Introduction

Summary

The commemoration on 6 March 2007 of the fiftieth anniversary of Ghana’s emergence from eighty years of British colonial rule exposed not only a bitter national divide over whom to credit with the nation’s founding, but also the possibility that a flawed ‘Grand Narrative’ of Ghana’s modern history is the source of this abiding threat to national unity. In marking the Golden Jubilee, the government of the day, led by President John Kufuor of the New Patriotic Party (NPP), honoured heroes of both the national and continental struggles for independence. On the national level, the NPP chose to celebrate the collective known in Ghanaian historical folklore as ‘The Big Six’, the leadership of the post-World War II United Gold Coast Convention (UGCC) nationalist movement.