Nana fires young critics

President Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo has fired back at critics who claim that his Independence Day speech was full of distorted history.

The critics accused the president of failing to acknowledge the role of Ghana’s first President Kwame Nkrumah in the attainment of independence, but the president insists he did not distort history in any way during his speech on Monday, March 6.

“This has been a very strange week. On Monday, I made a speech to the country which I tried to speak about how we became Ghana.

And like everything I say, it has ended up in controversy. But that is how it should be. A politician who doesn’t generate controversy is a dull politician,” he said at the ‘Ghana:60 Years On’ Unity Ball 2017 Thursday night.

According to President Akufo-Addo, his critics’ allegations are misleading. He noted that the man who saw all – Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe – who followed Ghana’s independence journey, commended him for the speech.

“The amusing part of it is that the people who did not live through the independence era – young people who came much after – claim that I distorted the history of Ghana and belittled the role of Kwame Nkrumah.

The one man there who actually lived through the era, who was here in Ghana at the time, embraced me as having enhanced the image of Kwame Nkrumah. And that tells you everything about Ghanaian politics.

That is President Mugabe. He gave me a big hug,” President Akufo-Addo stated.