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President Nana Akufo Addo has said he has always sparked controversy in his political life because he’s never been a dull politician.

According to him, over 30 years of actively engaging in politics, anytime he speaks his pronouncements have continuously caused debate among a large section of Ghanaians.

The President made the comments while addressing an audience at the Ghana Unity Ball 2017 on Thursday March 9, in reaction to claims by his critics that he skewed Ghana’s history about the struggle for independence.

In his speech during Ghana’s 60th independence anniversary on 6 March, Nana Akufo-Addo said the UGCC, forebears of his current party, NPP, “met to demand independence from the British and 70 years after that event, one still marvels at the clarity of thought and the passion that they displayed.”

“Some of the names of that momentous day have survived in our written history and folk memory. Five of them are on our Ghanaian currency: Joseph Boakye Danquah; Emmanuel Obetsebi-Lamptey; William Ofori-Atta; Ebenezer Ako-Adjei; and Edward Akufo-Addo. Kwame Nkrumah, the sixth of the Big Six on the currency, was to join them later,” the President, who is the son of Edward Akufo-Addo and nephew to J.B Danquah, narrated.

He said, the struggle for independence started in 1844 and was only capped by the efforts of several others in 1957.

But the Convention People’s Party (CPP), founded by Ghana’s first President Kwame Nkrumah, however, has taken offence at President Akufo-Addo’s account of events and accused him of misrepresenting Ghana’s history to placate his father, uncle and the UP political tradition.

In a response to his critics, President Akufo-Addo said: “This has been a very strange week. On Monday, I made a speech to the country which I tried to speak about how we became Ghana. And like everything I say, it’s ended up in controversy. But that is how it should be. A politician who doesn’t generate controversy is a dull politician.

“The amusing part of it is that the people who did not live through the independence era, young people who came much after, claim that I distorted the history of Ghana and belittled the role of Kwame Nkrumah. The one man there who actually lived through the era, [who] was here in Ghana at the time, embraced me as having enhanced the image of Kwame Nkrumah. And that tells you everything about Ghanaian politics. That is President Mugabe. He gave me a big hug.”