The Convention Peoples Party (CPP) has called on Ghanaians to resist an alleged attempt by President Akufo-Addo and the ruling New Patriotic Party (NPP) to rewrite the history of Ghana.
President Akufo-Addo sparked controversy when he stated that his Uncle Dr J.B Danquah was the Founder of the nation’s premier university, the University of Ghana.
According to President Akufo-Addo, the vision of the late J.B Danquah inspired the British colonialists to build the University hence can be credited as the founder of the University.
The president told an audience at the launch of an Endowment Fund to commemorate the school’s 70th anniversary that: “It will be wholly appropriate and not at all far-fetched to describe Joseph Boakye Danquah as the founder of this University.”
“How felicitous was that decision and how greatly it has contributed to the growth of modern Ghana, it will be wholly appropriate and not at all far-fetched to describe Joseph Boakye Danquah as the founder of this University…. The fact which on the 70th anniversary of the university’s existence should be vividly recalled that all of us are the beneficiaries of his work,” Akufo-Addo said.
The comments have fueled speculations that the President will rename the oldest university after his Uncle as part of an agenda to restore the legacy of Dr J.B Danquah who’s is referred to as the Doyen of Ghana’s politics.
Speaking to Starr News, the Communications Director of the CPP, Rauf Kadiri said the attempt by the President to alter the country’s history will fail.
“The President can do whatever he wants to do with his parliamentary majority and then his executive powers it will only be challenged. But the historians of this country, people that really knows the history of this country knows that most of the arguments that the President and his party have made concerning the formation of this country and the formation of the University of Ghana and what have you do not support the facts, that’s our position. In the end, it is always the truth that wins.
“Everybody knows the role that Dr J.B Danquah played in the history of this country, we cannot minimize the role that he’s played. If a certain power is going to be arrogated to him, we recognize that he’s a respected statesman, but for you to give him some title he never worked for is just like making him gathered where he’s not scattered and that will undermine the history of this country.
So Ghanaians should stand up in their thousands and millions and resist this agenda of the President.”
ghanaguardian
