CPP DAMNS KUFUOR!!

CPP Chairman, Prof Edmond Delle

The Convention Peoples Party (CPP) has lashed out at former President John Agyekum Kufuor for his unsavory remarks about Ghana’s first President Osagyefo Dr Kwame Nkrumah.

In a statement released in Accra, the CPP claimed that Kufuor’s attack on Nkrumah is meant to prepare the grounds for the cancellation of the Founder’s Day Celebration.

The full text of the statement is published below;

At a meeting of the International Democratic Union, an association of right wing parties from all over the world, Ex-President John Agyekum Kufour, the former  President of Ghana who was a one-time Deputy Foreign Minister in the 2nd Republic and an erstwhile Local Government Secretary in the Military dictatorship of the P.N.D.C. which overthrew the democratically elected Government of the PNP led by President Liman on 31st December 1989, accused the first President of the Republic of Ghana of having created a unitary State that did not tolerate varying ideologies.

He went further to state that the Osagyefo built a prison purposely for political opponents and that “Democracy was virtually killed and the hitherto unseen off and unknown off poverty levels in the country led to the 1966 coup d’état”, thereby justifying that vile anti-constitutional act of treason. Is it any wonder that he actually participated in stabilizing the coup d’état of 1981 by becoming a Minister in it.

As a Ghanaian, Kufour is within his rights to comment on the Political history of Ghana but it is quite unfortunate and sad that as a citizen and former President, he goes down the lane of propaganda, half-truths, twisted logic and a rendition of a pedestrian understanding of our history in front of foreigners.

Former President Kufuor with exported gold chains on his neck

Before 1951, was there democracy under colonial rule in the Gold Coast?  Was it not through the struggles of Nkrumah and the CPP and others who fought for and achieved universal Adult suffrage for the ordinary men and women, to achieve internal Self Government and subsequently political independence in 1957 and full sovereignty as a republic in 1960? Throughout all these times did we not hold elections and did the CPP not consistently win? In the Presidential contest of 1960, did the people of Ghana not vote for A REPUBLIC with Kwame Nkrumah as President?

Did Ghana not hold a referendum in 1965for a one party state? Did parliament not exist from 1951 right up to 1966?

At the same time did the Ashanti Pioneer, the Echo and other anti-government newspapers exist till the law proscribed them for anti-state activities? Who introduced Political violence into this country, was it not a tribal grouping called the National Liberations Movement which metamorphosed into the United Party to which Kufour himself belonged. Were they not the authors of numerous terrorist acts for which they were jailed under the PDA or ran into exile? Nsawam prison was built to house bomb throwers, fraudsters, thieves and coup makers like R.R. Amponsah. 

The Patriot Act in U.S.A which jails terrorists in the U.S.A has suddenly made that country undemocratic. According to this strange logic of the ex-president democracy only came into being in 1992, because a duopoly of 2 right-wing parties were created and have entrenched themselves   in power under the control of a small elite.

The unprecedented poverty afflicting Ghana now which has made the middle class so poor and ensures that it subsists on second hand consumer goods and are forced to go cup in hand begging is obviously what Kufuor prefers. The adoption of a neo liberal policy of selling all our factories, looting it by giving it to cronies or abandoning it, is better and has made us richer according to Kufour than the first half of the 1960s when Tema Habour, Tema township, over 400 factories, scores of secondary schools, Akosombo Hydro Electric Power and roads were constructed all over the country. Indeed, at that time Ghanaians produced and consumed most of their foods, built a medical school from their own resources etc are we now being told by the Ex-President that all these pale into insignificance compared to the starvation level penury most of the population are now subjected to.

Osagyefo Dr Kwame Nkrumah

We the members of the CPP are not really surprised, the NPP and its antecedence of UP, PP AND their other surrogates have never changed or hidden their contempt for the people of this country. If it is not them, then it is no one and nothing good could have been or can be done by anyone else.

They will go to the extent of caging their political opponent (Boye Moses) and parading him through the principal streets of Accra, they will introduce Protective Custody Decree to jail opponents, they will use bombs to kill and maim children, sponsor coup d’états, loot state property and because they are the elite it is right. Is this is not the same thinking which tries to devalue our history by claiming that the independence struggle started with Aborigines Rights Protection Society in the 1890s.

Is this the harbinger of things to come? After they criminalized the mentioning Nkrumah’s name and showing his photos under a government Kufour served, are they preparing us to enable them cancel 21st September Founders Day? We call on all Progressive Patriots to beware and resist a revision of our political history.

Long live the CPP

Long life Ghana

Nkumah Never Dies  

Editorial

POOR MR KUFUOR!

God knows what pushed former President John Agyekum Kufuor to launch an unwarranted and completely unguarded attack on Osagyefo Dr Kwame Nkrumah first President of the Republic of Ghana.

His conduct is very strange given the fact that up until then he had conducted himself as a seasoned statesman staying above the frail.

Indeed, his general disposition had endeared him to many. Ghanaians who always rallied to his defence when former President Jerry John Rawlings launched salvos in his direction.

Unfortunately, former President Kufuor has now done exactly what Flt.Lt. Jerry John Rawlings has been doing to him to the Osagyefo.

It is even more unfortunate when one comes to the realisation that the accusations Mr Kufuor makes against the Osagyefo are completely unfounded.

Those who were detained under Nkrumah were mainly terrorists and political gangsters who killed and maimed for political power.

The claim that poverty in Ghana justified the overthrow of the Nkrumah Government is balderdash.

In any case how can Mr Kufuor who served as a Minister in a military dictatorship be complaining about the lack, or absence of democratic norms.