The Convention People’s Party (CPP) says the National Democratic Congress (NDC) cannot absolve itself of any blame in the institution of August 4 as Founders’ Day in honour of the founding fathers of Ghana.
In the view of the CPP, the celebration of the day is “empty and without merit”, contending that it does not reflect the true account of Ghana’s founding history.
The Akufo-Addo government last year cancelled the celebration of September 21 as Founder’s Day in honour of Ghana’s first President Dr Kwame Nkrumah, and instituted August 4 Founders’ Day.
Government explained August 4 was being made a public holiday because the real fight for independence started on August 4, 1947.
This, it said, was the time some Ghanaian patriots like George Alfred Grant, J.B. Danquah, R.A. Awoonor-Williams, Edward Akufo-Addo, Ebenezer Ako Adjei and some chiefs formed the United Gold Coast Convention (UGCC) on the foundation of the Fante Confederacy of 1868 and Aboriginal Rights Protection Society of 1897 for the independence of Ghana.
Some critics condemned the Akufo-Addo government, claiming it has made it an agenda to rewrite the history of Ghana to project his relatives and party members.
The NDC, which has opposed the institution of August 4 as Founders’ Day, argued it does not merit a holiday. It has thus vowed that the next NDC government will scrap the August 4 Founders’ Day.
But the CPP has hit out at the NDC, accusing it of complicity in the whole brouhaha.
“…it is imperative to expose the hypocrisy and double standards of the National Democratic Congress who are a part of the passage of this deceptive August 4 Founders’ Day,” the CPP said.
It said for the cumulative 16 years that the PNDC and NDC were in power, they “deliberately” ignored several advice from the Kwame Nkrumah Centenary Celebration Committee, to legislate back into law September 21 as Founder’s Day.
It noted that the NDC conveniently use executive instruments for a purpose which could not stand regime change.
“NDC is NOT innocent of the sins of this [Akufo-Addo] regime. They are a party to the parliamentary process which they could have stopped if they meant business,” the CPP said.
The CPP said generations would come to learn from archival records, the dangerous show of abuse of power by the Akufo-Addo government.
For the CPP, the Akufo-Addo government only seeks to “elevate their defeated forebears beyond what and who they really were in the earliest contests of the nation’s politics” with the August 4 holiday.
By 3news.com|Ghana