Kufuor must not disgrace us-Insight

The Insight newspaper is urging President Kufuor to reject any attempt by his host, Queen Elizabeth II of England to knight him.

According to the paper, there are rumours President Kufuor could be knighted by the Queen, but should he accept the coronation, it could become 'the biggest insult to the people of Ghana and Africa.”

“If the Knighthood is conferred on our President, he will officially become the Obedient Servant of the Queen and the British Empire”, according to the Insight.

President Kufuor is currently on a three-day visit to the United Kingdom at the invitation of the Queen, Elizabeth II.

The paper said the coronation will clearly be a negation of the ideals of the independence movement and a huge insult to the stalwarts of African independence like Osagyefo Dr. Kwame Nkrumah, Nelson Mandela, Julius Nyerere and Dedan Kimathi.

“It would be inconceivable that 50 years after gaining independence and 47 years after becoming a Republic, Ghana's Head of State would accept an “honour which makes him the Obedient Servant of another Head of State, the Queen of England.

“Whiles clicking champagne glasses, Mr. Kufuor must not forget that his hosts and hostesses would be the very same people who described Nelson Mandela and his African National Congress (ANC) as terrorists.

“They would be the same people who plotted day and night with the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) of the US to overthrow the Nkrumah Government and return Ghana to a new era of neo-colonial dependency.”

The paper said President Kufuor cannot afford to forget that his hosts and hostesses were the very political and military forces which supported apartheid and conspired with Mobutu Sese Sekou to assassinate the Congolese nationalist leader, Patrice Lumumba.

The Insight cites a dispatch sent to the British Government and its secret services by its High Commissioner in Accra, A.W. Snelling in 1961 as saying “His (Nkrumah's) knack of giving expression to the feelings of so many Africans, who are all the time rapidly becoming more politically conscious is exasperating…we shall be better off without him” as prove that they were linked with Nkrumah's overthrow.

The paper also asserts that President Kufuor comes from a political tradition which conspired with imperialism to subvert the Nkrumah Government, “However as the man who just presided over the celebration of the 50th Anniversary of Ghana's independence, Mr. Kufuor has a duty to defend the ideals of the independence movement.

“He cannot accept Knighthood from the Queen of England.

“Our President cannot be the Obedient Servant of another Head of State.