Convention People's Party

The Convention People's Party (CPP) is a socialist political party in Ghana based on the ideas of the first President of Ghana, Kwame Nkrumah. The CPP was formed in June 1949 after Nkrumah broke away from the United Gold Coast Convention (UGCC). Party origins The Convention People's Party is descended from a line of political movements formed in the early half of the 20th century to spearhead the anti-colonial struggle in the Gold Coast. The movement that preceded it was the United Gold Coast Convention (UGCC) formed in August 1947 and led predominantly by members of the professional and business classes. To expand its support base and step up the struggle for independence, the leadership of the UGCC decided to appoint a permanent general secretary to lead its expansion and step up the pace of change. Ebenezer Ako Adjei, then a young lawyer, was offered the paid secretaryship of the UGCC but he declined the position and instead proposed Kwame Nkrumah, a political activist then in London, for the position. Ako Adjei had known Nkrumah as a fellow at Lincoln University in the United States and at the London School of Economics. He was also the past President of the West African Students Union (WASU) in London which first hosted Nkrumah when he arrived in Britain from the United States. The leadership of the UGCC accepted Ako Adjei's suggestion and agreed to invite Kwame Nkrumah, who already had a wide reputation as an experienced political organizer with a gift for leadership. Together with George Padmore and others he had organised in 1945 the Fifth Pan-African Congress in Manchester, England. Nkrumah personally drew up the dynamic Declaration to the Colonial Peoples of the World, approved and adopted by the Congress. He was an eminently suitable person to galvanize the mass of the Gold Coast people and the youth to play an active part in the national liberation movement.