Paul Adom-Otchere, a renowned broadcaster, has dropped the ills of Ghana’s first President, Dr Kwame Nkrumah, which ended with Lieutenant Colonel Emmanuel Kwasi Kotoka masterminding a coup against him on February 24, 1966.
Adom-Otchere, over the weekend on JoyNews NewsFile, detailed his claimed terrible things Kwame Nkrumah did, which, according to him, warranted his overthrow in 1966.
He claimed that Nkrumah’s amendment of the Constitution of Ghana to make himself a lifetime president of Ghana, also changed the national flag of Ghana to his party flag and prosecuted his political opponents.
Speaking during a panel discussion on JoyNews’ NewsFile on February 7, 2026, Adom-Otchere stated, “The 1960 Constitution, which Nkrumah put together, which I have in front of me. Nkrumah’s name was buried in the Constitution, Article 10, where it talks about Kwame Nkrumah as president of Ghana.”
“There’s also a bit more… There was an amendment to the 1960 Constitution in 1964, and if you look at the amendment, it will interest you to know that the amendments provided in the 1964 amendment included the fact that Kwame Nkrumah was now able to dismiss judges. Yes, he was able to dismiss judges,” he said.
He added, “Now, there was nowhere else to go, because if you look at the amendment of the Constitution, Nkrumah had made himself a life president, and he had also made CPP the only legitimate party”.
“In fact, if you look at the usage of the PDA between 1958, when it was set up, and about 1961, it was minimal. But from 1961 to 1964, the PDA was railroading everywhere, and every home was afraid”.
“What we would like Ghanaians to see. And at the end of the day, the government will make its decision, and then we will have to decide whether it’s a political decision that we vote on the next time, or whatever we do”.
“But we cannot ignore history. We have to make obeisance to history. The history is that from 1960 up to the time Nkrumah was overthrown in 1966, he was a despot. He was not good for Ghana; he was terrible for Ghana,” he said.
However, Oliver Barker-Vormawor, a private legal practitioner, has tackled Paul Adom-Otchere, mounting a strong defence for Ghana’s first President, Osagyefo Dr Kwame Nkrumah.
Oliver Barker-Vormawor, in a series of posts shared on Facebook, debunked Paul Adom-Otchere’s claims.
He wrote, “The first daft claim by Paul Adom Otchere is that Nkrumah’s name was written in the 1960 Constitution. So that’s proof that Nkrumah was a life-term president. How very daft. If you know anything about the context of the 1960 Constitution, you would know that the referendum to adopt the 1960 Constitution was held together with the first-ever presidential elections in 1960.
“Nkrumah got 89.07% of the votes. JB Danquah got 10.93%. Now, the draft Constitution made provision for a clause to indicate the name of the first president who would be elected under it, when the draft was being finalised after the referendum. Meaning that if JB Danquah, a candidate as popular as Hassan Ayariga is today, had won that election, his name would have been written in the clause for First President,” Barker-Vormawor wrote.
Oliver Barker-Vormawor added, “Under the 1960 Constitution, the President’s term was limited to five years. This was linked to the life-term of Parliament. In fact, it could even be shorter, because in true Westminster format, the President (Prime Minister under British tradition) could dissolve Parliament earlier and call for early general elections. If that happened, the President’s term of office also ended. See Articles 11(1)(a) and 23(2) of the 1960 Constitution”.
“The big defect of the 1960 Constitution was that, in switching over from the Prime Minister to President, we did not put in place a Vice President; and so there was no mechanism for executive transition in case the president died or resigned his office. To cure this, the 1964 Constitution created a Presidential Commission, which would take over after the President was no longer in office. So, in fact, the 1964 amendments rather fixed a problem in the 1960 Constitution,” Barker-Vormawor wrote.
He added, “Here is the biggest shocker. The 1964 amendment rather gave Parliament the power to impeach the President by resolution on grounds of incapacity or medical infirmity. This did not exist in 1960. Listen, so rather than make Nkrumah a life-term president, it actually gave Parliament the power to remove him. Refer to Section 08 of the amendment which introduced Article 18 of the 1960 Constitution as amended.”
Also, Barker-Vormawor debunked claims that Kwame Nkrumah replaced the flag of Ghana with the flag of the CPP.
“Please, when people tell you that we changed the flag to CPP’s flag, the first reasonable question one should be asking is, ‘What was CPP’s flag at the time?’ They won’t know the answer. But I will help you. The CPP’s flag since 1948, when the party was founded, was plain white with a red cockerel in the middle.
“How is red, white and green with a black star in the middle the same as a white flag with a red cockerel in the middle?” he quizzed.
Watch the video below:
Describing the airport name change debate as political score-settling, Paul Adom-Otchere revisits Ghana’s history to justify why Kotoka was honoured, arguing that he played a heroic role at a time he says Kwame Nkrumah had become a despot.
— Joy 99.7 FM (@Joy997FM) February 7, 2026
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