On Monday, March 6, 2017, President Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo joined thousands of Ghanaians at the independence square in Accra to celebrate Ghana’s 60th anniversary.
Delivering his speech to mark the event, President Nana Akufo-Addo educated Ghanaians on the history of Ghana and complimented the forefathers for their enormous contributions to the formation and progress of the country.
“We are met here, today, to celebrate the 60th anniversary of our nation’s independence, to celebrate our freedom from the clutches of British imperialism, to celebrate the final achievement of the struggle of successive generations of Ghanaian patriots to establish a free, sovereign Ghana. Today is a celebration of our independence. Being independent means you have the freedom and ability to make informed decisions in life without having to ask other people for permission, help or money and you take full responsibility for seeing things through.
“Our founders chose this day, March 6, as the date of our independence, in order to repudiate the Bond of 6th March 1844, which led to our land becoming a British colony…The founders of the UGCC, then, met to demand independence from the British and 70 years after that event, one still marvels at the clarity of thought and the passion that they displayed. Some of the names of that momentous day have survived in our written history and folk memory…The speech, the Ghanaian colossus, Danquah, made on that day, deserves to be quoted liberally on a day like this,” he said.
“…Danquah captured the mood of the time and set our country on the path to independence,” the President added.
The President’s historical account in his speech seems to have not sunk down well with the NDC Central Regional Chairman, Allotey Jacobs as he claims the speech was marred with deceptions.
According to him, the President was giving a fine speech on the day till he sought to apparently credit J. B Danquah for the name “Ghana” which the country gained after independence.
Speaking on Peace FM’s Kokrokoo, Allotey Jacobs insisted that Ghana’s first President, Dr. Kwame Nkrumah is the only founder of Ghana and no person else should be credited for the hard work that he (Dr. Nkrumah) did.
Allotey Jacobs explained that though Dr. Nkrumah fought the battle with the help of the big six, it still holds that he is the true founder.
“The credit goes to Dr. Kwame Nkrumah. You can never run away from that fact”, he replied President Akufo-Addo and begged him to accept that “the founder of Ghana is Dr. Kwame Nkrumah. Period! Nothing else…”
To him, the President’s speech lost a bit of salt because he wanted to set the spotlight on J.B Danquah despite talking about Dr. Nkrumah in parts of his speech.
“Step by step, paragraph by paragraph, the deceptive nature of his speech; it was like it was centred on J.B Danquah. It was centred on J.B Danquah. A statement the President gave (the name Ghana); who gave the name Ghana has been in dispute…It is giving recognition to J.B Danquah as the man who mooted the idea that should we have our independence, it means we should have the name Ghana. So, that is being credited to him and not to President Kwame Nkrumah” but to him, the question is “who gave Ghana independence?”
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