President Akufo-Addo has praised the Volta Region for producing arguably great national assets who have contributed to making Ghana a beacon of hope and democracy in Africa and world.
President Akufo-Addo made these known while speaking at the 66th Independence Day Anniversary celebration at Adaklu in the Volta Region on Monday.
Addressing the gathering, President Akufo-Addo said "Ladies and Gentlemen, this is the part of Ghana that has produced, arguably, the nation’s two greatest composers, Ephraim Amu, composer of that great anthem, Mia denyigba lorlor la (Yen ara asase ni), who taught us to take pride in our culture, and Phillip Gbeho, composer of Ghana’s vibrant and much loved national anthem"
"Daniel Chapman Nyaho, one of Ghana’s most eminent administrators who, at independence, helped ensure a seamless transition when the British left; the Reverend Ametorwobla, that powerful orator who proved you could be both a priest and a politician"
"...and Esther Ocloo, née Nkulenu, trail-blazer and industrialist extraordinaire, whose entrepreneurial spirit lives on"
President Akufo-Addo added that Volta Region is the part of Ghana that also gave the country, Komla Agbeli Gbedemah, Ghana’s first Minister for Finance and one of the founding fathers of the nation.
"...and the charismatic Jerry John Rawlings, first president of the Fourth Republic and Ghana’s longest serving head of state"
He noted that the greatest achievement of Ghana’s independence is the fact that its people have welded different ethnic entities into one nation.
He stressed that although the Gold Coast was the precursor to its independent Ghana, it was a collection of disparate groups.
"It was the attainment of independence that gave us our common identity as Ghanaians."
"An important historical fact is that, of all the different peoples that have formed our modern nation, it was only the people of the Volta, Oti and part of the current Northern Regions who had the unique opportunity to choose to join the territory that became Ghana at independence"
"I am referring, of course, to the 1956 plebiscite in which, on May 9th of that year, the people of the then British Togoland voted to join the Gold Coast on the attainment of her independence a year later"
"Without that significant historical event, we would not have Ghana as we know it today"
"Today, we celebrate the anniversary of the day we achieved the enviable status of becoming the first country in sub-saharan Africa to be free of colonial rule, and, with this, came the weighty obligation to serve permanently as a barometer of the continent's progress"
Story by: Joshua Kwabena Smith
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