'Give me a bomb today and I will throw it at Nkrumah'

Dr Kwame Nkrumah turns 100 on Monday, September 21, 2009 Email Print Have Your Say ( 6 ) A victim of Dr Kwame Nkrumah’s government, Mr J. S. Boye Doe, has justified the 1966 coup saying if he was given a bomb today and Nkrumah lived, he would throw at him without compunction. He said Ghana’s first president was the worse thing that happened to the country. Speaking on Joy FM’s Super Morning Show hosted by Evans Mensah Thursday, Mr Boye Doe said “the enormity of the crimes committed by Dr Nkrumah cannot be forgiven.” He claimed that hundreds of homes were destroyed by Nkrumah’s government after breadwinners of those families were unjustifiably thrown into jail. Sharing his experience of such 'senseless' imprisonments, Mr Doe said political prisoners had their rights unnecessarily curtailed. He said he was 15 years when he was arrested in 1960 and detained in the Usher Fort prisons without charge. “I am a living witness of the crimes that Nkrumah committed against humanity and I am still waiting for an apology from any member of that government. The crimes Nkrumah committed (against) his own cabinet ministers [were serious].” He denied committing any crime to warrant his arrest arguing the government at the time criminalized all forms of criticism against the president and anybody heard criticizing the president was liable to arrest. He accused Nkrumah of establishing what he calls subversive camps where young boys were being trained by Russian dissidents. The purpose of this training, he argued was to further Nkrumah’s ambition of overtaking other African countries to become an African president. He sought to obliterate any positive achievement by Nkrumah, saying “the legacy that Nkrumah left behind was to arrest people and detain them without trial, declare himself a life-president and declare Ghana one-party state.” Prof. Agyemang Badu Akosa, a member of the committee planning Nkrumah’s centenary celebrations, obviously unimpressed by Mr Doe’s submission, called him a "terrorist". He challenged Mr Doe to explain why other members of his class were not arrested where he was. He said it was justified that anybody who was suspected to be doing anything inimical to the state was arrested. Story by Malik Abass Daabu/Myjoyonline.com/Ghana