afrol News, 2 July - The Zimbabwean President, Robert Mugabe, won the admiration of Ghanaians when he maintained being the disciple of Ghana's founding father of independence, Kwame Nkrumah. Mr Mugabe said the legendary leader's teachings had bolstered his spirits to liberate Zimbabwe from the British colonial rule in 1980.

President Mugabe and the Libyan leader Colonel Muammar Ghaddafi were given tumultuous welcome by Ghanaians while they set foot in the country for the 9th African Union Summit.

Mr Mugabe delivered the speech at the tomb of Kwame Nkrumah - the scene of Dr Nkrumah's famous independence speech in 1960.

The Zimbabwean leader, who has been showered with criticisms home and abroad, especially in the west, took his audience down the memory lane when he flew to Ghana to borrow Dr Nkrumah's wisdom and sea of knowledge on freedom fighting.

He described the late Nkrumah as his mentor who had personally taught him at the Kwame Nkrumah Ideological Institute in Winneba city.

President Mugabe taught at Apowa Secondary School in Sekondi, Takoradi, where he met and married his late Ghanaian wife, Sally Mugabe.

"Nkrumah was a great African personality whose ideology must be preached to Africans, irrespective of one's political ideology," he said, adding that his ruling ZANU-PF cadres had been trained in the West African country.

Shifting the speech to Zimbabwe's controversial land reforms programme, Mr Mugabe scolded the outgoing British Prime Minister, Tony Blair, for his lack of political will by implementing the 1979 Lancaster Accord. This obliged Britain to fund the compensations for land acquisition in Rhodesia (now Zimbabwe).

By staff writer

© afrol News

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