Our Festivals, Our Chiefs, Our Communities and CPP can restore Spirit of our nation.
The CPP represents a new Ghana Spirit, a new spirit of Positive Action. The CPP represents a new covenant, Apam Foforo. This is a bold, new promise comfortable with tradition. I have been involved in and impressed by a number of traditional festivals recently. Through the kind invitation of Nana Barima Offe Akwasi Okogyeasuo the second, last Saturday 17th September we joined the people of Kokofu in their Opemsuo Festival. Our communities are alive in these extraordinarily difficult times. They represent the hope that the CPP is poised to reignite. Ghana can make it. We shall make Ghana work again.
In this campaign I have been fortified by the blessings of our chiefs and the real, rich, lived culture which makes us tick as a people. We must harness the verve of our youth which is often fully on display at our Festivals. In spite of the known challenges of our chiefs and traditional leaders, they manage to put on a big show year after year at our festivals without obviously breaking the bank and their brochures are well done and informative. We must harvest this spirit for development but let us not forget that the show in itself is important. Nkrumah knew this. This is why he sponsored the first Miss Ghana very soon after our independence. This is why he ensured that the Highlife became a global product. This is why his African Personality was not only a theoretical idea. We need to restore joy, fun and confidence in our people, especially our young. This is why I have focused attention on our Creative Economy. These are difficult times but let us rest on the good nature of the Ghanaian spirit. Let us work but also be happy. Happiness is better than sheer asphalt of road or concrete. We need a new connection of work and happiness. Forward ever!
Many countries have little or no resources but they are rich and well because of their people. The CPP believes in, and would further engineer, the ingenuity of the good people of Ghana. The ethos of a people is a most important factor of production. Since the last CPP government was undeservedly ended in 1981 the Ghana Spirit has been artificially suppressed. As Bob Marley has taught us, “We are what we are and that is the way it is going to be”. We are a great people. It is time to remove the self and other imposed constraints especially the constraints of mind that our neo-colonial governments, including the NDC and the NPP, have imposed on us. It is Positive thought and action time. Ghana will work again. Apam Foforo.
By Ivor Greenstreet
The writer is the presidential candidate of the Convention People’s Party