Socialist Forum launches 50th anniversary of “Ghana’s Day of Shame”
Mr Kwesi Pratt Jnr, a member of the Socialist Forum of Ghana, has said the annual commemoration of “Ghana’s Day of Shame” seeks to provide Ghanaians with an important perspective on the country’s history.
“We have sought to ensure that the current generation and especially the youth, and working people understand the damage that global imperialism has caused to our society,” he said at a press conference in Accra to launch the commemoration of the 50th anniversary of Ghana’s Day of Shame”.
The anniversary seeks to highlight the overthrow by the US Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) and their local agents, of the democratically elected government of Osagyefo Dr Kwame Nkrumah, Ghana’s first president who led the wrestle for independence from the British colonial government.
“We seek also to remind our generation about our history and achievements under the revolutionary leadership provided by the Osagyefo”, Mr Pratt Jnr said.
He said in the two generations, since the tragic events of February 24, 1966, the Ghanaian society has been on the decline.
“Our production base – agricultural diversity and industrial productivity, and their integration – have declined, we have reverted to dependence on the exports of primary commodities in exchange for the importation of industrially finished products under increasingly unfavourable terms of trade,’’ Mr Pratt Jnr said.
“Since Ghana’s Day of Shame, our leaders’ confidence in our ability to solve our problems has collapsed, and management of our affairs has been ceded to the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the World Bank”, he said.
Our leaders, he said, instead of leading the country to sacrifice and invest in our future, have for decades taken perverse pride in how much they are able to borrow to fund our elite’s unsustainable consumption of foreign goods and services”.
Mr Pratt said 50 years after Ghana’s Day of Shame, the need for a socialist re-organisation of the society along the lines developed by Osagyefo has never been more urgent.
He said this year’s anniversary would witness the organisation of seminars on relevant topics such as: “Trade Unions, Nkrumah and National Development”, “National Security Implications of the 1966 coup”, “Impact of the 1966 Coup on the Empowerment of the Women and Women’s Organisation”, “Arts and Cultural Dimensions of the 1966 coup”, and Youth: The Politics of Transformation and Nkrumahism”.
He said these seminars would take place from February 17 to 23, 2016, and on February 24, 2016, the Socialist Forum Ghana would organise a grand symposium on the broad theme “Ghana’s Day of Shame, 50 years on-Addressing Ghana’s Developmental Challenges”.
Source: GNA