NDC supporting Founder's Day for political gain - Samia
The daughter of Ghana’s first President, Ms Samia Yaba Nkrumah, has accused the opposition National Democratic Congress (NDC) of advocating for the preservation of September 21 as Founder’s Day, only to score political points.
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The NDC government in 2009, set aside September 21, which is Dr Kwame Nkrumah’s birthday to celebrate him as a founder of Ghana.
There have been debates with some arguing that Nkrumah is not the only founder of Ghana.
President Akufo Addo last Monday issued an executive instrument to rename September 21 Nkrumah Memorial Day and also proposed a legislation to mark August 4 as Founders Day.
But the main opposition party, the NDC has indicated the proposed legislation when passed by Parliament will be reversed if the NDC comes to power insisting that the August 4 date is an attempt by the New Patriotic Party to distort history.
Others supporting the NDC's argument hold the view that the August 4 move is meant to side line Dr Nkrumah and rather promote the establishment of the United Gold Coast Convention (UGCC), a political party of which the NPP is believed to have originated from.
But reacting to the debate, Ms Yaba Nkrumah said: “You have to come to [the] conclusion that they are doing it for political gain, to score cheap political points, not because they believe in the man’s policies. If they believe in his policies, why didn’t they implement them?” she questioned.
Ms Nkrumah, who was a former Chairperson of the Convention People’s Party, questioned, in a radio interview with Accra based Joy FM: “What is the use of shouting ‘founder, founder’ and [you] go and implement policies that are contrary to the man’s ideas?”
She said the NDC superintended over an act of divestiture of state assets as well as privatisation of several state assets and “sometimes selling them to ourselves unproductively and that cannot be an Nkrumahist policy”.
She said the leaders of the country have allowed the country to be under the dictates of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and submitting citizens to hardships as well as allowing big multinational companies to control the country’s seed markets.
To her these are contrary to what Dr Nkrumah stood for.