Overthrow of Nkrumah commemorated

The Socialist Forum of Ghana has held a public forum in Accra to discuss the overthrow of Nkrumah and its consequences for the country and the entire African continent.

Dr Kwame Nkrumah, Ghana’s first President, was overthrown in a coup on February 24, 1966 by a group of Ghanaian soldiers and police officers led by Colonel Akwasi Afrifa and Lieutenant General Emmanuel Kotoka.

Speaking on the theme: ‘’Ghana’s Day of Shame, 50 years on, Pursing a National Development Agenda”, Mr Kwesi Pratt Jnr, member of the Socialist Forum of Ghana said the day marks the betrayal of Ghanaian people.

He said the coup plotters conspired with the Central Intelligence Agency of the United States of America, MI5 of Britain to truncate our development and to shatter the dream of the African taking control of his own destiny.

Mr Pratt Jnr said Nkrumah’s developmental agenda cannot be underestimated as he worked towards building a better Ghana and uniting Africa.

He said the country is in dire need of a national development agenda as poverty and economic hardship has engulfed the nation.

Nkrumah’s overthrow, Mr Pratt Jnr said, has been a major setback for our development and the country must review everything it had done since February 24.

“We the progressives of the country need to wake up and rethink to provide a new direction for the country and the citizens,” he said.

He said though many things have gone wrong, if the country adopted the ideologies of Dr Nkrumah, the country would bounce back to its former glory.

Source: GNA