Ghanaian politics has no room for an NDC and NPP coalition

By Dr. Michael J.K. Bokor

Thursday, December 5, 2013

It is amazing to be told that there are intellectuals in Ghana today who still cannot separate apples from oranges to know what is what. Both are fruit(s) but don't mix and cannot be forced to mix.

The NPP and the NDC can never mix in any political combination to move Ghana forward; but here is a suggestion from a scholar that horrifies me completely:

"Dr Kwesi Jonah, a Political Scientist, on Wednesday urged the two major political parties – National Democratic Congress (NDC) and New Patriotic Party (NPP) to agree to set up a coalition government.

He said: “The kind of power sharing or coalition I am proposing is one in which the major parties that matter in Ghana come together to make scarifies, compromises and reach consensus in the interest of our country’s accelerated development.”

He said all positions including Ministerial, Deputy Ministerial, Metropolitan, Municipal, District Chief Executives should be shared according to the proportion of presidential votes polled, the percentage of parliamentary seats controlled or both.

Dr Jonah made the proposal at a public lecture in Accra organised by IBIS Ghana, an NGO, on the theme: “Democratic consolidation: The way forward for Ghana’s two decades of democracy and good governance experimentation – The Winner Takes All system under review.”

He spoke on the topic: “Foundation of the Winner Takes All political culture in Ghana: What are the manifestations and effects on national development. What other options are available?”

(Source: http://www.ghanaweb.com/GhanaHomePage/NewsArchive/artikel.php?ID=294181)

MY COMMENTS

The rationalization is simple. The NPP is a cabal of ethnocentric bigots and empty braggarts who are bound together by nothing but the common desire to create opportunities for looting and sharing the proceeds with lips closed tight!!

Go back down the memory lane to know the root of the NPP---emerging from the Danquah-Busia ideological mess that won't want independence for Ghana just because the initiative wasn't coming from them or because they felt outsmarted by Dr. Nkrumah and his "Verandah Boys". And Ghana has more "Verandah Boys" (the common, ordinary people) than the self-righteous elites constituting that cabal of nation-wreckers.

Go and find out the clandestine activities of Dr. J.B. Danquah, the Akyem intellectual who would rather serve the needs of his handlers in the CIA than Ghana (his country of birth), which was his motivation for taking on the indefatigable Osagyefo Dr. Nkrumah only to be incarcerated in the Nsawam Medium Security Prison to die a useless death in 1962 and be disposed of with little or no ceremony commensurate with his intellectual capabilities or political jingoism.

Then, look around to see why the Wenchi-born world-acclaimed sociologist or social scientist (Dr. Kofi Abrefa Busia) who took over the mantle of leadership of the United Party dashed off into exile in London and snuggled close to the Imperial powers to become a British citizen before being anointed by Afrifa and his NLC in 1969 as Prime Minister. And why when one of their kind, Kutu Acheampong overthrew him, he returned to London to denounce his Ghanaian citizenship and die there in exile to be returned home for a kind of burial that reminds me of his sad fate.

The other day, a pastor and somebody were caught desecrating his tomb, apparently in the course of performing rituals. What for, I don't know!! Fortification to enable them continue their anti-Mahama loathing campaigns? Who knows?

The Rev. Owusu Bempahs and Co. might have kept mute after their bogus prophecies exploded in their faces; but who knows what else they can hide behind others to do to sustain their spooky NPP phantasmagoria?

Now, just take a quick look at the configuration of this Danquah-Busia ideological camp to see why it remains unattractive inasmuch as it denigrates members of other ethnic groups, even though pretending to be tagging on the "Dombo" (northern Ghana element) to deceive the unwitting people in that part of Ghana. Others in other parts of Ghana following them are doing so because they know what the gravy train means to their daily lives.

In nature, character, and modus operandi, the NPP is an esoteric political cabal that has no appeal nationwide. If you doubt it, just scrutinize Elections 2008 and 2012 to see which areas voted for its Presidential Candidate. Only two out of 10 regions in Ghana!!

Now, don't even bother your head over what the NPP stands for---property grabbing so-called liberal democracy.

Now, contrast that with what the NDC represents and you should be the first to dismiss Dr. Jonah's suggestion as a figment of a lazy intellectual mind. What the NDC has in abundance, the NPP lacks and cries for but won't get.

No need to go anywhere but the records. Find out for how long the NDC has been involved in Ghanaian politics, beginning as a third force, and why it quickly dislodged the Nkrumahist front and the UP camp to become the most preferred political destination for Ghanaians interested in nation building.

The NDC may have its problems, but it stands far taller than the NPP in all considerations. As a political party, it has a shorter history than the UP tradition; it is is a recent phenomenon, formed in 1992 as a "Congress"—a home for all those who understood the Rawlings Movement to rid Ghana of filth in governance. That explains why it is made up of people from all the existing political traditions (especially the primary fronts of the CPP and the UP).

The NDC is nationalistic in character and nature, and well spread across the country. It has a huge following in the diaspora too. Apparently, the NDC has a “militancy” that holds more appeal to the masses than the "book politics" that characterizes the NPP's manner of conducting affairs on the political terrain.

Ask yourself why Kufuor could win the 2000 elections in the second round only with the support of the other mushroom parties if his NPP were formidable to outdo the NDC. Again, remember that the 2004 elections were fraught with anomalies that the NDC could have taken up to create anxiety but didn't. Since then, the NPP has been roundly defeated all over the country at the elections. That should separate the grain (the NDC) from the chaff (the NPP) for us all to know that both are incompatible in many formulations and cannot be expected to coalesce into a so-called coalition government!!

For as long as the NPP remains an Asante-Akyim cabal of empty braggarts, it will never rub shoulders with the NDC. its agenda for national development is self-centred and fraught with indiscriminate thievery in the name of politics, which accounts for the looting of everything in sight by Kufuor and his gang of thieves.

Ask Jake Obetsebi-Lamptey to return the state bungalow and many others to return public property to base and you will be told what they see politics as meant for.

In many senses, then, the gap between the NDC and the NPP is so wide that it can't be bridged on the basis of a coalition government. There can't be any unity of purpose because both are configured to operate at cross-purposes to each other. Can oil and water ever mix?

That is why any suggestion for them to form a coalition government is tantamount to putting Ghana on board an over-speeding train heading for the precipice to be devastated. Who will be so mindless as not to know this danger? What has Dr. Jonah been pondering over to arrive at this damaging suggestion? And Dr. Jonah is a political scientist!!

By their very nature---seeing themselves as the "interrectuals" of Ghana---the NPP people cannot even bring themselves to the point of teaming up with others so diametrically opposed to them in every way to share power in ruling Ghana. So, why should Dr. Jonah be belling this strange cat to cause more trouble for Ghana?

I hope nobody will heed this call by Dr. Jonah. It has the seed that will grow to destroy Ghana. Gun powder and a box of matches being put together? No need for that gamble of death!!

If the NPP under Kufuor failed and the electorate won't return it to power under the flagbearership of Akufo-Addo, there should be no need to bother anybody by raising it to this pedestal as if it can collaborate with its arch-rival for the good of Ghana.

The electorate empowered President Mahama and his NDC to rule Ghana till 2016. That is clear and beyond doubt. The NDC doesn't need the NPP for anything and should be left alone to use the mandate given it by the electorate. In future elections, we shall all get to know the sweetness of the political pudding when we eat it.

For now, Dr. Jonah, take your stinking suggestion and shove it!!

I shall return…

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