Keeping Nkrumah’s dream alive

Ghanaians have just returned to work from one of the many holidays in the year, during which we made merry at the beaches, drinking bars, etc.

It was the official birthday, the 104th, of Ghana’s founder and first President, Osagyefo Dr Kwame Nkrumah, who died in exile after his overthrow in 1966.

The day was declared a public holiday during the celebration of Dr Nkrumah’s 100th birthday, 38 years after his death.

That the day was declared a national holiday attests to the fact that the role of Dr Nkrumah in Ghana’s struggle for independence is unsurpassed.

Dr Nkrumah played a pivotal role in Ghana’s struggle for self-governance, culminating in independence from colonial rule on March 6, 1957.

In spite of attempts to discredit and demonise him and his government in order to justify his subsequent overthrow, Dr Nkrumah’s work remains a reference point, even for people who do not share in his political philosophy.

At the continental level, he and his colleague Heads of State in the so-called Casablanca group — Algeria, Guinea, Morocco, Egypt, Mali and Libya — as well as those in the Monrovia bloc, after initial disagreements, formed the Organisation of African Unity which has now metamorphosed into the African Union.

Therefore, when then President J.E.A. Mills declared Dr Nkrumah’s birthday a national holiday, many were those who saw it as a fitting honour to his name.  The day has since been marked as a public holiday throughout the country.

The Daily Graphic is of the opinion that four years on, the day appears to be losing its significance, as it is seen merely as a day for merry-making, instead of a day on which the whole nation will reflect on Dr Nkrumah’s ideals — ideals that led to him being named the African of the last millennium.

We recall that Dr Nkrumah, in his Independence Day declaration, had urged all Ghanaians “from now on, today, we must change our attitudes and our minds.  We must realise that from now on we are no longer a colonial but free and independent people”.

For this reason, we must begin to see the Founder’s Day as one that can be more productive.

In an interview with the Daily Graphic, Dr Vladimir Antwi-Danso of the Legon Centre for International Affairs and Diplomacy suggested that the significance of the day made it imperative that we mark it in a more productive way.

We think there is no better way to put it.

What prevents us from organising, for example, a national clean-up exercise or a programme under which all workers will devote half of the day to do voluntary service in the communities in which we live?

What prevents us from organising symposia throughout the country for the youth to learn more about the man whose overthrow turned Ghana’s clock of progress back?

Having seen the need to honour him, we should not make that honour a nine days’ wonder. Let us keep Nkrumah’s dream alive.

We all must change our attitude and approach to doing things for the better.

We live to see a more purposeful celebration of the man who devoted a greater part of his life to the service of the nation.

Daily Graphic/Ghana/Ghana