Dr Kwame Nkrumah’s Convention People’s Party (CPP) was meant to be dynamic. It was regarded as the main instrument for turning Ghana into a Socialist State and for the redemption of the African Continent. The party apparatus impinged on nearly every Ghanaian during Nkrumah’s time in office 1951 – 1966.
Dr Nkrumah wanted to achieve certain definite goals and his ideology was therefore meant to be total and to embrace the whole life of the Ghanaian people. In fact, Ghana was going ahead, the Nation’s economy was almost completely controlled by Ghanaians and our education sector was planned to produce educated and skilled personnel to meet the demand.
Likewise, a thorough machinery had been established for the political education of the masses so that our socialist objectives, and Ghana’s role in the wider African Revolution might be clearly understood and that was the purpose of the Ghana Young Pioneers Movement to which this writer was a card bearing member.
Socialist Government Without Socialists
By 1964, two years to the violent overthrow of Dr. Kwame Nkrumah on 24th February, 1966, he was preaching socialism throughout Ghana while in actual fact, his ministers and other high ranking CPP Party officials took advantage of their positions to amass undeserved wealth with impunity.
In his famous dawn broadcast, Dr. Nkrumah made reference to inner party squabbles, corruption, deceit and lies that were tearing the CPP apart. He called on CPP politicians who wanted to do business to give up their seats. He chastised what he called a “New ruling class of self-seekers and careerists”. Some of the party leaders, he declared, had become agents for collecting bribes. He went ahead to sack Mr. K. A. Gbedemah, once the able organiser of CPP.
Mr. J. E. E Hagan was asked to surrender all his properties in excess of what the President had laid down as permissible. Ghana fully regained its lost independence when she became a Republic on 1st July, 1960 and Dr. Nkrumah moved from being a Prime Minister to the President of the New Republic.
Lies and Deceit
I vividly recalled that at a meeting of the executive members of the Ghana Journalist Association (GJA) with the CPP government and Party members in 1964, I had the singular opportunity as a card bearing member of the Ghana Young Pioneers Movement to shake the soft hands of that Cuban Revolutionary Che Gvevara, who asked Comrade N. A. Welbeck, the then Minister for Information and Party Propaganda how many members the CPP had.
Mr. Welbeck shamelessly and triumphantly proclaimed, seven million Party Members, which was exactly Ghana’s population at that time. Che Guvara’s response was total silence followed by a smile because he knew that the National Chairman of the CPP was a big liar.
The violent National Liberation Movement (N.L.M) then led by Dr. K. A. Busia and his supporters were throwing bombs and grenades all over the country and yet the CPP Chairman told Che Guvara that all Ghanaians were members of the CPP. Can you imagine that? It will interest you to know that Comrades Krobo Edusei and Kojo Botsio could not be sacked as Ministers by Dr Nkrumah because they were very useful/diabolic CPP organizers in the Ashanti Region so each time you hear of their dismissals, they were later re-instated by Nkrumah.
Those from whom the Revolution seizes power are never alone, they are the cat paws of an international system, which has been in the business of murder, plunder and bloody wars for profit for over 500 years. During the fight for Ghana’s independence in 1957, Dr Kwame Nkrumah told the chiefs in the Ashanti and Eastern Regions that some chiefs would run away and leave their sandals behind. Why did he say that? Those chiefs in the two Regions always buy several cartons of soda water and supplied it to N.L.M supporters.
These young men would shake the bottles of soda water during a hot sun shine and then throw them into crowded rallies of CPP members and the broken bottles always injured several CPP supporters. So, Dr. Nkrumah reacted with a stern warning and followed it up by destooling those N.L.M chiefs and replacing them with CPP chiefs because the situation at that time demanded it.
Their N.L.M Party lost General Elections in 1951, 1954 and 1956 to Dr. Nkrumah’s then well-organized CPP and they said they would never co-operate and work with Dr. Nkrumah unless they are in control. Ghanaians hate violence even before independence in 1957. So how on earth can any political party especially the NPP revive it?
To remove the old and corrupt system may take only one morning. But to eradicate habits and attitudes that characterize and facilitate the operation of that system is a task of dedicated builders. It takes decades and many generations.
The Accra Shocker
On the 23rd of February, 1966, Mr. Kojo Botsio organized a big party in his house in Accra; a party at which everybody who mattered was present. The military action that overthrew Dr. Kwam Nkrumah began in Kumasi in the night of 23rd February, where Col. Kotoka commanded the troops and they had already reached the outskirts of Accra by 3:00 am when they received the last minute instructions from Major A. A. Afrifa, who was Kotoka’s Brigadier Major.
After Kotoka and Afrifa had shared the whopping US$13 million bribe given to them by the dreaded American’s CIA to overthrow Dr. Nkrumah who had then travelled out of the country at the behest of the Non-Aligned Movement to lead a peace mission to Hanoi.
Nkrumah arrived in Beijing on the evening of 23rd February, 1966 only to be told by his Chinese host that an Army/Police conspiracy had seized power in Ghana. Dr. Nkrumah then flew back to Guinea only to realize that his Soviet friends were the first country to recognize the new NLC Government of traitors under Lt. General J. A. Ankrah.
Now, do you blame those soldiers who overthrew Dr. Nkrumah? No, it was mainly due to the CPP’s own self destruction tendencies. So, when Dr. Nkrumah fell in 1966, the Chiefs came out in their hundreds to pledge loyalty and support to the NLC Military Government.
Yesterday’s party leaders went into an orgy of celebrations over the demise of their own beloved party and the whole place bust into a demise of denunciation. He was a thief, a Liberian, a Communist and the son of a mere goldsmith. Every Rat aboard the CPP ship was running for cover out of sheer cowardice.
Dr. Nkrumah finally died in Romania in 1972 without even a single house built for his children or family members and yet he was described as a thief because of extreme hatred for him. Those Comrades who refused to denounce Dr. Nkrumah even at the risk of torture were Comrade Kwesi Amoako Atta, a former Ashanti Regional Commissioner, Eric Hyman, Kweku Akwesi and a handful of supporters. The rest is history. I shall return.
Written by Comrade Clement Sangaparee, United Cadres Front, Obuasi East
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