The severed head of the statue of Ghana’s first president, Dr. Kwame Nkrumah
The severed head of the statue of Ghana’s first president, Dr. Kwame Nkrumah, tells a story of Ghana’s history through the days of military coups and incidents leading to his overthrow on February 24, 1996.
The statue, which stood in front of the old Parliament House in Accra, was vandalised during the coup.
This damage led to some parts of the statue completely destroyed, while others went missing.
The attack was to erase the memory of Dr. Nkrumah, as the new regime sought to take over and claim power and maintain full authority.
And for decades the head of the statue went missing, with many believing that it may been lost. But in 2009, after decades of not knowing where it was, the head of the statue was returned.
It would turn out that the old lady who returned the severed head after 43 years was a supporter of the late president and had decided to return it to the authorities as a means of cherishing Dr. Kwame Nkrumah’s legacy.
The return of the head sparked a momentum feel for the reconciliation of Ghana’s history post-independence.
Speaking on GhanaWeb TV’s People & Places, the Acting Director of the Kwame Nkrumah Memorial Park, Edward Quao, said, “What you see here is one of Dr. Kwame Nkrumah’s statues that was made after independence. Originally, the statue was a full piece, everything was intact just like the other ones there. This was originally erected in front of our old Parliament House. During his overthrow in the midst of the chaos, things got destroyed so the statue was unfortunately attacked by some Ghanaians and we lost some of the parts in the process.”
He added, “How she managed to get it is still a mystery to us but then she was able to keep it safe.”
Watch the full details of this story in the video below:
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