Today in History: Dr. Kwame Nkrumah was overthrown in a coup d’état (Pictures)

What led to the overthrow of Nkrumah?
How many assassination attempts did Nkrumah survive?
Where does the name Kwame come from?




The picture above shows Workers demonstrating with placards 06 March 1966 in Accra.
In the center, on one of the placards, a caricature says Kwame Nkrumah is a “Sasabonsan”, which means a “Great Devil”. Following the arrival of Nkrumah to the government, Ghana gets his autonomy from Great Britain, and became independent in 1957.
The military junta took power 24 February 1966 while Nkrumah was away.


Who helped to orchestrate the overthrow of Nkrumah?
He was even mounting an offensive against apartheid South Africa, furnishing money and sabotage training to “extremists” in the African National Congress (ANC) bent on overthrowing the white supremacist regime.[6]
In the years leading to the coup, the State Department withheld loans to Ghana and worked to lower world cocoa prices through stockpiling in order to deprive Nkrumah of foreign exchange.[7] The British press reported that 40 CIA officers operated out of the U.S. Embassy “distributing largesse among President Nkrumah’s secret adversaries,” and that their work “was fully rewarded.”[8]