CPP Conjures Bad and Bitter Memories

By Kwame Okoampa-Ahoofe, Jr., Ph.D.

It is rather risible for the Presidential Candidate of the rump-Convention People’s Party (CPP) to be blaming the ruling New Patriotic Party (NPP), barely four months to Election 2008, for the woeful inability of Dr. Paa Kwesi Nduom to make his desired impact on the Ghanaian electorate. And the reason is simple: a veritable product of the cultic Young Pioneer Movement (YPM), Dr. Nduom was too young to have fully appreciated the devastating impact of the kind of pseudo-socialist and one-party state adamantly pursued by the brazen and tautological Convention People’s Party. The man probably never even heard about an eerie phenomenon called “One O’clock Fever,” under which repressive policy Nkrumah summarily denied well-meaning, diligent and independent-minded Ghanaians who did not overtly subscribe to CPP ideology their livelihood.

Needless to say, “One O’clock Fever” was closely allied to the Preventive Detention Act (PDA) which was ruthlessly applied in the systematic harassment, persecution and outright liquidation of the formidable likes of Dr. J. B. Danquah and Mr. E. Obetsebi-Lamptey, and may well have taken an equally deadly toll on Mr. E. Ako-Adjei and other hitherto CPP stalwarts but for the 1966 coup. Curiously, those who are quick to laud the, admittedly, yeoman’s role of Mr. Kobla Agbeli Gbedemah, in both the foundation and development of the CPP often conveniently forget that but for the quick and deft “footwork” of “Mr. Motorway,” President Nkrumah may well have dealt Mr. Gbedemah the same fate that befell the Doyen of Gold Coast and Ghanaian politics. And this would have been squarely predicated on the suspicion of “Afro Gbede” being in cahoots with the indomitable ideological opposition.

It also rather childish for Dr. Nduom, an American-trained economic administrator, to be peevishly and sillily accusing the ruling New Patriotic Party of attempting “to buy votes” from the Ghanaian electorate. And just why, if one may aptly ask, did the CPP-MP from the Komenda-Edina-Eguafo-Abirem (KEEA) constituency, of Ghana’s Central Region, recently embark on a campaign-finance tour of some major American cities, including New York and Chicago? In short, if by “vote-buying” Dr. Nduom implies winsome and vigorous NPP campaign strategy aimed at winning Election 2008 by a landslide, then the man could not be more accurate in his assessment. And would Dr. Nduom also dispute the fact that he has spent huge wads of Cedis (and Ghanaians are the only people with a monetary currency called the “Cedi,” mind you) in order to tightly hold onto his parliamentary seat for as long as he has represented the people of his Elmina district? Maybe what the self-proclaimed Nkrumah avatar – or incarnate – needs to be frankly and honestly told to the face, as it were, is that he is even quite lucky to be allowed to range freely across the country, without let or hindrance, canvassing for votes, devoid of the sort of torrents of rhetorical abuse and outright persecution endured by the putative Doyen of Gold Coast and Ghanaian politics in 1960. Indeed, in 1960, Dr. Danquah was singularly issued a Presidential edict summarily prohibiting the United Party (UP) Presidential Candidate from using mobile vans and public-address systems belonging to his own party in his democratic contest against the African Show Boy. Quite interestingly, those fanatical supporters of Nkrumah who routinely cite the massive trouncing of Dr. Danquah at the polls in 1960, often conveniently forget to add the preceding travesty of Ghanaian democracy. They also conveniently fail to mention that Dr. Danquah had been forced by pure circumstantial accident to run against a pathologically intolerant and increasingly vindictive Kwame Nkrumah in the wake of Dr. K. A. Busia, the substantive parliamentary opposition leader of the UP, having quick-wittedly read the proverbial handwriting on the wall regarding the eerie imminence of the fate that was to shortly befall his mentor, Dr. Danquah (see Dennis Austin’s Politics in Ghana: 1946-1960).

In sum, Dr. Nduom cannot presume to have it both ways. Then also, the rump-CPP flagbearer ought to be reminded about the fact that whatever admirable profile he has acquired, in terms of practical political experience, has almost wholly been at the charitable expense of the Danquah-Busia Tradition, as well as the personal generosity of President John Agyekum-Kufuor, including the very means by which Dr. Nduom came by his parliamentary seat, as Dr. Arthur Kobina Kennedy, the NPP campaign communications chairman, had occasion to recently adumbrate (Statesman 8/7/08).

Another problem that may well be signally thwarting Dr. Nduom’s presidential ambitions could be aptly termed as the JOHNNY JUST COME LATELY COMPLEX, a canker whose symptoms includes a woeful exaggeration of self-importance and is often predicated upon a relatively tenuous track-record of public, and/or political, performance. The preceding, coupled with Dr. Nduom’s own questionable business dealings with the State, as attested by some rump-CPP stalwarts, and an integral dimension of his personality baggage that has thrown a dark and giant shadow on his character, have caused a considerable loss of confidence in his leadership among his own primary constituents. Thus contrary to what some political analysts would have their audiences believe, Ms. Samia Nkrumah’s alleged assertion that “whoever thinks the CPP will form the next government will be badly disillusioned,” (or is it rudely contused?) merely affirms what the majority of the Ghanaian electorate has known from the get go, as it were. Still, Ms. Nkrumah’s realistic assessment of the patently insubstantial heft of the rump-CPP on Ghana’s Fourth-Republican political landscape, could only give cold comfort to Dr. Nduom who, until quite recently, had been vigorously attempting to create a political Pygmalion – or self-serving surrogate – out of the daughter of modern Ghana’s first president.

The rump-CPP flagbearer has also reportedly accused Nana Addo-Dankwa Akufo-Addo of having conveniently kept mum on the Kufuor Administration’s salutary attempt at offloading the Government’s majority shares in the steadily and woefully underperforming and heavily indebted Ghana Telecom company. And our terse answer is that the GT sale proposal is President Kufuor’s baby, and the President has wisely decided to let the Ghanaian people have the last say on this matter by letting their elected representatives debate the GT sale proposal in Parliament. Besides, as an American-trained businessman himself, Dr. Nduom ought to know far better than to quixotically pretend that the mere abstraction of “national pride,” or patriotism, ought to hermetically dictate the terms of the imperative need for Ghana Telecom to operate at a profit to the nation as well as efficiently serve the needs of the taxpayers who funded its establishment and are thus legally entitled to getting their money’s worth.

*Kwame Okoampa-Ahoofe, Jr., Ph.D., is Associate Professor of English, Journalism and Creative Writing at Nassau Community College of the State University of New York, Garden City. He is the author of 17 books, including “Dr. J. B. Danquah: Architect of Modern Ghana” (iUniverse.com, 2005).
E-mail: okoampaahoofe@aol.com.