We lost in 2016 because of our ‘backward-looking’ campaign message – Spio

Described by many political commentators as an embarrassing defeat to have ever been handed a seating government, the 2016 electoral misfortune of the National Democratic Congress (NDC) has been diagnosed with many problems from many people.

The latest to be added to the array is Ekwow Spio Gabrahs’, made known after he took his turn on GhanaWebs’ “21minutes with KKB” hosted by Kwabena Kyenkyenhene Boateng.

According to the Former Trade and Industries Minister, the NDC literally had no message for Ghanaians about it vision in 2016-2020, the period for which it was seeking re-election.

Dr. Spio Grabrah who described the 2016 campaign message as “backward-looking” argued that the party dwelt heavily on its past achievements at the expense of what it will offer when re-elected.

Responding to a question why he thought NDC lost the election, Dr. Spio Gabrah said “there are many reasons and it varies from locality to locality… There will always be communication challenges and in the view of many of us, the communication message of NDC was backward-looking in the sense of looking at what we have done or achieved. The message was looking backward listing the projects that were done and captured in the Green Book. But the electorates said fine, we gave you our taxes to do that but what are you going to for us the between 2016 to 2020?”

The NDC flagbearer hopeful said the 2016 campaign message was not articulate enough to convince electorates to re-elect the NDC for another 4-year term. Dr. Ekwow spio Gabrah also mentioned that some aggrieved party faithfuls especially those in Volta Region felt disappointed for not benefitting from projects being done in other regions hence their decision not to vote.

“The people in Volta Region which often called the NDC’s World Bank felt disappointed because they did get some of the projects we did in other regions. So they didn’t vote as much as they use to.” He said.

Meanwhile, Ghana's most sought-after political document detailing reasons for the NDC's defeat, an investigative report described the party's collation machine as "a complete mess"

The Prof Kwesi Botchwey Committee report said the then governing NDC could not independently ascertain for itself the polling station results because its collation system was doomed to fail.