Why Nkrumaists may never find lasting unity (1)

IRONICALLY, the NLC regime which replaced the one-party state, CPP government in Ghana in 1966, could be said to have done Nkrumaists a favour by issuing a decree banning the use of the name ‘Nkrumah’ and ‘CPP to form political parties.

The reason is that the time for the two names was almost over by 1966 because Nkrumah and the CPP had become rather unpopular; and the time for the names completely passed since 1991, when communism on which Nkrumaism was based finally collapsed.

When in 1979, Imoru Egala, Kofi Batsa, Kojo Botsio, Okutwer Bekoe, Limann and others obeyed the NLC decree and chose the name PNP, they succeeded and won power at the polls, and could most likely have integrated into the emerging, irresistible tide of International clamour for democracy; but unfortunately they were overthrown.

Admittedly, in the last five years before 1966, the slogan, ‘the CPP is Nkrumah, and Nkrumah is the CPP’, was not a mere slogan but the political reality. Hence, the first reason why Nkrumaists will be hard put to find the kind of lasting unity on which to build a durable and successful political party now, is that the CPP became too much identified with the person of Nkrumah.

All that is needed to inflict mortal damage on a new Nkrumaist CPP party is to attack the person of Nkrumah who was not saint, and is not the best role model for multi-party democracy which our constitution requires today.

Any association or institution which becomes inseparable from the personality of its founder or leader does not last long after the person’s death. This has been true in all fields throughout history – politically, commercially and socially; the only exception is religion. This is largely because secular society is dynamic, but religion is both dynamic and supernatural.

Unlike Jesus Christ, Nkrumah never claimed that God Almighty blessed his name such that by the mere invocation of the name Nkrumah miracles would happen. In fact, it is alleged in many books that at the height of his political power, Nkrumah denied the existence of Ghana.

Therefore, it is not likely that God ever endowed the name Nkrumah with mystical powers so that its invocation would for ever produce favourable dispositions in the minds of Ghanaian in every generation. Even the blessed name Jesus Christ meets with a great deal of resistance among people who Jesus asserted were created by his father, God, when he Jesus was present.

Therfore, like all earthly things, the names Nkrumaism and CPP are bound to wane into the mists of history just like Marx and socialism: Hitler and Nazism; Mao Tse-Tung, Stalin, Lenin and communism. All the following people are also now history; Caesar. Napoleon, Abraham Lincoln, Einstein, Gandhi, Haile Selasie and Churchill.

The second reason is that Nkrumaism and CPP are derived essentially from communism which is the short name for Marxist Socialist ideology in practice. At the height of his Political power in Ghana, Nkrumah asserted in his book ‘Africa Must Unite’ p.129; “The CPP is imbued with Marxist socialist philosophy” i.e. it was communist- inclined. But sine 1991, the major champions namely, Soviet Union, Eastern Europe and China have all abandoned the ideology as unworkable because their economies collapsed and their citizens were leaving in droves to the liberal democratic countries.

Only North Korea and Cuba are still practicing communism fully, and making their peoples suffer greatly as a result. Communism is a system in which the government of a country is in absolute control and tries to regulate the details of the political, economic and social life of the people; and they practice one-party state politics. This is the exact opposite of democracy.

Addressing the US Congress in 1992, the Russian president at the time, Boris Yeltsin, declared that communism was dead, and added; I am here to assure you that we shall not let it rise again in our land’.

Communism is being kept alive as a political system in Russia, China, Cuba and North Korea only by force of arms. But it is brain-dead because its main intellectual attraction as the best economic system has been shown to be false and acknowledged to be so by every nation except N. Korea and Cuba.

Since Nkrumah and communism are dead, it will not be easy for Nkrumaists to use Nkrumaism as a unifying force to form a successful and lasting political party in Ghana. After a few more years as a small minority party and still finding it difficult to attract significant popular support, they may fizzle out.

            Ghanaian Times            -           Thursday, June 7, 2007                        Page: 13