Founders’ Day must be scrapped; it has ended up creating confusion – CenPOA

The Centre for Public Opinion and Awareness (CenPOA) has opined that August 4, which was introduced as Founders’ Day by the ruling New Patriotic Party (NPP), has ended up creating confusion and division and must be scrapped.

Executive Director of CenPOA, Michael Donyina Mensah, says the holiday intended to unite the country, but it has rather created division and distorted our history.

He asserted that Ghanaians have not really had problems with the introduction of August 4 as Founders’ Day because, as a people, we are still developing and uniting ourselves towards national development, so recognising our founders is not a problem.

“However, if you want to use the Founders’ Day celebration as a means to discredit Dr. Kwame Nkrumah and state categorically that he was not the founder of Ghana, then this is dishonesty, disingenuous, and a distortion of our history. I will disagree with you on that,” he said.

His comments were in reaction to President Akufo-Addo’s comments that he rejects completely the ceremonies of Kwame Nkrumah as the founder of Ghana.

Donyinah said nobody is disputing suggestions that other people contributed to the independence struggle and freedom fight.

However, how the President made his remarks was unfortunate and did not represent the facts leading to our independence.

“The idea behind the introduction of August 4 was good, but in recent times, it seems the holiday has lost its focus and is no longer serving its purpose. So as an organisation, we are proposing for it to be scrapped. In the future, when a new administration takes over, we want the holiday to be scrapped. This is because it doesn’t represent any unity; rather, it is bringing division and disagreements among Ghanaians. The holiday also represents the disagreements and confusion that came up in the past during the independence struggle.

"The agenda should be about unity. But the way President Akufo-Addo is misrepresenting the facts and history is troubling. So August 4 can no longer represent its purpose of uniting the country. The founders are supposed to come together in unity to build the country, but if this holiday is beginning to represent division and confusion, then it is something we have to do away with. We are proposing that when a new administration takes over, they should probably find a better alternative to replace this holiday because, as it stands now, this holiday cannot serve any useful purpose.”

He told host Kwabena Agyapong on Frontline on Rainbow Radio 87.5FM that we should also take a look at the holidays we have in Ghana and review them so we could have holidays that will define us as a people.

“Several of the holidays are linked to our colonial past. We are moving forward, and so we should have holidays that define us as a people. I strongly opined that our Independence Day celebration should define our struggle for independence and Founders Day. But to create multiple holidays for various activities leading to our independence is needless and a waste. The holidays should be nationalistic, celebrate certain important milestones, and also last forever.

"I want to stress that, going into the future, the August 4 holiday will not serve any useful purpose in Ghana because President Akufo-Addo has ended up surrounding it with confusion. So we are appealing to the next administration to scrap the holiday when they take over. We will petition a new government to scrap it,” he said.