The Chancellor of the University of Cape Coast (UCC), Sir Sam Jonah, has raised concerns about the lack of enough development in Ghana post Nkrumah-era.
Sir Jonah noted that Ghana has rather devoted too many years to arguments over Nkrumah’s legacy, instead of emulating the kind of nation-building that characterised his administration.
Speaking on Thursday, September 17, 2026, at the start of the 15th Kwame Nkrumah Memorial Lectures at UCC, he claimed that Ghana’s post-independence discussions have been unduly preoccupied with arguments about Nkrumah at the detriment of the actual task of building the nation.
“Nkrumah built. Akosombo. Tema. The motorway. The Ghana Education Trust schools. The universities, including this one.”
“Whatever else is said of him, he understood that independence without industry is a flag without a factory.
“And we, his heirs, have too often been content with the flag.”
“We have spent sixty years arguing about Nkrumah and rather less time doing what he actually did, which was to build things,” he stated.
He made the remarks while bringing to the attention of Ghanaians this year’s memorial lectures, themed, “Kwame Nkrumah, Yesterday, Today and Tomorrow – Perspectives on Constitutionalism, Development and Pan-Africanism.”
Sir Jonah claimed that Ghana can learn a lot from Nkrumah’s development strategy, especially on the necessity of converting national aspirations into concrete initiatives and establishments that enhance the quality of life for the citizens.
Additionally, he linked universities and other intellectual institutions to the duty for national development, contending that they must assist in putting knowledge into practice in addition to producing knowledge.
“A university is the one place in any country where silence is not an option – where knowing is supposed to become saying, and saying is supposed to become doing,” he said.
