The letter by reader Kofi Bamfo on a so-called Nkrumah-Rawlings tradition published on Monday, November 2, 2009 makes interesting reading on both historical and ideological grounds.

It is not clear to me what the letter was supposed to add to our understanding and appreciation of current party developments in Ghana.

The party which currently bears the name Convention People’s Party (CPP), and which claims to be the truest and genuine successor to the CPP which was banned in February 1966, is now permanently split between sympathizers of the National Democracy Congress (NDC) on one hand and those who back New Patriotic Party (NPP) politics on another.

Mr. Bamfo clearly belongs to the second group. To add to the confusion, even though Mr. Bamfo is proud to claim the Limann heritage in 1979, he continues the deception by his silence that the People’s National Convention (PNC) of Drs. Limann and Mahama is not a genuine claimant to the CPP title.

Just consider the immense energy, resources and time spent in the law courts to reclaim the name CPP, and it must be clear to all objective observers that, that name cannot be a viable vehicle for the prosecution of the political ideas of the politically nimble and dynamic Kwame Nkrumah.

In the period that this pointless legal struggle was going on, followers of Danquah-Busia had changed their name several times from the united Party to Progress Party, Popular Front Party, All Peoples Party and now the New Patriotic Party without any loss of ideological and historical consistency.

The overwhelming numbers of Nkrumahists in the period have called themselves People’s National Party and the National Democratic Congress and have secured success at the polls without problems.

The suggestion that genuine Nkrumahists in the NDC, right from President Mills and Vice-President John Mahama downwards, are deluding themselves is simply unpersuasive.

It is true that the Founder of the NDC, President Rawlings overthrew the Nkrumahists PNP regime of Dr. Limann, but all of us can bear witness to the undeniable fact that the majority of those who call themselves Nkrumahists in Ghana today are in the NDC.

Mr. Bamfo fails to explain or confront this conundrum. The original CPP was also against the middle class in this country, yet, it continued to win competitive elections in this country.

The claim by some Nkrumahists that Kwame Nkrumah was dead set against coups, is not borne out by the facts of both what he said on the matter, or what he did while in office.

Nkrumah supported the coup which led to the assassination of Sylvanus Olympio in Togo, and that in which Tafewa Balewa and others died in Nigeria a few weeks before he himself was overthrown.

The dedication page to this book, Dark Days in Ghana was given over to Lieutenants Arthur and Yeboah, whose attempted coup on April 17, 1967, led to the death of General Kotoka.

The speech in which Nkrumah is reported to have turned his face against all coups gave conditional support to military interventions, not outright rejection.

The title of Nkrumah’s last book before he died, Class Struggle in Africa, speaks volumes about the place of violence in the resolution of the problems of imperialism and neo-colonialism which engaged his lifelong attention.

I conclude by nothing that it cannot be true that the PNDC and the NDC consciously or unconsciously tried to destroy the political tradition from which they drew such massive and enduring support to this day.

It would be more accurate to claim they sought out and engaged Nkrumahists who supported them, driving the rest into the arms of the NPP and its allies.

There are two enduring traditions in our politics, the Nkrumahists progressive tradition, and they are represented by the NPP and the NDC respectively.

The varying ideological alterations they have undergone when they have been in office is usual with all serious parties, and no valid signal of rebaptism into another faith.

Mr. Bamfo should kindly spare us his innocent views. He cannot claim to be more Nkrumahists than Sekou Nkrumah, son of the Osagyefo and a leading member of the NDC.