Fifty years after Ghana's independence, it is now clear that Kwame Nkrumah was 'a black star'. Prime Minister Kwame Nkrumah seized opportunities to lead the countries of Sub-Saharan Africa away from from colonialism. In 1957, he became the first Prime Minister of Ghana. By the time, he was overthrown in a coup in 1966 most African countries, outside the settler-dominated South, had also achieved independence.