NDC fumes at Akufo-Addo over Founders Day

The Deputy General Secretary of the NDC, Koku Anyidoho, has taken a swipe at the president for proposing that Parliament considers August 4 each year as the nation’s founder’s day, as against the current September 21 celebration date.

Reading negative meanings into the proposal, Koku ‘The Bull’, as he is affectionately called, said President Akufo-Addo simply wanted to fabricate history and make his late uncle and member of the ‘big six’ (J.B Danquah) look more important than the nation’s first president, Dr. Kwame Nkrumah.

“Where was JB Danquah and Akufo Addo’s father when independence was won at the polo grounds on March 6, 1957? J.B Danquah has got no clean record and everybody knows that. His nephew (Akufo Addo) has come and wants to clean up his image”, he fumed.

According to Koku, the president was merely engaging in populism instead of focusing on pertinent issues facing the country.

He was reacting to President Akufo-Addo’s recent call on Parliament to take another look at the date the country remembers its founders during a radio discussion.

A snippet of the statement released by the Communication Director at the presidency, Eugene Arhin, read:

“The President has, therefore, decided to propose legislation to Parliament to designate 4th August as FOUNDERS DAY, and 21st September as KWAME NKRUMAH MEMORIAL DAY, both of which will be observed as public holidays. In the meantime, the President has issued an Executive Instrument to commemorate this year’s celebration of KWAME NKRUMAH MEMORIAL DAY as a public holiday.”

This has not gone down well with a section of the Minority, especially the ‘Nkrumahists’ across the country.

Other well-meaning Ghanaians are of the view that the statement from the president did not come at the right time.

Also expressing dissatisfaction with the president’s proposal was Dr. Edward Brenya, a political lecturer at the Kwame Nkrumah University of Technology (KNUST).

In an interview on a Kumasi-based radio station, the renowned academic expressed the worry that if care was not taken a time would come when a government of the National Democratic Congress would also declare June 4 as the nation’s founder’s day because Rawlings also believed the revolution he led on that date had set the pace for Ghana’s actual realization of civil democracy and disciplined leadership.

He cautioned that the president may end up celebrating just a political tradition instead of the fore bearers that actually played a significant role in the struggle for independence from colonial rule.