On Samia’s defeat and Ivor’s victory
Call it schadenfreude. Call it an unnecessary delight. Call it whatever you want. The bottom line is that it is a good thing Samia Nkrumah lost in her bid to become the presidential candidate of the Convention Peoples Party (CPP). And everyone should be happy, I think.
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I have had my own doubts as to which party in Ghana could qualify as an alternative to the two main dominant parties. It cannot be the Progressive People’s Party (PPP), which aside its organisational structure, is yet to withstand the test of time.
The National Democratic Party (NDP) in all sincerity was dead on arrival, and not even the former first lady can give the party a fresh outlook.
The CPP is the party that can wrestle or at the very least, dim the prospects of the two dominant parties. It is the party that is worthy of invitation in determining the future of the Ghanaian political leader. Of course, that was the party of Ghana’s first leader – Dr Kwame Nkrumah.
That was the party that challenged and set in motion the drive towards self-determination across the continent.
The CPP was the party whose record in government spoke for itself. The CPP is firmly grounded in history and there is no doubt about that.
The problem with the CPP is that it does not know how to carve and sell images of the future of Ghana. If ever there was a party that was so much fixated on its past, it is the CPP.
It is probably the only party that has people - even those unborn then - touting events that they’ve read and learnt about but never seen the place.
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Listen to the functionaries and the supposed bigwigs of the party and one thing is clear: the party is filled with symbolism and emptiness.
The CPP has had a tortuous past. After the 1966 coup which saw the overthrow of its founder and life president, it was banned. It only emerged in recent years. Since its return, it has sounded and continues to sound like a historical society.
The intervention of persons such as Ms Samia Nkrumah in the party has done the party little good – if any at all. She is Nkrumah’s daughter. But who really cares?
The rhetoric and debate has not moved on since. The party is still struggling to assert its relevance and what it actually stands for in the modern political landscape.
The party has to come to the point where it is attractive. And by attractive, the focus is not on those who lived through the CPP era and tell sweet tales of those days. It is about capturing the attention of the youth of today.
This is by no means an easy assignment for the party - especially when the party in question can spend decades waxing lyrical about things that majority of today’s voters were not witnesses to.
This is a party that has not ever since Kwame Nkrumah made any significant strides (and to be fair, their exclusion from active politics in a way has hurt them.)
Hopefully, Mr Ivor Greenstreet would move the rhetoric and argument over and above those that we have been used to. Enough of the tales of Nkrumah.
Enough of the tales of how things used to be - nobody needs that.
The party is far behind in the race. It needs to work harder to be at par with the other political parties. Just as the leader they so much extol captured the spirit of the time and made it work for them, so also are they required to seize the moment and make it happen.
They should throw away those arcane concepts that they find difficult throwing away and start engaging with the issues of the day.
If Ivor could walk into the camp of the ruling National Democratic Congress, break the stale practice associated with solidarity messages and point out to the ruling government what he thought was wrong with the governance of the NDC, then one would expect that he would walk into the flag bearer position without having to follow any templates.
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For that, I can only wish him the best.
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