CPP power struggle ends with Nduom’s departure

A bitter power struggle in the Convention People’s Party (CPP) appears to have come to an end with the departure of the Party’s 2008 Presidential Candidate and Presidential aspirant, Dr Papa Kwesi Nduom.

On Wednesday, Dr Nduom announced an open secret when he told journalists in Accra that he had quit the CPP to move on.

“I wish the CPP well as it seeks to chart the course announced by its new leadership. For me, this is the time to look forward and forward only, to a new and different political order,” he added.

To the Secretary-General of the CPP, Mr Ivor Greenstreet, this was not a surprise as the party executives were aware that Dr Nduom had been moving towards the goal of resigning for some time.

Party Chairperson, Samia Yaba Nkrumah and other key CPP officials noted that Dr Nduom’s departure would not affect the party in anyway.

The CPP, a centre-left party, formed by Ghana’s First President Dr Kwame Nkrumah and which won independence for Ghana, has performed very poorly since the advent of the Fourth Republic.

An off-shoot of the CPP, the People’s National Party (PNP), won the 1979 election with the late Dr Hilla Limann emerging as President but his administration was abruptly curtailed on December 31, 1981 when Flight Lieutenant Jerry John Rawlings launched the 31st December Revolution.

When the ban on political parties was lifted, the CPP family was in tatters, with several parties springing up claiming to be the true CPP. The rivalry persists as efforts to bring them together as one entity had failed.

The election of Ms Nkrumah, daughter of Dr Nkrumah, as leader of the CPP, was seen as a unifying factor.

But the hopes quickly disappeared as cracks in the party drew wider with open disagreement on the agenda of the CPP.

Ms Nkrumah, a few weeks ago, openly accused Dr Nduom, former MP for Komenda Edina Eguafo Abrem, of orchestrating activities to disintegrate the party.

Samia alleged that Dr Nduom had relentlessly waged a campaign to demoralise party supporters and could be expulse from the CPP.

“We’ll not tolerate this nonsense. Enough is enough. We’re fed up with this nonsense,” she said.

Dr Nduom, 58, has not hidden his presidential ambitions.

He was born in Elmina on February 15, 1953 to Mr Joseph Hubster Yorke and Mrs Monica Yorke.

Dr Nduom attended the St Joseph’s Catholic Boys School in Elmina and the St Augustine’s Practice School in Cape Coast.

In 1966, he entered St Augustine’s College, Cape Coast and in 1970, he won an American Field Service scholarship and spent one year with an American family in Cokato, Minnesota.

He returned to St Augustine’s to complete Sixth Form education from 1971 to 1973.

Dr Nduom returned to the USA in August, 1973. He worked his way through the Milwaukee Area Technical College, Marquette University and ended up at the University of Wisconsin where he obtained a Bachelor of Arts degree in Economics in December, 1975.

He obtained a Master of Science degree in Management from the School of Business and a Philosophy Degree in Service Delivery Systems (USI Programme) from the University of Wisconsin.

Dr Nduom was an assemblyman, Minister of State at the Ministry of Finance and Economic Planning, Minister of Energy and Minister of Public Sector Reforms under the centre-right government of Former President John Agyekum Kufuor.

He told a press conference that he had “resolved to work with like-minded men and women from all over the country, to form a very focused, vibrant, independent-minded and progressive political movement to contest the 2012 Presidential and Parliamentary elections”.

Dr Nduom polled less than two per cent of the votes in 2008 and he does not see the CPP as the vehicle to achieve his presidential ambition.

“Our Political Movement will work hard to be a winner in 2012. It will be difficult, we know, but we are prepared to do everything possible to give Ghanaians an alternative that is progressive and different in a very positive way.

“Our new political movement aims to present a credible, united, disciplined and well-organised election machine that is coupled with a clear, specific platform for change Ghanaians can feel in their lives and in their pockets within four years. Ours is a broad-based national movement with people who have been crying for the ‘change we need’ after experiencing NDC (National Democratic Congress) and NPP (New Patriotic Party) administrations that have not delivered to their expectations,” he said.

Source: GNA

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