At Ghana@ 60 Lecture: SPEAKER TAKES ON NDC, CPP

He has however advised that “If the CPP want to survive they must proceed to extricate themselves from the bowels of NDC, then they will survive”.

According to him, the NDC is to blame for what has become of the party founded by Ghana’s first President, Dr. Kwame Nkrumah.

At a Ghana@60 public lecture held at the National Theatre in Accra last Friday, the political scientist said the survival of the CPP lies in weaning itself from the NDC which has “no tradition.”

As at now they [CPP members] are swallowed [and] as a truism, they should know who swallowed them,” he told an audience, largely members of the governing New Patriotic Party (NPP).

The CPP has not tasted power since its founder was overthrown on February 24, 1966 by the National Liberation Council.

The coup was led by Colonel E.K. Kotoka, Major A.A. Afrifa, Lieutenant General (retired) J.A. Ankra and Police Inspector General J.W.K. Harlley.

The party was subsequently banned by the coup makers which led to supporters of the tradition forming different parties.

When the ban on politics was lifted in 1979, supporters of the CPP regrouped under the Peoples National Party (PNP) who chose Hilla Limann as their candidate against popular Victor Owusu of the Popular Front Party (PFP).

PNP candidate, Dr Limann won that election but he was overthrown in 1981 by Flight Lieutenant Jerry John Rawlings under the wings of the Armed Forces Revolutionary Council (AFRC).

Dr Limann tried to re-enter politics in 1992 as the presidential candidate of the People’s National Convention (PNC) but he failed. Four years later some Nkrumah factions met and the CPP was reformed in 1996.

The political fortune of CPP has been dwindling by the year. The party had three seats out of 230 in the December 7, 2004 general elections but after 2016 general elections out of the 275 seats, the CPP has none.

Prof Ocquaye believes the NDC is the cause of the CPP’s political misfortunes.

He said the governing New Patriotic Party (NPP), an offspring of the United Gold Coast Convention (UGCC), should not be seen as the enemy of the CPP because they can trace their tradition to the same ancestry.

But the “NDC has no tradition,” the former political science lecturer at the University of Ghana Department of Political Science said.

Prof Ocquaye said the NDC, founded by Mr Rawlings in 1992, has succeeded in poaching key members of the CPP into its fold which is causing its demise.