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Managing Editor of the Insight Newspaper, Kwesi Pratt Jnr, has underscored the central role played by Osagyefo Dr. Kwame Nkrumah in building Ghana’s first national political party.

Pratt explained on Pan-African TV over the weekend that despite joining the United Gold Coast Convention (UGCC) later on, Nkrumah proved to be a game-changer for the group.

He argues that despite UGCC having founders, they were only a group of friends who engaged in passive politicking and mobilization and who only grew the UGCC in three areas.

"The UGCC had only 3 branches, the Accra, Saltpond and the Sekondi-Takoradi branch... within a year or so, after (Kwame Nkrumah) assuming office as the General Secretary of the UGCC, it was everywhere in Ghana.

“So, who built the UGCC? Who built the UGCC which led Ghana to independence? Are we talking of that UGCC which had only three branches or we are talking about that nationwide movement, which had branches everywhere, which of them led Ghana to independence?

“By the time Nkrumah joined the UGCC, the UGCC was just a coffee-drinking club of friends, of lawyers and so on.

“They met, signed petitions to the governor, to the Queen of England and so on. Nkrumah transformed it into a militant mass movement. Built a women’s wing, built a youth wing… in addition to that linked directly to organized labour, that I what gave the UGCC its strength,” he explained.

Thanks to Nkrumah, the UGCC became a mass base political movement, the first in Africa and led the struggle for national independence, he added.

Nkrumah later left the UGCC and former the Convention Peoples Party, CPP, on whose ticket he run and emerged Prime Minister and later President of Ghana.

Pratt will be speaking at the Socialist Movement of Ghana, SMG, Placard Parade on Tuesday, 20th Sept. 2022 from 8am to 12noon at Kwame Nkrumah Mausoleum. The event is to celebrate the memory of the first President of Ghana.