Deputy General Secretary of the governing New Patriotic Party (NPP), Nana Obiri Boahen has justified the reason why people like JB Daquah should be added to the founding fathers of Ghana’s independence.

According to him, the role of JB Danquah in the independence struggle of the country cannot be swept under the carpet as he used the poem he wrote to suggest the name “Ghana” for the country to adopt.

Speaking on Okay FM, the Deputy Chief Scribe for the New Patriotic Party (NPP) narrated that JB Danquah in his poem personified the country as a beautiful young woman that deserved to be called “Ghana”.

“What he did significantly was that the name Ghana came from him. He wrote a poem and, in that poem, he was talking about Ghana as a beautiful young woman as we were starting afresh. And he said that the name for such a beautiful young woman in Ghana, meaning the ancient Ghana Empire,” he justified.

Nana Obiri Boahen, however, hinted that the suggested name stirred up a controversy in the country as people contemplated the name but Dr. Nkrumah surprisingly together with others agreed to use the name “Ghana” to replace Gold Coast.

“For the purpose of this discussion, even if JB Danquah did not do anything at all to help in the struggle of our independence, he introduced the name Ghana for the country. He often engaged the elites in Cape Coast whenever he went to court in Cape Coast to discuss the best way towards gaining independence for the country,” he argued.

He added that even though Dr. Kwame Nkrumah should not be painted black as some seem to do, it is an undeniable fact that he virtually antagonized everybody including Ako Adjei who advocated for him to come back to Ghana to work as the General Secretary of UGCC.

“...I don’t think we should paint him [Nkrumah] black as sometimes people seem to do because the circumstances at that time demanded him to react in a certain way ...even Ako Adjei who advocated for Kwame Nkrumah to come back to Ghana to work as the General Secretary for the UGCC, later, Kwame Nkrumah antagonized him and he imprisoned a lot of people,” he said.