Convention People's Party Research Articles

Media and Murder in Military Barracks: Sociological Analysis of the Murder of Isaah Mobila in the Northern Region of Ghana.

Purpose: Military brutalities continue to occur in Africa notwithstanding a momentous drop in military coups. Military-civilian relations are still problematic and complex since in some cases civilians die in military custody. This article is a sociological study and analysis of how Ghana’s Convention Peoples Party’s Northern Regional Chairman, Issah Mobila was brutally murdered in military custody in Tamale, the Northern Regional capital and the effect the murder had on the family and the people of the Region.
 Methodology: The study was purely qualitative hence qualitative procedures and processes were used. Interview guides as well as observation were used for the primary data while the secondary data were sourced via internet and written documents like the newspapers. The data were thematically analysed and, in some cases, individual responses were quoted verbatim.
 Findings: The study asserted that Mobila was murdered by the military hence two of the military officers were convicted. The study also asserted that Mobila was wrongly accused by the security services and murdered in military custody. The study found that the family of the deceased continued to suffer psychological discomfort hence the elder’s son contemplated committing suicide. The Regional Security Council gave conflicting statements which angered the youth and the opinion leaders which created insecurity in the municipality resulting in hunger in the capital of Tamale as food sellers refused to sell for the fear that they might be killed. Also, the wives of the military men in the barracks also seized going to the market for fear of reprisal. Tamale therefore came to a standstill in the midst of heavy military patrols in the municipality. Media reportage was prominent as the murder issue was discussed thoroughly.
 Unique Contribution to Theory, Policy and Practice: This murder case was unprecedented in the history of the military in Tamale hence it provoked calls on government to ensure cordial and effective relationship between the civilian population and the military to obviate a recurrence. Constant lectures and dialogue on military-civilian relationship are being encouraged in order to strengthen coexistence between the military and the civilians.

The Readability of Political Party Manifestos of the 2016 General Elections in Ghana

The objective of the study was to determine the readability of the manifestos that three political parties, namely National Democratic Congress (NDC), New Patriotic Party (NPP) and Convention People’s Party (CPP), in Ghana used in the 2016 general elections. These parties were chosen because they were the only ones in Ghana with parliamentary representation at the time of the study. The readability indexes used were the Coleman-Liau Index and the Gunning Fog Index. 12 random sections of each manifesto were selected for analysis. Then, texts of no less than 300 words were sampled from each section. The readability formulas used were available on the internet. The statistics show that all three manifestos were written at difficulty levels that were quite above the reading abilities of the average Ghanaian voter. Further, it was found that the manifestos did not differ significantly from each other, statistically speaking. Keywords: readability, readability formulas, manifestos, political parties, linguistic complexity

Understanding party factionalism and fragmentation: The case of two Nkrumahist parties in Ghana

ABSTRACT It is widely argued that intra-party struggles for leadership and the emergence of factions within any political party are inevitable. However, it becomes problematic when cooperative factionalism within political parties turns out to be degenerative. This article sets out to illuminate some possible triggers that have contributed to the inability for Ghana's Convention People's Party (CPP) and People's National Convention (PNC) to overcome their fragmentation. The argument here is that excessive personality cults, coupled with the exploitation of warring factions within the CPP and PNC, have undermined the electoral prospects of these two Nkrumahist-inspired parties. The article notes, among other dynamics, the need for these parties to build robust party structures, tone down on excessive personalisation of party leadership, and minimise political opportunism.

Schematic Structure of Manifesto Launch Speeches of Three Political Parties

A key pre-election spoken genre in several modern democracies is unarguably the manifesto launch speech. Yet, it has surprisingly received either very little or no scholarly attention. Consequently, from a rhetorical perspective, this study examined the schematic structure of three keynote speeches delivered by presidential aspirants of three leading political parties in Ghana – New Patriotic Party (NPP), National Democratic Congress (NDC), and the Convention People’s Party (CPP) – to launch their political parties’ manifestos in 2016. The three speeches delivered by the presidential candidates of the three parties constituted the data set for the study. Applying the popular Swalesean rhetorical move analysis, originally meant for the academic setting, the study identified the use of a nine-move pattern as the schematic structure for the genre across the three speeches, with four ambiguous moves. These findings of the study have implication for the standardizing of the schematic structure of manifesto launch speeches worldwide and, thus, contributes to the scholarship on the political manifesto genre, political communication as well as further research on manifesto launch speeches in other democracies around the world.

Postcolonial Reconstruction in Ghana, 1952–66

In 1952, the West African nation of Ghana, recently having freed itself from British imperialism, set out on a project of radical economic reconstruction unmatched anywhere on the continent in scope and ambition. Having attained political independence with the creation of a sovereign parliament and executive office, the Convention People's Party under the leadership of Kwame Nkrumah drew up extensive plans for ensuring the conditions necessary for real, not just on-paper, independence.

Education for Nation Building: The Vision of Osagyefo Dr. Kwame Nkrumah for University Education in the Early Stages of Self-Government and Independence in Ghana

The Gold Coast was renamed Ghana by the political leadership on the attainment of Independence. But before 1957, Osagyefo Dr. Kwame Nkrumah had become Prime Minister of the Gold Coast in 1952, and by this arrangement ruled alongside the British Colonial Governor. Osagyefo Dr. Kwame Nkrumah set out to rebuild the new nation, and by doing so, Education, especially University Education, became a significant tool for the realization of such an objective. He, and the Convention People’s Party (CPP) Government saw education as “the keystone of people’s life and happiness.’’1 Thus, Osagyefo Dr. Kwame Nkrumah wanted the University Colleges in the Gold Coast to train intellectuals capable of combining both theory and practice as well as use their energies to assist in the task of national reconstruction.2 This explains why Osagyefo Dr. Kwame Nkrumah clearly spelt out the visions of University Education in Ghana. This paper, which is multi-sourced, uses archival documents, newspapers, interviews and scholarly secondary works such as articles, book chapters and books to examine the visions of Osagyefo Dr. Kwame Nkrumah for University Education in the early stages of self-government and independence in Ghana. The paper particularly focuses on measures adopted by the first Prime Minister of Ghana such as establishment of an International Commission on University Education (ICUE), making the existing University Colleges independent, the rationale for setting up the University College of Cape Coast (UCCC), the Africanization of the University staff, establishment of the Institute of African Studies and the formation of the National Council for Higher Education to transform the University Colleges to reflect the needs and aspirations of Ghanaians.
 
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 1 H. O. A. McWilliam, & M. A. Kwamena-Poh, The Development of Education in Ghana. (London: Longman Group Ltd., 1975), 83.
 2 Samuel Obeng, Selected Speeches of Kwame Nkrumah, Vol. 1 (Accra: Aframs Publication Ltd., 1997), 74.

“We Shall Be Outspoken”: Student Political Activism in Post-Independence Ghana, c.1957–1966

This paper looks at student political activism in Ghana in the late 1950s and 1960s. Using Ghanaian and British archives, it examines how students of Ghana’s universities politically engaged with the government of Kwame Nkrumah and his ruling Convention People’s Party (CPP). Student activism manifested most in the conflict between the Nkrumah government, on one hand, and university authorities and students, on the other hand, over the purpose of higher education, university autonomy, and nationalism. The conflict coalesced around the idea of educated youth as model citizens. Contrary to the denial in existing literature, the paper argues that a nascent student movement and tradition of student political activism had emerged since the late 1950s. University student activism established itself as a fulcrum of the country’s evolving postcolonial political order and a bulwark against governmental authoritarianism. In the larger context of the global 1960s, Ghanaian student activism belonged to the wave of youth protests against governments that favored stability and opposed all dissent.

Gender, Power and Institutional Change – The Role of Formal and Informal Institutions in Promoting Women’s Political Representation in Ghana

The article explores the role of formal and informal institutions in influencing the representation of women in the two major political parties in Ghana – NDC (National Democratic Congress) and NPP (New Patriotic Party) – as well as the small party CPP (Convention People’s Party). Paradoxically, with its first president, Kwame Nkrumah (CPP), Ghana was one of the first countries in Africa to introduce a quota in 1959, reserving ten seats for women in Parliament. With a representation of 11% women after the election in 2012 and 13% after the election in 2016, however, Ghana has not been part of the positive development on the continent. Drawing on the body of literature on feminist institutionalism, the article explores the dynamics of power and change relating to the low representation of women in politics in Ghana. It further investigates responses to initiatives to promote more female candidates in Parliament – the reduction of filing fees and the introduction of women’s seats. The article argues that the formal institutions in the form of party structures work both as an obstacle and an opportunity to promote more women in politics, and that the informal structures in the form of the gender culture in Parliament and verbal abuse work against more women in politics.

A NEW TYPE OF CITIZEN: YOUTH, GENDER, AND GENERATION IN THE GHANAIAN BUILDERS BRIGADE

ABSTRACTThis article analyzes one key feature of the Convention People's Party's youth policy in postcolonial Ghana: the Ghana Builders Brigade. Founded as a response to rapid urbanization and growing unemployment, the Builders Brigade aimed to create a new productive and modern citizenry by returning the country's young men and women to the land through a network of mechanized work camps and state farms. Remembered as both a locus for party intimidation and indiscipline as well as a source for political and social opportunity, the Brigade emerged as a key site for a generationally-defined and gendered debate over the roles and responsibilities of the country's youth in the first decade of self-rule. Through an interrogation of this debate, this article argues that the Brigade provided a space for its members to explore a socially recognized yet politically conceived notion of adulthood under Kwame Nkrumah's rule.

FIELDS AND VISIONS

AbstractThe concept of the “African Personality” was celebrated by the continent's first post-colonial President, Kwame Nkrumah. Sweeping to power in Ghana's first general election in 1951, Nkrumah and his Convention People's Party—inspired by Marcus Garvey and W. E. B. Du Bois—espoused the doctrines of nationhood and self-reliance. The conceptual dimensions of Nkrumah's “African Personality” and the role he had in mind for Association Football (soccer) as an instrument of its expression are crucial points of this analysis. Here we attempt to locate Nkrumah's political ideal within the contemporary realities of the migration of young Ghanaian soccer talent, examining at the same time the socio-economic processes which act as “push” and “pull” mechanisms in the context of such migratory trends. While Nkrumah's “race-conscious,” pan-African forces have been utilized in the face of post-colonial identifications, soccer loyalties and objectives which are far more immediate and parochial in character continue to supersede those surrounding national or “racial” interests. Ghana's domestic game and national selection are riven by ethnic and regional hostilities while interlopers from Europe—some acting alone, others as emissaries for European soccer clubs—have laid down roots in Ghana, recognizing the nation as a breeding ground for talented, and comparatively cheap, young soccer talent. We argue that such inveterate ethno-regional rivalries, along with the conditions of neoliberal capitalism and its instrumental system of uneven geographical development, have provided entry points for the post-colonial forces so maligned by Nkrumah. Furthermore, we question the wisdom of notions of belonging based on bounded units such as “race” and attendant expressions of “race-consciousness.”

Ghana's Independence: Triumph and Paradox

In becoming sub-Saharan Africa's first independent state fifty years ago, Ghana created high expectations for radical change throughout Africa-and beyond. David E. Apter explores the long-range effects of Ghana's revolution and the puzzling questions about President Kwame Nkrumah and the Convention People's Party that linger on.

"I am a Non-Denominational Christian and a Marxist Socialist:" A Gramscian Analysis of the Convention People's Party and Kwame Nkrumah's Use of Religion

Kwame Nkrumah, the father of modern Ghana, led his people to freedom from British domination between 1948, upon the completion of his studies and political activism in the U.S. and Britain, and 1957, when the European imperialists granted independence to their former colony. As president of the new nation, Nkrumah initiated a process of nation-building in which his use of Christianity was central. This study employs Granscian theory in examining the ideological aspects of this history, emphasizing the use of religion as both a hegemonic and counter-hegemonic political instrument. It argues that in some respects Nkrumah used Christianity in a way that confirms Gramsci; however, in others he employed the Judeo-Christian faith in a manner that informs the ideas of the Italian Marxist.

Institutions, Context, and Outcomes: Explaining French and British Rule in West Africa

Why did Ivory Coast and Ghana adopt such different economic policies? In the 1950s Ivory Coast and Ghana shared a similar economic structure, based largely on coffee and cocoa production, and similar levels of economic development. Yet with independence Ivory Coast's Houphouet-Boigny embraced capitalism, implementing export-oriented policies favorable to the agrarian sector, while Ghana's Kwame Nkrumah espoused socialism, implementing import substitution industrialization policies favorable to the urban sector.l What explains this divergence? In answering this query, scholars have typically focused on each nation's class structure.2 In Ivory Coast Houphouet-Boigny's Parti Democratique de Cote d'lvoire (PDCI) mobilized the agrarian elite. In Ghana, Kwame Nkrumah's Convention Peoples Party (CPP) depended upon the urban petty bourgeoisie. Though important, this account is incomplete because it does not explain why the two nations possessed such different class structures. The explanation refocuses, but does not answer, the empirical question. I seek to solve this puzzle by tracing the origin of class formation in Ivory Coast's and Ghana's rural areas. Specifically, French and British colonial institutions generated different property rights and landholding patterns, forming the basis for different patterns of class formation. The link between institutions and outcomes is complex, however. Institutions define what actions are required, prohibited, or permitted for a given class of actors in a given situation and how these actions will be rewarded or penalized.3 In theory, institutions generate predictable patterns of behavior.4 In reality, analysts and policymakers are often surprised by institutions' impact. Indeed, French colonial institutions did not universally create a landed elite, as they did in Ivory Coast, and British institutions did not always create a small peasantry, as they did in Ghana. The colonial institutions' impact is contingent upon the interaction between colonial and indigenous institutions and the institutions' joint impact upon state actors (here, indigenous chiefs), upon the institutions' indirect effect upon social actors (here, the chiefs' subjects), and upon all actors' ability to evade and undermine colonial institutions. Institutions have unintended consequences, first, because actors work within multiple sets of institutions.5 Actions rewarded under one institutional arrangement may be penalized under a second, or actions permitted under one institutional arrangement may interfere with actions more highly rewarded under a second. In these cases, an actor's behavior depends upon the way in which he or she balances these competing pressures.

Ghana’s Encouraging Elections: A Major Step Forward

Ghana’s Encouraging ElectionsA Major Step Forward Terrence Lyons (bio) On 7 December 1996, President Jerry Rawlings won his second multiparty election in Ghana, completing another important step in the building of sustainable political and economic institutions in that West African state. Previous elections, in 1992, ended in charges of fraud and an opposition boycott of the 200-seat, unicameral National Assembly. This time, however, important reforms in the electoral system and a spirited campaign by an opposition coalition gave Ghanaians a meaningful choice on election day. The opposition won a third of the seats in the Assembly, and can use this base both to scrutinize the Rawlings government and to build more effective political parties for subsequent elections. Click for larger view View full resolution Figure 1. Courtesy of the U.S. State Department While the election received less attention than it deserved in the international media, Ghana offers a series of hopeful lessons for African states struggling with the challenges of macroeconomic structural adjustment programs (SAPs) and the transition from authoritarianism to democracy. The case of Ghana also highlights the tendency in a number of African countries for soldiers who seized power through coups to reinvent themselves as democratic leaders. In such West African states as Niger, Togo, Burkina Faso, Guinea, and Gambia, military leaders have remained in power in part by manipulating elections or by forcing the opposition to withdraw. President Rawlings of Ghana, a former air force officer, has cultivated a rural base of support that has allowed him to go from coup leader to winner of two multiparty elections—all while steering the country through a difficult period of economic reform. Ghana has served as the preeminent test case of structural adjustment [End Page 65] in Africa. Following the virtual collapse of the formal economy in the early 1980s, the Rawlings government reversed its populist policies and adopted an SAP with the strong encouragement of the World Bank, the International Monetary Fund (IMF), and bilateral donors. The results were dramatic. The country’s GDP grew at rates of 6 to 7 percent annually from 1984 to 1988—the highest in sub-Saharan Africa at that time. These considerable economic accomplishments, however, began to stall in the early 1990s. The disputed 1992 elections and the subsequent opposition boycott of parliament raised questions about stability and made private investors wary [End Page 66] . The stakes in the 1996 election, therefore, were high. As the Financial Times put it: “If Ghana falters in its trailblazing role, not only will international confidence in the continent’s capacity to recover be jolted, the credibility of the donors’ development strategy for Africa will also be eroded.” 1 Ghana could not afford to stand pat, and still less to repeat the contentious 1992 elections. The Rule of Rawlings To evaluate the transition in Ghana, it is necessary to understand the degree to which both economic and political institutions had deteriorated by the time of Rawlings’s 31 December 1981 coup. Ghana had achieved independence in 1957 with a per-capita income roughly equal to South Korea’s. Over the next 25 years, however, disastrous import-substitution strategies, sagging export revenues, rampant corruption, and statism laid waste to the economy. Between 1974 and 1981, for example, GDP dropped 15 percent and cocoa exports, the leading source of foreign exchange, shrank by more than 40 percent. The independence movement in Ghana was led by Kwame Nkrumah and his Convention People’s Party (CPP). In 1966, after a decade of increasingly authoritarian rule, a coup toppled him. Following an election three years later, the military returned power to civilians. The winners of this election, Prime Minister Kofi A. Busia and his Progress Party, ruled for just over two years. Senior military officers retook power in early 1972. In June 1979, then-Flight Lieutenant Rawlings led the Armed Forces Revolution Council in a junior-officers’ putsch. Later that year, Rawlings handed power over to President Hilla Limann and his People’s National Party (PNP), the winners of national elections. It was Limann whom Rawlings overthrew on the last day of 1981. 2 This thumbnail sketch shows that elections and established political parties are as much...

What's in a Drink? Class Struggle, Popular Culture and the Politics ofAkpeteshie(Local Gin) in Ghana, 1930–67

This article examines the history ofakpeteshie(local gin) in Ghana from its illicit origins and widespread distillation in the 1930s to about 1967, when the Convention People's Party – seen as the ‘champion’ of theakpeteshieindustry – was overthrown.Akpeteshiedistillation proliferated when temperance interests succeeded in pressuring the colonial government into raising tariffs on imported liquor in 1930, just before the onset of a world-wide depression. Urban and rural workers, unable to afford expensive imported gin, became the patrons ofakpeteshie. For urban workers,akpeteshiecame to underpin an emerging popular culture.Akpeteshiedistillation threatened the colonial government's prior dependence on revenue from imported liquor, raised the specter of crime and disorder, compromised colonial concerns about urban space, exposed the weakness of colonial rule and eventually led the British government into the embarrassing diplomatic position of seeking an alteration of the Saint Germain Convention of 1919 that had banned commercial distillation of spirits in the African colonies.By the 1940s,akpeteshiehad emerged as an important symbol of African grievances under colonial rule. It became entwined in nationalist politics from the 1940s, and its legalization was one of the first legislative acts passed by the independent Ghanaian government. But the overwhelming African support forakpeteshieas an indigenous drink aside, the drink conjured images of class and popular protest that divided Ghanaian society and would unnerve independent African governments. As a cheap drink,akpeteshiebecame associated with the working-class experience, reflecting the social inequities within Ghanaian society and the undelivered promises of the independence struggle.

Kwame Nkrumah: The London years, 1945–47

Kwame Nkrumah is one of the most important figures in the history of modern African nationalism. Returning to the Gold Coast from London in 1947 he created the Convention People's Party and mobilized disenfranchised people to successfully challenge British colonial rule. In ten years Nkrumah's CPP won three elections and led to independence the new state of Ghana. Nkrumah spent two‐and‐a‐half years in London which were of great significance to the development of his political experience. Relatively little is known of his activities other than the limited partial account given in his Autobiography. This contribution, a resume of a longer study, looks at the political groups and Black activists with whom Nkrumah associated in Britain and suggests the part that they played in shaping the political talents that he was to deploy with such remarkable effect in the Gold Coast.

Ghana: in search of stability, 1957-1992

Introduction Historical Approach to Political Development Rule of the Convention People's Party Rule of the National Liberation Council and the Second Republic Regime of General Ignatius Acheampong General Fred Akuffo's Rule and the June Revolution The Third Republic Rule of the Provisional National Defence Council Structural Approach to Issues of Political Stability Economic Development and Political Stability Driving Forces of Political Development State Government and Political Stability. Forms of State Power Organization Struggle for Political Power Conclusion References Index

One‐party state, no‐party state, multi‐party state?: 35 years of democracy, authoritarianism and development in Ghana

Ghana was the first sub‐Saharan African country to attain independence in 1957. The victorious independence party, the Convention People's Party led by Kwame Nkrumah, ruled with a Marxist orientation until 1966. Since late 1981 the country has been ruled by the PNDC government of Flt.‐Lt. Jerry Rawlings. At the onset of PNDC rule, the dominant ideology appeared to be a variant of Marxism‐Leninism. Over the next ten years, however, the regime presided over a number of policy changes: the adoption of an IMF‐supported economic recovery programme; political decentralization; multi‐party politics. The PNDC government has been applauded for its flexibility and criticized for its authoritarianism, as it performed political somersaults against a background of economic decline and political failure.

"Hewers of Wood, Carriers of Water": Islam, Class, and Politics on the Eve of Ghana's Independence

The publication of Michael Crowder's “Whose Dream Was It Anyway?” in January 1987 marked the opening of what promises to be a challenging era of revision and re-evaluation in African historiography. With the benefit of three decades of historical hindsight and armed with recently declassified colonial documentation, historians are beginning to grapple with the complexities of national struggle in late colonial society, beginning with Ghana's march to freedom in 1957. It is as a part of this process of revision and re-evaluation that the following examination of the Muslim Association Party [MAP] of the Gold Coast is offered. The MAP was a comparatively small organization which was and is easily overshadowed by the turbulence of mass nationalist politics in the years 1950 thru 1957. Yet its unique blend of religious, class, and ethnic appeals—appeals too often misunderstood or dismissed outright as vestiges of tribalism, traditionalism, or religious fanaticism—reveals much about the antinomies of nationalist struggle in the Gold Coast. Political scientists concerned with the dynamic rise of Gold Coast nationalism in the decade after World War II (and those few historians who dared venture into the recent past) focused primarily on Kwame Nkrumah's Convention People's Party [CPP], its early split from the United Gold Coast Convention [UGCC] and its ultimate domination of nationalist politics from 1951 to 1957 (Apter, 1955; Austin, 1964; Bourret, 1960; Bretton, 1966; Fitch and Oppenheimer, 1968).

Reform and repression under the Free French: economic and political transformation in the Côte d'Ivoire, 1942–45

Opening ParagraphFew dispute the proposition that the Second World War marked the beginning of the end of colonialism in Africa. The thesis developed by Hodgkin (1956), Crowder (1968, 1978) and Schachter-Morgenthau (1964)—that coalitions of African veterans, disgruntled planters, peasants and chiefs gave rise to anti-colonialist, nationalist political movements in the immediate post-war era—has not been seriously challenged. The general acceptance of this view has resulted in a neglect of the history of the colonies during the war years themselves. While there is now a growing interest in this subject, most studies of the independence movements begin with the emergence, in 1946, of recognisable political parties in British and French Africa. They take as starting points such visible events as the Brazzaville Conference, the 1946 French Constitution, the launching of the Convention Peoples Party in Ghana, or the founding of the Rassemblement Démocratique Africaine (RDA) in Bamako. What is needed now are thorough case studies of the specific policies and practices of the imperial powers during the Second World War and a consideration of the extent to which they acted as internal catalysts in the struggle for independence. This article, which is offered as a contribution to that end, looks at one chapter in the war experience of the Cote d'Ivoire.