NPP UK and Ireland Mourns R. R. Amponsah

We the members of New Patriotic Party UK and Ireland have learnt with deep regret the passing away of The Mr. R R Amponsah, the Chairman of Council of Elders of our party the We in UK and Ireland of the Danquah-Busia-Dombo fraternity recall with a sense of pride, the courage and self devotion of a man who defied age to put the NPP at the top of his priority since 1992 and even wonder if the history of Ghana has been fair to man of such courage and vision.

As the founding father of Ghana’s modern education system, it was R.R. Amponsah the Education Minister in Dr. Busia’s government who in October 1971 invited the public to send memos, as he put it in his invitation message “for a review of Ghana’s current educational system, which has outlived its usefulness”. Out of that emerged the introduction of the JSS/SSS education concept in Ghana. Known as the “Old Fox” in the fight against oppression and for true liberation for Ghana, Mr. Reginald Reynolds Amponsah (known simply as RR) was one of the early victims of the Preventive Detention Act when he was detained unfairly in 1958 for planning a military coup with Major Awhaitey and remained in detention until the February 24, 1966 coup d’état which overthrew the Nkrumah regime.

Together with most prominent Ghanaians who espoused different political ideas from that of the CPP like Messrs Victor Owusu, Modesto Apaloo, William Ofori-Atta, Dzenkle Dzewu, and Joe Appiah and who paid dearly for their love for freedom and justice in either prison or in exile, they fought for the Ghana that we have today.

Today we mourn with our mother Party in Ghana the loss of a true founding father, whose sense of patriotism stands tall for all to see. We mourn the loss of a true son of Ghana, a true political leader and a great inspirer. Our thoughts and condolences go to his family who undoubtedly has lost a grandfather, a father, an uncle and indeed a pillar. Our thoughts also go to the leadership of our Party who worked closely with him and his Council of Elders and who will be in the forefront of arranging a befitting farewell for our Chair of wisdom.

RR has left us a time when our party is recovering from a shocking election defeat and we are in the process of reflection and rebuilding of our party in order to regain power and we can only honour his name by working even harder to realise the ideals he lived and fought for all his life. Let us all use R.R’s death as the rallying point to unite all factions in our political landscape and use this unity to fight for power and celebrate his life which we consider to be a gift from God.

We thank his family for giving us a son in the name of RR and thank God for blessing our nation with such a talent. We sincerely believe that history will judge him as our father, a patriot, the brave politician and indeed great man in modern political history.

FAREWELL!! NANTE YIE!' Hayford Atta-Krufi CHAIRMAN (for and on behalf of NPP UK & Ireland)