I Am Disappointed, Why The Courts, NPP_

Date: Fri, 2 Jan 2009 22:57:31 -0000

It is very sad and disappointing the direction our mighty party has chosen to go in the aftermath of the just concluded Run Off and I would like all our supporters to rise up and defend the very freedom the founding fathers sacrificed to attain for us which has brought us to where we are today. We were all taught at school to be winners and that spirit is infused in every Ghanaian that in everything, we should give our best and make sure we are winners all the time.

But one thing our teachers failed to teach us as a matter of fact is that on occasions we would lose and when that happens we should not see the winner as an enemy but rather as a compatriot who was able to do more than we did. To lose in any event does not make a person or party stupid but rather allows the person or party to go back to the drawing board and put in extra effort into those areas they could not excel.

I am disappointed that, instead of being magnanimous in congratulating the NDC for their resounding victory and conceding defeat to allow the democratic structures and machinery to move forward, we have chosen this delay tactics that would in the end alienate us to the very people we would like to serve.

Why should we cry over spilled milk? The writing has been on the wall for the past eight years but who cared to look or read? The NDC made it clear to us in 2000 that they would come back to power through any means possible but of course using the democratic structures the constitution has placed at their disposal. They never hid their contempt for our Party and distorted every fibre of information coming from us in the public domain but what did we do? They went about printing falsehood and things they could not back them up with facts but what did our Party, the one in government with all the government apparatus at our disposal do? We kept saying don't mind the NDC and don't mind the NDC became our Party's anthem but whilst we chose not to mind them, the electorate took those things to heart. Whilst we did not mind the THRASH the NDC printed about us and placed in the public domain, those with POWER to decide who rules Ghana, the Ghanaian electorate took notice and what is the result? Where on earth have we seen the Government in power taking the opposition to court on electoral malpractices? The question is, were we qualified at all to have been in government all these 8 years? I find it very difficult to understand because even though the elections are conducted by the Electoral Commission, the government in power has a responsibility over those elections and my question is: Does the constitution give safeguards only to the opposition which it denies the government in power? Was the NPP asleep during the run up to the elections? Whatever happened, we need to find answers.

Psychologist would like us to know that, most of the time we do the things we: See and hear all the time. A close friend of mine, Agya Boakye once said, if you wake up in the morning and keep telling your mother you would like to sleep with her, if you do not give up but keep saying the same thing, by the evening she would say ' Afei de mabre beye nea wobeye ' literally translated, I am tired come and do whatever you like to do to me. We did not listen to the NONSENSE they set out to preach to the Ghanaian masses but that is what our peoples decided to go with, they chose them even though we thought we presented SENSIBLE MESSAGE to them, the electorate. I would like to take our Party to task and would like to know whether we had any strategic plans after we won the second term in office and if we did what were they and did we implement them during the just concluded elections? We need to go to the bottom of the causes of our defeat and all those who failed to perform should be thrown over board and new set of ideas brought into the party to move it forward.

Ghanaians have been complaining that we are an ARROGANT PARTY. They claim we are not sensitive to the aspirations of our own supporters needs and let alone that of our motherland. We failed to offer leadership in all aspects of the Ghanaian lives and we should show humility and go back to our supporters and rally them around for the 2012 elections.

One area we did not do well throughout the 8 years we have been in power is COMMUNICATION. We never communicated our achievements loud and clear to the Ghanaian. We thought the Physical infrastructures like Schools, Hospitals, Roads, The NIHS, Capitulation Grant and many other things we introduced were physical and visible that all would see and appreciate. We failed to offer leadership when it came to corruption and we did not put in any positive measures to have arrested that sorry situation. We have lost the elections principally on two grounds: Our attitude to our own supporters and our insensitivity to the cries of the peoples of Ghana. The ironic of the just concluded elections is that whilst President Kufuor approval rating was about 70% could our Party have lost so many seats to the opposition and even lose the Presidency ?

We have men and women who are ready to mount serious assault on power come 2012 and let us start now. Let us eschew all forms of bitterness and anger and stop pointing accusing fingers at the NDC for they were not the cause of our downfall. We were ourselves catalyst for whatever has befallen us and we should learn the simple norm of: HUMILITY and march forward. We shall be back STRONGER, SENSITIVE AND WISER with a lot of attentive ears.

K.O. Owusu-Ansah Staunch NPP Supporter