President Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo
academically lacks strategic savviness to hold themselves in power for long whenever elected into power. This is an undisputed fact which no amount of persuasion can get me off this opinion formed through empirical observations of the party over several years dating from the time of Dr Kofi Abrefa Busia’s Progress Party (PP) government.
It is just practical common sense that several wise or two wise captains cannot pilot the same one ship at the same time. When one suggests let us turn the ship to the right or else we shall run aground, the other will oppose him saying, no, we should rather turn it to the left. In this situation, the result will be total chaos; this is NPP for you.
I have the right to constructively but not destructively criticise the NPP, the political party of my birth. If the leadership is doing something wrong, I have the absolute right to air out my opposing views regardless of what they will say or think about me. Does Benjamin Franklin not say, “Critics are our friends, they show us our faults?”
I wonder how NPP leaders continue to commit the same old mistakes without ever sitting down to find out why they hardly come to power and when they do come, they don’t last long.
Before telling why this publication, let me take you down the memory lane. During Dr Busia’s Progress Party government, a certain man from Kumawu was a cocoa purchasing agent in another district. You can call him a cocoa clerk or “cocoa krakye” as you feel convenient with. This man had collected a large sum of money from a District Centre where his buying agency was headquartered to take to pay the farmers in the villages from whom his company had purchased cocoa for that year or season. On his way to pay the farmers, driving in his own car, some robbers attacked him. They inflicted cutlass wounds on him and set his car ablaze, he claimed.
He was admitted to hospital for about a week and when he was discharged, he came to Kumawu, purchased a building plot and within three months put up a big house. He had not been paid any personal or damage to property insurance by then. Later, rumours surfaced that he had personally inflicted the cutlass wounds on himself and burnt his old banger just to deceive people in justifying the disappearance of the money meant for paying the cocoa farmers. Who was the person, NPP must find out.
There were four staunch NPP members in Kumawu who blatantly refused to campaign for NPP in the 2012 elections. They were rather sabotaging NPP by encouraging NPP supporters to vote “skirt and blouse”, thus, vote for an independent parliamentary candidate or NDC parliamentary candidate and vote Nana Addo for president.
When I heard their arguments for their actions, it was only too silly to be tolerated. One of them was not happy about the then contesting NPP parliamentary candidate, Mr Philip Basoah for taking over from him as the DCE.
One of them was not happy about Philip Basoah emerging victorious in their NPP primaries to elect a parliamentary candidate. He thought he should have been elected or maintained. Another person said when Philip Basoah was the DCE for the District; he did not give him enough contracts or awarded all the contracts to him for being the NPP District Chairman. The last but not the least person, did not understand why Philip Basoah had to report him to the police for perceived felling of timber trees in the area without authority instead of first contacting him or giving him a warning? What would have happened if he was arraigned and jailed if the allegation against him was true? Would he be around to campaign for him? No. Therefore, he was not going to help him win the parliamentary seat, he asserted, when I approached him with intention to persuading him to join Philip Basoah’s campaign team.
During former President Kufuor’s regime, he is alleged to have angrily shouted at some Kumawu NPP members who had accused the then NPP District Chairman, Mr Adusei, of financial impropriety, to leave him alone as he had suffered a lot for the party. Under the regime of His Excellency President Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo, the same mistake has allegedly been repeated. The President is alleged to have shouted at those from the Kumawu Constituency who had and still do oppose a candidate presented to the President to be nominated or appointed for the post of DCE in the Kumawu District by Mr Adusei and Kumawuhemaa Nana Abenaa Serwaah Amponsah.
I understand the person is a staunch member of the NDC same as Kumawuhemaa. How are the NPP members harassing Mr Adusei, I would like to know from the President? Was he the NPP District Chairman? No! Did he actively campaign for the NPP himself let alone, the other NDC member who has been named by the President as his nominee for the DCE post?
Who should the President seek advice from when nominating such candidates? Should it be from the NPP leadership in the area, NPP members from the area or certain single sly NPP individuals pursuing their selfish interests?
Why should the NPP leaders once elected into power think they have the natural prerogative to discard or refuse to listen to the voices of the ordinary members, foot soldiers so to speak, who voted them into power? Once in power, they see any agitation or suggestion by their ordinary party members as noise in their ears as well said by John Boadu which annoyed me so much so that I had to publish a whole article to rebuke him for his thoughtless pronouncements which appear to be the characteristic of NPP.
Why is it that many NPP members are condemning some DCE nominations made by the President? Why should those who have toiled for the party, with the requisite qualifications, honest, dynamic, and selfless and are ready to be of service to their people, nation and party, be side-lined for those who never wanted the party to come to power in the first place? I do not get the sense in this at all.
I am not trying to question the wisdom, intelligence or undermine anyone but truthfully, I do not get it at all. If the person is not corrupt and have the ability and capability to do the job, why should they be side-lined in favour of others who had done absolutely nothing towards bringing the party to power in the first place? Look at the case of Hon Albert Kan Dapaa in relation to the Delta Force saga. He did not support the party during her campaign in anyway. However, he has got the juiciest job only to use his position to punish those people who helped immensely for the party to win Election 2017. How do you explain that to my satisfaction? It doesn’t make any one bit of sense to me at all. He is not a security expert. He is not a retired or a current military/police personnel of high ranking.
Again, one Mr Duah, a tutor at Kumawu Senior High School has toiled for the party to come to power. I was on the campaign trail with him during Election 2012 when I purposely went to Ghana on holiday to campaign for the party. He had, and has never relinquished his efforts to get NPP into power by doing whatever is nobly expected of him as a trusted NPP member and an activist. He is dynamic, educated, selfless and being serving his people and party with dedication.
Most of the people in Kumawu Constituency and the NPP leadership and members there wanted him to be the nominee for the post of DCE to continue to serve the people as honestly and dedicatedly as he has been serving them and the party. However, Mr Adusei in collusion with Kumawuhemaa presented an alleged NDC member or a less active NPP member, to the President and he has fallen for what one or two persons have agreed on as opposed to what many people agree on. I can hardly get my head around this.
Could the nominated candidate for DCE not be one of those selfish, greedy and cunning individuals who hold on to two party cards, NPP and NDC, so whenever any of the party comes to power, he comes out as a registered and dues-paying member of the party just to avail themselves of any available opportunities while throughout the struggles of the party in opposition, they will be dormant?
From all these and other attitudes by the NPP leadership which I find very despicable, the NPP have started digging their own grave and writing their requiem or dirge.
Yes, the President will only listen to the voice of God but not the masses. However, the voice of the people is rightly or wrongly said to be the voice of God. I know that Nana Akufo Addo, my Joseph, Moses or David, was brought to power by God through the team work of many Ghanaians. However, as God made Saul the King of the Israelites, He Himself (God) disowned him when he (Saul) became disobedient to God. Read 1 Samuel 15 about the instructions God issued to Saul via Samuel regarding the war with the Amalekites.
Yes, Nana Akufo Addo is now the President. However, he has to bear in mind that most of his promises can successfully materialise to the collective benefit of Ghanaians if he remained in power for at least eight years and he gets somebody who shares his dreams to continue from where he will stop. Therefore, duration, like time, is of greater essence here. When he leaves power and he has NDC to succeed him, it won’t take them long to dismantle all the good works he might have achieved. This is evident from what former Presidents Mills and Mahama did when they took over from former President Kufuor.
Are we thinking about the future successes of NPP presidential and parliamentary candidates at future general elections if we carried on like this, failing to listen to the voices of the masses that campaigned for the party to come to power? Yes, the future successful election of any NPP candidate will be based on the outcome of President Nana Akufo Addo’s presidency; his achievements. However, Ghanaians are unpredictable when it comes to casting their votes. Do some electorates not sell their votes for a peanut? Do Ghanaians not prefer to vote on tribal lines? It was only God that intervened to scupper the rigging machineries by the NDC after hearing and answering the masses’ supplications to Him to rid them of President Mahama and the NDC.
Yes, the President and his team have the right not to listen to them. As they have that right, the masses also have the right not to campaign let alone, vote for them in future elections. This is tit for tat!
It will be a situation of tickling oneself and laughing should NPP think they can stay in power for eight, twelve, sixteen etc. years hence they can ignore their grassroots supporters because they are now in power. It really pisses me off to see the leadership behaves that way.
Anyway, it does not belong to he who is leading to redirect their steps hence this publication which is meant for attitudinal correction.
Lest I forget, I have read a publication on Ghana web on Sunday, 30 April 2017 titled, “NPP activist poisoned at Ayensuano” (http://www.ghanaweb.com/GhanaHomePage/regional/NPP-activist-poisoned-at-Ayensuano-533783). The deceased, Emmanuel Koranteng, was opposed to the DCE nominee for his District and was going to organise a press conference on Monday, 1 May 2017 but he was allegedly poisoned. On the other day, I listened to one NDC Dr Asemfofro who had called for an investigation into the death of the late President Evans Atta Mills, claiming he was murdered by the NDC and was ready to prove his allegation in court. He died three weeks after making that public and on air allegation. What is going on in Ghana?
However, the truth will always be told no matter how far it hurts. I hope Hon. Kennedy Ohene Agyapong and Bernard Antwi Boasiako (Chairman Wontumi) will be provided with the needed security as they have publicly claimed that their lives have been threatened. They are precious to Ghana and to the NPP, I must confess.
