Opinions of Saturday, 1 July 2023

Columnist: Raymond Ablorh

Why 1st July has lost its significance on our national calendar

Republic Day has been cancelled from Ghana's holidays Republic Day has been cancelled from Ghana's holidays

On 1st July 1960, Ghana became a Republic. And, until Nana Akufo-Addo became president, we celebrated this day as Republic Day in memory of when we started governing ourselves with our own homegrown Constitution.

Apart from the Independence Day, this day is the most significant, because, eventhough we attained independence earlier, we weren't governing ourselves with our own Constitution. That's how significant this day is.

But, in the wisdom of the president and his people, some of the most important things we needed to change to actualise their change of hope was to cancel the Republic Day celebration, shifting it to 7th January in memory of the 4th Republican Constitution which, they don't even respect; change Founder's Day to Founders' Day on August 4th or so in memory of all who contributed from grassroots to the top towards the independence we're busily rendering meaningless; rename and recommission some institutions among others.

This is why today has lost its significance on our national calendar. Maybe, someday, it may be restored.

But, how have these changes improved our lives and helped in the redefinition of our history to aptly capture the essence of these days? These changes weren't even enough to heal their egos and the pains their fathers transfered to them.

Undoubtedly, it's nothing but a continuation of the anti-Nkrumah agenda to ensure the total deletion of his legacies. I used continuation because, after the 1966 coup, even books and other literary works of Kwame Nkrumah were burnt, names of some institutions were changed among others with great animosity.

Have you all forgotten how not long after Akufo-Addo became President, some people started comparing him with, and others even lifting him above Osagyefo Kwame Nkrumah in performance?

Where are all those people today?

About 8 years after he became our president, would you say he's anywhere close to Nkrumah in thinking, vision and leadership delivery as those mentally epileptic sycophants sought to portray?

The politics in which, Akufo-Addo was socialised growing up is what made him the misleader we've seen since 2017. No wonder, he's failed miserably and going down as the most terrible president Ghanaians endured in the 4th Republic.

Even under Jerry Rawlings, the brutal soldier, no group of Ghanaians were deliberately disenfranchised and denied representation in Parliament; from 1992 elections to the 2000 elections that brought the New Patriotic Party to power, people weren't killed during vote counting the way we saw at Techiman in 2020.

And, just look at how he forced the Auditor General out of office unconstitutionally for being patriotically diligent?

If this isn't politically backward, what is it? He's taken Ghana back so many decades. Not only in governance, he's messed the nation up economically as well.

Unfortunately, he did all that with the help of church leaders, chiefs and other traditional leaders, some partisan members of the judiciary, some lawyers, media men, etc.

It's very sad when you think about the hope the coming of Akufo-Addo brought and how he and his people ended up delivery the worst we've endured in the 4th Republic. Even his own prophet or sorcerer who championed his religious electoral propaganda likened him to King Saul. His first Special Prosecutor said that he's the Mother Serpent under the corruption flower at the Presidency.

If such a person and his cousins are now supporting Dr Muhammadu Bawumia who lied about his competences in opposition only to deviate from mainline economic management in power to be their party's flagbearer, why should any thinking human adult support it merely because he's a Northerner hence defined as a Dombo?

Today, both the NPP and Ghanaians are in total hopelessness. Their delegates have a responsibility to deliver their party first. And, they must do that decisively by voting against whoever Akufo-Addo and his family support as their candidate.