We were not sleeping when Nkrumah came – Nana Addo

President Akufo Addo has fired back at critics who condemned him for his claims that Ghana’s first President was not the founder of the country.

In a broadcast on last week Saturday, the President had dismissed the notion that the country was founded by Dr. Nkrumah arguing that no single man founded Ghana.

“I speak to you this evening, rejecting completely, the notion that Ghana was founded by one man. While Kwame Nkrumah’s contributions to our independence are undeniable, it is important to acknowledge for ourselves that respect that the struggle for our nation’s freedom was a collective effort spanning several generations,” the President had stated.

But his comments have been sharply rebuked by many including the CPP which issued a statement condemning the President for the statements.

“The whole world knows who the Osagyefo is, and that he founded this country and named it Ghana, after the old Ghana Empire, on the eve of our independence of 6th March 1957. This was after countless attempts were made by the antecedents of the NPP, made up of Dr. J.B. Danquah and other elements of the UP tradition, to stop Ghana from gaining independence”, the party stated.

However, in a reply to his critics when he hosted some senior citizens in Accra yesterday to commemorate Founders’ Day, President Akufo Addo said, Ghanaians were not asleep when the Dr. Kwame Nkrumah returned to the country on the invitation of the UGCC.

“I am aware that some Ghanaians who question my commitment to 4^th August as Founders’ Day believe that we were all asleep in Ghana when Nkrumah until the arrival of Kwame Nkrumah and the CPP,” he stated. The president said, such people tend to think that the entire country was doing nothing until Dr. Kwame Nkrumah arrived in the country to lead the country’s struggle for independence.