Already known to many as an unofficial nickname of Ghana’s president, Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo, it came as no great surprise when the thousands of Ghanaians who had gathered at the Regional Youth Resource Centre at Adaklu responded heartily to it.

The president’s ‘Fellow Ghanaians’ signature appeared to have truly trickled down to the very grassroots of the country.

President Nana Akufo-Addo was speaking at the resource centre during the 66th Independence Day anniversary.

As has been the practice in recent years, the government has been rotating the celebration of the national day to various parts of the country, rather than the practice that existed in the past where everything was centralized in Accra, the capital.

While there were always simultaneous events held in all the regions of the country, the past few years have seen the president and his entourage take the national event to Tamale, Sunyani, Cape Coast, and now, to Adaklu, in the Volta Region.

Expressing their great joys at the decision to bring the ceremony to the region, it was a heart-warming moment at the centre when President Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo uttered the famous words and the crowd responded in an even more enchanting way.

The term ‘Fellow Ghanaians’ gained prominence between 2020 and 2021, when the country, like most parts of the world, was battered with the ravages of the novel Coronavirus (COVID-19).

Appearing on national television screens often within the period, the president used such addresses to update the country on its preparedness towards fighting the pandemic, as well as all the measures being taken to help reduce the rates of infection in the country.

During that period, the use of the term, ‘Fellow Ghanaians,’ becomes a regular inclusion in the president’s addresses, becoming an unconscious nickname that many people begun to refer to the president by.

Obviously enjoying the fact that this had come to stay, it is worth mentioning that GhanaWeb had also earlier discovered how the ‘Fellow Ghanaians’ mantra seemed to have been something that the president inherited from his father.

This appeared to have been the case when President Nana Akufo-Addo’s father, Edward Akufo-Addo (also a one-time Head of State), addressed the opening of parliament in 1971.

In his address, Edward Akufo-Addo spoke about how his government intended to stabilize the economy, referring to Ghanaians as 'fellow citizens.'

“Unemployment has therefore become a major national problem. Those who are in employment, do not always behave as though they recognize that there are many fellow citizens who are out of employment. The situation demands a high sense of responsibility,” he said in the video.

Watch the moment when President Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo received a thunderous response to his famous ‘Fellow Ghanaians’ at Adaklu, in the Volta Region:



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