President Mills, Please Look Nearer Home

How very apt, the saying that ‘when you point one accusing finger at someone, four other fingers are pointed back at you!’ Therefore, I read with bemusement, the report on President Mills’ address at the Hogbetsotso festival in Anloga, on Saturday 5th November 2011. The president is reported to have said the following: “I hear people are already beating war drums, let me say this here and now, we will not allow anybody or group of individuals to subvert the peace and tranquility that has taken us years to build.

“We will ensure that we apply the laws to the latter. The people of this country can never be taken for granted.

“This country needs peace to be able to develop; we do not want violence or bloodshed".

These are very well spoken words indeed, IF, they were uttered by anyone but the leader of the most undemocratic party whose members are the most violent of any of the political parties in the country! This is the president and leader of a party – NDC – which came to power in 2008 after it’s leaders went on radio Gold and other NDC media calling for it’s members to take and bear arms and make their way to the Electoral Commission to intimidate the EC into declaring Mills the winner before all legitimate disputes were resolved! Also, to which political party, may I ask, is the AZORKA BOYS affiliated? Are the Azorka Boys a bunch of Roman Catholic Choir boys? Does the president recall the violence perpetuated at a series of by-elections by the Azorka Boys?

Starting from the re-run in Tain, right through to Akwatia , Atiwa and Chireponi, NPP supporters have been subjected to various acts of intimidation and thuggery by Azorka Boys bused in from across the country, in an orchestrated bid to dissuade NPP supporters from going out to perform their civic and democratic responsibility of casting their votes. Also, no less a personality than the NDC National Women’s Organizer, Anita Di Souza, was personally and directly involved in running down NPP supporters with her 4x4 vehicle at Atiwa – with impunity I may add. Where was Pres Mills when these acts were being meted to NPP supporters? Or his concern is only towards people other than NPP supporters? Is he then a president for ALL, as he boasted in his 2008 campaign, or for only a section of the people of the country? Why did he not sanction his party’s Women’s Organiser? Why did he not visit or send a representative to visit the victims of his party executive - Anita Di Souza - in hospital, like Nana Akufo-Addo did? Besides, when NPP polling agents were harassed, beaten and ‘sacked’ from their stations in your stronghold of the Volta Region in 2008 that enabled the beefing up of bogus votes to make you president today, did you lament their acts of not just beating war drums, but the actual waging of war?

Please Mr. President, when you make this sort of pronouncement, why not look closer to home!

On a more official note, Mr. President, do you not hear the reverberations or the echoes of your words bouncing back at you, boomerang-like? When your own party executives convened in September 2011 to strategize for your re-election in 2012, and came out with the motto “WIN AT ALL COSTS – DO OR DIE”, who then Sir, is beating the war drums? With a motto such as this, what sort of response do you expect from opposition parties and long suffering citizens? That they will just cower, rollover and allow the raping of the elections in favour of your party? Like hell they will! If there is any threat of subverting the peace and tranquility of the country it would be when your party attempts to cling on to power in 2012 AT ALL COSTS – DO OR DIE! As your party executives have declared! It will be when you attempt to steal the popular vote!

Mr President, you do not have to look far from you to see who is being jingoistic in Ghana where the 2012 elections are concerned. On Tuesday 22nd November 2011, in an interview with London-based Focus radio, your deliberately notorious Communications Director at the Presidency, Koku Anyidoho, threatened the NPP Flagbearer and executives saying that their ‘death wish’ would be granted – of course by the NDC - if they continued with their unofficial motto of ‘ALL DIE BE DIE’, as a counter to the NDC’s official 2012 election motto: ‘WIN AT ALL COSTS – DO OR DIE’. Like your good self, Anyidoho ignores the basic principle in Physics, that ‘action and reaction are equal and opposite!’ You cannot go on in public at durbars, and your acolytes on radio and TV, claiming the moral high ground whilst at the same time, your party not only sanctions vitriolic and incendiary language in public discourse, sponsor vigilante groups, but adopt unabashed mottos like ‘WIN AT ALL COSTS – DO OR DIE’, and expect no appropriate reaction from responsible countrymen. If at all, your party’s motto is the equal of a declaration of war, and not the response of the NPP to that motto!

Mr President, you could well set the good example of sanctioning your ministers and their deputies who disgrace the concept of good and responsible government with their public actions and utterances. You have the dubious record of never having acted directly to either distance yourself from controversy emanating from one of your appointees, or, punish an errant minister or NDC official for any of the following and more: plain lies and uncouth language [Baba Jamal’s lies about Mills’ academic credentials; also saying that promises about a university for Volta Region was all but ‘campaign talk’. Also losing grasp of the concept of Collective Ministerial Responsibility when he stated that unmet promises were the responsibility of designated ministers and not their deputies; Jamal also saying that NDC promises to bring to justice those responsible for the Ya Naa’s death was also ‘campaign talk’; Ama Benuah Doe’s lies about Akufo-Addo and putting that down to ‘campaign talk’ during vetting, etc]; criminal actions [Anita Di Souza running down NPP supporters with her 4x4 vehicle; Koby Acheampong over speeding and causing the interdiction of responsible policemen daring to challenge him. Kobby also arrogantly asking “do you know who I am?” Koby also insulting the hard working cocoa farmers of the countryside]; ultra vires acts [Yieleh Chiereh re: sacking Prof Frimpong]; conflict of interest [Asiedu Nketia re: block supplier to the Bui dam project whilst serving as a director of the project. Koku Anyidoho’s, “I hate Kufuor’s face” because Kufuor bypassed his Army officer father for an appointment]; questionable sudden wealth [Hanna Bissiew’s three mansions and excessive display of wealth during her primaries, etc] to name but a few.

What have you done, Sir, Mr President, to arrest the deplorable state of corruption you witnessed during your much trumpeted visit to Tema Harbour following the undercover work by Anas? Zilch! But then, as the saying goes ‘birds of a feather flock together!’ Your good self demonstrated obscene and source unaccountable wealth when you spent over 80 million New Ghana Cedis just on your presidential primaries against Nana Agyemang Rawlings! That sort of compromises your position, does it not?! No wonder your appointees are having a financial field day with impunity!

Your pacifist actions towards your officials, coupled with your made for public personal persona as a pious, God fearing and amiable man, is all but! Your silences and inaction is deemed acquiescence to those acts and language by your appointees, and complicit in their execution. This is because odious characters like Koby Acheampong, and Ama Benuah Doe actually gained political appointments from you following their notoriety. Action on your part, as the saying goes, would speak louder than your words and demure personal appearances. It is the sort of language, actions and thievery exhibited by your government officials that help seal any government’s fate with the electorate. When then an indecisive president and an incompetent government never-the-less resolve to cling on to power AT ALL COSTS, any warning words from opposition parties and concerned citizens that this desperate attempt would be resisted, is not war mongering, but expected cautionary tales!

Therefore, Mr. President, when you make this sort of pronouncement, why not look closer to home!

Finally Mr. President, as a demonstration of your vaunted desire to have peaceful elections, now that the Electoral Commissioner has agreed, albeit reluctantly, and with a proviso, that the final decision whether to fund his request for biometric verification to go with the biometric registration rests with the government, could you now instruct your Finance Minister to fund the ‘additional cost’ of the verification element please. According to the EC, Dr Afari Djan, in his long experience, a provision for an item in a budget does not necessarily guarantee the award of the funds by the Finance Ministry for that item. In this particular regard, the EC has shifted the goal posts and made the request to your government for funding verification, as demanded by all the opposition parties, ex-president Kufuor, the convocation of Roman Catholic Bishops, and countless concerned and well meaning citizens residing in or out of the country.

The position of your party on the issue of verification, as articulated by the NDC General Secretary, Asiedu Nketia, is of public record is fundamentally against this voter fraud busting technology! Therefore, your personal and direct executive directive on this matter is called for with regards to your Finance Minister ensuring the EC’s request is funded. This would massively avert the potential for cheating at the polls which could result in the war you say people are already promising. This country truly needs, as you say, “…. peace to be able to develop; we do not want violence or bloodshed” Well then Mr. President, the ball is in your court! You have the power and authority to have it done and I pray you demonstrate with action, the words you have freely uttered.

By: Richard Dombo Diedong