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The role and hence relevance of CPP in modern day Ghana

Sun, 30 Dec 2012 Source: Tamakloe, Kojo

By Kojo Tamakloe

A lot has been written about the NPP and why it lost the election and its appeal to the Supreme court . What it wants is not quite specified as there is more about deepening democracy. I am not sure if deepening democracy is the same as challenging the referee in a contest on a regular basis and whipping up the emotions of unruly mobs that endanger peace and security. It is in this context that we need to revisit Nkrumaism , the CPP and its past role and future role in modern day Ghana .

As some of us have noted Madam Donkor and the PNC have come out and stated that the results were fair and transparent and so reflected the will of the people. The CPP has not come out with any statement to the dis appointment of some of us . This is relevant as the CPP when it was in the vanguard of leading the way to Independence NOW , had to contend with such irritations and obstructions from the forbears of the NPP. These kind of actions aborted the ideology of Nkrumaism and our forward march to what we can call both political and economic independence , limiting our independence to political as the NPP economic philosophy is an elitist one , whereby a few enjoy the fruits of independence and majority wallow in poverty and ignorance. Note it is only after 50 years they want to implement free SHS , when literacy rate is at 73% , when they opposed it when it was below 20%. Also in 2007 they INCREASED school fees. So where is their consistency

Nkrumaism . After independence ,Nkrumah adopted Nkrumaism , an ideology rooted in Africanism , African socialism . This we can define as “a theory or system of social organization that advocates the vesting of the ownership and control of the means of production and distribution, of capital, land, etc., in the community as a whole. “. This would have led to real freedom . A quote from Albert Camus sums it up “Without freedom, no art; art lives only on the restraints it imposes on itself, and dies of all others. But without freedom, no socialism either, except the socialism of the gallows. “, and freedom we can define as ,“the quality or state of being free: as. a : the absence of necessity, coercion, or constraint in choice or action. b : liberation in particular” . I want us to emphasize the part about absence of necessity. Africans cannot have absence of necessity by appropriating the production facilities to a few who claim they are wealthy. To me that is the biggest fallacy in the doctrine of the NPP. If they were so wealthy why are they after free SHS. The so called “ poor areas” voted against it. What an irony? When you travel the world you see people who claim to be wealthy working as security and washing dishes. Ken Agyepong is on record as telling people from the North he would create jobs in the North. Why has he not done it in Kuffours reign and why was Kuffour all over the world trying to bring in” investors”.Is that not an insult to the people of the North and to their intelligence? Nkrumahs scientific socialism created 400+ factories that were closed by the NPP creating unemployment. Where was their wealth so they could not buy these and the enterprise to run these efficiently creating jobs for the people? How does changing the name of SADA to NDA create jobs for the people? Why could these wealthy people not buy the Accra Mall , and why have they not produced enough chicken or rice for the local market and for export. ? Why have they not started a shipping line to replace the Black Star line or a Ghana airways?.How does building Hostels for the kayaye solve the unemployment ? Dr Bawumia had a photo op at the Pawlugu tomato factory that has been lying idle since the 1966 coup. Where are the so called wealthy people to have revived it and prevent kayaye? . Ghana is now attaining a middle income status , with no billionaires of note . So who are the so called wealthy to drive the capitalism ? The CPP and its philosophy would have used co operatives and the community to revive it and as they have a stake in it ensure its success.

The role of the CPP hence should be to educate the mass of the people about its ideology of involving the people and the communities in the wealth creating process and pointing out the lie about NPP being the alternative to the NDC . The CPP has a workable economic ideology which it can market and create real democracy and not the phony democracy being peddled by the NPP.

The CPP will need to link this with its African Unity policy as the products will need a market and that is where the Unity comes from instead of the NPP policy of denigrating other Africans and its tribal supremacist policy. Who wants to trade independence from the White colonialists with colonization by Black colonialists.?

The CPP leadership has to be bold and and proactive in pointing out false hoods and corruption and be a voice of reason for the independent voter. For the CPP to be a viable alternative and promote true democracy , it has to apply the scientific principle of setting a goal and working towards it . The CPP does not need to be singing the same song as the other two parties so the choice then becomes one of personalities but of real policy difference and quality. It needs to keep the other parties on their toes as competition will then make them offer better policies and ensure delivery.

The time is to start now

Forward ever , backward never

The writer Kojo Tamakloe is an Nkrumaist that believes that is only through African Unity that Africa can escape from poverty

Columnist: Tamakloe, Kojo