Feeble defence of a visionless party

Rather than demonstrate that, contrary to Dr. Nii Moi Thompson's earlier claim that the N.P.P. suffered from a “poverty of vision”, it was indeed forward-looking and aspirational, Dr. Kwame Okoampa-Ahoofe chose to remind readers (“CPP Has Absolutely No Vision for Ghana!!!” published on Modernghana.com on 15th July, 2008) that the first C.P.P. government also employed the services of foreigners and foreign corporations and in the process, he failed to live up to the promise of his article's title.

Like his beloved N.P.P., Dr. Kwame Okoampa-Ahoofe failed to deliver; instead we were reminded that Kwame Nkrumah's personal secretary (Erica Powell) and his first Attorney-General, Sir Geoffrey Bing QC were British; as was Major-General Henry Templer Alexander the Chief of Defence of Staff of the Ghana Army from 1960-1961. Incidentally, the author, who likes to parade himself as an authority on the postcolonial history of Ghana, does not appear to know that the highest rank Alexander achieved in the army was Major-General; he was never “Lt.-Gen.” as the good Associate Professor suggested. But of course these are small matters of historical detail that cannot be allowed to get in the way of Dr. Kwame Okoampa-Ahoofe's mission.

Our resident Associate Professor on Ghanaweb and Modernghana took umbrage at Dr. Thompson's rather accurate summation of the state of our nation: that we have all but given up on running anything for ourselves; but instead of a forward-looking riposte to demonstrate that President J.A. Kufour and his henchmen are the most visionary leaders Ghana has ever had, we were fed with the rather feeble line that, in effect, nothing much had changed since Nkrumah. Even if the piece was not meant as a defence of the N.P.P. it failed to demonstrate, as the title suggested, that the C.P.P. had “absolutely no vision for Ghana".

Since the good Associate Professor sought to impugn the integrity of the first C.P.P. government, I thought it would be useful to share with your readers, in defence of the most successful government Ghana has ever had, the address by the former Gold Coast Trade Commissioner, Mr. TM Kodwo Mercer in October 1955 (a) to advance the discussion and (b) to repudiate the self-indulgent attempt by Dr. Kwame Okoampa-Ahoofe to rewrite Ghana's postcolonial history.

[start of address]

[end of address]

The vision and programme set out in Mercer's speech above is unmatched by anything we have seen from the N.P.P. and that was the central thrust of Dr. Thompson's argument which sadly eluded the good Associate Professor. It also lays to rest the canard that private enterprise was not encouraged under the C.P.P. No doubt we will be fed that old tripe that all of this was possible because Nkrumah's government inherited 'loads of money' from the British which although false, overlooks the obvious fact that while finance makes the realization of a vision possible, one does not need bucket loads of money to have a vision.

Of course, I accept that I have not demonstrated either that the current C.P.P. has a vision for Ghana, but that was not my mission: it was important to first demonstrate that contrary to Dr. Okoampa-Ahoofe's protestations, the C.P.P. did not only employ some talented foreigners to help rebuild our country, it had also had a vision and a well-thought-out programme for advancing our development and progress. Now, we only have to wait for the unveiling of the CPP's 2008 manifesto to judge for ourselves whether or not it has a vision for Ghana going forward.