Ghana@60: Akufo-Addo's speech wasn't factual - Akamba

A Deputy National Organizer for the opposition National Democratic Congress (NDC), Mr. Joshua Amidu Akamba has slammed President Nana Akufo-Addo over what he described as a distorted history of Ghana’s independence struggle.

In an interview with Nyankonton Mu Nsem on Rainbow Radio 87.5Fm, the outspoken politician expressed shock at the president for failing to recognize the role played the former president Dr. Kwame Nkrumah.

According to him, what the president did was divisive and wondered why he presented a distorted fact to commemorate our diamond jubilee adding, this was a moment to unite us as a people but the president rather divided us by picking and choosing on our former leaders and their contributions to the development of the state.

President Nana Akufo-Addo detailed the struggle of Ghana’s independence from our colonial to the constitutional rule by extolling the contributions of some key personalities.

Nana Addo in his speech yesterday said: “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.

“Five of them are on our Ghanaian currency: Joseph Boakye Danquah; Emmanuel Obetsebi-Lamptey; William Ofori-Atta; Ebenezer Ako-Adjei; and Edward Akufo-Addo. Kwame Nkrumah, the sixth of the Big Six on the currency, was to join them later.’’

The president added: ‘’ Our first President, Kwame Nkrumah, delivered his famous speech that midnight of March 5, 1957, a few hundred yards from here, at the Old Polo grounds. He said we were free forever, and there cannot be a sweeter or more reassuring sound or set of words than those to a people emerging from oppression.

He said our independence would prove that the black man or woman was capable of managing his or her own affairs. And then he said what has probably been the most quoted part of that speech.

He said “the independence of Ghana was meaningless unless it was linked with the total liberation of the whole continent of Africa”.

In those words, Kwame Nkrumah sealed the fate of Ghana to the continent.

He bequeathed to us Ghana’s pan African vocation and its commitment to the unity and integration of Africa. We are grateful for his leadership, and that of his principal colleagues, Komla Agbeli Gbedema, the organisational genius of the Convention People’s Party, Kojo Botsio, its theoretician and strategist, and the others who occupy prides of place in the history of the nationalist movement."

But Mr. Akamba believes Nana Addo distorted our history and failed to paint the true picture of the contribution of the former president.