Maintaining the relevance of Founder’s Day
The ‘Big Six’, comprising Dr Kwame Nkrumah (Ghana's First President), Dr J. B. Danquah, Edward Akufo-Addo, Emmanuel Obetsebi-Lamptey, William Ofori-Atta and Ebenezer Ako-Adjei, leaders of the United Gold Coast Convention (UGCC), a leading political party in the British colony of the Gold Coast at the time, have been cited as the leaders of the country’s independence struggle.
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It is, however, incontrovertible that Dr Nkrumah championed the independence of the country and went on to become not only its first Prime Minister but also the first President of independent and sovereign Ghana.
It is to recognise Dr Nkrumah’s work that September 21 is set aside as Founder’s Day in Ghana and observed as a statutory public holiday each year. The day falls on the birthday of the first President.
The Daily Graphic lauds the government for recognising Dr Nkrumah’s sacrifices and his fight for our liberation.
Indeed, if today we are recognised among the comity of states as a sovereign and independent nation, we owe it all to Dr Nkrumah and the other members of the Big Six.
That notwithstanding, we believe that if we are to make the day continue to have its relevance, then we have a duty to ensure we also champion what Dr Nkrumah stood for.
He stood for infrastructural development, education, agriculture, industrialisation, self-worth, excellence, self-reliance, hard and quality work, productivity, among other qualities that made not only Ghanaians but Africans to be respected globally.
Therefore, if we are celebrating him, we need to look at what he stood for and see if we are pursuing same, else Founder’s Day is just a waste of time and not worth celebrating.
Unfortunately, however, all the factories, numbering about 300, that were built under Dr Nkrumah’s watch have been allowed to collapse, forcing Ghanaians to largely depend on foreign imports for most of their needs.
Among the industries that have collapsed or become desolate are the Tema Food Complex, the State Construction Corporation (SCC), State Fisheries, the Takoradi Paper Mill, the Tema Flour Mills and the Glass Factory at Aboso.
The Tema Motorway, the industrial city of Tema itself and other landmark projects are all in shambles and have left us all the poorer as a nation.
If we must celebrate Founder’s Day with meaning and relish, we should be able to follow after Dr Nkrumah’s ideals by developing our own industries and revamping the ailing ones to stop our over-reliance on imports.
It is worthy of note that the Komenda Sugar Factory and the shoe factory in Kumasi are back, but efforts to get their products on the market are slow.
Let us bring back the dead industries and create employment and wealth that we can share among ourselves as a nation. Then and only then will celebrating Founder’s Day be worth the while.
