Founder's Day - celebrating Nkrumah the 'dead legend' ...

or Rawlings the 'living legend'?

Look - if we are celebrating founders day - today, yes let's hail Dr. Kwame Nkrumah for all his heroic deeds during the foundation years as a nation - state. But let's not forget - intentionally or unintentionally - that the Dreams of Ghana and Nkrumah were cut short after the man was overthrown and rendered powerless by military adventurers - orchestrated by their civilian proxies.

Ghana then went into the wrong hands for several years - directionlessly. Military coups became so fanciful in Ghana and our armed forces became tribally divided between major hegemonic groups. Those were indeed the dark days!

Our so - called first, second and third republics were nothing but sham experimental oligarchies.

But alas! there was a rescue from a new thinking breed of courageous young men who dared to put a lasting stop to military adventurism in our politics. They first led a revolution in 1979. When the revolution got truncated by another sham democratic order, they returned with the final coup to stop all coups on Dec 31 1981.

Then we began to take the road to political, social and economic recovery, reconstruction and progress - in a true democratic form. Our nation was re-founded on the tenets of true Democracy and mass participation and culminated in a peoples referendum in 1991 when we sad YES to true multi - party Democracy in Ghana - giving birth to NDC, NPP, PHP etc etc

Yes - Power came back to the people!

Our clock of modern - day political, economic and social progress has never turned back. And yes, we have a living founder of modern Ghanaian Democracy. His name is H.E President Jeremiah John Rawlings. let's celebrate him now as a living legend - and not wait until he is a 'dead legend'.

happy founders day to all my compatriots in Ghana and in the diaspora!!

Amenga -Etego Sacut - The writer is a Ghanaian political journalist, broadcaster and ghost writer based in Ghana

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Amenga-Etego Akaabitono SaCut