Lawyer Nana Obiri Boahen, a private legal practitioner, has disclosed that no President of the National Democratic Congress (NDC) and the Provisional National Defence Council (PNDC), has ever attended the Martyrs Day anniversary in Ghana.
According to him, the annual commemoration, introduced in 1985, was never attended by the late President Jerry John Rawlings until his death.
Lawyer Nana Obiri Boahen further revealed that on the eve of the inaugural Martyrs Day in 1985, Rawlings arrested all the event’s organizers.
He mentioned in an interview on a Kumasi-based radio station that the late President John Evans Atta Mills also never attended the Martyrs Day commemoration until his death.
He criticized both Rawlings and Atta Mills for their absence at these events, suggesting that it is unlikely for John Mahama to attend as well.
Martyrs Day is observed every June 30 to remember the abduction and killing of three High Court judges and a retired Army officer in 1982.
The victims were Justices Frederick Opoku Sarkodie, Cecilia Koranteng-Addow, Kwadwo Agyei Agyapong, and Major Sam Acquah, who were murdered at the Bundase Military Range.
Reflecting on these events, Lawyer Nana Obiri Boahen finds the comments of some NDC members, like Samuel Okudzeto Ablakwa, amusing given the historical context of their party’s non-attendance.