General News of Tuesday, 12 December 2017
Source: AdomOline.com
2017-12-12
Former President John Agyekum Kufuor
Former President John Agyekum Kufuor has responded to allegations leveled against him by Former President Jerry John Rawlings that he demeaned the legacy of Ghana’s first President, Dr. Kwame Nkrumah during his reign.
Ex-President Jerry John Rawlings slammed ex-President J.A Kufuor and his successors for demeaning the legacy of Ghana’s first President Dr Kwame Nkrumah legacy by desecrating his graveyard.
According to him, ex-President Kufour during his reign supervised the terrible handling of the Kwame Nkrumah Mausoleum in Accra which is a tourist attraction.
“Many years later when Dr Kwame Nkrumah’s wife, Fathia Nkrumah also died former President Kufuor laid her coffin in the same dugout where Nkrumah had been buried and he feigned to have been mourning her and we all fell for it and joined in the mourning without handkerchiefs wiping our tears. From that moment, that National Monument to honour that man became a family graveyard. Do you see how his grave was desecrated?
He added: “Ex-Presidents Mills and Mahama claim they’re Nkrumahists, you have chopped into the man’s name. All these were done before your eyes while in power and they didn’t see? The compound is big, you could have dug a hundred and one holes and put Madam Fathia also there. Build a three-story building there, you did not have to do that under the same monument under which Dr Kwame Nkrumah was,” Ex-President Rawlings fumed.
Reacting to the issue, spokesperson for the former President, Frank Agyekum said his boss did not err in granting the last wish of dying Nkrumah’s wife, Fathia Nkrumah.
He said the late Fathia presented her wish to President Kufuor during one of his visits in Egypt that she should be buried beside her husband.
Mr. Agyekum said knowing the unsympathetic nature of Jerry Rawlings; it would not be a surprise that he would turn down Fathia’s request.
