“The struggle of a man against power is the struggle of memory against
forgetting.”
--- Milan Kudra(1929)
As people of wisdom say, every action provokes a reaction, and the
President was reacting to an action, which is a trade mark of the NPP. One would
wonder why on earth would the NPP forget what they initiated, they thought
Ghanaian electorate have very short memories, not to be able to recollect
the political tactics of tribalism and ethnocentrism that they were the “
inventors” and “innovators” of.
In Mass Communications, there is a concept or theory we read in college
called, “defussion of innovation”. In this theory, the first people to
practice or start something are called “innovators”, then the second are, “
early adopters” and the third are, “late adopters.” So the NPP’s mother party
the UP, invented and initiated tribal politics in Ghana. They did it in a
more heartless and inhumane sense, when the late President Busia won the
elections, and implemented their Aliens Compliance Order, known in Twi as, “
Kow hu kurom” in the early seventies, which the NPP are trying to conceal
from this contemporary generation of the electorate, in order to vote for
them. They deported many people from the Zongos and the Northern part of the
country, alleging that they are not Ghanaians. There were instances where
even kids born in this country, were expelled from schools, by the UP (NPP)
cronies, telling them to go and join their parents to move of this country.
This made them “early adopters” of it, and was inherited by their
children the NPP, who are currently reviving that in disguise, while the NDC just
became “late adopters”. This is very justifiable because, the NPP in their
penchant, predilection and proclivity for power are using some of their
cronies from the North and the Zongos to urge these people to vote for them,
because they have a Muslim and a Northner as vice-presidential candidate.
Those of us who voted during the inception of the democratic regime of the
fourth republic in 1992, would continue to remember the rife and rampant
rage and rant of the NPP, saying, “Yeji Ye Mane”, which means in Twi that,
“we are taking back our country.” By this they meant, they would deport
people of the Zongos, whom they perceived as non-Ghanaians, repeating what
their mother party, the UP did in the seventies, as mentioned above. But
thank God, they lost the elections bitterly, due to their evil intentions.
But the desperate, arrogant and aggressive Nana Akufo Addo revived their
usual ethnocentric and tribalistic mantra, long before the President asked
his people to vote for him, when he was quoted as saying in the Eastern
region, “Ye Akanfo…”, urging all the Akans and the Ochenhene to urge his tribe’
s people to vote for him. So if President Mahama should ask for votes from
his own clan, whom he has helped and continues to help in diverse ways,
what is their problem? Don’t the NPP understand the simple conventional
wisdom that says; what is good for the goose is also good for the gander?
The NPP’s notorious MP, Kennedy Agyapong who, thanks to the NDC USA’s
research-savvy communications team, has now shut up, because he knows should
he continues with criticizing and castigating the President, his ‘glass house
’ would be broken and fragmented into pieces, so hence his decision to
keep mute. He was the one who made a treasonable and inflammatory statement,
urging the Akans to attack the Ewes and the Gas, which landed him in jail
custody, while another statement was attributed to their Chairman, Jake
Obetsebi Lamptey to the effect that, “...Ashantis will take away their birth
rights, as they did in Abidjan.” Who are more tribalistic than the other, for
God sake?
It is very ironical that, the NPP is doing the same thing that they are
accusing President Mahama of. Their National Organizer, Alhaji Mukhtar Bamba,
is urging Muslims in the North and the Zongos to vote for the NPP, because
they chose Bawumia, who is a Muslim. And Bawumia himself is also
campaigning in these same areas, telling them he is a Muslim and a Norther, so he is
best to deserve their votes.
However, the bottom line is that, electorate from the North, Zongos and
the entire Muslim communities are discerning people, they do not consider
religion as a prerequisite and a precondition for them to vote for President
Mahama. Besides, they do not care if he is a Muslim or Christian, they know
for a fact that, President Mahama was the best among all our Northern
politicians, even in his own party, who by virtue of being a Muslim blood,
respects and regards Muslims all over the country. He would always attend their
social events, like Aduwa, or funeral events, and other festivities, long
before he became Vice-President. And where was Bawumia, when President
Mahama was doing these to his people? He has a good rapport with people in the
Zongos in the south and the Muslim communities in general, and does not
discriminiate. Some of us used to represent our newspapers at the castle, as
members of the Presidential Press Corps, during the first NPP administration
in 2001, and we had witnessed how their administration was dominated by the
Ashantis.
It is a human nature that, we all feel incline to support someone related
to us, by race or tribe, who is in a contest, especially if we feel the
person is fighting a winning battle. For instance, if a black man is fighting
a white man in a boxing competition or football match, there is a strong
tendency for the black spectators to support the black boxer and vice visa.
Likewise in the political arena, people would prefer to see their own ethnic
kith and kin at the helm of the national affairs. Would Nana Addo go to
the eastern region or Ashanti to tell his people to vote for Mahama and not
him? If not, hence the President has every right to canvass votes from his
own kith and kin in the North, because, unlike the NPP’s former
Vice-President, Aliyu Mahama, President Mahama has been more kind and humanitarian to
the people of North and Zongos, since his days as an MP and deputy minister
of information in the early nineties, and this is the best time to ask his
kith and kin to pay him back, for his long years of service, one of those
is the decision to give more scholarship to the students from the North and
the Zongos, in order to breach the north-south huge gap of education in
medical field. So he has the right to lobby for their votes, for one good turns
deserve another.
President Maham has helped lot of students from the North, the Zongos and
Muslim communities to get admitted into colleges and universities in the
country, who were being discriminated against, in spite of their excellent
and extra-ordinary academic performance, due to their ethnic and religious
origin, and I was one of them. This is a normal norm, and the President by
virtue of his influential position, has been of tremendous help, which
enabled them to explore their God-given intellectual potentials.
There are also a lot of graduates even from other tribes and ethnic groups
that the President helped to secure jobs, when he was an MP and a
minister.
When he was the deputy minister of information in 1999, he intervened and
authorized the GBC radio in Kumasi, to restore a weekly Friday Muslim
program, which was lifted off air for obvious reasons. This happened about
twelfth years ago, when he never have thought of leading this nation. The
Muslim clergy in Kumasi prayed to God to make him President in the future, when
he later visited them in the blessed month of Ramadan that God would answer
prayers instantly, and I was a witness to this event. Lo and be hold, it
is over a decade now and these devoted and pious servants of God (most of
them are dead now) have been vindicated when became the President in the late
2012, and will win again to continue leading the country for the next eight
years, because those who prayed for him and continued to pray for him, did
it through the voice of God, by virtue of their piousness and piety to the
Al-mighty.
President Mahama’s unexpected meteoric rise to the presidential pedestal
is reminiscent of Joel Osteen’s wisdom, a renowned US reverend minister who
said, “What others say and do cannot stop you from fulfilling your destiny.
Your destiny was handed down by Almighty God.”
President Mahama was the one who gave Hajj, the Muslim pilgrimage a more
human face. This was a total mess under the NPP administration, because most
of the prospective pilgrims, who are very prominent personalities, used to
be left to sleep under the vagaries of the weather and under trees at
Helwalk stadium, and there were no decent places of convenience. This clearly
indicated that, the NPP took Muslim pilgrims and their all important annual
ritual for granted. This is part and parcel of the reasons why the Muslims
and the Zongo people, who voted for the NPP during their eight years, are
now willing to vote for President Mahama and the NDC, come December 7th,
2012. And no amount of witchery of the Osono, or elephant part would stop the
crossing of Rubicon.
In his speech at the recently celebrated Muslim Eidul Adha Festival at the
Independence square in Accra, the President, although a Christian warned
all the heads of high schools in Ghana, who are forcing Muslim students to
attend church services, to put a stop to it. He even went the extra mile to
authorize the ministry of education to communicate this rule to all these
schools.
This is an unprecedented move, which has never been taken by any President
in Ghana, to address freedom of religion. And everyone knows that, during
the NPP regime, this phenomenon was worse and they never address it, in
spite of having a Muslim Vice-President in office. The fact is that, the NPP
used Aliyu Mahama for the Northern and Muslim votes only, without which they
could never have won, and then dumped him when he wanted to contest for
presidency, because it was there and then that, they exhibited to him their
true tribalistic and ethnocentric colors, that the party is the bonified
property of the Ashantis only, and no one could be voted at their primaries to
contest for presidential elections, but an Akan.
Frankly speaking, the President hit the nail directly on the head when he
said; Northners are fed-up with playing second fiddle of Vice-Presidency.
Undoubtedly, Northerners have blazed the trial in the Academia in Ghana for
many years. They also have been tried and tested as capable people, with
the requisite academic qualifications and professional acumen to lead this
country.
Regarding the NPP’s continuous unsubstantiated allegations upon
allegations of corruption against the President, who just took over power only few
months ago, we of the NDC US Communications and Research Team, are in the
process of compiling facts, connecting the dots and digging deep in order
bring back to the public limelight, the gigantic and gargantuan cases of
corruption and embezzlement by the NPP, during their eight years in office, which
was unprecedented in the political annals and archives of Ghana.
We will be serializing them, blow by blow, starting from this week. Our
aim is to inform and awake Ghanaian electorate, especially the youthful
prospective voters, who are not aware of the economic suicide the NPP inflicted
on our national cake, for their entire eight years period in office, in
order to help them make wise decision not to return them into power and vote
for President Mahama and NDC, to continue with the late President Mills’
Better Ghana Agenda. So folks, stay tuned!
Husseini Y. Baba AlWaiz, Press Secretary, NDC New York
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