An open letter to friends of former Minority Leader in Parliament of Ghana, Haruna Iddrisu

It is with a deep sense of worry I write to all those who call themselves the friends of the Tamale South Constituency MP, Hon. Haruna Iddrisu over the recent decision by the upper echelons of the main opposition party, the National Democratic Congress (NDC) to substitute him in respect of the leadership of the party in Parliament.

I totally understand and appreciate your sentiments for pouring out your hearts full of grievances and dissatisfaction for relieving the northern political icon and godfather of his job.

However, one thing that should have been of major concern to any genuine friend of Haruna who probably likes him because of his political appeal, should have considered many of the wailing wailers about his removal. It is obvious that the majority who are grieving more than everybody else as a result of his deposition are from the governing New Patriotic Party, NPP.

Why is the government too uncomfortable in its skin and has been restless because they believe that the NDC has already lost the election 2024 due to the removal of Hon. Haruna?

Let's face this reality. There are some individuals in the life of every single of us who are sad when we are happy, and they are happy when we are sad. They are called enemies of progress, and you can't find any accurate success barometer to be able to measure and determine whether you are progressing in life or not more than these people. How?

Whenever they are happy when you meet them, it means something is at fault you need to quickly fix in your life. And whenever they tout and commend you for taking a certain decision, it means time for circumspection and introspection; that decision is simply a creation of your own graveyard.

However, whenever they condemn a decision and demand its reversal, it's an indication that you are on the right track. Forge ahead!

With our political landscape littered with hatred and has become like a "Squid Game", where political actors have to lose their lives in order to play (govern) means that treachery, underhanded strategies are going to be abounding with man being a wolf to his fellow man.

And it doesn't matter the method employed. Unfortunately, this is the sorry state of our political terrain today.

However, the removal of Hon. Haruna from his office he has been very weak on since day one has nothing to do with any political con game gimmicks.

Irrespective of how bad his friends may feel about the decision to let go of him as minority leader, one thing that is apparent is the fact that the Nana Addo-led government appears the most grieved, bruised, and disappointed for this decision. The question is, why on earth would the NPP government be so bitter over his removal? Have they lost their political fugitive?

The answer to this question is as unfortunate as his removal to the interest of the governing party; and in fact, it is traceable and reminiscent of the compliment President Akufo-Addo had given Hon. Haruna in his first State of the Nation Address in 2017.

His Excellency, the President of the Republic of Ghana, Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo had said of Haruna that the latter has a brighter political future in the Ghanaian political experimentation. This compliment by the whole president of the land was the political venom carefully injected into the psyche of Hon. Haruna that did all the tricks for the NPP. In fact, his compliment was interpreted by many as noticing the embryonic Minority Leader as presidential material to be.

While Haruna and his friends like my humble self, innocently saw that compliment by the President as a mere recognition of Haruna's political acumen and demagoguery, it was political legerdemain of the President and the NPP to poison the mind of the young leader and trap him for both their economic vulgarism and political vulturism.

It was to create some sort of ambition in Haruna whose pursuit would eventually land the entire political party in a state of political comatose, hibernation, dysfunction and ultimate collapse. Because the complement of the President had a huge psychological impact on him and bred some unfortunate sympathies in the heart of the freshly elected leader for his trickster President Akufo-Addo.

Consequently, Hon. Haruna had developed a very soft spot in his heart for Akufo Addo, and this emotional bond MIGHT have been cemented by some perks from the presidency to Haruna. Hence, his weakness on the opposition.

Coupled with his agenda to become president of Ghana whose light in his heart was kindled by Akufo-Addo, Hon. Haruna saw nothing wrong with anything Akufo-Addo, and anybody from his party who appears blocking his way to achieving this ambition became a threat.

In such a psychologically cocooned and bondage situation, whatever Akufo-Addo likes is what the Minority Leader likes and whatever Akufo-Addo dislikes is what he dislikes. And former President Mahama being the most hated among the members of the NPP, anyone with them has a reservoir of hate for Mahama as well. But then, as a leader of the NDC, Hon. Haruna could not have openly displayed hate towards former President Mahama as someone Haruna's complimentors hate and who is simultaneously an obstacle to the very ambition kindled in him by his complimentors, so he chose not to "push" but rest his hands on matters as Minority Leader.

In fact, Hon. Haruna must have been removed a very long time ago, even before the 2020 election. Not out of hate for him or tribal bigotry. But because he was the most psychologically defeated member of parliament in the August House who had no business leading the party.

I heard some of his friends making the argument that Haruna is a "tree" in the party and not a "grass" to have been "uprooted" in such a manner. Let me remind such frenemies that, the NDC is more of a gigantic tree than Haruna, and he is nothing but "grass" compared to the interest of the party that made what and who Haruna is today. Therefore, if his leadership lapses as a result of psychological warfare the NPP launched against him that rendered him feeble to discharge his mandate, there's no problem uprooting him like a "grass" to prevent the uprooting of the "tree" (the party) that made Haruna who and what he is today.

I listen to the Tamale South Constituency chairman, and I must admit how completely dumbfounded I was. Is Daddy Alhaji Rauf suggesting that Haruna's interest as a psychologically defeated Minority Leader must prevail over the NDC as a party? In other words, must we keep Haruna as a leader and continue to get stabbed in the back by those who pre-programmed him to the electoral detriment of the NDC, and to the demise of the country at large?

Nobody disgusted me like the so-called Dagbon Youths who are trying to read tribalistic meaning into this smartest move by the NDC. And I find it completely repugnant because anybody who believes President Mahama is behind his removal for tribal reasons must have to accept then that Hon. Haruna himself also has been really doing something against President Mahama.

And if that is the case, then Hon. Haruna too had something up his sleeve against Mahama due to his tribal sentiments, then anyone can now imagine the political monster and potential backstabber Hon. Haruna could have been as leader of the NDC if President Mahama is to become the Flag bearer which Haruna himself has agreed to publicly. At least in his last interview on Joy News with Evans Mensah on 23rd January 2023.

That means that, Hon. Haruna was/is not only motivated by his ambition to become president which was ingrained and implanted into his thinking by the NPP, and who become obsessed with Akufo-Addo as a result and hate what he and his NPP hate, and like what he and his NPP like, but Hon. Haruna also thinks his tribal sentiment must be satisfied.

And this latter resentment of the former leader has been demonstrated by the so-called Youths of Dagbon who are fuming because their tribe has been marginalized because of the removal of Hon. Haruna who has been leading since 2017.

As for the MPs who are petitioning left right and center, they must bow their heads in shame. Because their reaction simply indicates that none of them could do better than Haruna, and that, just as Haruna has been a psychological captive and victim of the NPP and President Akufo-Addo, so they would have also been at the mercy of Haruna's captors if they were given the nod? And I don't think any MP would disagree that Haruna had failed flat as Minority Leader because he himself had admitted it.

In his last interview as Minority Leader, he postulated that the "horrendous mismanagement" of government happened in the 7th parliament. This was the period Akufo Addo's compliment was still very fresh. And even with a hanged parliament, Hon. Haruna approved certain criminals to serve as ministers of state who must have been stoned to death by Ghanaians under any serious Minority Leadership.

Moreover, Hon. Haruna has used his position in the most suicidal way to the NDC which should warrant his removal. As Minority Leader, Hon. Haruna's penchant for playing immature godfatherism beyond his constituency has done more harm to the party than good. Many people believed the Mion Constituency and other constituencies had been lost to the NPP because of his undue political influence and hidden motives. His clandestine ambition to become president has generally been the motivational factor.

The question that is begging the attention of all friends of Haruna, and the MPs petitioning to bring him back is if Hon. Haruna Iddrisu was Minority Leader for the NPP and was discharging his mandate in such a "friendly" manner with the NDC, would the NPP still have kept him at post? And what happened to Kwabena Agyei Agyapong and Co. in the build-up to the 2016 general elections?

Well, that's what the NDC had done and unless fifth columnists of the party, genuine friends of Hon. Haruna must choose the party that made him over him.

I understand that majority may have disagreed with the way and manner he has been summarily sacked. But let's face reality here: did the NDC leadership consult anybody for selecting him as Minority Leader in the first place? Why do they have to consult anybody even Hon Haruna himself for his removal?

You see, I find it a mark of political prematurity that some northerners are protesting against his removal. The question is, what about the other regions that didn't get any of their MPs selected as Minority Leaders? Must they resign from the party and be spewing nonsense?

In Dagbani we say "bimbuhindi jerigu, o bi mi ni bindanla malyam". Literally, this means that "an ungrateful or a foolish beneficiary who wants more never knows the benefactor is wise".

Why on earth would northerners protest against the withdrawal of something that was lent and shared? And what should the people of Central Region do if Dr. Ato Forson's appointment is reversed? Are they not human beings? Don't they belong to a tribe? What should people of Accra, and in particular, people of the Volta Region and indeed, the rest of other regions do if the leadership is not given to them? Let's grow up from political stagnation and immaturity.

Personally, I believe it was even wrong that both the Flagbearer as well as the Minority Leader came from one part of the country - the north. And since President Mahama is yet again the presumptive presidential candidate for the party, it's only a matter of democracy that the Minority Leader comes from another part of the country.

For me, I believe the attitude of Hon. Haruna that reduced, adduced, and projected him as someone who was a leader of the NDC but in complete cahoots with the government, has been an embarrassment to the people of the north. This is how bribery can destroy any entity or individual. Hon. Haruna should not have succumbed or gotten carried away by President Akufo-Addo's compliment.

The Dagbon Youth must blame nobody but Hon Haruna for denting his own credibility in such a manner which is not away from our own witnesses considering how he has been fondling and handling the government in the last six years.

Those who are calling for his reinstalment must know such a decision would be more dangerous to the NDC than Hon. Ken Ofori Atta's removal to Akufo-Addo.

If Hon. Haruna knows what is good for him, he must calm down his "soup drinkers" before he loses the Tamale South seat itself and not only the leadership in parliament alone.

The NDC is bigger than anyone.