Our attention has been drawn to the above-captioned article authored by NPP-USA and published on Thursday, February 12, 2014. (http://www.ghanaweb.com/GhanaHomePage/diaspora/artikel.php?ID=346307).
May we begin with a short response that “Yes, it is a big, big deal”. I know some people may want to ask what is the big deal about this story, but we just want to put NPP-USA straight on track. NPP’s their level of thinking, and distortions that have become their stock in trade on social media and on the web just to deceive and pollute the minds of Ghanaians as cheap and desperate means to win power at all cost in 2016. Ghanaians deserve better than what our colleagues have been spewing all over the place.
Yes, the ace Ghanaian journalist Kwasi Pratt said it right, and let us repeat it that Akuffo Addo was a staunch CPP member, and that should not send NPP-USA into a panic mode and cause them to catch “diarrhea of words disease”.
They went on by asserting that “What NPP-USA finds farcical is the seriousness with which Kwesi Pratt displays his hollow logic. He seems to be operating under the assumption that his so-called revelation is earth-shattering news but actually, it is not. Firstly, if Nana has ‘told this story to many of us’, as Kwesi Pratt says, and then obviously it is no secret. For you NPP-USA who see no big deal in this could have kept your mouth shut in disregard of the revelation. Your reaction is rather the big deal you find with the revelations.
Now, one may ask why did Akuffo-Addo quickly jump ship and joined the retrogressive train of his forbears who master-minded the overthrow of Osagyefo? Ironically, they turned around to name their retrogressive political movement as “Progressive Party”. Following suit in contemporary times have their named another unpatriotic movement as “New Patriotic Party”. Was it an opportunistic call, or “yen akanfo” belief system, or just his known misplaced ambition to be President “at all costs” that motivated Nana Addo to move away from the CPP?
Per NPP USA,” if Nana Akufo-Addo was a member of the CPP tradition up to February 24, 1966, that does not make him culpable for or even an accessory to the atrocities that the CPP perpetrated under Dr. Kwame Nkrumah, including the obnoxious death of Dr. J. B. Danquah in detention at Nsawam. Perhaps the inhumanity and despotic tendencies of Nkrumah and the CPP are some of the reasons that drove Nana Akufo-Addo to the UP tradition”.
The above claim by NPP-USA cannot hold, because the question is that why would Nana Addo remain with the CPP all through those periods of alleged “atrocities” of Nkrumah before jumping ship at the overthrow of Nkrumah? For somebody who is believed to be an advocate of human rights, why would he allow himself to be counted among Nkrumah’s foot-soldiers? The facts can only be that, either he believed there was nothing near human rights abuses by the Nkrumah’s regime or he saw the legitimate preventive measures taken against the “terrorists” acts of his forbears as proper and necessary.
Per NPP USA, “Nana Addo is not the only person who was an active CPP member, but then crossed carpet to join the United Party. In fact, UP stalwarts like Victor Owusu, who later became the party’s presidential candidate, was an active CPP member before he joined the UP. Likewise Mr. Joe Appiah, who as a CPP member was very close to Nkrumah, but joined the National Liberation Movement after his friendship with Nkrumah, was ruined. The NLM later merged with other opposition parties to form the United Party. In recent memory, Mr. Freddie Blay was an active CPP member, and is now a strong member and First Vice-Chairman of the NPP”.
Surely, the opportunistic moves by the likes of Freddie Blay cannot be hidden away from fair-minded people who have followed politics in the Ghanaian context. Others like Victor Owusu could only have jumped ship to pursue their “mate-meho” agenda.
They went on by giving another example of the late President Reagan being part of the Democratic Party supporting the then President Roosevelt.
All these are good to recount. That makes democracy better than one choosing to remain ignorant. In a democratic dispensation, one is free and allowed to join any party or group he or she wants and more importantly it becomes news as prominent politicians cross carpet.
If NPP USA does not know then they should learn today that, that is how history is learnt. Maybe the late Prof Adu Boahen will be the best person to give them history classes since they are not prepared to listen to any other person than their own. The insult on Kwasi Pratt will not change history. YES AKUFFO ADDO WAS A MEMBER OF CPP.
We of NDC-USA Coalition Chapter will predict that after Nana is again bitten in 2016, he will cross-carpet to NDC and one day in Ghana’s history, one would have to tell the next generation and describe to them how hollow a group called NPP-USA sees history.
At least as some members of NPP USA are our friends, we know of intellectual and good people among them but the most insulting and the irony of it is no one seems to give them sensible advice to start their 2016 campaign so they may reduce the number of seats NDC will be winning in their Akan regions as they see those areas as their own.
The Akatamanso family has come too far for this kind of politics and NDC USA Coalition Chapter thinks it will serve NPP USA to apologize to Kwasi Pratt and rather nominate some of their members to go for a history lessons from him (Kwasi Pratt). Please, let us stop the politics of destruction (if not self-destruction) and display the good things we have for Ghana. After all, NPP has been in power before likewise NDC. Let’s put forward what we have done and will do for the good people of Ghanaians to judge.
What is wrong with NPP USA? It appears members who constitute the leadership are too full of themselves and have become unaware of the fact that Ghanaian electorate do not believe them anymore. They spend more of their time thinking about their over -bloated ego leading their misguided belief that they are the best in everything and it must be them or no one else.
The last time we checked, the then Vice President of the Republic of Ghana took only three months of campaign to undo their four years of a campaign of vilification to win the 2012 elections,to become the President of Ghana. Now HE John Dramani Mahama has more time to campaign and more development to show the good people of Ghana. Let NPP not be wise in their wisdom.