By Iddi Yire
Accra, March 07, GNA – Dr Eric Oduro Osae, the Director-General, Ghana Internal Audit Agency, has urged parents to use the occasions of Ghana’s Independence Day Celebrations to teach their children the nation’s history.
Dr Osae made the appeal in an interview with the Ghana News Agency on the 66th Independence Day Anniversary on the theme “Our Unity, Our Strength, Our Purpose”.
The national event for the Celebration was held in Ho, the Volta Regional Capital.
Dr Osae, who is a Governance and Public Financial Management expert, a Chartered Accountant, and a Lawyer, said: “In fact, if I have my way, I will say that Day, should be a day of no movement of vehicles, it should be a day of tutelage, a day of teaching, a day of history telling; so that children will sit under the feet of their parents for them to tell them the history of this country”.
He noted that like the Israelites normally do, going forward if the Government of Ghana apart from declaring the day as a national holiday, work with the National Commission for Civic Education (NCCE) so that parents would sit their children down to tell them the history of this country – “how great we were and where we are going”.
Adding that Independence Day should be a day when every Ghanaian should understand the political and socio-economic development of Ghana.
He said the national agenda should imbibe in every Ghanaian child the spirit of patriotism, the spirit of handwork, the spirit of honesty and the fact that Ghana belonged to all Ghanaians and that they could build the country by themselves.
He appealed to the Government to support public institutions like the NCCE to be able to tell the Ghanaian story.
“And we should stop calling it Independence Day, we should call it Nationalism Day, which is to rekindle the spirit of nationalism and patriotism among Ghanaians; by that we will be able to go places,” Dr Osae said.
“So I think that it is good we celebrate it.
I think we can modify the celebration so that it will reflect our forward looking attitude as a united people who are poised for development efforts.”
He said as a country, Ghana had come far by way of constitutional democracy; stating that the unity that they enjoyed as a country and the fact that they were all in unison thinking about developing the country.
He said the country had gone pass the stage, where Ghanaians were divided; saying “But the unity we are enjoying today speaks volumes and to the effect that we are able to move the celebration of our Independence Day from one region to the other, attests to the fact that we are bringing governance closer to the people”.
GNA