If the airport must be named after a person, then it must be named after the man who built it, not the man who betrayed him. That man is Kwame Nkrumah.
Between 1956 and 1958, Nkrumah transformed what was merely a World War II British Royal Air Force base into a modern civilian international airport. He did not do it for vanity. He did it because he believed Ghana would be a gateway to Africa, confident, industrial, and sovereign. That airport was part of a larger dream: factories working, skills developing, dignity through labour, and Ghana leading Africa with purpose.
The 1966 coup was not just a political event; it was national trauma. Emmanuel Kwasi Kotoka did not merely overthrow a man; he violently interrupted a carefully laid national project. From that single rupture flowed decades of pain: abandoned industries, weakened institutions, dependence disguised as policy, and generations robbed of opportunity before they were even born. That is why, in the judgment of history, he must be remembered not as a hero, but as Ghana’s greatest enemy.
To then name the very airport Nkrumah built after the man who overthrew him is not only wrong, it is cruel. It is illogical. It is a daily insult to history and to the intelligence of Ghanaians. You do not erase the builder and glorify the destroyer. You do not honour interruption over vision. You do not celebrate betrayal and call it patriotism.
In the court of history, Kotoka must be remembered for what his actions cost this nation. Not out of hatred, but out of truth. Nations that develop do not lie to themselves; they confront their past honestly so they can finally heal. And in this moment, Ghana must also say thank you. Thank you to John Dramani Mahama for applying simple, courageous common sense. For choosing truth over silence, history over convenience. For understanding that a nation moves forward only when it stops honouring the very wound that bled it. He wrote in a Facebook post.
