Historian, lawyer and public speaker Dr Yaw Anokye Frimpong has recounted how Dr Kwame Nkrumah continued to sleep in his mother’s old house in Nkroful despite having a newer one-story building constructed for him.
Dr Frimpong said Nkrumah’s mother lived in an old house with a bamboo roof after her husband died.
He said a Ghanaian contractor who had worked on state projects visited Nkroful expecting to see a large house because it was Nkrumah’s hometown.
According to Dr Frimpong, the contractor instead found that Nkrumah had no such house and decided to construct a one-story building on a hill overlooking the town.
He said Nkrumah was not impressed with the building and continued to use his mother’s old home whenever he visited.
“He thought he was going to see a massive house because that’s the hometown of the president and he discovered that the man had no house over there,” Dr Frimpong said on Joy Prime on September 21, in commemoration of Nkrumah’s birthday.
“He found a very nice hill overlooking the town and quickly put up a one-story building there,” he added.
But Dr Frimpong said Nkrumah did not sleep in the new building.
“He never, anytime he went to go, he never slept there. He rather went to the old place,” he said.
Dr Frimpong said the story offered another glimpse into Nkrumah’s personal life and his connection to his mother’s home.
He said the old house was later turned into a museum containing Nkrumah’s old clothes, his mother’s belongings and cooking utensils.
