Ghanaian “Monument Wars”

Abstract

The monuments of Ghana’s first president Kwame Nkrumah that stand today in Kwame Nkrumah Memorial Park in Accra have been the object of veritable “monument wars” (Savage 2009). Commissioned in 1956 and unveiled at the first anniversary of independence in 1958, the original statue has been continuously contested. In 1961, it suffered from a first bomb attack by militant opponents of the Nkrumah regime, and was toppled immediately after the coup against Nkrumah in 1966. It was not until 1992, under a relatively Nkrumah-friendly government, that the mausoleum and a new statue were constructed. However, contestations continued, and for the “Ghana@50 celebrations,” the then ruling Nkrumah-critical government erected the original beheaded statue behind the mausoleum, an act that Nkrumahists regarded as denigration. The history of the Nkrumah statues in Ghana bears out the paradox that generally characterises monuments: built as lasting memories, they remain embedded in social and political conflict. Conflicts surrounding the Nkrumah statues reflect Ghanaian political struggles between the ruling and opposition parties, which still portray themselves as successors either to the Nkrumaist project or to Nkrumah’s opponents. At the same time, they are an instructive example of how the politics and aesthetics of commemoration have been transformed over the past decades, developing from straightforward veneration, confrontation and destruction to more subtle forms of re-contextualisation and pluralisation.