constitutional amendment made Ghana a one-party state, with Nkrumah as president for life of both the nation and its party. He fostered a personality cult, forming ideological institutes and adopting the title of "Osagyefo." The KNII served the purpose of spreading propaganda and the ideology of Nkrumah's own version of scientific socialism known as Nkrumaism. Nkrumah was deposed in 1966 in a coup d'état by the National Liberation Council. Complicity on the part of the United States' Central Intelligence Agency has been claimed, including by former agents, but never fully verified. Nkrumah lived the rest of his life in Guinea, where he was named honorary co-president. In 1999, he was voted BBC African of the millennium.