ABSTRACT
Kwame Nkrumah was the most outstanding member of that impressive postWorld War II generation of African leaders which included Jomo Kenyatta, Patrice Lumumba, Leopold Sedar Senghor, Sekou Toure, Nnamdi Azikiwe, and Julius Nyerere. For Amilcar Cabral-probably the greatest theoretician of African liberation-Nkrumah “was above all the strategist of genius in the struggle against classical colonialism.” C.L.R. James, the noted Caribbean historian and social theorist, agrees: “Kwame Nkrumah was one of the greatest political leaders of our century. We must be on guard that his years of exile do not remove from our constant study and contemplation the remarkable achievements of the great years.”1 Even Nkrumah’s most severe critics conceded that Ghana’s first Prime Minister was “a man of great personal charm and warmth.” Brigade Major Akwasi A. Afrifa, the Ghanaian army officer who engineered the February 1966 coup which overthrew Nkrumah, admitted that the deposed leader once “represented the hopes and aspirations of black people all over the world.”2
