Ghana's former High Commissioner to India, Professor Sam Pee Yalley
Folks, I have just read and digested the news report on the formation of a group called "Professionals Forum" whose main objective is to discuss issues of importance to the NDC and help implement the recommendations of the 2016 Election Report to ensure victory for the party in 2020. (See NDC-launches-Professionals-Forum-to-ensure-victory-in-2020).
I have no qualms about such a venture; but here is my say about such moves. The very composition of the grouping tells me how to view happenings. "Professionals" of this sort often end up being protectors of special interests that may not work well for the good of the party unless they descend from the ivory tower to bring on board the millions of ordinary "unprofessional people" who turn out to be the party’s followers or sympathetic voters to determine victory or loss for the party.
It is common knowledge that the NDC has always been made up of all manner of people—be they professionals or street people—which explains the "Congress" element in its designation as such.
My fear is that once a group identifying itself as "professional" takes the centre-stage, fear should loom about the future of the party. How will these professionals do things in tandem with the "unprofessionals" to move the party forward? Or is this grouping merely emerging to arrogate to itself a space within which to operate in seeking control of the NDC?
And who is a "professional" in this sense? How many of them are capable of getting voter support for the NDC if given the nod to spearhead campaigns? I have reservations, especially about the main agenda of this group (to “help implement the recommendations of the 2016 Election Report”. How better does this group think it can implement the recommendations of that report than the NDC establishment itself can do? And what exactly does this group know about the recommendations of that report which the rank and file of the party isn’t privy to?)
Sam Pee Yalley has been presented as the president of this "Forum" and described as a "Professor" (whatever that means) and a lawyer. Good for him. I worked with him in those "Rawlings days" when he was the Chief Executive Officer of Cape Coast Municipality and can tell what shot him out of office and why he became an MP and a Deputy Minister only to lose out thereafter. The imprints of Ernest Ekuban (then Regional Secretary) and his own manouevres can't be easily thrown out of mind. How he fell from grace to grass (losing political traction) is known. The Dansoman incident that put him on the spot is still in our minds.
Of course, it is not strange for characters like him to re-engineer themselves in an attempt to re-bound. But what will it benefit the NDC if a gathering of characters of his ilk gang together as a forum of professionals just to fight the NDC's cause? What couldn’t they do all this while without branding themselves as “professionals” that they think they can do now that they’ve coloured themselves as such? I don’t get it.
“Forum” as a pressure group in the NDC to do all kinds of things. The NDC doesn’t need such isolated groups. It is already a “Congress” of diverse personalities and political orientations brought together by the common desire to work for Ghana’s good outside the mainstream Nkrumahist and Danquah-Busia political cultures.
The designation as a “Congress” says it all—that the NDC welcomes all those who believe in social democracy as espoused by the Rawlings phenomenon and pursued since May 1991 when the party was formed. What more does anybody need to do in isolation as Sam Yalley’s “Forum” seems to be indicating?
This “Forum” portrays an exclusionist “exclusionist” posture, which indicates elitism. The NDC doesn’t go for elitism. That explains why I have serious misgivings about it. The NDC thrives on the efforts of the millions of “common people” who have fought for it “in the trenches” all these years. They are the foot-soldiers to support. Motivate, incentivate, and brought on board to fight the party’s cause. They are the mobilizers and should be upheld as such so they can continue to “kill” themselves for the party’s good. Anything short of that is disastrous.
Folks, I am being pessimistic here about Sam Yalley and his movement’s intentions, and I will remain so until I am proved wrong. The factors that cost the NDC Election 2016 are known. Any attempt to restore the party's dignity and shore up support for it cannot come from such an amorphous collection of self-interested "professionals" (whatever that may be).
Instead of assembling in such colours, why don't they go down to the grassroots to apologize to the very party organizers and mobilizers that they hurt in their bid to ride slip-shod all over the place to glory (and to enjoy the perks of their offices) that alienated genuine supporters of the party to doom it at Election 2016?
In truth, the NDC doesn't need such a "coterie" but a genuine core of committed people to re-connect with the masses so its ideals can be revived, explored, and re-inserted into the party's quest for power. Anything short of that is laughable!!
It won't put the NDC back in power. So-called "professionals" protect their interests. In the workings of the NDC, that kind of myopic protectionism of professional interests shouldn't have any room. My take, folks. What is yours?
Which intellectual or professional group did Rawlings cite as his motivation for launching the NDC to dislodge the useless Danquah-Busia political nonsense and the dead Nkrumahist front in Ghanaian politics?
The NDC is a potent force that can remain so if its followers sink their narrow selfish interests and work for the good of the front that no one ever imagined could survive after the exit of Rawlings in 2001 but has done so and still remains viable and potent.
Its main problems boil down to the failures of its leaders who cannot see anything beyond their noses or have become more self-acquisitive than the party needs to re-brand itself for political currency. The NDC can do better by throwing away the current leaders. In truth, Kofi Portuphy has turned out to be the most useless chairman of the party (regrettably, though, knowing him since 1983 in his days as the director of the National Mobilization Programme, where he did very wonderful things to shine the light on the Rawlings capabilities.).
Asiedu Nketia began well as a poor man but got blown away by his access to wealth in political terms to turn his position into a reactive one that irks more than wins goodwill for the party. As for Kofi Adams, forget about him.
There is need for the NDC leadership to be reinvigorated if the party should have a better fate. I will say more about such issues later on. The fact is that the NDC lost Election 2016 but isn’t doomed, It still has a good opportunity to bounce back to power if it puts its house in order and connects properly with the electorate as the Akufo-Addo government fumbles and bumbles in many respects.
What we have now in Ghana is the presence of a Danquah-Busia front that isn't sure of its own political future because it can’t outmatch the NDC’s accomplishments spearheaded by Rawlings, Mills, and Mahama. Now that they have the power to pull the purse strings, let's see what they can do to make the difference. Interestingly, after one year thus far, they have failed to prove their worth. So so talk talk!!
No divination is needed to foretell their political doom if things don’t change for the better under them. All that the NDC needs to do is to remain focused on its agenda and move the masses of the people instead of creating pockets of self-interested groupings to tear it apart further. The NDC must aim high, but not with such an amorphous gathering of so-called "Professionals"...
I shall return…
