CPP replies the two faced NPP

The CPP congratulates the New Patriotic Party on their 21st Anniversary and wishes the party well.

We are however compelled to set right the record of the political history of our country. We do this with the deepest conviction that no man can obliterate history or should be allowed to do so to serve selfish interest.

The NPP is the two faced Janus in the political history of our country that swears by democracy and autocracy by constitutionalism and sedition and also by social progress and social retrogression.

This is the Party that is desperate to severe ties with its ignoble political history and obliterate the connection with a history of ignominy by means of change of name at any opportunity for the conduct of electoral politics in our country.

The Danquah-Busia-Dombo tradition is haunted and riled by her demons in the political history of Ghana. These are the demons of separatism, ethnicity, elitism and anti-nationalism that dominated their emergence in the contemporary politics of Ghana as the National Liberation Movement. (NLM)

Dr. Kofi Abrefa Busia as leader of the NLM delegation to the Achimota Conference on independence for our country argued for an ethnic federated country and that the colonialist should not be in a hurry to grant our country independence. They reasoned that the experiment of the colonialist to guide us from barbarism to civility was not finished yet.

The name United Party was conceived and intended after the period of the NLM to exorcise the demon of ethnic separatism after they have lost three elections on the trot in 1951, 1954, and 1956.

The name of Progress Party (PP) was to exorcise their demon of reactionary politics during the struggle for freedom from colonial rule in our country.

The name Popular Front Party (PFP) was the name to redeem the Party from the perception of an elitist and ethnic based party.

With the name of New Patriotic Party the party has turned full circle to confront the demon of anti-nationalism of the NLM politics. But God is not mocked. They confront a poetic irony that asks the question whether there was an old unpatriotic party.

The answer unfortunately is in the affirmative. The answer points to the old United Party (old UP) that opposed the achievement of a republican status by our country.

An abbreviation of old united party (OUP) is same as old unpatriotic party. And for a party that evaluates in recent times its political fortunes in mysticism and numerology this is divine justice indeed.

This is the history of the current New Patriotic Party party of the Danquah-Busia-Dombo tradition, in the socio-economic history of country.

1. It is the tradition that did not want a unitary Ghana but preferred a federated country based on ethnic nationalism.

2. It is the tradition that according to their patriarch Kofi Abrefa Busia was prepared to delay the grant of freedom from colonialism to our country until the completion of the civilising mission of colonialism.

3. Today Prof. Mike Ocquaye tells the nation after 56 years of self-government and freedom that their tradition “did not want independence at any price” He does not tell us the price they were not ready to pay for freedom. We demand an answer without fail and equivocation to underline their moral right to ask for the mandate of the free people of Ghana to govern our country.

4. This is the party with claims to liberal democracy that employed violence and sedition as official opposition instruments.

5. This is the liberal democratic party that could banish its political opponents, the CPP in electoral competition and make it a criminal offence for any person or citizen to be seen with any image, picture, artefact, book, or photograph of its leader Osagyefo Dr. Kwame Nkrumah.

6. This is the political tradition that could deny the workers of this country through their Trade Union Congress the freedoms of choice, conscience and association

7. This is the liberal democratic nationalist tradition that reversed the reconstruction of the colonial economy to an industrialised one with the disposal of critical and strategic manufacturing investments of the CPP regime of the first republic. These investments included manufacturing plants for cement, soap rubber and textile. They received in exchange for their agreement to privatisation, cooking oil, rice, flour and milk powder from their colonial masters who in their political thinking can do no wrong and is all knowing.

8. This is the nationalist political tradition that saw no value in the Akosombo Hydro-Electric dam and the Tema Motorway and tried to stop their construction. We stop to ask them to contemplate the effect on the economy of Ghana if the Convention Peoples Party did not have the foresight and tenacity to resist their opposition and carry on with the construction?

9. The Danquah –Busia-Dombo tradition is the traditional minority party in the electoral politics of Ghana if we discount their electoral victory of 1969 that was achieved with the connivance of their proxy government, the National Liberation Council and the banning of the CPP.

10. This is the political tradition that has spent the longest time in electoral political abyss in the political history of Ghana. It did not genuinely win any national election for more than 50 years. (From 1947-2000). They have to be grateful for the ineptitude and corruption of the NDC government in economic management that generated mass resentment against the incumbent NDC.

11. This is the nationalist political tradition that superintended the evacuation of the core of an atomic reactor that was at the centre of a nuclear energy development programme for the country

It is against this background that the New Patriotic Party celebrated 21 years of history that conveniently cut out more than 40 years of the existence of their political tradition and history.

The celebration of the history of the CPP in contrast starts with the day of our birth without break. The attitudinal difference is clear, and self- explanatory.The NPP has a history for which it is ashamed. The CPP has a proud history of service to the supreme interest of our nation.

Finally, we shall address the pettiness and false interpretation of history on the question of the founder of modern Ghana.The prime falsehood that we should expose is the notion of “The Big Six” in our political history. It is a falsehood the NPP is desperate to insert and imprint in the political history of Ghana.

One effort in this direction is the embossment of the image of the Big Six on our currency and the naming of national landmarks after the leaders of their political tradition. The term which was used to describe the six leaders of the UGCC who appeared before the Coussey Committee following the revolt of the veterans of the Gold Coast is a misnomer and a moniker.

The revolt was instigated by Osu Alata Mantse Nii Kwabena Bonne with his call for the boycott of the goods of the Association of West African Merchants (AWAM) The truth is that the riots that was the precursor to the 1951 Coussey Constitution that set the nation on the road to freedom had no contribution from the six leaders of the UGCC who appeared before the Coussey Committee. The leaders were arrested on account of their leadership of the UGCC.

The founders of the Danquah- Busia- Dombo tradition however were turn-coats at the Committee. They disowned Kwame Nkrumah and accused him of being a communist who should solely be held responsible for the riots.

Kwame Nkrumah was imprisoned and the leaders of the Danquah Busia-Dombo tradition were set free.

Kwame Nkrumah contested the seat of Accra-Central from prison and defeated the UGCC candidate in the 1951 elections on the road to freedom for our nation.

He was the one who paid the price of imprisonment for our freedom. The truth therefore is that as far as our struggle for freedom is concerned there is only “The Big One” – Osagyefo Dr Kwame Nkrumah.

Prof. Mike Ocquaye also makes a false interpretation of history in a desperate attempt to claim a place of honour for the leaders of his political tradition as co-founders of the nation of Ghana.

The settlement of the question of who the founder of our nation in our political history was neither by negotiation, debate or discussions but by the elections of 1951, 1954 and 1956. The elections were implicitly referenda on who Ghanaians wanted to be their leader and founder of new nation Ghana.

Ghanaians made the indisputable and irrevocable decision that they preferred Kwame Nkrumah and his CPP to Dr Danquah of the UGCC to lead and be the founder the new nation of Ghana.

The matter is settled there is no room for a comeback. Prof Ocquaye should go to sleep and accept the rejection of the leaders of his political tradition to lead the people of the Gold Coast to the land of Ghana.

We will not comment on the argument that the leaders of the Danquah-Busia-Dombo tradition deserve a place as co-founders of the nation because they paid the fare for Nkrumah to come to the Gold Coast. The point is obtuse and piteous.

Suffice to say that the Kwame Nkrumah that the Danquah-Busia-Dombo tradition tried to persecute, disparage, desecrate and obliterate in the political history of Ghana with insane laws and vile epitaphs after the overthrow of his regime in 1966 has risen to transcend their national jealousies and pettiness and appeared in Ethiopia.

He spiritually leads posthumously the continent of Africa as the greatest African that lived in the last 1000 years with his message of Pan-Africanism and development philosophy of Nkrumaism to guide the renaissance of the African continent.

On the question of economic development of our country the pathetic story is that the Danquah-Busia-Dombo tradition represented by the current New Patriotic Party does not get it.

They fail to understand that so long as they follow the development policy prescriptions of structural adjustment and poverty reduction strategy of the developed industrialised economies in exchange for the receipt of “development assistance” their economic development achievements will be parlous, transient and non-transformational.

It is time for the NPP to know that any relevant development policy for progress in our society should be founded on our history in an attempt to reconstruct the colonial economy we inherited. This development policy is Nkrumaism which is the philosophy and ideology for the development and reconstruction of post-colonial economies.

The development achievement of the CPP that was founded on the development philosophy of Nkrumaism is incomparable. We call on the NPP to admit this; salute, stay mute and refrain from any reference to their development achievements in the presence of the CPP.

The lessons of the economic development history of our country is that only the CPP has in Nkrumaism the relevant development philosophy for social progress in our country. And the fact remains that given the social retrogression of our nation under the governments of the NPP and NDC, the rise of the CPP to political power for national prosperity is imminent.