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Former National Youth Organizer of the Convention People’s Party (NPP), James Kwabena Bomfeh has admitted that the death of Dr. Joseph Boakye Danquah, a founding member of United Gold Coast Convention was a regrettable event in the history of CPP.

One of Ghana’s foremost statesmen, JB Danquah, as he was affectionately called, died on February 4, 1965 after being detained without trial by the Convention People’s Party (CPP) government led by Ghana’s first President, Osagyefo Dr. Kwame Nkrumah.

Dr. Danquah a politician, lawyer, journalist, poet, historian and philosopher who is referred to by many as a ‘great light’ and ‘the flower of West African scholarship,’ died some 50 years ago in a condemned cell No. 9 at the Nsawam Prisons.

He was first detained under the Preventive Detention Act (PDA) on October 3, 1961 and released on June 22, 1962. On 8 January 1964, Dr. Danquah was again arrested, detained and died, having suffered a heart attack.

According to extracts from the report of the Commission of Enquiry into Ghana Prisons, 1967-1968, “The life of Dr. JB Danquah in the cells was regimented in the same manner as that of a condemned prisoner awaiting execution … his cell was subjected to frequent rigid searches.”

But reacting to the incident on Okay FM’s "Ade Akye Abia" Morning Show, Kwabena Bomfeh said the death of J.B Danquah in prison is one of the most painful events in the political history of the Convention People’s Party (CPP).

He however urged CPP and NPP to set their priorities right about Ghana, as Dr. Kwame Nkrumah and Dr. J.B Danquah are dead and that it is “needless” and “useless” for both parties to devote time yearly to run each down while the country remains unproductive under President Mahama and the NDC government.

He maintained that the focus of the New Patriotic Party should rather be on how President John Dramani Mahama is abusing the democracy they think J.B Danquah championed; adding that people should grow in politics and learn to appreciate that history cannot be unlived.