South Dayi MP Crusades Compensate For Kulungugu Bomb Victim

Member of Parliament for South Dayi, Hon. Rockson Nelson Defeamekpor has called on the Parliament to pressure the government to compensate Madam Elizabeth Asantewaa, the woman who suffered an amputation after she had been given a bouquet laced with a bomb to be given to Ghana’s first President, Osagyefo Kwame Nkrumah at Kulungugu.

In a statement, Hon. Defeamekpor said, since the incident, Madam Asantewaa who was 13 years has grown up into a 71 year old destitute and an amputee who is forced to live on the grace of donors.

“I want to draw the attention of this House Mr. Speaker, on the need to impress on government to make arrangements to ensure her medical conditions are attended to, and if possible, compensation paid to her for how unfair the nation she almost died for at such a tender age of 13, has treated her for the past decades. She remains a victim of extreme misguided acts and must not be made to suffer this into her death,” the MP said.

Madam Asantewaa whose plight includes the complaint that she goes for days without food and has no money for medical care was the victim of the zealotry of members of the Busia-Danquah tradition, the political tradition of the ruling NPP.

In their quest to kill Nkrumah who had led the country to independence with the Convention Peoples Party (CPP) the Busia/Danquah tradition had reportedly planted a bomb in a flower bouquet to be handed over to Nkrumah in one of the several attempts on his life.

Unknown to her, the then 13-year-old flower girl, Elizabeth Asantewaa was at the receiving end of the bomb’s detonation which failed to kill the target but maimed the innocent flower girl.

“Mr. Speaker, Madam Elizabeth Asantewaa, an innocent victim of the 1964 bomb blast at Kulungugu in the Upper East Region of Ghana, continues to live in severe pain and deprivation and apparently neglected after Ghana’s first President Dr. Kwame Nkrumah was overthrown in 1966,” the MP appealed.

“Unfortunately, Mr. Speaker, that intervention from government ceased the very moment the Osagyefo Dr. Kwame Nkrumah was overthrown. Since then, her situation worsens by the day with the responsibility of her upkeep solely on herself and her immediate family. Occasionally, individuals and groups who have learnt of her condition, come around to make donations to her,” Hon. Defeamekpor said.