A Kumasi-based pressure group, Asante United Front, has challenged the Kufuor administration to honour the memory of the first president of Ghana, the late Dr. Kwame Nkrumah, with befitting final funeral rites.
The chairman of the group, Opanin Kwame Afreh, has observed that an invitation to the world to attend the final funeral rites of this great son of Ghana and Africa would be one event world leaders would like to be associated with.
Apart from the tendency of this event greatly promoting the national reconciliation efforts at the domestic level, such an event would provide another opportunity for homecoming for the many blacks in the diaspora.
Afreh has therefore appealed to the Council of State, National House of Chiefs, National Commission on Culture, the Christian Council of Ghana, the Catholic Bishops Conference, political parties, professional bodies, Ghana Bar Association and student groups to prevail upon His Excellency J. A. Kufuor to give Dr. Nkrumah this last honour.
Chairman Afreh said the late president is the only one among the Big Six, who has not been honoured with the all-important ritual of a final funeral rite.
The movement per its chairman said, in this part of the world, distinction is made between burial and funeral rites and explained that when a king dies the burial rites are performed and the next of kin (successor) performs the final funeral rites on assumption of office.
The burial has perfectly been performed by predecessors and called on President Kufuor to ensure that the process is complete with a funeral rite.
It is in view of this that the movement would want the president to form a planning committee to organize the final funeral rites, the only known traditional ritual that ushers the dead to the land of their ancestors from where their souls could solicit blessings for the living.
According to Afreh, the soul of Nkrumah is restless for now and this single act of honour by the Kufuor administration would send Osagyefo Dr. Kwame Nkrumah on the final journey to the land of his ancestors where he rightly belongs.
"Denying this great son of this ritual means denying him safe and peaceful entry into the land of our ancestors," Afreh stated.
Afreh's concern is based on the fact that even notorious criminals are given decent burial and fitting final funeral rites and wondered why the state could not honour a person of Dr. Nkrumah's standing and calibre with one.
After sacrificing so much for the independence of Ghana, Nkrumah was forced to embark on a new life on February 24, 1966 when his political world came crumbling to an abrupt end following a coup d'etat.
Afreh has also appealed to the National Reconciliation Commission to extend the reconciliatory process to the family of Nkrumah by considering compensating them.
"The man's effort at independence is no mean achievement. But for the unfortunate military intervention in 1966, this great son of Ghana would have achieved a lot more for the country and Africa as a whole."
He argued that neither the family nor the Convention People's Party (CPP) have the power to fight for compensation for Dr. Nkrumah's nationalistic efforts and patriotism which were cut short by the first ever coup d'etat.
According to Afreh, Madam Nyaniba, Nkrumah's mother, is not alive to champion this cause hence their intervention to ensure that a fitting funeral is accorded him.
"If Nkrumah's sons and the CPP will not take it up, the Asante United Front will fight to ensure that" he stressed and suggested that the Accra International Airport be renamed after Kwame Nkrumah.
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