The footprint of Ghana’s first President, Osagyefo Dr Kwame Nkrumah, continues to be felt across the world as his name has come up in the hot race to find the next mayor of New York City, the largest city in the United States of America.

Why did Kwame Nkrumah’s name come up in the New York mayoral race?

Well, one of the candidates, who is regarded as the favourite to become the next mayor of New York, is named after him.

Zohran Kwame Mamdani, the Democratic nominee for the mayoral race, at one of his political engagements, disclosed that he was named after Osagyefo Dr Kwame Nkrumah by his father.

“My name is Zohran Kwame Mamdani… I was given my first name, Kwame, by my father, who named me after the first Prime Minister of Ghana,” he said.

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He asserted that his father named him after Kwame Nkrumah because he (Nkrumah) was a visionary leader.

Mamdani has more African ties other than the name he bears. The Democratic mayoral nominee was, in fact, born on the African continent.

He was born on October 18, 1991, in the capital town of Uganda, Kampala.

He was born to Indian parents. His father was a postcolonialism academic, Mahmood Mamdani, and his mother, Mira Nair, a filmmaker.

His parents migrated to New York when he was just seven years old.

Kwame Mamdani became the candidate of the Democratic Party after beating the renowned former governor Andrew Cuomo and nine other candidates in the party’s primaries held in June 2025.

Many polls, including those of media giants in the US, have put the Democratic nominee in a comfortable lead.

He would face off with Andrew Cuomo, who is now running as an independent candidate, and the Republican nominee, Curtis Sliwa, in the main election, which is set for November 2025.

Kwame Mamdani, who is 33 years old, is currently a State Assembly member of New York.

BAI/VPO

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