“Prior to the Day of Independence 61 years ago, our founding parents took three significant decisions to perpetually guide and inspire the birth, growth, and development of our dear nation.
“Our founding parents had the option to choose a date for our independence, a name, and motto for our new nation.
“They chose March 6, 1957, the name Ghana, Freedom and Justice as our motto specifically to reverse the vestiges of colonization that would retard our development and progress in realization that as builders of ancient civilizations and empires like Ghana and Egypt. It is within us to do it again if we did it before.
Professor Edmund N. Delle, CPP Chairman stated in a statement issued to the media in Accra on Monday.
The statement said “The Bond of 1844, which first planted the British colonization project was signed on 6th of March and the land area the British grabbed at the time was euphemistically named the Gold Coast protectorate.
“Independence Day on the 6th of March was chosen therefore to supplant the glory and industrious splendor of Ancient Ghana over the blight of British colonialism.
“As we use the occasion of the 61st anniversary of independence to pay tribute to our founding parents, what must be recalled here is that the Europeans built
their forts and castles mostly on the grounds of our spiritual groves in order to supplant their Christian faith over our own faith.â€
According to the statement, it was the enslavement of the mind effected through the repeated abuse of your sense of spirituality that turns you into a surviving captive or zombie of the “colonial masterâ€.
To the CPP, March 6 is a day of solemn reflection over what is in a name. Why did our founding parents choose the name Ghana to supplant British Gold Coast? What is in a name?
“Our founding parents therefore gave us the name Ghana for a reason. The name Ghana is to inspire us to establish and manage a statecraft of law and order and equal opportunity for Freedom and Justice to prevail.
“Without Freedom and Justice; development and progress is forestalledâ€.
Sixty-one years after independence, the corruption of our economic, social, political and spiritual system by imperialism and colonialism continues to hamper our growth and development, the statement said.
“Our executive, legislative, judiciary, military, police, intelligence, civil service, educational and spiritual system and structures are a gaping caricature of European and American value and spiritual systems still serving well the purposes of the colonial master.
“We have allowed ourselves to be cloned in servitude and in tranquillity to the colonial master against the hopes of our founding parents. We have invariably become the purveyors of mimicking and mediocrity putting to shame the African Personality designs and promises of our founding parents, who sought to rekindle our souls for our future safety and development,†the statement said.
The CPP statement said, “our independent path is strewn with landmines of bedeviling corruption, threatening and destabilizing every move we make to ascertain a united Africa in our collective self-interest.
“Our independence is meaningless unless it is linked up with the total eradication of corruption and its attendant injustice, inequality, discrimination, marginalization and povertyâ€.
The statement said in Ancient Ghana, the sword of justice cut right, left and centre, without prejudice. “Ghanaians are tired of succeeding governments paying lip service to the task of tackling corruption in all areas of our national life.
“To save Ghana now, the sword of justice must act and cut to remove the cancer of corruption and underdevelopment.
“Our name Ghana demands of us a corruption-free and disciplined society where if you dropped your sack of gold at any part, you will return to fetch the sack of gold from the very spot where you dropped it, as it was in Glorious Ancient Ghana.
“Or, the sack of gold would be taken and deposited at nearby Police Station for the rightful owner to claim, as it was in Glorious Ancient Ghana.
“To our founding parents we, the Convention People’s Party, pay tribute to rekindle their hopes of a prosperous secular society anchored on Freedom and Justice,†the CPP statement said.