The Managing Editor of the Insight newspaper, Kwesi Pratt Junior, has described as ‘sad’, the on-going debate as to whether Ghana has one founder, who is Dr Kwame Nkrumah, Ghana’s first President, or others are to be acknowledged as founders as well.
The Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo-led government believes Ghana has many founders and Nkrumah cannot be the sole founder of Ghana. As such, he has proposed August 4 as Founders Day, a day the United Gold Coast Convention, Ghana’s first political party, was formed; the political party of which the NPP is believed to have originated from.
The move has been widely criticised by the main opposition National Democratic Congress (NDC) and the Convention People’s Party (CPP).
But speaking at a press conference in Accra on Thursday, 21 September 2017 as part of activities to mark Kwame Nkrumah Memorial Day, formerly called Founder’s Day, Mr Pratt said Nkrumah founded Ghana.
“I’m very sad that today, we are arguing about whether Nkrumah is the founder of Ghana or not the founder of Ghana and so on. The fact is that the geopolitical entity called Ghana is too small to hold Nkrumah. Nkrumah is for Ghana, West Africa and for Africa,” he stated.
He continued: “I’m sure you all watch football matches and I sometimes watch the Black Stars. There are some occasions I see Olele [Richard Kingson] take the ball from the goal post, pass or throw it to Michael Essien. Essien will pass to Painstil, Painstil will pass back to Essien, he passes to Dede Ayew and then the ball is passed to Asamoah Gyan and he kicks it and all of us shout goal. Who scored the goal?
“There cannot be any doubt at all that when it comes to [the struggle for independence] it was Osagyefo Dr Kwame Nkrumah. Now in scoring that goal, Osagyefo Dr Kwame Nkrumah was playing for a team called the Convention People’s Party (CPP). The team called UGCC had collapsed for five years. Yes, Danquah played some football matches but he didn’t play for the Convention People’s Party. Of course Obestebi Lamptey played some football matches but he didn’t play for the Convention People’s Party. On the sixth of March 1957, the team that was playing the match was the Convention People’s Party and its captain was Osagyefo Dr Kwame Nkrumah…”
Source: Ghana/AccraFM.com
