To Stew In Their Hypocricy

The executives of the Convention Peoples Party (CPP) are behaving like ostriches, hiding their heads in the sand. As usual, as with the tradition after the demise of its founder and the first President of Ghana, Dr. Kwame Nkrumah, they are tickling themselves to laughter and pretending everything is okay. Of course, the current executives are not entirely to be blameD for the woes of the party, but some of their forebears who gave up on Dr. Nkrumah before the cock crowED three times after he was overthrown.

Like the Stockholm syndrome when the hostage suddenly begins to look upon his captor as his protector, former Ministers of the first Republic and leading members of the CPP quickly organised press conferences to denounce Dr. Nkrumah and called him names, notably among them was the former Minister of Defence and the man who was appointed Leader of the House and became virtually the Speaker, when the Preventive Detention Act Bill was passed and a political protégé of Dr Nkrumah, for eighteen years, Kofi Baako, the father of Abdul Malik Kweku Baako, managing Editor of The New Crusading Guide.

“It pained me to realize that Nkrumah was not a genuine leader but a fraud of the highest order” Kofi Baako said this at a press conference after the coup. Dei-Anang, his closest advisor on African Affairs, also realized immediately after the coup, apparently that Nkrumah had all along been pursuing a bankrupt policy on African Unity, and was in his words a ‘political incubus’. The Young Pioneers, upon whom Nkrumah had lavished such devotion and such luxuries, denounced him even before the cock crowed thrice on the very day of the revolution.

The CPP since then have presented a fragmented front, arguing that the problem was because it was banned after the first coup, and holding any paraphernalia about the party then was illegal.

The only time the party was of any significance in our political discourse was in 1979, when Dr. Hilla Liman won the election in the Third Republic. This was primarily possible because most of the actors in the AFRC, who took part in the Coup that ousted Acheampong’s regime, were members or sympathetic to the CPP, example, Major Boakye Djan, so the party was more or less imposed on Ghanaians. This is not true.

There was an unfortunate but unavoidable coup in 1981 that toppled the government of Dr. Liman’s corrupt, incompetent and inept government. Since then, things had fallen apart and the centre could not hold, it has being one break-away to defectors etc, until Dr Paa Kwesi Nduom came onto the scene. He brought a new lease of life into the party. He introduced and involved the youth in the activities of the party to the chagrin and disapproval of the old guards who won’t let go.

The only good thing that have happened to the CPP, since the introduction of the Fourth Republican Dispensation I s Dr. Paa Kwesi Nduom., and now that he has also decided to leave the party, I could only wish them well.

As at the time of writing this article, the only person who has picked his nomination form to contest for the flagbearership position of the party (CPP) Is Lawyer Bright Akwetey, who I think is no match for Dr. Nduom. The party is going from bad to worse.

Listening to some members of the party, I could only laugh as they are playing down the effect of Nduom’s departure resulting in an already weak party being dazed further given the report of daily and weekly defections of members of it in droves to join Dr. Nduom’s Progressive People’s Party (PPP). I was listening to the General Secretary, Ivor Greenstreet in an interview on Citi FM Eyewitness News, when he was asked about the effect the departure of Dr. Nduom would have on the party? His answer was childish, thoughtless, to say the least, that Nduom had little votes from his Constituency in the 2008 election, and that he had more votes from the party Chairperson, Samia Nkrumah’s Constituency, so to him, his departure was a comic relief. I tell him what; often the vehicle we travel in to get to our destination is as important as the driver chauffeuring the car. Dr Nduom’s abysmal performance was because of the Vehicle he travelled on in the last elections. Dr. Nduom was a better candidate in 2008; he was spot on; he had the knowledge of this country’s problems and he offered solutions, he was a tested candidate as his records under Ex-President John Agyekum Kufuor is bearing fruits even today, and Ghanaians were better-off, with him as a minister. Unfortunately he was on the wrong ticket surrounded by people who have no vision, no direction and no sense of purpose.

Dr Nduom is only following in the footsteps of Dr. Kwame Nkrumah, who abandoned the United Gold Coast Convention (UGCC) to form the Convention People’s Party, when he realized that the leadership of the UGCC were moving in a direction that was detrimental to the ordinary Ghanaian.

I don’t think a an astute and experienced politician like Dr. Nduom is going into election 2012 to win but to make a statement, to form a tradition, a heritage, that stood against backwardness and inward looking, as the genesis of the CPP teaches us.

It is not wrong to abandon the ship when it is heading in a direction that would spell doom for you and for millions of your followers. The current executives of the party are allowing their emotions and pettiness to get in the way of building a strong and an alternative party to the National Democratic Congress (NDC) and the New Patriotic Party (NPP).

The CPP is a shadow of its past, cool heads must prevail in the party. New faces are needed to wake the party up from its slumber.

Really, if the Electoral Commission (EC) decides to follow to the latter the codes and ethics of forming a political party, I shudder to think the CPP would be considered one.

But for Dr. Nduom, the party had no offices, its members were fragmented; it took the intervention of Dr. Nduom to open some offices around the country with monies from his pocket, yet some of those who are saying he should be crucified have not contributed a penny to the survival of the party. The days of belonging to political parties based on sentiments are over, individually and collectively one must contribute meaningfully to the survival and growth of the party. The executives only sit in Accra making ugly noises and forming shadow cabinets, and only interested in the per diems they receive when they attend meetings, like the Inter-Party Advisory meetings (IPAC).

Once upon a time is a phrase that tickles and prepare us for the juice of news and the CPP needs to trace its roots and start asking critical questions about the future of that party. Its present looks gloomy and the phrase once upon a time could apply to them, in the not too distance future.

Did Dr. Nduom betray the party? My answer is a candid no, rather the party betrayed him, when during the 2008 elections out of envy and characteristic of members of the party, they decide to let him fight the battle alone. As it is said, the only constant in life is change; he has decided to move on. Posterity would judge him right.

The CPP must see Dr. Nduom as a threat, it happened before when Dr. Kwame Nkrumah broke away from the UGCC to form the CPP, which went on to win independence for Ghana and became the first political party to win elections in this country. So why are they accusing Dr. Nduom of doing what gave birth to the CPP; betrayal. I don’t call it betrayal, I call it following and adhering to principles.

As with Dr. Nkrumah, who went with many of the supporters of the UGCC, to the CPP, Dr Nduom is going with many supporters of the CPP, to the PPP. They can (executives) laugh till their sides split, but I can bet my last pesewas that by the time the party goes to congress to elect its flagbearer for the 2012 elections, the party would not even have a presidential candidate let alone have the money to go into the elections.

The solution to me does not lie with castigating Dr. Nduom who had in my estimation taken a decisive and matured decision, it lies with the hypocrisy of the leadership, they have to go to the Kwame Nkrumah mausoleum to appease and beg for forgiveness from Dr. Nkrumah for betraying and giving him up, when he needed them most.

I salute Dr. Nduom and wish him well. This is a clarion call to the leadership of the CPP that they can’t hold people to ransom.