The essays in this VISIONS series, The Kwame NKrumah Legacy Project, are the work of individuals who believe that the Unitary Vision espoused and promoted by Ghana's first President, Dr. Kwame Nkrumah, are the essence of Ghana as Nation, and what Ghana (and Africa) can be. These individuals recognize that the international stature and significance of Dr. Nkrumah are completely secure, a point found in many of the essays. However, within Ghana itself, some people do not have reliable information about the Founder of Ghana, Dr. Nkrumah, due to the wanton destruction of heritage records of all sorts and massive misinformation after the CIA-sponsored coup d'état that toppled Nkrumah's CPP at the hands of the Dr. Kofi Busia directed NLM and NLC military regime, in 1966. These essays are an attempt to provide more objective Ghana-centered information about all those records. Some of the essays may have been previously published on other platforms/media. Further, these essays are not the work of reporters and so, readers may find some errors in grammar, diction, spelling. For a Ghana-centered publication where English is not native, we do not fret those imperfections. We believe more in substance, in context, and in the development of the masses and their resources for their own benefit right here on the land, on earth, as Dr. Nkrumah envisioned through his many publications, speeches, and the numerous institutions and physical infrastructure he bequeathed Ghana. Thanks for your interest in VISIONS/The Kwame Nkrumah Legacy Project. Long Live Kwame Nkrumah's Ghana! (In This Volume): Date Comment No Title Name of Author Published Kwame Nkrumah_ The ONE and Dr. Kwame Botwe- 7 Mar 14 1 ONLY Founding Father of Ghana - Asamoah Part I Kwame Nkrumah_ The ONE and Dr. Kwame Botwe- 8 Mar 14 2 ONLY Founding Father of Ghana - Asamoah Part II www.GhanaHero.com\Visions 4/6/2015 Kwame Nkrumah: The ONE and ONLY Founding Father of Ghana ­ Part I LATEST: 1 Billion Africa Embarks On Another Edit­ Home Radio Ghana Contact Search Mahama Is A Stubborn Character ­ Jj Rawlings News Sports Africa World Opinions Politics Business Diaspora LifeStyle Entertainment Real Estate Classifieds Media Members Blogs Columnists Featured Articles Opinions Editorial Polls & Surveys Listen to music while browsing Feature Article | 7 March 2014 00:30 CET 0 Comment Follow Us Kwame Nkrumah: The ONE and ONLY Founding If you want to forgive others, forgive yourself Father of Ghana ­ Part I ...2014 Independence Day Special first. By: SA Sarkodie By Kwame Botwe­Asamoah, Dr. Previous | Next More Quotes | Submit Quote Introduction. That Kwame Nkrumah is the founder of modern Ghana is not debatable; yet, there are still some guilty and misguided individuals among us who would clothe themselves in an oblong missile and blast it from Mars into a fortified round hole. Since the late President Arthur Mills declared Kwame Nkrumah’s birthday as a statutory Founder’s Day in Ghana, certain resentful, misguided and ill­informed individuals have been blowing their shattered trumpets from Mars about their so­called “founding fathers” by way of distorting and turning Ghana’s political history upside down. So far, they have failed to provide any cogent argument/s to underscore their hodgepodge position. By their imprudent logic, all leaders of the anti­European intruders, anti­Gold Coast Crown colony, pro­self­government Fante confederation, anti­AWAM (European merchants), anti­ draconian indirect rule, cocoa hold­up, as well as ethnocentric, terrorist and secessionist crusaders, Popular Hot News Shared from 1482 to March 6, 1957, are “founding fathers.” But going by the American benchmark, “Founding Fathers,” refers to a group of individuals (men) with shared political philosophy and ideology, vision and socio­economic values, who struggle, revolt, and/or fight together to overthrow their foreign overlord to Will President­elect Muhammadu Buhar found a nation based on a constitution. In the case of Ghana, can the so­called “founders fathers” meet The Jamaican Akan Root this criterion? Aside from their sabotaging and domestic terrorist tactics (including bombing, shooting, Who Is Who! Ghana Or Nigeria? and hunting down supporters of the CPP), parochial objectives and secessionist goals, none of the Katakyie To Contest Bekwai Npp Parli A Tale Of Three Presidents: Lbj, Gej names that often pop up played any role, identified or associated themselves with Kwame Nkrumah and Welcome Buhari, The Game Changer his CPP’s political ideology, Pan­African vision, strategy and tactics, which galvanized the common Tithing Was Under And Is Under The L people and some “chiefs” to rally behind Kwame Nkrumah’s struggle for a unified country from 1949 to One Down, Ninety­nine To Go! the 1954 and 1956 general elections. It was consequent to the victory of Nkrumah and his CPP (the first Police Arrests A Christian Man For G and only political party in all the four independent territories under the British colonial administration) in Men Of African Descent And Prostate the 1956 general election that modern Ghana was founded on March 6, 1957. As the subsequent discourse shows, not only did the champions of barefaced ethnocentrism, parochialism and secessionism ferociously try to sabotage Ghana’s independence, but they also oppose the name, Ghana, when Kwame Nkrumah proposed it. So, why are they “Founding Fathers?” Origin of the UGCC. In the aftermath of the so­called World War II and the collapsed of the British economy, the British colonial government limited import and export licenses to the Association of West African (Europeans) Merchants (AWAM). Feeling marginalized, some of the African merchants led by George Paa Grant (a wealthy Sekondi merchant), Awoonor­Williams (a Sekondi­based lawyer) and others formed the Gold Coast League as a pressure group to advance their economic and political interest. Concurrently, the upshot of Dr. J. B. Danquah’s connection with the ritual murder of Odikro of Akyea Mensah of Apedwa brought him (Danquah) into conflict with Governor Allen Burns. As a result, J. B. Danquah, Erick Akufo Addo, Ako Adjei and others in Accra formed the Gold Coast National Party to oppose the Burns Constitution. The irony here is that in Governor Burns’ constitutional reform in the late 1930s, Dr. J. B. Danquah pressed for the creation of an Office of Minister of Home Affairs for himself. As well, Dr. Danquah had wholeheartedly embraced the Burns Constitution by representing the Joint Provincial Council of Chiefs in the Burns Legislative Council in 1946. http://www.modernghana.com/news/527715/1/kwame­nkrumah­the­one­and­only­founding­father­of­.html 1/5 4/6/2015 Kwame Nkrumah: The ONE and ONLY Founding Father of Ghana ­ Part I Dr. J. B. Danquah’s personal contradictory positions notwithstanding, the economic and political interest of these two pressure groups resulted in a marriage of convenience and became the United Gold Coast Convention in Saltpond in August 1947, under the leadership of George Paa Grant. The main objective of this self­selected “Gentlemen’s Club,” comprising lawyers, merchant, wealthy cocoa farmers, and other similar­minded individuals was to advance their economic and political interest through political power sharing with the Colonial Government. Most critical was their call for the replacement of Chiefs on the Legislative Council with educated persons. The important thing to note here is that the UGCC was a loose, [Gentlemen’s Club] without program of action, funds and bank account. Because of its self­appointed mandate, the UGCC avoided designating itself as a political party; thus, seeing themselves as “rightful rulers,” its original initiators detested the idea of political parties. Secondly, as bourgeoisies, they took politics to be a leisure activity. Their elitist outlook also prevented them from reconciling themselves with the people. Hence, they needed Nkrumah’s kind of leadership and organizational skills to bring some of the “chiefs” and people into their fold, and turn the UGGC into a popular movement to oppose and upset the Burns Constitution. The big question, however, is, if the UGCC was truly a “movement struggling for independence (as some apologists have claimed), why did its initiators not give up their private business and professional endeavors as Vladimir Lenin, Nelson Mandela, Augustino Neto, Mahatma Gandhi and others did, rather than search for another citizen (Nkrumah) outside the territory with special leadership and organizational skills to become its general secretary? Kwame Nkrumah as the Antidote to the UGCC Handicaps. Ako Adjei, who recommended Kwame Nkrumah as the antidote to the UGCC’s inadequacies, knew about Nkrumah’s anti­colonial crusade and Union of West African States agitation in the US, as well as $153.12 his unique organizational kills and leadership roles during and after the 5th Pan­African Congress in Manchester. To test the waters, Ako Adjei wrote to ask Nkrumah if he would consider returning to the Shop Now country to become the General Secretary of a newly formed UGCC. Without waiting for his response, Awoonor­Williams wrote a letter, and signed by Paa Grant, to Nkrumah, offering him the job of General Secretary, a monthly salary of one hundred pounds and a car. Dr. J.B. Danquah followed it up his letter urging him to accept the position. So, who was the “opportunist” here, as some functional illiterates and boorish individuals try to impute in their hoaxed writings? Clearly, they wanted to use Nkrumah to attain their selfish goal, namely to replace the “Chiefs” on the Legislative Council with themselves, self­styled elites. The Mightiest Tree Is Rumoured To H The fact is Nkrumah initially was reluctant to accept the offer as he perceived the UGCC members to be Wednesday, March 25, 2015 “bourgeois reactionaries” enamored in capitalist ideology and philosophy.