Akufo-Addo accused of ‘self-aggrandizement’ over new holidays

President Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo, has been accused by Member of Parliament for Tamale Central, Alhaji Inusah Fuseini, of “grandstanding” over plans to have August 4 and January 7 marked as public holidays.

Interior Minister Ambrose Dery on Thursday, December 13 laid a new bill before Parliament on behalf of the government to amend the Public Holidays Act to include January 7 and August 4 as statutory public holidays.

The new bill is seeking to make January 7 Constitution Day and August 4 Founders’ Day.

Constitution Day, as explained by the government will be in honour of the 4th Republic and that of Founders’ Day will be in honour of the country’s forefathers who fought for independence, especially those behind the United Gold Coast Convention (UGCC) and the Aborigines Rights Protection Society (ARPS).

But the Ranking Member of the Constitutional, Legal and Parliamentary Affairs Committee of Parliament is of the view that Akufo-Addo has taken the move in self-fulfillment.

“The President, Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo, is indeed in grandstanding, political grandstanding and it appears to me what he has done is an exercise of self-aggrandizement,” he said on TV3's Saturday morning show, The Key Points.

He questioned the basis for seeking to make January 7 a Constitution Day when the 1992 Constitution “was gazetted as a legal document of May 15, 1992”.

He maintained that President Akufo- Addo’s quest to make August 4 celebrated as Founders’ Day and that of 21st September as a commemorative Kwame Nkrumah Day is a conscious attempt to honour his relatives who were three of the Big Six.

“In order to mask the restoration of his ancestors, he somehow linked the formation of the UGCC to the establishment of the movement of the Aborigines Rights Protection Society (ARPS), both occurred on the same day 4th August...3 of his relatives were involved”

“That’s exactly what the president is doing,” he insisted.

The Tamale Central MP mentioned other groups and individuals including Yaa Asantewaa as contributing to the struggle for independence and argued if Founders’ Day must be instituted then it must be in honour of all those people and not just those behind the formation of UGCC and ARPS.