Is The Hawk, Now Squatting?

From: Stephen A. Quaye, Toronto-Canada.

Prior to the 2000 presidential and parliamentary elections in Ghana, various political parties composed series of campaign slogans as well as songs to carry their message far to the electorates to canvas votes.

What became common was the slogan the New Patriotic Party NPP, composed which caught up well with the electorates at the time of the general elections. It was the slogan “Asieho” to wit down there because the then presidential candidate for the NPP Mr.J.A.Kufuor was at the bottom of the ballot paper.

Because it was swaying a lot of the voters from the NDC camp to the opposition NPP, NDC propagandists composed a counteracting slogan by saying “Asieho AIDS woho” to wit “down there is infected with AIDS” trying to tell voters not to vote for Mr. Kufuor, but it did not work.

Having realized their failure to stop the NPP in their tracks of winning more votes with their “Asieho” slogan the NDC decided to get tough on the campaign platform to do all that they could to win the 2000 elections thereby bringing the founder onboard the campaign train.

Mr. Jerry John Rawlings, campaigning for Professor John Evans Atta Mills, hit the campaign trail with all sort of slogans; proverbs, parables; statements as well as demonizing the opposition NPP to make sure his NDC party won and hand over power to his own party.

It was clear the founder of the NDC party never believed that the NPP could snatch power from the NDC as in one event made it clear that” if Mr. J.A.Kufuor, wanted to become the president should go to Anloga for a stool to be carved for him but not the one he was sitting on.

This might have prompted the NPP and his presidential candidate to embark on more vigorous campaign which called on the electorate to change the government. As the NPP messages were traveling far and wide, the former president was also composing more slogans and speaking in proverbs against the NPP all in campaigns.

Then on one political campaign platform, Mr. J.J.Rawlings decided to convince the electorate to vote for his party by counting the achievements of his led government and the need to vote for it once more to continue is good works.

So in love with Akan proverbs and wanting to carry his message in proverbs attempted to say “se anomaa ntu a obuada” by saying, ”se anomaa ntu a ogyenaho” veering off totally from the original statement and meaning of the proverb that whoever refuses to work must not be fed.

The original intention was to tell the opposition and the voters that if the NDC does not win no other party could perform better than that party. Creating funny with those proverbs, the opposition NPP responded to that proverb saying ”anomaa no koraa wagyenaho a woabre nti afie die wakotoho” to wit the bird is even tired of standing so is now squatting.

This reminds me of the former president recent campaign against corruption and trumpeting his call on president Atta Mills to arrest and prosecute all former ministers in the NPP administration.

He has been libeling, criminalizing all former ministers who served under former president Kufuor as corrupt ministers who should be thrown into Nsawam prison.

Quiet recently he turned the heat on President Atta Mills’s ministers already claiming some of them are corrupt and need to be sacked.

But it seems the heat from the campaign against corrupt ministers and politicians has died down possibly because he can not shout “arrest them” on top of his voice again as no one seems to be hearing him any more”.

Since the NDC symbol is that of a hawk standing on an umbrella and members are often classified as “hawks of the NDC” may we ask if the hawk is now tired of standing against corrupt practices going on in the government as no one seems cleaning up so it is squatting?

Your answer is as good as my.

End.

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