New Patriotic Party

• Recently renovated, it is dedicated to the memory of Kwame Nkrumah, the leader of Ghana’s independence struggle and its first president.
• Marking the spot of his final resting place at the park is a massive statue.
• The statue has been continuously contested since its original commission in 1956 and its unveiling at the first anniversary of independence in 1958.
• Attitudes have shifted from straightforward veneration to confrontation and destruction and, finally, to more subtle forms of remembrance.

The birth of a monument

• After his overthrow, several of his statues and images had been destroyed by the military government.
• Acheampong discussed the possibility of creating a mausoleum, adorned with an imposing new statue, on the grounds where the ex-president had declared independence.
• The statue was commissioned in Italy but before it could be erected the Acheampong government was toppled by Flight Lieutenant Jerry J. Rawlings in 1979.
• The memorial project was finally realised in 1992 based on the design of Ghanaian architect Don Arthur.
• This proliferation of historical monuments can be read as an attempt to neutralise the commemoration of Nkrumah.

Strong memories remain

• It has been reproduced over and over again on thousands of private photographs, and is marketed on postcards, posters, calendars, T-shirts, bags, towels, tea cups and similar souvenirs.
• National heroes, as the case of Nkrumah shows, can divide people just as much as they can unite.