A Deputy Communications Director of the New Patriotic Party (NPP), Samuel Awuku has openly admitted that former president and founder of the National Democratic Congress (NDC), was instrumental in bringing the party back to power saying he was a major pain in the neck of the NPP prior to the 2008 elections.
He is therefore surprised at attempts by the party hierarchy to downplay the absence of their founder at last Saturday’s Greater Accra mammoth rally.
Sammy Awuku’s comment comes on the heels of the first major political rally by the NDC held at Mantse Agboena in Accra to kick-start the party’s campaign to retain power in the 2012 elections.
Although the rally was a regional one meant to introduce the 28 parliamentary aspirants of the party in the Greater Accra Region, it attracted almost every single leading member of the party, giving it a semblance of a national event.
Mantse Agbona, a Ga expression which loosely translates ‘the outer court of the chief of James Town or British Accra’, which is noted for hosting major political activities predating independence, could not contain the milling crowd.
It led to the blockage of the Old Winneba Road by the milling crowd and the security agencies had a hectic time bringing in President J.E.A. Mills, who arrived at the rally ground holding two miniature NDC flags.
Virtually all the minor streets, alleys and spaces leading to the rally ground were filled with jubilating members of the party, most of whom were wearing party T-shirts with the picture of President Mills juxtaposed against those of the parliamentary candidates.
But conspicuously absent at the rally grounds was the charismatic figure of Mr Rawlings and his wife, Nana Konadu Agyeman Rawlings.
As usual, there have been many varied interpretations to the founder’s absence, but Sammy Awuku opines Mr Rawlings decided “to turn his back on the greedy bastards; he decided to turn his back on the sycophants and on people who engage in gargantuan crimes to take a short rest”, adding, “though he was such a pain to us, I think I have come to respect him for some of his principles”.
Speaking in an interview on X-fm, he described the NDC as a political party that has “lost ideas and wasn't strategically positioned and psychologically prepared for the battle ahead”. He mocked at the NDC’s decision to bring on board a former National Chairman of the party, Dr. Obed Asamoah and former Spokesman of the erstwhile Armed Forces Revolutionary Council, Osahene Boakye Gyan to replace a man like Jerry Rawlings who gave them a minimum of two million votes.
“Rawlings played a significant role in the NDC in 2008. I am surprised that today you have the regional chairman of the NDC saying that Rawlings did not take any vote out. You take away Rawlings and bring on board Obed Asamoah and Boakye Gyan who might have just about three or four votes. These people are not waking up to the reality…Anybody who doubts me should just get hold of the African Election; watch the rallies that Rawlings attended; how he charged the crowd. He always charged the crowd for Prof Mills to come and talk. For President Mills, he was being treated like a feeding bottle politician. Rawlings will do all the ground work for him, all the charges for him; his is to just show his face, wave his hands and string one or two sentences together and Rawlings will carry on from there…Today, the Rawlingses can’t even be offered a gutter or dustbin contract in the NDC,” he lamented.
He described the NDC as copycats who lack brilliant ideas to push the country to the heights that it deserves to be.
“When we introduced the Northern Development Fund in 2008 to develop the rural areas in the Northern Region, the NDC stole our idea and turned it into SADA. The sad part of the story is that anything the NDC copies, they don’t do it well…I think they have reached a stage where they have lost ideas, they only wait for the opposition to come up with them and then the government jumps on it. I am not surprise that when we talked about making SHS free, the NDC asked us to bring details so that they could copy it…But on Professor Mills’ facebook page, he says that when he comes SHS would be free…these people are just a bunch of contradictions,” he said.
Commenting on the party activists that turned up at the rally ground, Sammy Awuku said the crowd comes nowhere near that of the NPP held a couple of weeks ago, accusing the ruling party of busing people from Tudu and Agbogboloshie to the rally grounds.
“With the NPP’s rally, ours was an enthusiastic crowd…a charged crowd, a crowd that knew why they were there…you play the president’s voice the “choo booei” and you will see the response that greeted him. It was as if he was sleeping on a couch and shouting or the people didn’t believe in why they were there in the first place…If you start on the slow pace and you don’t have momentum on your side; now momentum is on the side of the opposition. So the government will now have to catch up. And if you are in government and you are on the back footing, playing defensive while the opposition is attacking, it is like playing Brazil against a third division side in Ghana. In a campaign, momentum is crucial; the moment you lose momentum, you are losing the election,” he said.**
