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By Maxwell Ofori.
The Speaker of Parliament, the Rt. Hon. Professor Aaron Michael Oquaye, has charged the Convention People’s Party (CPP) to get out of the bowels of the National Democratic Congress (NDC) if it is to flourish as a political party in modern Ghana.
According him, prior to the 1992 elections, the CPP was penetrated by the NDC when it had no option then to poach, ahead of the elections. The Speaker was delivering a lecture to mark the 70th Anniversary of the formation of the Gold Coast Convention (UGCC) in Accra last week Friday.
Professor Aaron Michael Oquaye, a lawyer, said it hurt him whenever the NDC gave the impression that the New Patriotic Party (NPP) had something against other political parties when the opposite is the case. “It pains me any time our opponent, the NDC, gives the impression that we have something against others. We move on looking unto the fundamentals that we believe in, and we will not depart anyway, because of the deviation and intentions other people have for us.
“The CPP, who are our brother party, and, in fact, who are our children, because they came out of the bowels of the tradition anyway, are always welcome once they decide to proceed with the tenets of the tradition. It is important for us to note that when we were going to have elections in 1992, the NDC, who have no tradition, decided to poach; they had to poach. The place they could not penetrate was the children of 4th August 1947.
“This is true…and it was the leadership of the party, echoed loudly by Kwaku Boateng, that the CPP had been penetrated by the newly-created NDC and its men, the names of which he supplied, and that they had created the confusion in the party, which was then broken and fragmented into six political parties. I wrote, if the CPP wants to survive, they should not look our (NPP) way, because we are not out to destroy them. They must proceed to extricate themselves from the bowels of the NDC, then they will survive,” he observed.
The CPP, since the inception of the 4th Republic in 1992, has never won any general elections in the country, while the NDC has won four times, raising questions about what actually is wrong with the party, if they have not been penetrated, as was reported.
The auditorium, National Theatre, was filled to capacity and in a very solemn mood, with some watching on screens mounted outside, as the audience had all their attention on the lecturer, Professor Aaron Michael Oquaye, who lectured on the theme ‘4th August, Ghana’s day of destiny.’
Interspersed with applause, the audience, especially those born a year after independence, were privileged to note that the founder of the CPP, Dr Kwame Nkrumah, the man headlined for leading the fight for independence, once changed the yellow colour in the Ghana flag to white in 1964, but it was later brought back in 1966.
Prof Michael Oquaye expressed his respect for Osagyefo Dr Kwame Nkrumah, but indicated that though he (Nkrumah) was part of the team that fought for independence, he could not have done it alone.
He continued that the real fight began with the Danquah, Busia, Dombo tradition in 1947 when the group met the British to register its case, and subsequently winning. To this end, he said that cocoa money really played a major role in the country attaining independence, as the country was producing more than half of the world’s cocoa.
The country, he noted, became richer and was fit enough to depend on itself. “Independence did not just come. I used to say that cocoa money was fundamental in our becoming independent at that time, because, if our gold, cocoa, diamond, manganese, timber as export rate was something to write about, then Ghanaians had become the richest people in the whole of Africa, south of the Sahara, apart from white South Africa by the time we became independence, and our educational level was the highest also.
“In fact, by dint of the cocoa farmer, when we were producing more than half of the world’s cocoa, we had become fit for independence, because we had what it took to become independent.”
e By Maxwell Ofori. The Speaker of Parliament, the Rt. Hon. Professor Aaron Michael Oquaye, has charged the Convention People’s Party (CPP) to get out of the bowels of the National Democratic Congress (NDC) if it is to flourish as a political party in modern Ghana. According him, prior to the 1992 elections, the CPP […] Read Full Story
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