Nkrumah’s Ghana must die: the politics of an Apostrophe

We all enjoy living a lie once in a while. That is just an acceptable way of saying we are all hypocrites. We act surprised when we walk unknowingly into a surprise birthday party even if we expected it all along. We wish to pay the full bill even if another offers to split it.

When we receive money from politicians, we assume the money came from their pockets and when we see our pastors lavishly spend our offerings, we accept that it is God who indeed is driving the new Bentley Bentayga. But my favorite of all Ghanaian hypocrisy of which I am equally guilty is the penchant for declaring that Ghana has too many holidays.

At 13 per annum, Ghana is about a third off the chart-topping India which has 21 public holidays. This number though, is inaccurate or perhaps subject to debate because there is a new reality: 2017 is no longer Nkrumah’s Ghana.

The politics of Holidays date back to 2001; at least we can put that year up as the one in which the debate came to a head. Three days before the 4th June holiday which celebrated the beginning of former president Rawlings’ political career, albeit through a coup d’état, the NPP passed an emergency bill to abolish the holiday amidst controversy and a minority boycott.

Mr. John Akologu Tia, the then Deputy Minority Whip, said the June 4 uprising was not a coup d’état and that for once “it introduced probity and accountability into the Ghanaian body politic” but the deputy majority leader Papa Owusu Ankomah famously countered, describing the minority as “chatting and drinking tea in the lobby when there was a serious business to be conducted”

I won’t begrudge you if you label that public holiday as a Personality Holiday, or even use the mnemonic PH to highlight its acidity. 7 of the 13 are what one may describe as Religious holidays with the remaining five assuming a national stature.

For the governed though, the signs are not good. Looking down the list of 2017 public holidays after the just celebrated Eidul-Adha, the faintest smell of another holiday can only be detected after 3 tortuous months if the president decides to scrap the Founder’s Day celebration in order to pacify its followers.

What will keep us motivated if there is no holiday to look forward to? The barbecue, the lay-ins, the family visits and the extended weekend. Will the government scrap the holiday just three days to the event in the name of politics? Are the citizens really asking for too much? These are the thoughts that are occupying many Ghanaians as we anxiously await the decision of the president.

On behalf of all Ghanaians, I wish to let the president know that we accept that this is not Nkrumah’s Ghana but JB Dankwa’s, Busia’s and that of the many others whose names are slipped in as afterthought to give a justification for a Founders’ day.

We also accept that we may have too many holidays but if relocating the apostrophe is what is absolutely necessary to guarantee us this holiday, surely Mr. President, you can have your wish and we will also hopefully be given a 13th. After all, a little more fish has never rendered any soup inedible.