President Akufo-Addo
President Akufo-Addo’s dream of having separate national days for the gentlemen whose efforts laid the foundation for the late Kwame Nkrumah to build upon and eventually receive the baton from the Brits deserves our doffed hats.
The intervention follows the trading of polemics about the true story behind the nationalist struggles in the Gold Coast among the country’s political elites.
It was a stage which saw entrenched positions about whether or not it was the late Kwame Nkrumah who singularly struggled for independence or his was the culmination of something commenced by his forebears.
The picture of a polarized Ghana was amply laid out on the political terrain as the media debates lasted. It was hardly moderated leaving history students and scholars wondering where to pitch their camps.
When it eventually comes to fruition and Ghanaians are able to contextualize the events and those who partook in them vis a vis Kwame Nkrumah’s role it would have put paid to the rancorous and polarised exchanges and presenting a better picture of where we came from and those who were at the forefront of the journey.
In its current state, the very young ones can only watch in bemusement as their role models or teachers, as it were, continue the campaign season exchanges.
Leaders show their worth at times like we are in now when they step in with the necessary intervention but for which the waters could only get murkier.
President Akufo-Addo has doused the fire by recognising the important roles of both Kwame Nkrumah’s forebears and the maiden post-independence President under whose watch the Union Jack was lowered for good.
We cannot discount the events of Saltpond when the Aborigines Rights Protection Society (ARPS) was eventually formed especially the persons at the forefront. It blazed the trail for the formation of the United Gold Coast Convention (UGCC) and the Convention People’s Party (CPP). No link in the chain should be ignored in our narrations about the events leading up to independence because doing so would only provide fodder for the confusion about the true picture.
History has hardly been devoid of controversies as those who present them end up putting themselves in their narrations. The story about the holocaust is a case in point about the controversial nature of chapters of historical narrations.
Our individual impressions about the founding of Ghana notwithstanding, it is our take that one person is not responsible for the achievement of the political objective of the attainment of independence of a whole country.
Let us use the days set aside to remember the roles of the founding fathers including Kwame Nkrumah to revisit our nationalist history in its true perspective devoid of the usual polemics which can only make its comprehension difficult if not impossible. The truth needs to be told and sincerely.
The days so set aside should be used to organize important lectures by persons who understand the happenings in the run-up to independence, from the Saltpond ARPS to the UGCC and CPP. Leaving each of them would not be representative of the true story of Ghana.