The Truth Must Stand

It is dishonourable for anybody to distort the truth in order to please a section of the public because that is what they want to hear.

Certainly, everybody is at liberty to comment on issues but it is better to keep quiet over issues that we are not conversant with than to twist and turn facts upside down.

We can understand the emotional pain that Dr Leticia Obeng, the eminent scientist, and Prof. S. K. B. Asante went through at the 40th J. B. Danquah Memorial Lectures when they felt that some records were not right.

Dr Obeng has the right to be upset if anybody suggested that it was only politicians who deserved to be commended in the struggle towards independence and post-independence.

Surely, there had been noble women who played their part in the country's reconstruction, who were not politicians but made their mark in their areas of endeavour.

Any attempt to gloss over the part those people played and deny them their credit would not be doing justice to history and humanity. The roles of Justice Annie Jiagge, Esther Ocloo of Nkulenu Industries and the like can never be erased from the history books.

Equally, Prof. Asante would not accept any claim that until Dr Nkrumah came to the scene nothing was happening in the country's effort at independence and sovereignty.

It is sad that partisan politics is allowed to cloud the thinking of many who decide not to be fair to others because they do not share the same political persuasion.

For instance, it was under the National Democratic Congress (NDC) that the Ghana Education Trust Fund (GETFUND) was set up, even if that was an after-thought, when the desire to increase the Value Added Tax (VAT) failed.

The fund has played enormous role in the educational system and any effort to distort the truth would be unpardonable.

The role of Dr J. B. Danquah in the independence struggle can never be downplayed, as his role is personified in what he once told the Legislative Assembly in 1951:

“I like fighting. I was born fighting and I hope to die fighting in the liberation of Ghana. I know that the odds against me are many — two to 50, if not more — but I am used to that. I have sometimes stood alone against a greater house, and sometimes I win, not on the spur of the moment, but on the day of had I known.”

It is, however, unfortunate that sometimes many intellectuals do not seem to appreciate the tireless effort of that torchbearer of liberty and freedom.

Distortion of facts and of the truth will not stand the test of time. The truth, they say, is like cork in water, it will certainly surface.

As we face the next 50 years, it is important that we all resolve never to twist facts and make what is noble look ugly.