CPP Must Own Up to its Inglorious Past!

Last week, the wife of the presidential candidate of the rump-Convention People's Party (CPP) took the party's circus act to the Asante-Regional capital of Kumasi. It was bad enough for a party which claims ideological descent from a neocolonialist premier who unconscionably attempted to destroy the civilized and august Asante Federation, and even worse for Mrs. Yvonne Nduom to have jauntily presumed to lecture the staff of the legendary Ashanti Pioneer (now renamed “The Pioneer”) newspaper on what constitutes balanced, objective and fair media coverage of the raging electioneering campaign (Ghana News Agency 9/28/08).

When I first read the GNA report, I was of the grossly mistaken belief, in retrospect, that perhaps Mrs. Nduom had delivered an unqualified and retrospective apology to the editor, publisher and staff of The Pioneer. The reader can thus fathom my horror to learn of the CPP presidential candidate's wife's attempt to deviously finesse the staff of The Pioneer, President Nkrumah's media arch-nemesis, into generously providing unfettered coverage for the very political organization that almost succeeded in thoroughly extirpating independent media entrepreneurship from the postcolonial Ghanaian landscape.

Needless to say, it is this flagrant lack of sincerity vis-à-vis the utmost need for a bold confrontation with its palpably unsavory past that, as I have continued to emphasize, clearly constitutes the abject lack of preparedness of the rump-CPP to assuming the reins of national governance. In other words, what the Nduom Group is attempting to do here is to cynically eat its proverbial cake while simultaneously retaining possession of the same. For, while Dr. Paa Kwesi Nduom has vigorously and incessantly continued to shamelessly campaign on the supposedly unprecedented achievements of the original CPP, the former cabinet member of the New Patriotic Party (NPP) also continues to deliberately hedge over the critical question of boldly and maturely taking responsibility for the despotic atrocities of the Nkrumah regime.

And on the preceding score must also be recalled the fact that the erstwhile Ashanti Pioneer (now renamed “The Pioneer”) was the last major privately-owned newspaper to be summarily shuttered – or run off the newsstands – by a Convention People's Party edict in 1963, or thereabouts. For Nkrumah, “Command Journalism,” or a government-controlled and managed media, parading under the specious guise of “Development Journalism,” was the only media practice and/or culture worth pursuing (see Dennis Austin's Politics in Ghana: 1946-60). President Nkrumah would also attempt to summarily reduce the Asante Monarchy, and the Asantehene, in particular, to the neocolonialist status of an economic dependent of the state. The African Show Boy would do this by expropriating the landed and rental rights of the Asantehene. Coincidentally, the Adum quarter, or district, of Kumasi on which land The Pioneer newspaper is located, and whose traditional owner is the Asantehene, was summarily annexed by the CPP regime at about the same time that Mr. John S. Tsiboe's paper was proscribed.

Indeed, about the only redeeming aspect of Mrs. Yvonne Nduom's visit to the landmark offices of The Pioneer newspaper inheres in the muted but, nonetheless unmistakably deafening, vindication of the yeomanly efforts and missionary zeal of Mr. and Mrs. Tsiboe, founders of the Ashanti Pioneer, to have democratic culture prevail and actually thrive on Ghanaian soil. In this sense, therefore, postcolonial Ghanaian political culture could be aptly described as having come full circle or of age, even if such salutary culture remains both fledgling and fragile, two-and-half generations after Britain granted sovereignty to Ghana.

During her visit to the Pioneer newspaper, Mrs. Nduom was also quoted by the Ghana News Agency as having significantly observed that “since the establishment of the newspaper some 69 years ago, it has come under a barrage of numerous [sic] political and socioeconomic challenges. And yet [the Pioneer] has managed to keep its composure and policy in the dissemination of information which has enhanced the nation's progress” (Ghanaweb.com 9/28/08). This writer is also proud to recall having written an obituary which was published in the Pioneer newspaper for a member of the renowned Sagoe and Madjoub families (Mrs. Aboagye) in the early 1980's.

Needless to say, Mrs. Nduom could have been more constructively frank enough to have also highlighted CPP government attempts to destroy The Ashanti Pioneer and, in effect, the fundamental human rights of law-abiding Ghanaian citizens, particularly freedom of speech and the press, by deliberately, perennially and systematically denying the Tsiboe's the license to import newsprint, a right liberally and routinely granted such government-owned newspapers as The Ghanaian Times and The Daily Graphic, as well as the Nkrumah-owned Evening News.

In sum, the thematic thrust of this article is that while, indeed, the revivalist rump-CPP may be composed of an entirely new generation of Ghanaian politicians, nonetheless, by its fanatical and dogged pursuit of the pseudo-socialist ideology of “Nkrumaism,” the Nduom Group, or faction, has not presented well-meaning and open-minded Ghanaians with ample evidence indicating that, indeed, the CPP can be trusted to successfully and productively manage our liberal democratic Fourth-Republican culture. The first step towards the establishment of such trust must be an unreserved acknowledgment of the abject failure of “Nkrumaism.” Unfortunately, based upon what we have so far learned from the Nduom Group, it may be much easier for anyone to attempt squeezing rice-and-beans out of a rock.

*Kwame Okoampa-Ahoofe, Jr., Ph.D., is Associate Professor of English, Journalism and Creative Writing at Nassau Community College of the State University of New York, Garden City. He is the author of 18 books, including “Dr. J. B. Danquah: Architect of Modern Ghana” (iUniverse.com, 2005) and “Reena: Letters to an Indian-American Gal” (Atumpan Publications/lulu.com, 2008). E-mail: okoampaahoofe@aol.com.

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