Remembering the Darkest Day in the Political History of Ghana @50!

PRESS STATEMENT

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

LADIES AND GENTLEMEN OF THE PRESS

Remembering the Darkest Day in the Political History of Ghana @50!

For those who follow the traditions of the Convention People’s Party, the date February 24, remains the darkest day of infamy in the fifty years of Ghana’s existence as a sovereign political entity. It was on that date in 1966, when a section of Ghana’s military institution, in collaboration with foreign co-conspirators, forcefully overthrew the constitutional government of the Convention People’s Party (CPP) led by Osagyefo Dr. Kwame Nkrumah.

For us, members of CPP North America (CPPNA), whereas the military coup d’etat of February 24th 1966, derailed the course chartered by the CPP for Ghana’s progressive development, we consider that our social duty to Ghana remains incomplete.

The February 24, 1966 military coup dismantled the foundation for accelerated growth and development initiated by the CPP government. The coup also destroyed the educational program based on a policy of “Fee-free Compulsory Education.” as well as the comprehensive healthcare system the CPP government had put in place. From 1969 onwards, successive governments of Ghana tacitly supervised the tearing apart of manufacturing plants sited at strategic locations around Ghana by the CPP government.

The National Liberation Council (NLC), the military-cum-police dictatorship that overthrew the constitutional government of Ghana’s First Republic in 1966, orchestrated deliberate destruction of the political image of Kwame Nkrumah and the work done by the CPP government. The NLC handed over political power to the forces that had opposed Kwame Nkrumah and the CPP government since 1957. In fact, opposition to the work and traditions of the CPP coincided with its birth in 1949.

One of the first acts of the NLC military dictatorship was to ban the existence of the CPP as an organization including its branches, limbs and leaves. The NLC banned the Ghana Young Pioneer Movement that took school age kids off the streets and imbibed them with ideas about love of nation and service to humanity. It dismantled also the Ghana Workers Brigade, an organization that was on the road to becoming a self-sufficient institution that provided jobs for young men and women who served society in a disciplined fashion.

After coveting power by default, opponents of the CPP government engaged in a systematic and negative political socialization against Kwame Nkrumah and everything he stood for. The social forces that inherited the devilish political fortunes of the February 24, 1966 military coup hardly missed an opportunity to discredit and discount the successes of the CPP in the supreme social interest of the people of Ghana, Africa and the world, relative to dismantling European formal colonization of Africa. Governments since 1966 have accepted a consensus that champion the private foreign sector of Ghana’s economy subjecting all other sectors to such foreign private interests. Thus between the NDC and the NPP, the private sector whether foreign or indigenous is championed to the detriment of the interests of the popular majority of Ghanaians. As a result, instead of wealth for all, they have produced poverty, insecurity and dangerous division in our society. They have produced corruption, intolerance and repression within the state institutions that administer our society. The CPP has always had a consistent social-political theory for enlarging Ghana’s prosperity. In modern terms this can be called progressive economics. It emphasises the well-being and security of Ghana and the importance of being self-reliant and productive as opposed to globalized dependency. The CPP offers the best means by which we can build a just society in which the increasing standard of life of the majority is the benchmark for everybody. We the members of CPPNA, dwell in the hope that the spirit that led to the successful social revolution of the Gold Coast that culminated in political independence for Ghana on March 6, 1957, will continue to guide us, once again, to help lead Ghana to its promised land and for the economic prosperity of Africa.

In the spirit of March 6, 1957, we call upon our fellow citizens to join our ranks to protect our national interest against common internal and external enemies of progressive development. For our common and self-interest, we need to stay together as a people with one destiny in order to prevent recurrence of the event of February 24, 1966 in Ghana. However, in one of the best traditions of the CPP, we must at all times eschew violence and stay away from provocative attacks.

One CPP tradition is to win social approval through organizational and structural capacities as well as the dynamism of its members.

Believing that truly “Nkrumah Never Dies,” CPPNA calls on all members, sympathizers and admirers of the CPP traditions to shout the following:

Long Live the CPP!

Long Live Ghana!

Long Live Africa!

Long Live CPPNA!

Forward Ever!

On behalf of the executive committee: CONTACT CPPNA: akokonini@yahoo.com