Critics of Mike Ocquaye are ignorant - Former MP

A former Member of Parliament for Kumawu constituency in the Ashanti Region Mr. Yaw Baah has berated those criticizing Speaker of Parliament Prof Aaron Mike Ocquaye over the UGCC 70th anniversary public lecture where he discredited Dr. Kwame Nkrumah as the sole founding father of Ghana.

According to him, Professor Ocquaye did not distort facts about the founding father of Ghana as critics want Ghanaians to believe.

“What Prof. Ocquaye said was that Dr. Kwame Nkrumah cannot be the sole founder of Ghana because before he was invited from London to Gold Coast at that time UGCC members had prepared the grounds for the independence struggle. Nkrumah only came to contribute significantly to the struggle and so can’t be the sole founding father of Ghana. This is a fact,” he argued.

Speaker of Parliament Prof. Aaron Mike Ocquaye has come under barrage of attacks from members of the Convention People’s Party (CPP) and other Nkrumahist parties for claiming that Dr Kwame Nkrumah was not the sole founder of Ghana, but rather one of founding fathers since other members of the United Gold Coast Convention(UGCC) played a major role in our independence struggle.

Ocquaye said he had great respect for Dr Nkrumah because of his significant contribution to the independence struggle and his numerous development projects, such as the Tema Motorway.

However, he said, to say that Dr Nkrumah was the only founding father of Ghana was not true, but rather, “I consider him one of the founder fathers.”

“Dr Nkrumah, who was invited, became one of the founder fathers because of that invitation,” he said.

But former General Secretary of CPP Prof Nii Noi Dowuona disagrees.

According to him, “Nkrumah’s role with the CPP in the fight or struggle for independence does not have any equal and there is no match and there is no other fellow who has played that role.”

“I find those who are making the veil effort to be disgracing themselves in their small corner in Ghana. Any effort in this regard is just sheer waste of time and it will be a shame onto those people,” he argued.

Speaking on Oman FM’s political analysis programme “Boiling Point” Mr Yaw Baah described criticism of Prof. Ocquaye as baseless and unwarranted.

He argued that none of those criticizing the Speaker knows politics of Ghana better than Prof Ocquaye.

He explained that Prof Ocquaye is an authority when it comes to politics of Ghana saying Prof Ocquaye indicated in his delivery that he was there to correct a fundamental fallacy regarding the true founder father of Ghana.

He said in as much as the country is blessed with lots of professors, we must not lose sight of the fact that these professors have their areas of specialty.

“Professors are not professors of everything they have speciality,” he said adding that “we know for instance that late President Evans Fiifi Atta Mills was a professor of tax law. And in the case of Mike Aaron Ocquaye he is a professor of politics.”

“If there is anyone who knows the politics of Ghana better Professor Ocquaye stands tall. He well grounded in political history of Ghana.

The former Kumawu legislator, therefore, urged Ghanaians not to narrow the founding father of Ghana to only Dr Kwame Nkrumah includes J B Danquah, Arko Adjei, William Ofori Atta, R S Blay, George Paa Grant as well as Obetsebi Lamptey.