Johnny Hansen gives evidence at NRC

Accra, March 16, GNA - Mr Johnny Hansen, Vice Chairman of the Convention People's Party (CPP), on Tuesday said the CPP is the only true Nkrumahist party today.

He argued that the present CPP, which was banned after the overthrow of Dr Kwame Nkrumah, its founder, in 1966, is the same CPP of old, and prayed the National Reconciliation Commission to recommend the release of all confiscated buildings of the party.

He described other parties of the Nkurmahist Tradition, with names other than the CPP, were mere allies of the CPP, adding that neither the defunct People's National Party (PNP) nor the present Great Consolidated People Party, with origins in the CPP, could claim that it was the real CPP.

Mr. Hansen, who is also a lawyer, and sometime Secretary for the Interior under regime of the Provisional National Defence Council (PNDC) was giving evidence at a National Reconciliation Commission public hearing in Accra.

The properties include all buildings of the CPP at the regional capitals, and one at Asamankese in the Eastern Region, as well as the present office building of the Ministry of Information in Accra, which he said used to be the National Headquarters of the Party before it was banned. The NRC asked him to produce the Title Deeds of the said properties.

Mr. Hansen said the ban made it difficult to make a claim for the properties and added that since the ban was lifted in 2000, the Party is still making efforts, which have not yet been successful to get the title deeds from the Assets Confiscation Body.

Mr Hansen rejected the assertion that Ghana, being made a one-party state, under the CPP, CPP assets automatically became state assets. He also rejected a suggestion from Professor Henrietta J. Abena Nyarko Mensa-Bonsu, a member of the Commission that CPP, jurisdically died with its ban, and maintained his stand that it is only the CPP, rather than parties which originated from it, that can make claims on its assets. He declared: "CPP is not a resurrection, it never died."

Another Witness, Mr John DeRoy Bediako, from Dompim, near Tarkwa, 12 soldiers arrested him, on account of being an activist of Kwame Nkrumah's Young Pioneer Movement after the February 1966 coup that toppled Nkrumah's government.

The Witness, who said he was then the District Organiser of the Movement, said he was brutalized and detained in the Sekondi Prison for a week, and another and seven days in the Tarkwa Prisons,

On his release the soldiers organized a mock funeral for Dr Nkrumah. He said they brought a coffin, filled it with big stones, and ordered him to carry it to distance.

He said he was informed that in his absence, soldiers pushed his then pregnant wife, and looted his store, and other household items. Mr Bediako said his wife died a week later after delivery, and he also had a hearing impairment as a result of the brutalities meted out him. He condemned, in vehement terms military coups, and prayed the Commission to recommend to government all measures to avoid any recurrence of military coups.

He added that if anybody dared to stage a coup in Ghana, he alone would pick a machete, and face that person.

Madam Catharine Kojoe, also from Tarkwa, said soldiers one of whom was called Killer stormed her stores at Tarkwa after the June 4 1979 military coups.

She said the then District Secretary had an order for a list of names of all owners of big stores and her name was added to the list.

Witness, who said she was then carrying a baby at the back, said soon after the list was taken, soldiers came to her store, and supervised her to sell the contents and reduced prices.

She said she soon had acted on a telephone call to her house where she had a clothes store, in which she sold drinkables, only to meet the soldiers.

The soldiers accused her of being a "kalabule" woman, selling at exorbitant prices, and hoarding, gave her some slaps, and marched her to search a room they suspected she might have hoarded some goods. Madam Kojoe said at one point, the soldier called Killer asked her to remove the baby at her back, so that he would shoot her, but she protested and asked him to shoot both of them together. Madam Kojoe, who said she had been praying all along, said it was when she said a prayer in her native Ewe language that one soldier intervened to save her.

She said confusion soon broke out among the soldiers, and after taking some of the drinks they bolted with all the proceeds of the clothes they had sold.

She said the soldier also placed her husband on a table, and flogged him.

Witness said she lost her business as a result of the soldiers' attack, and consequently the education of her children suffered.

She prayed the Commission to recommend an appropriate compensation. Uborr Dalafu Labal, a Member of the Commission, said he had information that the said Killer is now mad.