Gabby Otchere-Darko, a New Patriotic Party (NPP) member, has contested that Dr. Kwame Nkrumah was the only person who founded Ghana, claiming that several leaders worked together to bring the nation to freedom.
While acknowledging Nkrumah‘s important contribution to Ghana’s independence movement, Mr. Otchere-Darko stressed in a recent interview on Channel One TV that he was not the only one who designed the country’s liberation.
He cited the United Gold Coast Convention (UGCC) members J.B. Danquah, Paa Grant, and others as having played a crucial role in the independence movement prior to Nkrumah’s involvement.
“You can’t take it from Nkrumah, he knew how to charge, organise and mobilise people. But it does not make him the Founder. He was one of many. The struggles started even before the J.B. Danquahs, and Paa Grants, so I don’t know why we want to give him the credit as the founder.
“Even Nkrumah after all the work he did, what name did he settle on? Ghana, who proposed the name? It wasn’t him. It’s a tiring argument, I’m not interested in it,” the private legal practitioner asserted.
He further argued that even Nkrumah himself did not choose the name “Ghana,” a point often overlooked in discussions about the country’s founding.
“If people want to believe that Nkrumah was the only person who founded Ghana, please let them believe it. And those of us who don’t believe so, and still will give Nkrumah his credit, his due, for being a mobiliser and a driver who agitated the minds, perhaps more than the others because of his populist stance.
“Because of his connectivity with the people, we give him that credit, but I will not say that Nkrumah founded Ghana,” Mr Otchere-Darko pointed out.
Following President Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo’s August 3 2024 Founders’ Day speech, Mr. Otchere-Darko made his observations. The president also refuted that Ghana was created by a single person. The president’s remarks have spurred a wider discussion among Ghanaians over the real causes of their nation’s independence.
