He Is Something Else

In 2007, the CPP’s congress elected Dr. Paa Kwesi Nduom to lead the party's presidentship capture ambition. A lot of things went through and the CPP campaign thrill went all over the nation. It was a rejuvenated CPP that some of us as young adults saw for some times. The CPP have been sluggish and their campaigns were not patronised by the masses as seen for NDC and the NPP. Nduom organised the CPP into a more vitalized and attractive political party that made some of us thought that at least for the first time, there was going to be a real litmus test for the dominant duo of NDC and NPP and that their duopoly was on the verge of crack down. To my utter consternation, the CPP was trotting behind and was millions of miles away from victory. The race was between NPP and NDC which was subsequently won by then candidate Mills. But something interesting happened that I always love to ponder over and analyse. It is not the reason why Nduom did so poorly in the 2008 election but rather study Paa Kwesi’s political ideology and determine whether he is fit for the CPP? And also ask whether he betrayed his own party's ideology and party?
In 2001, after failing to scrap victory for the CPP in the Komenda-Edina-Eguafo-Abirem constituency, Paa Kwesi assumed a political office with the Kuffuor led NPP administration. He justified his action by stating that he is a man of all inclusiveness and that all inclusive government gives everybody the chance to serve the nation, adding that the all inclusive government of President Kufuor has won for him and the nation a lot of credit and goodwill from governments and international institutions worldwide.
This move attracted scathing criticism from some vociferous elements within the CPP and some socialist journalist such as Comrade Kwasi Pratt Junior.
In a TV interview on "Good Evening Ghana" Metro TV, Prof. Agyemang Badu Akosa stated that the CPP is fine but it chose the wrong leaders at the 2007 Congress; a one-man show campaign in 2008 led to disastrous results for the CPP; that the whole CPP 2008 campaign was a media hype; that there was a disconnection between the Flagbearer and the constituencies; and that the party will go to Congress soon to elect better executives to re-organise the party.
In a personal chat with Prof. Agyemang Akosa at a forum organised by the Ghana Socialist Forum, he revealed
“I am going to contest for the flagbearership of the CPP, Nduom was unfit and there was so many things done wrongly, we are going to put the right things in place and ensure that we package the CPP to make more to attractive to the youth and the people of Ghana. Nduom let the party down ideologically; he is not a real party man."
This says enough about the infightings going on in the CPP and I believe that those involved are power intoxicated individuals who want to wield political power but nothing else.
Here, I pose my two worrying questions again. Did Paa Kwesi Nduom’s decision to join the NPP constitute betrayal and disloyalty to the CPP? Were his reasons tangible and should they be accepted?
Very soon the CPP will head for national congress to elect its flag bearer for the 2012 election.
My position on their flagbearership is implicit from within and explicit from without.
Nduom is something else!
Supposing the CPP happen to live in a Nigerian Political atmosphere, and I am a strong party man like former President Olusegun Obasanjo, I will boot Paa Kwesi out of the party and hand-pick Prof. Akosa like Obasanjo solely chose sick prone president Alhaji Musah Y’ardua. Never think I am trying to preach dictatorship or some form of rulership based on exploitation and inhumanity. I am never for that. I believe in a system where there is equal treatment and enjoyment for each and everyone in a society. I advocate a classless society. But towing the line of truth and credibility, that is what should be done to move the CPP from wilderness and to its destined political and ideological status. The CPP cannot continue to remain in the hands of charlatans, sycophants and power-drunk individuals who want to aggrandize popularity through the CPP because they cannot match the competition elsewhere. It is very sad that these misfit individuals have mingled their ways to the top hierarchy. They think there are not enough forces within the party and so with the slightest effort they can achieve national recognition. Dr. Paa Kwesi Nduom has embarked on numerous salient ventures that deserve nothing but commendation. He might have achieved a lot of laurels from that angle. Fair enough, he is well known. But this thing has always worried me about Paa Kwesi; I cannot come to terms with my conscience as to why this honourable gentleman has embarked on a course to ideologically impersonate-trying to be who he is not. Just last week, our Political Science lecturer introduced to us a new topic, IDEOLOGY!
Delving deeper the realms of ideology, he mentioned capitalism, socialism, fascism, Marxism and a lot more. The study group I belong to was asked to make research on fascism yet I was enthralled to read and learn something about capitalism and socialism and just read on fascism for academic purposes. After comparing tenets and concepts of these two competing systems, I came to understood that Dr. Kwame Nkrumah, the first president of Ghana and the founding father of this land was a staunch advocate for socialism and used the concept to achieve a lot of unimpeachable and various degrees of success for the country. He used the system to put rudimental infrastructure and provided the nations’ most basic needs. Ghana really flourished. Dr Nkrumah saw capitalism as too Western and that the ideology was not viable on the African soil. And even if was going to work, it needed to go through some genetic re-engineering of a sort to make it adaptable in the African political atmosphere.
In one of his famous writings “Neo-Colonialism, Last Stage of Imperialism”
Dr Nkrumah justified his care for the people and the reason why he favoured socialism and dismissed paradoxical exploitive oriented capitalism.
“In a socialist state, government represents the peasants and the people. In a capitalist state, government represents the exploitative class”
There was no way Dr Nkrumah was going to allow the West to hide behind capitalism and exploit his people. Such was the legacy of the man who formed the Convention People’s Party-the first political party to win independence on African soil; this is what Nkrumah left behind for his followers. And like Jesus told his disciples, go round the world and preach the gospel according to Jesus Christ to the rest of the world and nothing less nothing more. The move Paa Kwesi Nduom took to join to a capitalist party which I will write about in my subsequent works is a pure betrayal and infidelity of higher class to the philosophy of the CPP.
I tell you! Kwame Nkrumah shook in his grave and still sends a message to us, to banish people like Paa Kwesi Nduom out of the CPP. The CPP has a tradition, the CPP has a culture, the CPP has its values, the CPP has its way of life that is supposed to be different from any other political party in Ghana; the CPP has its concepts and its ideological beliefs.
It is based on this socialism concept that the Convention Peoples Party believe they can develop the country and not through capitalist interventions.
Paa Kwesi Nduom did every wrong to tell Ghanaians that he can never assume a political office with CPP and he did not hesitate to grasp the opportunity with both hands when former President Kuffuor offered him the ministerial appointment to take over the ministry of Economic Planning and Regional Cooperation in 2001.
No circumstance could have forced or lured Osagyefo Dr. Kwame Nkrumah to dine from the same bowl with citadels of marginalisation and exploitation that is too impervious to the naïve thinker.
To be an Nkrumahist, one needs to be committed to the Nkrumah Legacy and believe in his ideology. Anything apart this, should not be accepted with the rank and file of the CPP. It is only through conscientisation of the masses about Nkrumah’s ideas that the CPP can be built into a strong uniting force. For Nkrumah still lives in our Bloods. Source Akyereko Frimpong Emmanuel (GIJ)