A concerned citizen, Steven Odarteifio, has waded into the advocacy for the Kotoka International Airport (KIA) to be renamed after Dr Kwame Nkrumah, the country’s first President, Accra or any of the national leaders of the country.
According to him, the naming of the KIA, the country’s first point of entry for travellers, after Kotoka, a soldier who played a key role in the fail coup to overthrow Dr Kwame Nkrumah, was an affront to the country and the memory of the late first President.
Addressing a news conference in Accra yesterday on his advocacy for the renaming of the KIA, Mr Odarteifio averred that most countries name their main airports after the city or region, or after figures whose legacy united and elevated national pride, not figures chiefly associated with unconstitutional seizure of power.
The programme was attended by dignitaries such as Kweku Sintim-Misa, a satirist.
He cited countries such as Kenya, whose airport was named after its first President, Jomo Kenyatta International Airport; Tanzania’s Julius Nyerere International Airport; Nigeria’s Nnamdi Azikiwe International Airport; and Côte d’Ivoire’s Félix Houphouët-Boigny International Airport.
The Concern Citizen said Nkrumah, Ghana and Africa’s most globally recognised independence symbol, a beacon of selflessness epitomised by the BBC’s Africa of the Millennium Award, stood tall among national leaders for the KIA to be named after him.
Mr Odarteifio recalled that on February 24, 1966, Ghana’s first President, Osagyefo Dr Kwame Nkrumah, was overthrown in a military coup which plunged the country into years of political instability.
He explained that Lt-Gen. E.K. Kotoka, one of the key figures associated with the coup, was later killed during the failed counter-coup, Operation Guitar Boy, at the Accra International Airport in April 1967, after which the facility was renamed in his honour.
Mr Odarteifio explained that February 24, 2026, would mark 60 years since the overthrow of Dr Nkrumah, describing the anniversary as an appropriate moment for national reflection and correction.
According to him, it was troubling that Ghana’s “front door to the world” continued to bear the name of a coup-era figure rather than that of the Founder of the Republic.
“The airport is the nation’s handshake with the world,” Mr Odarteifio said, stressing that millions of passengers, including members of the Ghanaian diaspora, encounter the name Kotoka repeatedly on tickets, boarding passes and airport screens across the globe.
Mr Odarteifio said he would petition Parliament, the Judiciary, traditional authorities and religious leaders to lend their voices to the cause, noting that the issue transcended partisan politics and touched the conscience of the nation.
He appealed to President John Dramani Mahama to seize the moment as a legacy opportunity to resolve what he described as an unresolved national question, insisting that renaming the airport after Dr Kwame Nkrumah would help align Ghana’s national symbols with its founding values and unite the country’s spirit.
Mr Sintim-Misa in his address said he was excited Mr Odarteifio had taken up the advocacy for the KIA to be renamed, and the fact that the advocacy was being led by a young person who was born long after the death of Dr Nkrumah and had no clue about the era of the early independence.
He said Mr Odarteifio had decided to stand on the right side of history and his action gave him hope that the younger generation were paying attention to the “noise of the older generation.”
By KINGSLEY ASARE
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