Presentiment: NDC’s ongoing bickering presages a split within sixteen months?

Following their humiliated 2016 election defeat, the litigious, albeit non-performing NDC apparatchiks are vigorously elbowing their way through in a desperate attempt to convince their aggrieved supporters of their consuming desire to recapture power in 2020 election.

With all due respect, it would appear that the NDC Party stalwarts are living in a denial. They have indeed lost touch with the reality.

The fact of the matter is that their problems are deeper than what they are actually trying to portray to the whole world.

Having said that, their party founder and former President J. J. Rawlings is well-aware of the enormity of the problems confronting his beloved party. He has however refused to live in a denial.

Rawlings admits: “Most people are yet to recover from the traumatic shock of the December 7th election results. “But I will have to state that if we turn our backs to our history us a party, we cannot escape the responsibility for the result”.

“I kept providing the warning whenever and wherever I could, and in public as well. “But no, once again the uncouth and uncultured in our party and government chose to insult and disrespect some of us” (Rawlings, 2016).

Strangely, however, the General Secretary of the party, Asiedu Nketia and his cohorts are holding a phantom believe that they lost the 2016 election because their aggrieved supporters failed to cast their vote. In other words, the leadership are blaming the defeat on voter apathy.

Somehow, the NDC apparatchiks ridiculous denial over the election defeat gave rise to a facts finding Committee to let the “non-existent cat out of the bag.”

However the NDC apparatchiks disappointments amid numerous excuses over the election results, the founder of the NDC Party and former President J. J. Rawlings rather prefers to blame the leadership for their unobjectionable incompetence, corruption and shenanigans.

It is however quite ironic that the brassbound NDC loyalists do not want to acknowledge the fact that Ghana’s economy is in such a state because a large portion of the country’s resources went down the drain from the irreversible mismanagement and the wanton sleaze and corruptions committed by the officials of the erstwhile NDC administration.

In fact, the erstwhile NDC government even managed to allocate judgement debt amount in the national budget (around GH600 million).

It would be recalled that somewhere in 2010, it was reported that the late Mills warned some officials in his government not to effect payment to Woyome. Yet the conspiratorial plotters defied the good old Mills orders and doled out a staggering amount of GH51.2 to Wayome, who had no contract with the government of Ghana.

Subsequently, however, in July 2014, the Supreme Court of Ghana ordered Businessman Mr Alfred Woyome to pay back to the state a Gh 51.2million dubious judgment debt paid him between 2009 and 2010.

It must however be emphasised that the Supreme Court’s ruling was as a result of a review of the court's earlier decision sought by former Attorney General Martin Amidu, who maintained that Woyome, like international firms, Waterville and Isofoton, had no valid contract to be paid any amount by the state in judgment debt.

Rightly so, the Supreme Court ruled that Isofoton S.A. and Waterville Holdings BVI, must also refund the dubious judgement debt payments made to them by the erstwhile NDC government.

According to the highest Court of the land, the Waterville Holdings BVI, which was allegedly involved in the construction of some stadia in Ghana, ahead of the hosting of the 2008 Africa Cup of Nations, was wrongfully paid €25 million and thus must refund the money. While the Court ordered Isofoton S.A. to refund US$325,472 it received as judgment debt from the Government of Ghana.

Unfortunately, however, none of those monies were retrieved by the erstwhile NDC government, despite the Supreme Court’s ruling.

We cannot also obliterate from memory the scandalous corruption cases involving GYEEDA, AZONTABA, SADA, SUBAH, the purported $250million debt incurred on the faded STS housing deal, the dubious Embraer 190 Aircrafts and hanger for the Ghana Armed Forces and over a US$100 million oil revenue loss between 2011 and 2013 as reported by the Public Interest& Accountability Committee.

It is indeed cumbrous for one to recount how Ghana’s economy was sunk deeper and deeper into the mire under President Mahama’s leadership.

Thus, it is not surprising that while the Mahama loyalists are fighting tooth and nail to have him back as the party’s next presidential candidate, the sceptics are insisting that Mahama was incompetent during his tenure in office and must thus be replaced with a more competent flagbearer.

Consequently, the seeming squabbling has culminated in a tussle over the choice of a more competent flagbearer to lead them to recapture the elusive victory in the 2020 general election.

Strangely, though, despite the fact that the sceptics carry the preponderance of the argument about former President Mahama’s incompetence, the diehard supporters will somehow succeed in their quest to bring back Mahama as their flagbearer if he decides to accept their invitation.

Indeed, the vast majority of the NDC Party loyalists are living in a denial about former President Mahama’s much touted incompetence and will thus choose him any day over any other presidential aspirant.

In this regard, it would be unfair for sceptics to tag a reflective forecaster as an irresponsible doom prophet for venturing to prognosticate that the NDC Party could split into uncountable parts before their flagbearership contest in 2018.

K. Badu, UK.