The CPP shows the NPP a well-deserved red card

By Dr. Michael J.K. Bokor

Sunday, January 31, 2016

Folks, I took the trouble to monitor the national delegates congress of the Convention Peoples’ Party (CPP) on Saturday, January 30, but chose not to comment on it until two events prompted me to do so.

First, the vitriolic reaction of the CPP to the NPP’s appeal for “an alliance” to be able to defeat the NDC at Election 2016.

Second, the choice of Ivor Kobina Greenstreet (former CPP General Secretary) as the flagbearer of the party for Election 2016. He had 1, 288 votes, representing 64.2% of valid votes cast to sweep aside Samia Nkrumah (579 votes, representing about 27%) and Joseph Agyapong (83 votes) and Bright Akwetey (42 votes).

Did these events not turn my crank? They did, and here is why. I have insisted all along that for as long as the pro-Nkrumahist camp remains fragmented, there is no way it can rebound to assert its formidable place in Ghanaian politics. Viewed against this background, I saw nothing particularly significant about the congress. After all, the PNC has also held its own congress and chosen Dr. Edward Mahama as its flagbearer, triggering the splintering away by Hassan Ayariga to form his own Action Congress Party. More woes for the PNC.

For the CPP, the breaking of ranks with it by Dr. Abu Sakara has added more weight to its house of cards. We are even not talking about earlier developments that brought into being Dr. P.K. Nduom’s Progressive People’s Party (PPP) or the late Dan Lartey’s Ghana Consolidated People’s Party (GCPP). The pro-Nkrumahist camp is in tatters and the swan song coming from there is in the air. What, then, would the election of the CPP’s flagbearer mean to such a withering political camp? Nothing except the plain truth that the election of Greenstreet has revealed: Samia Nkrumah has lost her bid to keep her father’s grips on the CPP. And with that loss comes the realization that nobody can bask in the glory of the Great Osagyefo. It takes more than biological connections to succeed in politics. Much explains why.

None of the Great Osagyefo’s children has the political tack and attraction to exert influence and determine the ebb and flow of the CPP. They are just not well-cut-out for the job. So far, Samia has rolled along with the punches, becoming an MP and losing it; becoming the National Chair of the CPP and losing it; and now being kicked aside by Greenstreet. Her vacuous allegation of vote-inducement through bribes as the cause of her defeat is ridiculous. Her future in Ghanaian politics is as bleak as she fears.

Another failure emerges in the person of her brother, Dr. Sekou Nkrumah, who entered the political scene as a CPP adherent, It didn’t take long for him to lose his bearings there, which sent him toward the NDC. We know how he did things and why he was booted out to wander about until foolhardiness took him to dine and wine with his father’s “killers” (the NPP). When Election 2008 exploded in their faces, no one told Sekou to cut short that unholy alliance. Where is he today? Doomed!!

There is an irritant now opening his mouth anyhow to attract needless attention. He is in the person of Dr. Onsy Kwame Nkrumah, whose emergence and claims to be a son of the Great Osagyefo angered not only Samia and her brothers but also casts in doubt our Ghanaian legal system, especially if we consider the annoying utterances coming from him of late. His attempt to do politics on the ticket of the CPP has already been derailed. This Onsy is an undesirable to be thoroughly investigated and dealt with. I don’t want to accept him as a son of the Great Osagyefo. Ghanaians like me don’t know where he is coming from. That is why he must be seen as an undesirable and treated as such. Another doomed fellow.

On the flip side, the respected Prof. Francis Nkrumah (formerly of the Noguchi Memorial Institute for Medical Research) resisted all pleas to enter politics. He knew he had his forte elsewhere and didn’t want to take any faulty step by capitalizing on his father’s political legacy. So also has Gamal Nkrumah chosen not to. And they are the better for it.

The defeat of Samia, then, seals it all and she should lick her wound in sober reflection and stop bothering us with her temper tantrums. The truth, though, is that none of the pro-Nkrumahist mushroom parties can go it alone and win general elections in Ghana, which justifies the need for them to bury their differences and merge. If they can’t band together, then, they should gravitate toward the NDC (which leans more toward Nkrumahism than the duplicitous Danquah-Busia camp).

Now, to the other event characterizing the CPP congress. What on earth would make the NPP people stoop so low as to seek an alliance with the CPP again before being able to outdo President Mahama and the NDC at Election 2016? Having gone abroad with huge claims and boastful smugness that they were capable of winning Election 2016, why should they go that way? Can’t they go it alone? The chips won’t fall in place so easily for them; hence, their desperate search for an alliance.

As reported, the request was made in a solidarity message by the NPP’s Greater Accra Regional Secretary, Agyei Sowah, According to him,just as the CPP agreed to be part of former President Kufuor’s all-inclusive government from the year 2001 to 2008, where some officials of the party served in his administration to deliver Ghanaians from the hardships then, the party should elect a candidate who will be willing to work with the NPP’s candidate to rescue Ghana for the second time.

That was not all. He said also that “As you gather to elect a Flagbearer today, we are confident that your delegates will elect a candidate who has Ghana at heart and who will be ready and willing to work hand in hand, once again with the NPP and its candidate.”

Such a request angered the CPP delegates and they shouted and booed at Mr. Agyei Sowah. Reinforcing their rejection of that appeal, Dr. Edmund Delle (CPP National Chair) minced no words when he rebuffed the NPP. I like the way the disdain was captured in the news report:

“The Chairman of the CPP, Professor Edmund Delle, who had addressed the gathering already, immediately after the NPP’s solidarity message, altered the programming by mounting the podium to reject the NPP’s proposal. He said the party is not going to form such alliances anymore, but added that they are willing to unite with parties of Nkrumahist orientation.

“As a party, never again shall we create the impression that we are not capable of standing on our own. We shall and we must, we can and we must do it. We have the people, we have the men; we have the women and the youth to go forward. We just need everyone including all comrades to unite together and go forward. We are one invincible party and nobody can break us. We should just have a unity of purpose. We do not need anyone to tell us what we can do to win power. We are going to be the masters of our destiny. We shall be in charge of our destiny. No one else will come and dictate to us. This is an important occasion in the life of this party…” (See http://www.ghanaweb.com/GhanaHomePage/NewsArchive/CPP-angrily-rejects-NPP-s-alliance-request-411816).

Is the message clear to the NPP rogue politicians and their bemused followers? If not, let me unpack it for them. Their search for alliance to be able to win Election 2016 is a mockery of their huge boasts. Knowing them for what they are, who will lie down for them to walk over into power?

Folks, the CPP has shown the NPP a well-deserved red card. As desperation takes over, expect them to look for any straw at all to hang on to. Their kind of “wagadri” politics is empty. The truth is that despite their public posturing and bombastic utterances, they are really worried that they can’t go it alone to win Election 2016. They are constantly looking over their shoulders to see what happened at Election 2000; but this time, it won’t be easy for them to win the smaller parties over. Na who cause am?

I shall return…

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