Nkrumah Influences history- Prof. Kwesi Botchwey

Cape Coast, Sept. 21, GNA - Prof Kwesi Botchwey, a former Minister of Finance and Economic Planning, has said late President Osagyefuo Dr. Kwame Nkrumah stands out among all the leaders Ghana had had because his legacy and influence has been the most enduring. He said Dr Nkrumah was ahead of his time and that his legacy "evolved over a long period."

Prof Bptchwey said the late president played significant roles during his student days as a leader of the Pan-African Movement, his leadership of the struggle for independence and the strategies he adopted after independent for accelerated economic development for the nation.

Prof Botchwey was delivering a lecture on the theme the "evolution and the content of the legacy." The lecture was the first of three Kwame Nkrumah Memorial Lectures organised by the University of Cape Coast (UCC). "The relevance of Kwame Nkrumah's legacy in Ghana's contemporary political economy" was the theme of this year's lecture. The lectures were instituted by UCC in 1974 in memory of Dr. Nkrumah who established UCC.

Prof Botchwey said Dr Nkrumah epitomized an ideal leader whose life, struggles, sayings and actions influenced not only his generation but generations yet unborn. He expressed regret that monuments like the Nkrumah Mausoleum in Accra had been sited in an area noted for heavy traffic, throngs of people as well as temporary structures haphazardly erected and "this is the testimony of the country's ambiguous memory of this great man." He said Nkrumah's legacy had been described as contradictory because one school of thought says he was a tyrant and a dictator while another says he was a visionary and an achiever. Prof Naana Jane Opoku-Agyemang, the Vice-Chancellor of UCC, said the life of Dr Nkrumah had been a major source of inspiration to many leaders the world over. She said the lectures, which usually precedes the University's congregation, was among others to commemorate the life of Dr Nkrumah, his ideals and the visions he stood for. Mr Justice AKB Ampiah, the Pro-Chancellor and Chairman of the UCC Council, who presided, said Dr Nkrumah was guided by his vision to develop his country and also unify the entire African continent for socio-economic and political development.