Current CPP isn’t guided by Nkrumah’s principles – Samia Nkrumah

Former Member of Parliament for Jomoro Constituency and daughter of first President of Ghana, Samia Yaba Nkrumah has described the current Convention People’s Party (CPP) as one that is not guided by the principles of her father, Osagyefo Dr Kwame Nkrumah.

Describing the Prof Edmund Delle led CPP as not the original CPP of Dr Kwame Nkrumah, she said her presence in the party was to revive it and bring back the ideas of Kwame Nkrumah.

“I went in to try and revive Kwame Nkrumah’s ideas, to bring back Kwame Nkrumah’s CPP because I feel definitely the country will benefit from a party that is genuinely following Kwame Nkrumah’s ideas,” she said on ‘After Hours’ TV show with Mikki Osei Berko.

Samia Nkrumah who was once the Chairperson of CPP said Kwame Nkrumah’s CPP had stronger objectives which was guided by the 1960 Constitution.

According to Samia, the then CPP was focused on the people of Ghana and Africa but she does not think that today’s CPP under Prof Delle is guided by those principles.

She also argues that “No small party can survive if every election year, it takes money and I mean big money from one of the two if not both big parties, it’s simple!”

Samia Nkrumah contested and won the Jomoro Constituency seat for her father’s party by beating the incumbent National Democratic Congress (NDC) MP, Lee Ocran with about 6, 571 votes cast.

On September 10, 2011, she was elected as the first woman chairperson of the CPP with 1, 191 votes and her nearest contender, the incumbent, polled 353 votes. By this, she became the first woman to ever head a major political party.

Ivor Kobina Greenstreet beat Samia Nkrumah in January 2016 when she contested to become the Presidential candidate for the 2016 general elections.