Samia Nkrumah “the Amazing”

Not many people gave Samia Yaba Christiana Nkrumah, 48, a dog’s chance when with only a few months before last Sunday’s elections, she announced that she was contesting the Jomoro seat in the Western region.

“I may be relatively new to Ghana politics but I’m ready” she said.

Samia, the only daughter of Ghana’s first president, Osagyefo Dr Kwame Nkrumah didn’t mince words. Standing on the ticket of the Convention People’s Party(CPP)founded by her father in 1949, Samia wrest the Jomoro parliamentary seat from veteran politician, Lee Ocran of the National Democracy Congress (NDC).

She polled 19,916 votes as against incumbent Ocran’s 13,098.

Days after her brilliant performance in the election, many observers are still looking on with disbelief. Her win came as a surprise since it was believed that her long absence from the country may have left her out of touch with Jomoro’s needs.

This is in addition to the fact that she had no political experience in Ghana.

According to Samia on her website, samiankrumah.org, she decided to enter active politics in Ghana to promote the enduring vision of her father for Ghana and Africa’s socio-economic and cultural emancipation.

“I have come to understand that being Nkrumah’s daughter means being a daughter of Ghana and Africa and having a responsibility to Africans everywhere.

I was not always so sure of the way forward as I am today. The dangers of political life were brought home to me early on in life. The 1966 military coup that toppled Nkrumah’s government left me feeling confused and bewildered.

“It took many years and the experience of living and working in Ghana, Egypt, the United Kingdom and lastly Italy, to come full circle and realise that the Pan-African project as articulated by Nkrumah offers the best response to our ongoing challenges”, she said.

Samia is the second of three children born to Dr Kwame Nkrumah and his wife, Fathia, an Egyptian.The eldest is Gamal and Sekou is the last.

Before winning the seat, Samia lived in Rome and worked as a freelance journalist. She was also a programme and students co-ordinator with the University of Arkansas Rome Centre.

She was part of an African Association bringing together a number of African immigrants together.

Born in Aburi on June 23 1960, Samia left Ghana on February 24, 1966 the very day her father’s government was toppled.

She returned to Ghana as a teenager but left again in 1984. After spending 24 years away, she’s moved back to Ghana to campaign for the Jomoro seat.

She holds a Masters degree in Area Studies (Middle East), Comparative Politics of Contemporary Middle East; Social and Political Dimensions in Modern Arabic Literature, School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS), University of London, 1993 and a Bachelor Arabic Studies, SOAS, 1991.

The in-coming Jomoro Member of Parliament is married to Michele Melega, an Italian-Danish and they have a 11-year-old son named Kwame. Samia speaks English, Arabic and Italian.