When Heroes Aren’t So Heroic

In the history of the world, there are so many people who have contributed so much to where the world is today. Likewise, in the history of every country, we have some people who stand out when it comes to the history of the country. As much as we have those who did good for our counties and the world at large, we equally have those who we don’t talk about because they didn’t really do much good for us.

Growing up, in my social studies class in primary and high school, we studied a topic on colonization and independence of Ghana where we took a look at the history of Ghana and how we gained independence. During these session, we spoke about everyone involved in how far we have come today as a country. Generally, we call them our forefathers and as usual, everyone knows of Kwame Nkrumah we led Ghana to independence. But then, he didn’t do this alone. There were people who helped him in this cause. We have the big six and some other people we don’t really hear much of. Aside Ghana’s independence, we also have people - in our local settings- who also contributed to Ghanaian history in one way or the other.

As a way to honor these forefathers of ours who toiled hard for our country, the country decided to name some schools and other organizations after them. For others, we have statues and monuments to honor them for their sacrifices. Recently, there has been this argument on the internet where Kwame Nkrumahs grand some spoke about why Ghanaians main airport -Kotoka international airport- wasn’t named after his grandfather but rather after the person who overthrew him - Lieutenant General Emmanuel Kwadwo Kotoka. I didn’t know about this side of history and it came as a shock to me to know about this. Well, maybe I did, but this wasn’t one of the major things we speak about when we talk about Ghanaian history.

To make things worse, people also took to Sofia media to speak on this issue. When I saw it, I didn’t really give it much thought because even though Kotoka overthrew Nkrumah, he did it for a reason. This doesn’t make him an entirely bad person. I’d say he did what he had to do. In this life, is easy for us to quickly judge others without really putting ourselves in our shoes. With the issue of the airport , we have a whole Museum solely to preserve the history of Kwame Nkrumah. This isn’t to say he was a perfect person as no one is perfect. I’m sure he equally had his own short comings just as Kotoka did. But this doesn’t mean that he deserves to have everything named after him and not others.

The man reason we name some organizations and out of monuments in the history of some people is to appreciate their efforts and let the people know what they sacrificed for our country. No one is perfect, but that doesn’t mean they didn’t contribute to our countries growth. If they deserve it, let’s give it to them no matter what bad secrets we uncover later. If we should follow secrets and other stuff, no one would really be honored in the world because we all have that one thing we don’t want people to find out and as onlookers, people would always have things t talk about criticize others because that’s what they do best.

We really do beed to overlook somethings and give people what is due to them, no criticism, no back talk. If they deserve it, let them have it. No matter how imperfect they are, that wouldn’t change the fact that they didn’t contribute to good for our country.

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all images belong to me.

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