The opposition National Democratic Congress (NDC) has hinted that one of the first holidays they will abolish in their next government is the Founders’ Day observation celebrated on August 4.
The party is planning to, instead of the Founders’ Day, earmark September 21 –the birthday of Ghana’s first President Osagyefo Dr. Kwame Nkrumah –as Founder’s Day.
History had held that Ghana’s independence struggle was led by Dr Nkrumah, and had therefore been celebrated as Ghana’s founder on September 21, his birthday, until the Akufo-Addo government changed the narrative when they assumed power.
They explain that Ghana couldn’t have been founded by one person but a group, referred as the ‘Big Six‘, therefore necessitating the replacement of the Founder’s Day on September 21, with Founders’ Day on August 4, a date when the United Gold Coast Convention (UGCC) where the six persons were leaders was founded.
But the National Chairman of the NDC, Johnson Asiedu Nketia, speaking at the ‘Journey to Nkroful’ grand durbar to celebrate the birthday and legacy of Osagyefo Dr. Kwame Nkrumah said the change effected by the current government is out of place.
He expressed the commitment of the NDC to change things when they come back to power.
“I want to reemphasize that if we come to power, that 4th August that they want us to celebrate as founders’ day has no basis in our history and it would be one of the first holidays to be abolished.
“And in it’s place, we will institute Kwame Nkrumah’s birthday as the founder’s day so that we’ll meet to celebrate founder’s day and not Kwame Nkrumah’s birthday,” he reemphasised.
He assured the gathering that he had facts to prove that the UGCC whose date of formation the NPP wants to use to honour the Big Six in place of Osagyefo Dr. Kwame Nkrumah, collapsed six years prior to Ghana’s independence and can therefore not be credited as the party that aided the formation of the country Ghana.
“If anyone gets to any of the radio stations to challenge what I’ve said here, call me and I’ll come and prove to the person with documents that were used to solicit for funds at the founding stage to form the UGCC. I have a copy and I can show it to the person” adding that, Paa Grant, a native of Axim and an Nzema, made the elephant share of the contribution, and if for anything at all, they (Nzemas) should be regarded as the pinaccle of Ghana’s history if any such divisions was to be made in telling which people contributed most in making Ghana.
“I heard someone saying Ghana’s history cannot be written without the Akyems. It is true because the history of the country is for us all so we cannot take anyone out.
“But to make it look like the history of Ghana is just about the history of the contribution of the Akyem intellectuals is intellectually dishonest. It is not true because the UGCC and CPP are all rooted in Nzema so if anybody could claim such right about Ghana’s history, it should be excused for the Nzemas,” he was emphatic.
