Adu-Boahen lauded for role in nurturing Ghana’s democracy
A veteran journalist, Mr Cameron Duodo, has paid tribute to the late Professor Albert Adu-Boahen for the key role he played in nurturing Ghana’s democracy.
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“The late Prof. Adu-Boahen contributed to Ghana’s democracy despite the threat he faced at the time. The bravery he brought into politics was not the only one; he was extremely courageous when it came to intellectual affairs,” he observed.
Mr Doudo said this when he delivered the keynote address at the 10th anniversary lecture of the Adu-Boahen Foundation in Accra last Tuesday.
The event was organised by the foundation in collaboration with some stakeholders and the family of the late Prof. Adu-Boahen.
A source of inspiration
Mr Duodo said Prof. Adu-Boahen, as a person, was largely inspired by the famous female warrior of the then Ashanti Kingdom, Yaa Asantewaa.
“He inspired a lot of people and when I heard that he had passed on, I sent messages to two newspapers, the Guardian and the Independent in the UK offering to write about him.
“So I had the task of writing about him for the two newspapers. There was so much to write on him,’’ he said.
Contribution to Ghana’s democracy
The presidential candidate of the New Patriotic Party (NPP), Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo, who joined others to pay tribute to the late Prof. Adu-Boahen, gave an account of how Prof. Adu-Boahen contributed to Ghana’s democracy and praised him for the courage he exhibited to strengthen the NPP.
“We are here to celebrate undoubtedly one of the great figures of modern Ghana; a scholar statesman. His influences on our times have been tremendous.
“The free open democratic society that he fought for with such courage and eloquence is today very much at the centre of our national fabric,”he said.
Nana Akufo-Addo said Prof. Adu-Boahen had a lot to “do with where we are today. It has made it possible that within a decade we have witnessed two changes of government from a democratically elected government to another; something which looked inconceivable in the early years of our history.”
Professor Adu-Boahen’s academic work crossed over into politics and in February 1988, he publicly lectured on the history of Ghana from 1972 to 1987.
He was credited with “the breaking of the so-called culture of silence” in the days of the revolution.
In 1990, he co-founded the Movement for Freedom and Justice, and served as its first chairman. The ban on political parties in Ghana was lifted in 1992. In the subsequent 1992 presidential election, Prof. Adu-Boahen became the NPP nominee for President with Roland Issifu Alhassan as his running mate.
Prof. Adu-Boahen lost to Jerry Rawlings, but received 30.4 per cent of the votes. Due to dissatisfaction with alleged ballot rigging in that election, he boycotted the parliamentary election in 1992. He spoke against Marxist history early in his career. Politically, he described himself as “a liberal democrat, a believer in the freedom of the individual, the welfare of the governed, and in private enterprise and the market economy.”
