In the State of Political Deja  Vu?

When the incumbent party alleged that the leader of the main opposition party, the National Democratic Congress (NDC), Atta Mills was a “bedridden” contender and that people should rule him out of the political race, little did they think about that they were rather fermenting the political mood for the NDC to launch its ubiquitous “I care for you political manifesto”. Professor Mills and the NDCs new found campaign tactics of knocking from door to door in the major political markets in Ghana, is promising to be effective, efficient and most likely to send the incumbent party to its early political grave.
Although the NPP may be playing doubts on the “I care for you” political programme, the party may in fact be experiencing a sort of “political déjà vu”, if not the entire nation. In hindsight, the forbearers, the UGCC and then the United Party (UP), endured painful defeats in the hands of the country’s first president, Dr. Kwame Nkrumah through similar strategies when he visited almost every village in the country with his CPP after the breakaway in the events leading to the independence. With this memory deeply rooted in the NPPs minds, the familiar sound of defeat may be ringing loud and the overwhelming feeling, the state of déjà vu, may be proving too strong to ignore.
In today’s Ghana, Atta Mills seems to be the best marketing guy in town with his “I care for you” programme. However what strikes me most, and perhaps excites me about the political landscape today, is the re-emergence of the master strategist, the CPP and that is why I believe Ghana is in the state of “political déjà vu”. If we will remember, the CPP, since 1949 down to the establishment of the first republic until its overthrow in that cowardice coup of 1966 masterminded by the imperialist, had won every damn election in the country. The CPP strategies for winning these elections are well documented elsewhere for everyone interested to read and I believe can serve as the blueprint for modern CPP in its electoral struggle since that blueprint still fits into modern political campaigning. But to give you a gist of that blueprint, Nkrumah in 1949, when he Gbedemah, Botsio etc established CPP, identified that the needs of the people should be central to the CPPs approach to party politics and should reflect the political practices of the CPP. Nkrumah’s understanding of this orientation is evident in most of his speeches, especially when he charged his leadership to “go to the people, live among them, learn from them, love them, serve them, plan with them, start with what they know, and build on what they have…..for the masses of the people form the backbone of our party; their living conditions and their welfare must be paramount in everything we do; it is for them in particular and Africa in general, that our party exists” (Nkrumah, 1949 on www.cppghana.com). This fundamental philosophy of Nkrumah and his vision of how CPP was to operationalise politics reflected all the political programmes that he and the CPP executed. As it appears in that blueprint, they actually could be summed up in the marketing concept’s 4Ps of product, price, distribution and promotion. This blueprint, I will entreat you all to look for.

Ebo Mens, Sheffield UK

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