– The rebirth of CPP Progressives
The enthusiasm for new political thinking and admirable effort to awaken the political appetite of progressives led to the formation of CPP Patriots. Membership of the Progressives includes academics, professionals, businessmen and women, students, market women, farmers, workers and the youth.
The Progressives owe themselves and their country more. They adopted as their slogan, Ghana before Self, Ghana Deserves Better. They are a broad church. The Convention Peoples Party of 2007 is a centre-left, centre-right and Christian coalition. Although they embrace Dr Nkrumah’s CPP (of 1960s) traditional value of solidarity, social justice, mass education, opportunity and responsibility, but they also understand the formidable challenge that the party face in the 21st century and the impact of globalisation on Ghana’s economy.
The challenges that the Progressives face includes continued poverty and social exclusion (over a million Ghanaian children excluded from any meaningful programs, and are now classified as “street children”), rising crime (killings and armed robbery), family breakdown, gender inequality and child prostitution, revolution in technology, environmental degradation and security issues (Ghana is emerging as a “transit point” for narcotic from South America and Asia, including Afghanistan).
The Patriots were the first to recognise that the CPP must move decisively beyond outdated ways of thinking, such as jobs for life and free higher mass education. At the core of their project is to unite all Nkrumaists, whose fragmentation did so much to weaken progressives in the 1990s and bring the party into 21st century global economy.
Many years in opposition, Nkrumaists are seen, however unfairly, as the party of yester year, gripped by different groupings and factionalism. A false coalition was set up between Nkrumaists and NDC in 1992 and with NPP in 2000. These two coalitions further weakened the Nkrumaists and left them more fragmented, until the rise of the Patriots.
The CPP Patriots sought to move ahead and build the structures of the party by applying its values, which is underpinned by social justice. Many of its proponents were members of the Young Pioneers and children of core CPP activists under Dr Nkrumah. Majority are standing for office and holds social democratic principles – equality of opportunity. Their philosophy is neither laissez-faire nor of state interference.
The current crop of CPP members believes in macro-economic stability. They believe in policies that give opportunities to all and encourage independence, not dependence on the state.
They believe in equipping Ghanaians, especially the youth, for work by improving education and knowledge-based skills. They believe in developing Ghana’s weak physical infrastructure by a mixture of public/private finance. They believe in promoting local enterprise, including funding knowledge based industries to ensure they expand beyond the borders of Ghana, by taking advantage of the vast ECOWAS market.
They believe in making it affordable for every working man and woman to be able to purchase their own home by introducing drastic land reforms and encouraging massive house building in every hamlet, village and town. They believe in reforming agriculture, by giving farmers new incentives, transforming the traditional agricultural structure. The essence is to ensure Ghana becomes self sufficient in food production. To ensure living in the rural area becomes beneficial, as the country prepares for economic take off. They want to improve the income and living standard of rural people. They believe drastic land reform can contribute to capital formation in agriculture.
This reform started by the Patriots in restructuring CPP has been considered as one of the most successful project in the history of the party.
The final aspect of this project is to unite all Nkrumaists and reinvent the party for the new era through democratic renewal and restoration of faith in CPP. This project is underway. The Young Pioneers are back and ready to offer good and quality leadership. The boys and girls of the Young Pioneers, trained by Dr Nkrumah to be the vanguard of the nation are ready in the ascendancy.
In the late 1960s, the boys and girls of the Young Pioneers “promised on their honour to be loyal and faith to Ghana their motherland”. Ghana before self, Ghana Deserves Better!
God Bless the CPP, God Bless Ghana!
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