My confession

Adams Goldwater

I have to publicly confess that this time around I didn’t vote for my brother His excellency President John Dramani Mahama. Why? As a matter of fact, I was deeply upset with the deliberate campaign of outright lies, propaganda and verbal abuse perpetrated by the NDC against the personality of our elderly statesman His Excellency Nana Addo-Danquah Akuffo Addo. I had a deep sense of conviction that voting for President Mahama in this year’s elections meant I was also indirectly encouraging and endorsing this disgraceful and shameful conduct of character assignation of political opponents. We are all no doubt aware that our custom and tradition frowns on disrespect of elders especially by young people no matter the gravity of the offence, yet our NDC leaders looked on unconcernedly while “the babies with sharp teeth” orchestrated a barrage of insults and lies laced with propaganda against the very personality of Nana Akuffo Addo. In the Islamic scriptures, Allah says that on the Day of Judgement due to His deep respect for the elderly, He will find it extremely difficult to look direct in the face of an elderly sinner and consign him or her to hell fire. Yet mortals like foul-mouthed, arrogant koku Anyidoho, Kofi Adams, Kwesi Pratt, Murtala Mohammed, Saed Sinare, Alhaji Bature, Kobby Acheampong and the likes made it their stock in trade to unceasingly denigrate Nana Addo even though the founder of the NDC Mr. Rawlings debarked that negative label. These apparatchiks acted God and pompously declared that “Nana Addo will never win the presidency of Ghana “. However, Allah being all-knowing all-seeing and a just God does not condone acts of arrogance and mischief and as such exacted appropriate retribution on the NDC at the 2016 general polls for their sins against the innocent Nana Akuffo Addo.

Indeed, there was no iota of doubt that the vitriolic attacks and vilification of Nana Addo was a strategy designed and approved by the NDC to make the electorate believe that the then NPP flag bearer had a divisive, intolerable and violent character and therefore unfit to be the President of Ghana. The role of chastising and lambasting Nana Addo was assigned to the young appointees in the government in the persons of Fiife Kwetey (Mr. Setting the Records straight), Dr. Edward Omane Boamah, Twum- Boafo Murtala Mohammed (alias Impeccable Record), Sam George, Ofosu kwakye and other NDC communicators who executed this evil mandate with perfection and alacrity. At the onset, many of us were happy when President John Mahama appointed these young people to the positions of Minister, Deputy Minister and other top jobs in the Public sector to give them the opportunity to serve their country in higher capacity. However, no sooner than later these young appointees became disrespectful, arrogant and full of themselves insulting and denigrating any person who crossed their line including the founder of the NDC former President Rawlings. These young appointees were also accused of inordinately amassing wealth to the chagrin of the discerning public yet nobody called them to order.

Many of the old guards in the party felt ignored by the powers that be and quietly resigned to their fate while silently praying and waiting for the right opportunity as befallen the party to expunge the charlatans at the helm of affairs who led the party into opposition and repossess the party. The humiliating bashing of the party in this year’s elections has given the old guards the right moment to take over and reengineer the party for victory in 2020 elections. Frankly, these young and inexperienced appointees were more of a liability than asset both to the government and the NDC and they shouldn’t have been allowed to continue on that negative trajectory of character assignation of political opponents. The NDC should have also learnt lessons from the November 2016 US elections where the Democrats instead focusing their campaign on issues that mattered most to the electorates, focused largely on the attitude and character of Donald Trump alleging that he was unfit to occupy the Oval office. However, this strategy fell flat and Secretary Clinton who was overwhelmingly tipped to win the Presidency bitterly lost the elections. The NDC didn’t take a cue from the botched campaign strategy of the Democrats but also went down on the same tangent running down the personality of Nana Addo hoping to win the hearts and minds of the electorate. This didn’t happen. Allah being Lord of Truth and Justice vindicated Nana Addo of these tramped up charges by appropriately awarding him the ultimate price of President of the Republic of Ghana this time round.

The clear message from the Ghanaian electorates to the politicians in this year’s election is that they are now very discerning and that vote buying, lies, insults and propaganda will no longer win elections in Ghana. In counting It’s cost, the NDC should remember that idiotic and reckless pronouncements motivated by arrogance of power was one major reason why many discerning voters declined to vote for the party. Advisedly, people like koku Anyidoho, Fiife Kwetey, Kofi Adams, Dr. Edward Omane Boamah, all knowing Kwesi Pratt and the likes who lack humility, respect and decorum in their utterances should no longer be given the front role in politicking for the NDC in their bid to recapture power in 2020.

I want to use this opportunity also to sound a word of caution to the incoming NPP administration that the Ghanaian people are wide awake and will no longer countenance thievery of state resources, abuse of trust, lies, propaganda and arrogance of power. The NPP like the NDC also harbors arrogant and bad-mouthed politicians and party officials like Sammy Awuku, Sir John the former General Secretary of the NPP, Kofi Jumah and Kennedy Agyepong who often are not measured in their public discourses and should be seriously cautioned. The NPP should also be reminded and guided by the fact that it lost the 2008 elections largely on acts of arrogance of power and abuse of incumbency. The humiliating defeat of the NDC in the December polls should also be a good lesson to inform the NPP in their politicking. The other day, i was amused to hear Sammy Awuku cautioning in coming appointees of Nana Addo’s government to be wary of acts of disrespect, impudence and arrogance of power and i hope those who have ears will listen to his wise counsel. We trust that the leadership of the NPP led by Nana Akuffo Addo will not hesitate to crack the whip when officials and agents of his government and the party over step their boundaries. We wish the incoming NPP administration Allah’s wisdom and guidance and a successful tenure.

Takoradi.