NDC chairman Asiedu Nketiah says NkrumahFest can help repair Nkrumah's image

Pinned summary · as of 16:27

The National Democratic Congress (NDC) chairman, Johnson Asiedu Nketiah, has criticised what he sees as years of belittling Dr Kwame Nkrumah's reputation in Ghana. He spoke in support of NkrumahFest, a project of Ellembelle MP Emmanuel Armah-Kofi Buah, and pointed out that the continent and the world have named Nkrumah the African of the Century.

What we know

• Johnson Asiedu Nketiah, National Chairman of the NDC, criticised past efforts to run down Dr Kwame Nkrumah's name and standing, calling it a worry given that Africa elsewhere and the wider world have honoured him with the title African of the Century.
• Mr Asiedu Nketiah described NkrumahFest, which Ellembelle MP Emmanuel Armah-Kofi Buah instituted, as an effort to relieve Ghana of a shame of its own making. “In fact it remains a dent on the image of Ghana,” he said of the treatment of Nkrumah's legacy.
• Mr Asiedu Nketiah called himself an unrepentant Nkrumahist and said a childhood experience explained why. He said members of the Young Pioneers found him out of school in Seikwa, and that his relatives were warned his parents had to send him to class or face prosecution.

What's disputed / unconfirmed

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  Onua Online reported that Mr Asiedu Nketiah credited Nkrumah's Free Compulsory Universal Basic Education policy with changing his life, and said relatives wished to keep him at home as a royal heir to family land planted with cocoa. Nkonkonsa did not report these details.
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  According to Onua Online, he said schooling led him to the NDC chairmanship and let him study Nkrumah's works, and he described Nkrumah as a transformational leader whose policies still shape Ghana. This has not been repeated in other reports.
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  Onua Online said Mr Asiedu Nketiah argued that four separate territories existed before independence, namely the Gold Coast Colony, Ashanti, Northern Territories and Trans-Volta Togoland, and that Nkrumah's work joined them into the Ghana of today.
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  Reports differ on the occasion. Onua Online said he spoke at the 2026 NkrumahFest in the Western Region on 19 September, while Nkonkonsa described his remarks as made at the launch of the festival.
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  Onua Online reported that this year's festival marks Nkrumah's 117th birthday, is held at his birthplace, Nkroful, with a week of cultural, educational and community events ending in a durbar, and that Kenyan scholar Prof. Patrick Loch Otieno Lumumba is among the guests. Mr Armah-Kofi Buah was also described as Minister for Lands and Natural Resources. No other report has confirmed these details.

Why it matters for Ghana

How Ghana remembers its first President is a recurring public conversation, and the comments come from the national chairman of the NDC. His account of the Young Pioneers also points to the history of compulsory schooling in rural districts such as Seikwa in the Bono Region, a theme that still concerns families weighing school costs today. Communities around Nkroful in the Western Region are where the festival's events are reported to take place.