By Ebi Kesiena
President Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo has stressed the need for Ghanaians to guard the country’s unity and peaceful-coexistence.
He said Ghanaians cannot afford to allow individuals who seek to divide the country along the lines of ethnicity and religion to succeed.
Speaking at the 66th Independence Day celebration in the Volta Regional capital, Ho, on Monday, President Akufo-Addo said “the greatest achievement of our independence is the fact that we have welded different ethnic entities into one nation.”
He added, although the “Gold Coast was the precursor to our independent Ghana, it was a collection of disparate groups. It was the attainment of independence that gave us our common identity as Ghanaians.”
He said the country’s forefathers were united and strengthened in realising one common purpose the attainment of independence.
The 66th Independence Day celebration was held on the theme: “Our unity, our strength, our purpose.”
For him, Ghana’s forefathers were able to gain independence due to the fact that they were united in spirit and did not care about ethnicity or religion.
“It did not matter where they came from; it did not matter which tribe they belonged to; it did not matter which religious persuasion they subscribed to; and their standing in society certainly did not matter. They recognised the fact that colonialism did not inure to our nation’s collective benefit, and they were determined to end it. And, indeed, they did,” President Akufo-Addo explained.
He said it was time for the present generation to work to maintain the sanity of the country and ensure its progress, noting that “we should continue to work to improve accountability, efficiency and transparency in the delivery of public services.”
He said it was also important to continue with the process of digitalization, urging Ghanaians to fight the menace of illegal miming.
“We should continue the difficult but necessary task of ridding our environment of the menace of galamsey; and we should continue to pay our taxes, and demand that our leaders put them to good use,” President Akufo-Addo noted.
