I Will Contest - Says Samia Nkrumah

By Edmund Mingle
Tuesday, 11 March 2008

SAMIA Nkrumah, the daughter of Ghana’s first President, Osagyefo Dr Kwame Nkrumah, has confirmed recent media speculation that she intends to contest for a parliamentary seat on the ticket of the Convention People’s Party (CPP) in the December elections.
At present, the leadership of the CPP, founded by her father, is discussing various seats in the Nzema area in the Western Region to decide which one she can contest, Samia said in an interview with the Times in Accra on Saturday.
Although Samia, based in Rome, Italy, has been visiting Ghana in recent times, she says her latest trip is "more purposeful and urgent." She arrived in the country last Tuesday, March 4.
"I am here to see what role I can play politically to help strengthen the CPP," she said.
Asked whether she has a particular constituency in mind, she said although it was her wish to contest any constituency to serve the nation, the constitutional requirements binding aspiring Members of Parliament limit her options to the Nzema area where she hails from.
"This is a matter that has to be discussed and decided on by the party leadership without making hasty moves," she said.Samia, 48, a journalist and consultant on diasporan affairs and pan-Africanism in Italy and the United States of America, says she is ready for Ghana politics despite the fact that she is relatively new to politics in Ghana.
Although she was invited by the party’s leadership to join in the campaign for political power, she said "I would have come anyway because I need to connect with my people."
Her coming back to Ghana, she said, was important because like many other Nkrumaists abroad, she has been waiting for the rejuvenation of the CPP since they could not make any effective contributions and decisions from outside.
Touching on the chances of the CPP in the December elections, Samia who plans relocating to Ghana in June with her family for good, said she was optimistic that the party would win power.
"The CPP will never die. The rejuvenated CPP of today stands the chance of being a credible alternative.
"The party is growing in popularity and there is a very strong support that is bound to translate into votes," she said.
Asked whether she would consider persuading her brother Sekou to join the CPP, she said that Sekou Nkrumah, who is now with the National Democratic Congress, is mature and an independent man who cannot be told what decisions to make.
"I dare not tell Sekou what to do!" she said, but believed that Sekou would have joined the CPP if at the time of his joining the NDC, the CPP had been vibrant.
Although she would be happy if her brother joined the CPP, she said she did not have a problem with which parties Sekou and other Nkrumaists joined provided they continued to promote the ideals of Nkrumah.
She said as children of Dr. Nkrumah, "we serve as symbols of his vision and inspiration" for rapid socio-economic development and pan-Africanism.
Samia is married to an Italian and they have a 10-year-old son named Kwame.
She is the second of three children born to Dr Kwame Nkrumah and his wife, Fathia, an Egyptian.
The eldest is Gamal; Sekou is the last born.