Former Ghana Journalists Association boss Bright Kwame Blewu has written a personal tribute to Kwame Nkrumah’s eldest son, who died in Egypt and was buried there in line with Islamic rites.
A former General Secretary of the Ghana Journalists Association (GJA), Bright Kwame Blewu, has published a personal tribute to Dr Gamal Gorkeh Nkrumah, the eldest son of Ghana's first President, Osagyefo Dr Kwame Nkrumah, following his death in Cairo, Egypt.
In the piece, carried by Ghanaian Times, Mr Blewu says he learnt of the death on October 14, 2026, while in Bonn, Germany, where he scrolled through news from home on his phone. He said he deliberately held back the tribute until after the burial so as to respect the family's appeal for privacy during their mourning.
Who Gamal Nkrumah was
Gamal Gorkeh Nkrumah was the first child of Dr Kwame Nkrumah and his Egyptian wife, Fathia. He built his career in Egypt as a journalist, serving as International Affairs editor of Al-Ahram, one of Egypt's best-known weekly newspapers. Mr Blewu describes him as a committed anti-colonialist and Pan-Africanist.
He has been buried in Egypt in accordance with Islamic traditions.
His first name came from Gamal Abdul Nasser, the former Egyptian president and a friend of his father.
A link to the GJA
Mr Blewu writes that in 1994, while serving his first term as GJA General Secretary under the administration led by Kabral, Gamal Nkrumah became one of the first three people ever made honorary members of the Association. He describes the move as without precedent in the GJA's history.
The other two honorary members named are the late I. K. Gyasi, a columnist with The Ghanaian Chronicle, and Kwasi Afriyie Badu, Esq., Chief Executive Officer of KAB Governance Consult.
Mr Blewu says he met Gamal only briefly, during an unannounced courtesy call after his election in 1995 as Deputy General Secretary of the Cairo-based Union of African Journalists (UAJ). He recalls him as warm and easy-going despite a tight schedule.
Why he stayed out of Ghanaian politics
According to the tribute, Mr Blewu asked Gamal during that meeting whether Ghanaians had treated his father fairly, and why, as a trained political scientist, he had kept away from politics at home.
Mr Blewu writes that the answer carried no bitterness. He says Gamal attributed the hostility towards his father to propaganda and foreign interference, and said he would consider entering Ghanaian politics only when his father had been fully vindicated.
A family connection to the CPP
The writer also sets out his own family's ties to Nkrumah's Convention People's Party (CPP). His late father, Henry Kwaku Blewu, was secretary of a CPP cell in the Esikafo Ambatem area of Takoradi, and his CPP membership certificate, signed by Nkrumah himself, still hangs in Mr Blewu's living room.
He also recalls growing up partly in Nzemaland, near Nkroful, Nkrumah's birthplace, and extends condolences to the family, including Gamal's sister, Samia Yaba.
