<<Print>>

Fifty-six years after the country�s independence, the debate over the Founder of Modern Day Ghana still rages on. And one is often-times flooded with different account of events proceeding March, 1957, depending on the political leanings of the speaker. This bitter disagreement between pundits reared its head on Metro TV�s �Good Morning Ghana� on Wednesday, when Nana Akomea, the Director of Communications of the New Patriotic Party (NPP) suggested a meeting by stakeholders, to have an acceptable position on the subject. According to him, the outcome of such a conference would put to an end the controversy over the subject. He also called for a closure on the debate by honouring other persons who have also contributed significantly in Ghana�s struggle for independence, though he admits Dr. Kwame Nkrumah�s role is without doubt prominent. But Managing Editor of the Insight newspaper and a staunch Nkrumaist, Kwesi Pratt Jr. has vehemently opposed the call for a meeting on the history of Ghana because the �history of Ghana is very clear�. ��the history is very clear. The history of Ghana is so clear that there is no dispute about it. Look, the Volta Region was not part of modern Ghana. At a certain part in the nation�s history, the Northern Territories were not part of Ghana. The modern Ghana was put together, piece by piece�. �Now, I want somebody to tell me that the position on the making of the Volta Region part of modern day Ghana was engineered by Danquah or engineered by anybody in the so called �Big Six�. That was an Nkrumah Project. The landmass that we call Ghana today was not Ghana until Nkrumah started putting together these pieces�the man who led the struggle to put together as one country, is none other than Nkrumah. There is no dispute about this. Absolutely no dispute about this,� Mr. Pratt argued. He further debunked the assertion that Kwame Nkrumah, before becoming the first President of modern day Ghana was �virtually a nonentity, who was invited by the leaders of the UGCC and he betrayed them and became a national figure�. Mr. Pratt, in responding to that claim, recounted the extensive work Dr. Kwame Nkrumah had done to help the cause of black liberation in the diaspora. ��one of the most remarkable things about Nkrumah in that period is the fact that (Nkrumah) together with the world�s greatest Pan Africanists ; W.E.B Dubois, George Padmore and others organized the fifth Pan African Congress in Manchester. That was in 1945, three clear years before he joined the UGCC. Nkrumah drafted the resolution of the Manchester Pan African congress, which was adopted by the congress as the manifesto for the struggle for decolonization throughout African,� the senior Journalist maintained. The argument with regards to the real founder of Ghana and contributions of notable figures in the struggle for independence was reignited by a lecture delivered by Hon. Mike Oquaye, former 2nd Deputy Speaker of the Fifth Parliament of the Fourth Republic, during the commemoration of the 21st anniversary celebrations of the New Patriotic Party.