Africa report
Ghana: in the footsteps of Kwame Nkrumah in Guinea
Audio 02:18
View of the villa inhabited by Kwame Nkrumah for 6 years in Conakry.
© RFI/Matthias Raynal
By: Matthias Raynal Follow
2 mins
50 years ago, to the day (April 27, 1972), Kwame Nkrumah, the first leader of independent Ghana, passed away.
The politician was also a thinker whose pan-Africanist work continues to inspire the continent.
From 1966 until his death in 1972, he lived in exile in Conakry.
Report in the footsteps of Kwame Nkrumah and his stay in Guinea.
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From our correspondent in Conakry,
A discreet plate at the entrance of a villa.
This is what remains of Kwame Nkrumah in Coléah, where he spent 6 years.
A local elder remembers.
“
Kwame Nkrumah, to see him, you had to go down to the seaside. He often stopped there, but he was fearful.
He lived in fear that someone would come to settle his account.
He was a bit paranoid
,” he recalls.
And he has reason to be suspicious.
He escaped seven assassination attempts.
An afro cut, eaten by baldness, Kwame Nkrumah gets off the plane welcomed by his friend, his ally Ahmed Sékou Touré.
In Ghana, the military took over.
We are on March 2, 1966, Kwame Nkrumah has just landed at Gbessia-Conakry international airport.
► Also to listen: Ghana: the legacy of Kwame Nkrumah, father of the country's independence
"Nkrumah was not isolated..."
A salvo of 21 cannon shots greets the arrival of the one who occupies the function of co-president of Guinea.
"
Sekou Touré had done him this honor so he made political speeches..."
, recalls Justin Morel Junior, Guinean journalist, born in 1950.
"He still wanted power and he wanted to come back, but the forces that forced them to leave Ghana remained far too solid
.
»
Mody Sory Barry, writer, worked on the work of Kwame Nkrumah.
“
During his stay in Conakry, Nkrumah was not isolated, contrary to what some people think,” he explains.
“At that time, Guinea is very busy, all the liberation movements come to the country and spend time at Nkrumah's house.
And then, Nkrumah is an intellectual.
Here he devoted himself to writing.
He wrote five books in Conakry.
His stay was very fruitful
.
»
“A heavy, deep, sublime atmosphere”
On April 27, 1972, he died of cancer.
“
The people were in mourning, the country too.
It was a heavy, deep, sublime atmosphere,
” describes Justin Morel Junior
.
“
It was the disappearance of a man whose existence would remain an unfinished symphony, a regret for what he could have done, what he could have been, for himself and for others
.
»
An official tribute was then paid to him at the Palais du Peuple, then at the Stade du 28-Septembre, before his remains returned to his country of origin.
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