Leadership is first about service to the people. It is about understanding the people and their needs, having enough empathy to relate to them and expend intellectual and public resources to meet their core needs. Samia Nkrumah is someone who understands what leadership is all about. As difficult as it is to say that she inherited all the characteristics of a good leader from her father, her life is solid proof of transgenerational leadership.
Samia Nkrumah is a prime example of the nexus between “leaders are born” and “leaders are made”. Born to one of Africa’s most patriotic and visionary leaders, Kwame Nkrumah, it could be said that leadership genes flowed in Samia’s blood from the gestation days. Talent is universal but the opportunity to use one’s talents to an optimal level is not. Several factors come into play that eventually distinguish the people who end up being successful — not necessarily because they’re the most talented, but because their talent met with the right opportunity.
In Samia Nkrumah’s case, her talent met with the opportunity to spend her formative years in an environment surrounded by leaders. She grew up as the daughter of independent Ghana’s first elected president, an intellectual politician and leader who conceived and nurtured the socio-political concept of Nkrumaism. Although this opportunity was soon to be cut short by a military coup d’etat that overthrew her father and displaced her family for some years, the lessons that were gained and the ideas formed in Samia’s first six years of existence would consolidate much later in her life to form the foundation for the branches of things she is now involved in.
However, with that privilege and its attendant good sides came the ever-lurking possibility of living in the shadows of her father’s achievements and people’s memories of him. This phenomenon has often happened with the children of many famous people. In Samia Nkrumah’s case, her father’s fame and popularity helped her define a purpose and forge her path to leadership and service to humanity and her country’s citizens.
Samia Yaba Nkrumah is someone whose life has been a chronicle of successes — in her initial career of choice and as a people leader, politician and parliamentarian. Banking on her Egyptian roots, Samia took a Bachelor’s degree in Arabic Studies from the University of London’s School of Oriental and African Studies. She followed this up with a combined Master’s degree in Area Studies, Comparative Politics in the Middle East, and Social and Political Dimensions in Modern Arabic Literature at the same university. Equipped with expert knowledge of Arabic Studies and the Middle East, she took on a career in journalism spanning decades of work in Cairo, Rome, and London.
When Samia Nkrumah would fully step out from the shadows of her father’s achievements and leverage his legacy to make her person and build a legacy, she founded the Kwame Nkrumah Pan-African Centre, through which she has promoted and continued to fan the flames of her father’s legacies, theories, ideologies, and ideas for a better, innovative, and truly Pan-African continent.
Samia Nkrumah had always answered the call to serve humanity, even as she worked as a journalist with Al-Ahram and rose through the ranks from being a stringer, to a reporter, and a page editor. She took her dedication to serving the people a step further when she eventually chose to follow in the footsteps of her father and get involved in ideology-based politics, fully embracing the tenets of Nkrumaism and contesting the parliamentary seat for the Jomoro constituency, which she won at a first attempt.
At her emergence as a member of parliament, Samia Nkrumah focused on the education of children and advocacy for the rights of women and children, serving the Jomoro constituency for five years between 2009 and 2013. To advance her ideology-based politics of engagement, Nkrumah once again emerged as the chairperson of her political party, the Convention People’s Party, which was a role she held for five years between 2011 and 2015.
When Samia Nkrumah would fully step out from the shadows of her father’s achievements and leverage his legacy to make her person and build a legacy, she founded the Kwame Nkrumah Pan-African Centre, through which she has promoted and continued to fan the flames of her father’s legacies, theories, ideologies, and ideas for a better, innovative, and truly Pan-African continent.
In fully adopting Nkrumaism and propagating it, Samia Nkrumah has forged a path for herself and is also creating her own legacy. She is very well known for the host of other things she has done; she is very much known as the daughter of the people’s beloved first president. However, she is now mostly known for various things: She has been invited to deliver lectures on important issues; work in advocacy; and the propagation of the Kwame Nkrumah Pan-African Centre. The Centre has since worked to bridge the needs gap of poor Ghanaian communities through humanitarian aid like providing potable water, among other engagements it has embarked upon.
Come 25 June, Samia Nkrumah will be our guest on the next edition of the Toyin Falola Interviews. It is yet another moment to amplify African voices, and what better way is there to do that than to interview an embodiment of the Nkrumaism aspect of Pan-Africanism, Samia Nkrumah?
Aside from her core focus on these two aspects, Samia Nkrumah has also been a Senior Adviser with the Nobel Prize for Peace’s Permanent Secretariat since 2007, a role that has allowed her to serve as a guest speaker at several Nobel Peace Prize summits, in addition to giving strategic advice to help the Secretariat in its activities and direction.
Furthermore, this Pan-African leader has worked as a consultant on International Relations for Africa with the International Virtual University (UNINETTUNO), a role that has allowed her to help the organisation facilitate joint e-learning facilities with universities within Africa, the Caribbean, and the Pacific states.
Leadership is first about service to the people. It is about understanding the people and their needs, having enough empathy to relate to them and expend intellectual and public resources to meet their core needs. Samia Nkrumah is someone who understands what leadership is all about. As difficult as it is to say that she inherited all the characteristics of a good leader from her father, her life is solid proof of transgenerational leadership.
Come 25 June, Samia Nkrumah will be our guest on the next edition of the Toyin Falola Interviews. It is yet another moment to amplify African voices, and what better way is there to do that than to interview an embodiment of the Nkrumaism aspect of Pan-Africanism, Samia Nkrumah? Join us on June 25 by registering via the provided details.
Sunday, June 25, 2023
4:00 PM Ghana // 5:00 PM Nigeria // 11:00 AM Austin CST
Register and Watch.
Toyin Falola, a professor of History, University Distinguished Teaching Professor, and Jacob and Frances Sanger Mossiker Chair in the Humanities at The University of Texas at Austin, is the Bobapitan of Ibadanland.
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