A leading member of the ruling New Patriotic Party (NPP), Dr. Arthur Kobina Kennedy has made it public that Dr. Kwame Nkrumah was not the only person who founded Ghana.
On his Facebook wall, Dr. Kennedy said no great country has one founder indicated that even Americans don't have only one founding father but several.
"No great country has one founder. Most Americans historians list 7 founding fathers. This list does not include Francis Marion of South Carolina whose exploits were described by George Washington as crucial to the success of the war of Independence. A few years ago, Tracy Lindeman of Canadian Broadcasting Corporation listed 36 founding fathers for Canada"
However, Dr. Kennedy admonished that Dr. Kwame Nkrumah has been the best President in Ghana by a wide margin.
Below is the full text of the statement;
Mr Arthur K Kennedy writes!
The debate about our Founding Fathers
God bless our homeland Ghana and our founders! Let the nation say, "Amen".
Before I turn to this unfortunate debate about who founded Ghana and when we were founded, let me make the following declarations for the record:
First, Nkrumah has been our best President by a wide margin.
Second, winning elections after independence does not correlate with a person or party's role in the struggle for independence. Mugabe's party did not win the post independence mandate in Zimbabwe because he led the struggle for independence. He won because he belonged to the Majority Shona tribe.
Third, the continuing questioning of Danquah's loyalty is an unproven, disloyal stain on a man who deserves better from all of us, regardless of ideology.
As to whether Nkrumah was our sole founder, how could he be? As Danquah stated eloquently on 4th August 1947, "Love of freedom from foreign control has always been in our blood. 870 years ago, we struck against the attempt of the Arabs to impose a religious slavery upon us in Ghana. We left our homes in Ghana and came down here to build a new home." Thus the struggle for our freedom started 8 centuries before the founding of the UGCC-- and it continued after 6th March 1957.
It has heroes, beginning with some of those buried on the journey from ancient Ghana to our current home, through the leaders of the Aborigines Rights Protection Society, some brave chiefs, the founders of the UGCC, and the CPP, Sergeant Adjetey, and his fellow martyrs before independence and then more people after independence. Make no mistake about it. Our colonial masters have been gone for 60 years but we have not been free for 60 years. We lost freedom as a people under our military dictatorships-- NLC, NRC/SMC, AFRC/PNDC. Those who fought against these internal oppressors were as gallant as those who fought our colonizers. To say Nkrumah is our founder assumes that when Usain Bolt anchors Jamaica in a relay, he is the team. It presumes that when Real Madrid won the champions league this past season, Ronaldo alone deserved all the credit.
How could Nkrumah alone be credited with founding Ghana when he cannot, in good conscience be credited with founding CPP alone? Where would the CPP be without the organizational genius of Gbedemah?
No great country has one founder. Most American historians list 7 founding fathers. This list does not include Francis Marion of South Carolina whose exploits were described by George Washington as crucial to the success of the war of Independence. A few years ago, Tracy Lindeman of Canadian Broadcasting Corporation listed 36 founding fathers for Canada!
India had founders besides Gandhi with historians ranking Ambedkar's contributions greater than Gandhi's. South Africa had many founders besides Mandela-- of all races.
We should stop peddling the palpable fallacy that Nkrumah was our sole founder.
When Danquah told a crowd that Nkrumah would never fail them, he was wrong. He failed them by taking away the freedom he helped to win-- spurred by power and sycophancy.
While we are pre-occupied with this farcical debate about our founders, we are losing the nation we are arguing about. As President Akufo-Addo said on 6th March, "Sadly, the economic dividend that was meant to accompany our freedom has still not materialised. Sixty years after those heady days, too many of our people continue to wallow in unacceptable poverty".
That is not all. Mobs, from streets or organized by our government can snuff out the lives of innocent citizens, as happened to the judges in 1982, the KUME PREKO matyrs in the next decade and just this year, to Major Mahama and others-- thus mocking our motto-- Freedom and Justice. Our environment is drowning in the garbage while sinister forces with the collusion of government agencies pollute our rivers and streams under galamsey. We can't even name and shame them.
Our argument should be about our future, not our past and over who will be hailed by posterity for securing that future.
Let us build Ghana for posterity.
Source: Ghanaweb
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JB Danquah was vice president of Eastern Region and Paa Grant was the President Of UGCC and the financer. He paid the 200british pounds to bring Kwame Nkrumah to be the paid General Secretary. All this altering of our sealed HISTORY is turning into ABSURDITY.
Nkrumah belongs to Chairman Mao Zegdon of China, Tito of Yugoslavia and Kim Jong il North Korea groupe. Their followers treat them as gods. Infact, Nkrumah is the MESSIAH to people like Kwesi Pratt, and it is not surprising if they accord him as the CREATOR of Ghana. People like Kwesi Pratt know no GOD than NKRUMAH.
There is nothing on earth where you can find a struggle for independence achieved by one person. The word 'solo' as claimed by Kennedy is a wrong and tainted political assumption.
An excellent piece. Bless u
IS THIS MORON STILL TALKING OR WHAT? NDC MOLE
So the man is alive. I thought he would be writing about confessions of confessing being against nana Addo
Offuii Arthur Kennedy even the almighty America where you are doing your boy-boy is said to have been founded by one person. You are decaying!
So finally you have declared to the world that you are one of the ***barred word*** and aimless man in Ghana. pls stop disgracing yourself. ***barred word***. ***barred word*** where was your father and you yourself by then.
Ghanaians need jobs, education, improved living conditions and unity not diversionary tactics, disunity and nepotism or family feud. NPP is disappointing their teaming floating voters and sympathizers that helped put Akuffo Addo into office. Live Kwame Nkrumah to rest in his grave. Its a shame that Akuffo Addo will fuel division among Ghanaians. We the Society for Prevention of Corruption and Cruelty Against Ghana & Africa (SPCCAG & Africa) will call it like it is. Mahama was corrupt, dishonest and divider and above all, tribalist. Nana Akuffo Addo you can do better. Stop this unholy war on Ghana. UGCC was not Ghanaian at all in outlook and scoop, but a vestige of colonialism. J. B Danquah was too slow to have liberated Gold Coasters. We can not return Ghana to Gold Coast and resort to "One Pound" as Kwame Nyante espoused. Forward Ever, backward Never. This is unnecessary litigation by an Akyme ethnocentrics. Nana cut this division before it consumes your leadership and the NPP. Busia could not demolish Nkrumah nor can you Akuffo Addo do it. Akuffo Addo's father worked for Nkrumah so what is he crying about? Ghana came about because of Nkrumah. Its the final answer. Stop wasting your time and do the job Ghanaians asked you to do for them and not bashing Nkrumah. NPP and Akuffo Addo you are disappointing Ghanaians with this politics of old. Some things are better not touched or spoken of. This is not controversy, its divisive politics of old. You want to cling to the name UGCC fine and done dandy, but don't hide behind politics to resurrect JB Danquah's misplaced judgement of imperial Premiership; who God knows where he wanted to take the Gold Coast to - a ceremonila independence and and appendaged of the British Empire. Stop the rot of old politics or we will descend heavily on you like we did to NDC and mahama. People "dey" need jobs and food not Nkrumah or D B Danquah shitty politics of divide and conquer. Mahama tried the politics of tribalism, monetrocracy like his friend Kufour and failed. If you desire politics of UGCC/UP bomb throwing, good for NPP. Our message is that at the end of four years NPP will be sent to the ***barred word***.
Please get serious and be a citizen and not a hating spectator. You want the president to be in solitary confinement? Your hatred for the president will consume you one of these days if you don`t change your ways.