Lessons from the NDC Congress.

By Kweku Amoesi

kwamoesi@yahoo.com

July 9th 2011 will go down in history as one in which the NDC weaned itself off the influence of one man. After all with JJ not being immortal, the party will have to sooner than later learn how to win an election without him. The CPP did not get the chance to win an election without Nkrumah, and once he passed on, the CPP could not survive. As Ben Ephson, a well known and respected pollster said, it will be difficult but not impossible for NDC to win without the founder. The day served the clearest indication that NDC has grown beyond the influence of one man and certainly a party nowhere near disintegration. This cannot be good news for opposition parties in that any sort of disintegration would have benefited them. The day also exposed all those who called Uncle Atta a poodle. They must now do the honorable thing by rendering an unqualified apology to this fine Professor.

The day will also go down in history as one during which a group of people masquerading as latter day NDC sympathizers, finally succeeded in bringing to ruin the hard won reputation of Ghana’s arguably most admired couple. By pretending to be admirers and friends of the Rawlingses, this group managed to systematically feed the former first couple with calculated pathetic lies. But how such a great couple like Konadu and Jerry John Rawlings fell for these sycophants will remain a mystery for a long time.

Let’s look at some of the most pathetic lies they fed to the first couple

1. That the rank and file of the NDC party, over 86%, were disillusioned and wanted change in leadership. It turned out that only 3% were disillusioned.

2. That the NDC party apparatus had conducted a poll and realized that Nana Konadu will beat the sitting President by 86%. It turned out that Konadu would muster a disgraceful 3%.

3. That the young guards of the NDC, who never got any meaningful posts in the previous NDC government, and who have only now received a vote of confidence from the President to serve in various capacities, and are indeed proving their mettle, the likes of Fiifi Kwekey, Haruna Iddrisu, Nii Lante Vanderpuije, Victor Smith, Baba Jamal, Afriyie Ankrah etc have merely on account of positions they occupy today, become traitors of the values of probity and accountability. I do not speak for these guys, but I can say with all certainly that these are the kind of guys - thoroughbred NDC apparatchiks - who could have died for the sake of JJ Rawlings.

4. That they (Fonkar) had intercepted security tapes that revealed that President Mills had budgeted a whopping ninety million United States Dollars for a mere flag bearer campaign. It also turned out to be a complete farce.

5. That people of the caliber of NDC national delegates were so cheap that they could be bought for a thousand Ghana cedis and a motorbike. (Imagine the likes of Alhaji Sinare, ET Mensah, Shery Ayittey NDC MP’s being bought for GH¢1000.)

6. That CCTV cameras have been mounted throughout the coronation park and as a result the whole body of National delegates of a party like NDC are so frightened to vote according to their conscience. Aaaba! (Voting and especially the thumb-printing of the ballot paper took place on the open field in an enclosed cardboard cubicle, where could anyone have hung the CCTV cameras? Probably on the belly of an air force jet circling on top of the coronation park?

I could go on and on. But that is not why I sat behind my laptop. All I want to do is to point out to readers the lessons.

First of all, how easy it is for anyone masquerading as a friend to cause your downfall.

Second, a small minority of the whole (3%) can make so much noise that one may think it is the whole. The loudest noisemakers are often the minority.

The third and most important is that Professor Mills is indeed a blessed man.

See, like everyone who is blessed by God Almighty, the more people try to bring him down, the higher God elevates him. John Evans Atta-Mills is the most vilified President in all our history. From Nkrumah to Kufour, all of them had their detractors but it is only President Mills who has been bashed from both within and without, including, can you imagine, the founder of his own party! And yet he came out stronger. The NPP tagged him a poodle, a dead-man, a blind man, a yes-man, one-eyed man, a puppet etc. The result? He won the election that no one gave him a dog’s chance. Then Fonkar, Rawlings and wife descend on him. Mortuary man! Uninspiring man! Disgraceful president! Sleepy driver! Divisive man lacking vision! etc. Again the result? He moves from 88% (from the last congress to 97%.) What does this tell you? Who Jah bless, no one curse!

Finally I wish to state that it was not wrong for Konadu to have ambition, but for a woman of such stature to allow her ambition to cloud her judgment of reality and feed off lies after lies from people masquerading as friends is the highest heights of naivety! Was there no way to verify these lies? Or were these lies actually generated by Konadu herself? I just don’t know.

For now, Fonkar’s true aims have been achieved, methinks. And the likes of Herbert Mensah, Kofi Adams and his cohorts must be laughing in their homes. Soon after the results were announced they all vanished into thin air! How sad! How sad and painful it was, for every NDC person and neutral observers even, to witness the spectacle of the hurried departure of JJ and his wife from the grounds of the best organized event of any sort in Ghana by the NDC?

To conclude I say to Fonkar, well done, your vitriolic attacks only made the President stronger, so go on!

To Kofi Adams in particular, please learn no lesson from this episode, go on and be your ostrich best.

To the NDC party, I say stay focused and go on to win the election. With or without!

To HE President Mills, I say, what a gentleman you are!

To HE VP Mahama, what a storyteller you are!

To General Mosquito, after slaughtering the elephant in 2008, it’s good to see you gain some weight! :) lol

To readers I say, may the lessons not be lost on you!