Sekou Nkrumah Joins League Of ‘Political Prostitutes’

Observers of the Ghanaian political scene, early this week, were treated to another instance of a political comedy when Dr. Sekou Nkrumah announced his departure from the National Democratic Congress (NDC), four years after joining the party he once praised to the skies.

Sekou Nkrumah has now joined the unenviable list of Ghanaian political prostitutes, including late Vice-President Ekow Nkensen Arkah, Alhaji Issaka Inusah, Prof. Wayo Seini, Dr. Obed Asamoah, Frances Asiam, Bede Zideng, Mr. Fred Oware of the NPP, Freddy Blay, Dr. Paa Kwasi Nduom who has his legs within CPP but strongly working for NPP’s Nana Akufo Addo so as to become his Finance Minister.

Dr. Sekou Nkrumah is the last born of Dr. Kwame Nkrumah, the first President of Ghana, and Fathia Nkrumah. And, as expected, he was in the Convention People’s Party (CPP) – his father’s party – until he defected to the NDC in 2007, disclosing how he tried to join other political parties but found that the NDC was a larger and strategic party which would offer him a better platform to operate and achieve his political career.

In his resignation, Sekou said that he would not join any party, not even the CPP, but added, however, that his continuous stay in the NDC, would affect his sister Samia Yaba Nkrumah’s efforts to rebuild their father’s CPP in her capacity as chairperson.

Interestingly, hours before his resignation from the NDC, Sekou Nkrumah was quoted urging the CPP to focus on securing a working relationship with the National Democratic Congress (NDC) to strengthen the party because the ruling NDC and the opposition New Patriotic Party (NPP) are not going away anytime soon, so for the CPP to get back to where it was, it has to take votes from the two dominant parties, and he would prefer the NDC.

Speaking to Asempa FM’s Kojo Asare Baffuor Acheampong on Saturday at the Trade Fair Centre in Accra where the CPP was holding its extraordinary National Delegates Congress, Dr. Sekou said that the NDC is a better option to partner the CPP because “they share the same ideas in Ghanaian politics. I will rather opt for them to look at things more realistically.”

At a press conference in April 2007, graced by the then NDC Flagbearer Prof .John Evans Atta Mills; Alban Bagbin, Minority Leader; Mr. Moses Asaga, MP for Nabdam and Dr. Kwabena Adjei, NDC National Chairman, Sekou Nkrumah said that all efforts by the splinter Nkrumaist parties to achieve political power had failed, and that all those who believed in the Nkrumaist agenda must join the NDC.

Dr. Sekou, who addressed a press conference and spoke on the crisis in the electricity supply in the country at the time, said that he took the decision to join the NDC after he had carefully considered the potency of all the political parties.

He further disclosed that after carefully examining the New Patriotic Party (NPP) critically, he realized it was selling the country to imperialist forces and into enslavement, something his father spoke and stood against, and added that the best option for him was to join the NDC, and that he would not join any other party that would take Ghana back into the arms of Western powers.

He said: “Ghana and Africa cannot afford to remain economically backward. It is only the Ghanaians and Africans that can change the woes into fortunes with a leader that is not self-seeking”.

Sekou’s departure from the NDC has been received with mixed feelings; while some see it as inconsequential, some, particularly in the CPP and the NPP, are praising him for this decision.

Ghana’s political history is replete with “political prostitutes” or “carpet-crossers”.

Recent history has the likes of Alhaji Issaka Inusah who was Campaign Manager for J. A. Kufuor in 1996; Abraham Kofi Asante, ex-MP for Amenfi West; Alhassan Wayo Seini, ex-MP for Tamale Central; Dr. Obed Yao Asamoah, Frances Asiam, Bede Zideng, who have had stints with the NDC as National Chairman, National Women Organizer and General Secretary respectively, as some of the politicians who belong to this group.

Alhaji Innusah, who was a strong member of the NPP, in July 2000, dramatically switched camp to the NDC, and Campaigned for Prof. John Evans Atta Mills against Mr. Kufour during the 2000 elections. This was after Mr. Ekow Nkensen Arkah, who was ex-president Rawlings’ Vice –President, replaced him by joining the Great Alliance, and becoming Mr. Kufuor’s running mate whilst still serving as Rawlings’ vice president.

Alhaji Issaka Inusah was further peeved with how Jake Obetsebi-Lamptey, the then NPP Greater Accra Regional Chairman, prevented him from becoming the NPP’s Parliamentary candidate for Ayawaso West Wuogon Constituency in Accra, by allowing Mr. George Isaac Amoo to go unopposed.

In 2003, Mr. Abraham Kofi Asante, resigned from his parliamentary seat and the NDC because of an alleged assault on him at a delegate’s congress in Legon- Accra, because he and Dr. Obed Asamoah had savoured Dr. Kwesi Botchwey, to the NDC flagbearer for the 2004 over President Mills. He was later seen busily fraternizing with the NPP. Soon after the NDC won the 2008 elections, he tried joining the NDC, but he was not taken serious. His whereabouts are currently unknown.

Professor Wayo Seini, decided to leave the NPP for NDC because of the murder of Ya-Na, the Dagbon Overlord, which he claimed implicated his cousins Major (Rtd) Sulemana, Joshua Hamidu and Malik Alhassan Yakubu, all of the NPP.

He later left the NDC for the NPP again, but has since gone into political oblivion as he was not taken as a serious politician. Claims were that a deal was reached for him to resign from the NDC so that his three cousins whom he had publicly accused of being the masterminds behind the Yaa-Na murder, will forgive him for damages slapped on him by a court for libel.

In the case of Dr. Obed Asamoah, a known member of the United Party (UP) tradition, he was a strong man in the Provisional National Defence Council (PNDC) government, headed by Flt.-Lt JJ Rawlings, which later became the NDC with the ushering in of the 4th Republican Constitution.

Dr. Asamoah proceeded to become the Chairman of the NDC, and in 2007, left it to found the DFP, because of what he claimed lack of democracy in the NDC and the threat to his life during the Koforidua delegates’ congress of 2007. Dr. Asamoah is now back to the NDC, leaving the DFP orphaned.

Frances Asiam, a former NDC national Women Organizer , decided not to have anything to do with the NDC because of what she claimed was lack of democracy in the party and the assault allegedly inflicted on her at the delegates congress at Koforidua in 2007, by the Azoka Boy’s because they claimed she was insulting ex-President Rawlings.

Bede Zideng, a former General Secretary of the NDC, joined Dr. Asamoah at the 2007 Koforidua delegates’ Congress to leave the NDC and formed the DFP which worked more for the NPP than itself. Mr. Freddie Blay was one the brains behind the formation of the DFP, but operated behind the scenes because of Dr. Asamoah’s “undemocratic tendencies”.

Mr. Blay is now with the NPP, although a born Nkrumahist, who served in Parliament as MP for Ellembelle in the Western Region on the ticket of the CPP.

Watchers of Ghana’s political scene believe that considering the unstable nature of Sekou and his recent announcement, he has effectively relegated himself into political oblivion like the kinds of Prof. Seini and others.