Students Expect Nkrumah's Return, But Kilson, Rotberg Express Doubt

Two Harvard students from Ghana predicted last night that Ghana's ousted president Kwame Nkrumah will return to power within a year.

Yesterday, while Nkrumah was in Peking to discuss peace measures for Vietnam, army and police officers seized control of the government and dissolved Nkrumah's Convention People's Party.

According to Emmanuel A. Osel '66, the junior army officers who engineered the coup will be overpowered by loyalist forces stationed in Northern Ghana. He added that most Ghanians are loyal to Nkrumah and would support his return to power.

Frederick O. Akuffo '66 said that most Ghanians have been hostile to Nkrumah's "corrupt ministers," but would support Nkrumah because of his personal magnetism. "He is one of Africa's most dynamic leaders," Akuffo asserted.

Following the rebels' seizure of power thousands of Ghanians poured into the streets of Accra--dancing, drinking, and merrymaking. They destroyed statues labeled "founder of the country" that Nkrumah had erected to himself.

Martin L. Kilson Jr., lecturer on government, asserted that the army is sure to retain control of Ghana. Nkrumah ran "an authoritarian regime with a fair dose of terrorism," Kilson said. He added that the people of Ghana resented Nkrumah's extravagant expenditures to promote the doctrine of Pan-Africanism.

Kilson went on to say that other African leaders would be glad to see Nkrumah ousted.

Robert I. Rotberg, assistant professor of History prophesized that the coup means the start of a "very salutary change for the people of Ghana." He explained the revolt as "an overdue reaction to Nkrumah's colossal waste of national resources."

Rotberg predicted that the military leaders will soon return power to civilian hands. Until that time, he asserted, "the cream of Ghanian intellectual society will be happy to be used by the military" to keep the government running smoothly.