Anti-Nkrumah Agenda On Full Display, As BoG Scraps GHC 2 Notes

The Bank of Ghana in a shocking announcement today, says it will withdraw from circulation the GHC 2 notes that bear the bust of Ghana’s founder, Dr. Kwame Nkrumah. 

In what may have rekindled widely-held suspicion that the Akufo Addo administration is using the central bank to consolidate its alleged agenda to erase the historical significance of Dr. Nkrumah, the move of the plans of the BoG will see the dearth of the only currency note that exclusively carries the bust of Dr. Kwame Nkrumah. 

The others feature him alongside the controversial “Big Six”.

In explaining the rationale for scrapping the “Nkrumah Note”, the Governor of the BoG, Dr. Ernest Addison, during a monetary policy press conference today, (September 27, 2021) claimed that the GH¢2 notes will be replaced by its respective coins because it tends to wear out easily

“Both the GH¢1 note and the GH¢2 note would eventually be phased out because they are not cost-effective in terms of the printing cost…Notes that circulate very widely and they come back very torn and soiled and they are very difficult for our currency processing machines to process them,” the BoG Governor explained in the weirdest way possible. 

He continued: “You will recall that this is a note [GH¢2] that was issued as a commemorative note. So commemorative notes are not notes that you continue to print and therefore what we have done in the last two years, is to introduce the GH¢2 coin and you would expect that eventually, it would more or less play the role that the GH¢2 note is playing.”

It is unclear if the proposed GHC 2 coin will maintain the image of Dr. Nkrumah as critics question the targeting of the GHC 2 notes because it appears to hardly widely use as the other notes and thus could not be the main culprit to currency wear and tear. 

The curious explanation feeds into the posture of the Akufo Addo administration which has been accused of historical revisionism to suppress the fact that the main spearhead that secured Ghana’s independence in 1957 was Dr. Nkrumah.

Earlier in 2018, President Akufo Addo has caused the Jubilee House to issue a statement announcing that it will scrap September 21 Founder’s Day dedicated as a public holiday to mark the birthday of Ghana’s first president, Dr. Nkrumah.

 Instead, the Akufo Addo-led government had proposed August 4th, saying it was a more appropriate date and must thus be referred to as Founders’ Day instead of the earlier version. The attempt seeks to insert the Big Six that included President Akufo Addo’s father Edward Akufo Addo and his uncle, Dr. J.B Danquah.

Dr. Danquah for instance has been cited in many historical records instigating against the planned independence of Ghana by Dr. Kwame Nkrumah. Therefore, history critics argue that he and a few others on the Big Six list being probed by the current Akufo Addo administration do not deserve to be celebrated as founders of Ghana.

September 21 of every year was declared by Ghana’s late President Prof. John Evans Atta Mills in 2009 as Ghana’s Founder’s day and has since been celebrated as observed as a national holiday.