Samia Yaba Christina Nkrumah, one of the children of Ghana’s first President, Osagyefo Dr Kwame Nkrumah, has recounted some of the things that transpired on the day her father was overthrown, February 24, 1966.
Speaking at the 2025 NkrumahFest held in Nkroful to mark the 116th birthday of Ghana’s first president, Samia Nkrumah, a former Member of Ghana’s Parliament, said that one of the performances, which involved the firing of gunshots, brought back memories of the 1966 Coup that overthrew her father.
“I must confess that, just like the professor before me, I too was so impressed by the Gonja performance that the sound of gunshots took me back many years ago to a not-so-good day, but not in a bad way. So I want to tell you a very little story, something that happened on the 24th of February, 1966,” she said.
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She recalled that her family had to leave Ghana suddenly and travel to her mother’s country, Egypt, to find refuge.
When they got to Egypt, they received a call from her father, who was then in China, which she said she would never forget.
“By that time, the Osagyefo’s family – our mother and the three of us (the children) – had reached Cairo. At the end of the day, we took refuge in Egypt. Our father had reached China, and when he knew we were settled, he wanted to call us. So he called us by phone, and he spoke to each and every one of us.
“And even though he had received a big blow – the illegal overthrow of his government had just taken place – he wanted to comfort us. He spoke to us one by one, our mother and the three of us, the children,” she narrated.
She said that her father, who thought she had been terrified by the guns of the military officers who overthrew him, told her never to be afraid, something she remembers to this day.
“And I remember what he told me, I will never forget it. When it was my turn, he said, Yaba – he always called me Yaba, he never called me anything else – I do not want you to be afraid. Yaba, I want you to be strong. I don’t want you to be afraid, and I took this to heart.”
“I thought he had seen me crying the whole day because I was afraid of the guns. But no, he had a deeper message for us. What he was telling us, his family, his followers, his people, was that we must not be afraid of telling his story. We must not be afraid of upholding his vision, because Kwame Nkrumah‘s story is Ghana’s success story that must happen,” she added.
Watch a video of her remarks below:
“Do not be afraid”
Osagyefo Kwame Nkrumah’s daughter, Samia Nkrumah recounts what her father told her via phone on the day he was overthrown in 1966#NkrumahFest pic.twitter.com/2lSvbbepMb— GTV Ghana (@GTV_Ghana) September 20, 2025
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