We’ll scrap Founders Day if we win power — CPP

The Convention People’s Party (CPP) has threatened to scrap the controversial proposal of August 4 as Founders Day when it wins political power.

This follows a proposal by the Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo-led government to shift the celebration from the traditional September 21 to August 4 in recognition of the role the United Gold Coast Convention (UGCC) and other nationalist movements played in the country’s independence struggle.

Speaking to the media, the Communications Director of the CPP, Mr Abdul Rauf Kadiri, said the date would be reverted to its original day when the CPP or the main opposition National Democratic Congress (NDC) comes back to power.

Founders Day

Mr Kadiri said, “This decision is going to be contested and challenged when the CPP comes to power in future. This whole idea of Founders Day, it was the NDC that established it and the NDC didn’t establish it out of ignorance, they were very clear, they knew why they did that so I believe even if the CPP doesn’t come to power tomorrow and the NDC comes back to power, because they are in tune with the history of our country, that decision is going to be challenged and it will be reversed and we want to also actually make it quite clear that there can be no founders in this country.

“For example, when we talk of the foundation of Ghana, you cannot take it from the Aborigines Right Protection Society because if we are going into the history of the Aborigines Rights Protection Society, that society was formed to protect communal land. Now, the Ghana that Kwame Nkrumah founded, which includes Northern Region and parts of Trans Volta Togoland, was that the land that the Aborigines Right Protection Society fought for? So the NPP can go ahead with the move but that move will be reversed. It will be challenged and when it’s challenged, we will succeed,” he stressed.

Relatedly, a leading member of the CPP, Madam Rodalyne Ayarna, has sharply disagreed with President Akufo-Addo's August 4 Founders Day proposal.

Madam Ayarna said there was only one founder of Ghana and history should remain so.

She accused President Akufo-Addo of perpetrating a family agenda to “distort Ghana's history.”

President Akufo-Addo is proposing a legislation to Parliament to designate August 4 and September 21 as public holidays.

August 4 will be observed as Founders Day, while September 21 will also be celebrated as Kwame Nkrumah Memorial Day.

A statement signed by the Director of Communications at the Presidency, Mr Eugene Arhin, said the nation's first President, Dr Kwame Nkrumah, played an outstanding role in the attainment of independence, hence the need to commemorate him by designating his birthday as the permanent day for his remembrance.