Today in History August 1, 1962: Exactly 60 Years Ago Today, Kwame Nkrumah Survived a Deadly Bomb Attack in Kulungugu in the Bawku District

On August 1, 1962, the town gained both local and international attention when Dr. Nkrumah, during a visit to the town, survived an assassination attempt on his life, which was plotted by his political opponents at the time.

According to reports, the President of Ghana, Kwame Nkrumah stopped in the village of Kulungugu, in the Bawku District, on his way back from an official meeting with President Maurice Yameogo of the Upper Volta (Burkina Faso) at Tenkudugo.

The visit was to discuss and further plans to eliminate customs barriers between the two countries, a small step in the larger Pan-African unity scheme. The return road trip in Ghana was complicated by an unusually heavy downpour, putting the usual order of the convoy into disarray over a very bad road.

There was great pressure for the presidential convoy to stop at Kulungugu, a small village on the outskirts of Bawku, to acknowledge school children who had been waiting to catch a glimpse of their president.

As a school child of 14 years old was approaching the president with a bouquet of flowers, according to one account, his military bodyguard Capt. Samuel Buckman, hearing the ticking of a timing device getting louder and closer, instinctively wrestled the president to the ground, a split second before the bomb exploded.

Both the president and his military aide experienced non- life threatening injuries. The school girl bearing the bouquet was killed instantly and others were severely injured. Nkrumah was treated by a British doctor at Bawku hospital.

Immediately after the sad incident, members of the Kulungugu community came together to build a statue at the exact place where the incident occurred in honour of Dr. Nkrumah, to preserve the history of the incident.