September 21: Long Live Kwame Nkrumah Memorial Day

September 21, is Kwame Nkrumah Memorial Day courtesy of the instrumentality of President Akufo-Addo through the 8th Parliament of the 4th Republican dispensation of Ghana. Happy Kwame Nkrumah Memorial Day! This is the first time any Ghanaian has been such highly honoured.

While this may be the first time such a unique recognition is being accorded any Ghanaian leader in history, it is NOT the greatest eulogy of Kwame Nkrumah for his seminal contributions to the founding and building of Ghana under the reign of President Akufo-Addo.

The greatest tribute that eulogises a person is not done with lip service but with demonstrable and impacting deeds. The best eulogy lies in a deliberate and diligent mimicking of the celebrated hero.

Thus, President Akufo-Addo like his ideological predecessor, introduced the ubiquitous Free Senior High School (FSHS) to practically push students to stay in the classroom till they are 17 or 18 years and make second-cycle school a part of basic education in Ghana.

Former President Kufuor had also introduced the National Youth Employment Programme to mitigate unemployment, and the National Health Insurance Scheme to offer affordable healthcare for every Ghanaian regardless of their background, thereby, removing any class system in health delivery.

Contrary to claims from certain quarters that President Akufo-Addo sought to reduce Nkrumah in rank or status by the creation of this Memorial Day, I deem it as a worthy celebration of the man, setting him apart from all others, as his real contributions in the founding and history of Ghana depict.

Today, through the diplomatic maneuvering of President Akufo-Addo, Ghana is the headquarters of the African Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA) encompassing most of Africa in fulfilment of Osagyefo Dr. Kwame Nkrumah’s Pan-African dream of an African Common Market.

Today, we have seen Planting for Food and Jobs as a flagship programme under the stewardship of President Akufo-Addo in mimicry of the Osagyefo’s Workers’ Brigade. We have also seen an attempt at the State facilitating 1D1F in an industrial effort, similar to the purely State-led industrialisation under Dr. Nkrumah.

As we mark this day, may claimant Nkrumaists learn that there can be no better way to honour the memory of Nkrumah than to heed his most cherished advice, “organisation decides everything.” Let those who feel slighted that it has been the ideological opponents of Nkrumah who have honoured the man most do the needful, organise to win political power and do what they feel should have been best done.

Till then, may God bless our homeland, Ghana, as we celebrate the colossus of our forebears, Osagyefo Dr. Kwame Nkrumah,  who NEVER claimed he founded Ghana all alone. May we learn from his humility that he had his own errors too as a mere mortal and celebrate him with modesty. He was human after all.

Long live Ghana! Long live.

Long live the undying memory of Osagyefo Dr. Kwame Nkrumah, long live.

Long live the seminal efforts of President Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo, long live.

James Kwabena Bomfeh Jnr., Ph.D. (Development Studies); Nkrumaist and former Ag. General Secretary, CPP.