Opinions of Sunday, 3 March 2013

Columnist: Yeboah, Ernesto

A letter to my NPP friends..

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HELLO MY FRIENDS,

YOU MAKE A VERY BIG MISTAKE WHEN YOU RESPOND TO THE NDC ON THE OVERTHROW OF NKRUMAH. THEY ARE NOT VERY DIFFERENT FROM YOU, YOU KNOW...

There are three clear political traditions in Ghana now, the UP tradition, the PNDC tradition and the Nkrumaist tradition. The first two traditions have only won power because they overthrew legitimately installed Nkrumaist governments; indeed, the aim of both traditions has been to suppress the resurgence of Nkrumaism in Ghana. Both are right wing reactionary enterprises of imperialism.

The difference however is that while the UP tradition makes no pretensions about their hate for Nkrumaism and its legitimate occupation in the political space, the PNDC tradition employs subtle humiliation and sentimental cosmetics whilst suppressing Nkrumaism constitutionally and politically.

After the leader of the PNDC tradition had failed all his exams to graduate him to the officers class in the Military he was selected by the NLC Administration to join the officers class in 1967. He saw the repression of the CPP and the arresting and killing of those who had Nkrumah’s books and other types of Nkrumah/CPP materials. He saw the wanted posters for Nkrumah’s arrest. He never repealed the State Security Decree NLCD 119, which states that ”It shall be the duty of any person who receives any communication purporting to originate from Kwame Nkrumah…to report to the person in charge of the nearest police station or the Commanding Officer in charge of the nearest Ghana Armed Forces…” He never repealed the Kotoka Trust Act NLCD 339, which changed the name of Accra International Airport to Kotoka International Airport” He never repealed the Kwame Nkrumah Properties Decree NLCD 154, which falsely alleges, “money wrongfully paid from public funds to or on behalf of each such person by Kwame Nkrumah or money to which the Republic is otherwise entitled.

Adding insult to injury, the PNDC tradition indemnified the illegal overthrow of the CIA backed NLC. It is important to state that it was not as if the PNDC tradition could not have done anything about these repugnant laws, indeed the PNDC tradition repealed many NLC decrees with PNDC 323 “Statute Law Revision Law,” but deliberately maintained the core anti-Nkrumah, anti-CPP, anti-socialism, and anti-Pan Africanism decrees of the NLC, because they are reactionary and counter revolutionary members of the bourgeois class just like Kotoka and Afrifa. This tradition even after its strategic and tactical mask changing, just like the UP to PP to NPP continuous to drive imperialism enforcing the NLC ban on the CPP from its Proclamation Decree NLCD 1, from 1981 to 2000. The same tradition recognized the NTC in Libya, stabbing Qathafi in the back and supporting an imperialist invasion of Africa, not very different from the UP tradition in their answer to the question of Apartheid in South Africa; it is that same tradition that protected Qutarra after the Constitutional Council in Ivory Coast announced Gbagbo the President, and then participated in the attack and capture of Gbagbo along with French imperialist commando; installing another French neo-colonial puppet to the IMF’s.

A friend in the NDC describes my action as being sensitive and insecure when I see members of other traditions praising Nkrumah; he concludes that that amounts to an attempt to personalise Nkrumah to the CPP.

He may be right about my being sensitive and insecure but not about any attempt by me to personalise a universal phenomena. He may be right; I’m sensitive and insecure when I see members of traditions that stand to kill Nkrumaism deliberately praising the man Nkrumah just to push their selfish political cause, the same man they have made a wanted criminal in our constitution. I may appear sensitive and insecure because when non Nkrumaist traditions rises on that edge it’s only to facilitate a selfish political cause not very different from the UP Tradition; sensitive and insecure because when hypocrites employ it, it is to perpetuate the continuous lies and deception and suppression of true Nkrumaist growth and dominance. He may be right about my sensitivity and insecurity because as an intellectual vanguard of Nkrumaism I have a duty to separate the wheat from the chaff.

The three political traditions are certainly based on the ideas and ideals of their fore bearers, UP tradition: Danquah-Busia-Dombo; PNDC tradition: Rawlings; Nkrumaist tradition: Nkrumah; and that is why we would often and quickly refer the NPP to some of their actions in the past and link it with the present; that is why the NDC’s constitution would clearly state in article 12 that the NDC is founded on the ideas and Ideals of Jerry Rawlings. My NPP friends, if members of the PNDC tradition are embarrassed by the ideals and ideas of their party, please don’t help them to hide under the roof of sentimental Nkrumaism. If their members have now found the truth, there should be no reason why they would still want to remain in there except for the call from their belly than the conviction of what the man Nkrumah stood for. For us in the CPP we are resolute and clear in our minds that no matter how fast one runs on the wrong road, the fact would still remain that the fellow is wrong.

There are a lot of fallacies in the air mostly to suggest that because some members of the CPP on the command of their bellies defected to NDC, the NDC is necessarily CPP. SICK LOGIC. My friends know your enemies and address them as such. The fact that I see some of your members defect from your party into the NDC does not make those members NPP while in NDC, I suppose that same logic applies for those hungry opportunists who left the CPP after its overthrow and are making a living in the tubes of the PNDC tradition.

With this understanding my friends, go ahead and do your politics, when your opponents in the PNDC tradition confront you on your links with the CIA and the NLC, meet them with Jerry Rawlings’ privileged selection by the same CIA backed NLC to join the Officers Class having failed all his examinations to merit promotion; when they meet you with the February 1966 overthrow, meet them with the December 31, 1981 overthrow—both sort to remove a constitutionally installed Nkrumaist government. If they say you are guilty then point it out to them that they are equally guilty and thus must shut up!

*Ernesto Yeboah*

*Deputy National Youth Organiser, CPP*