The NDC mansion-grabbing squadron

At times I wonder whether what I see and hear around me is real. You know, there can be certain dreams that when one go through, may look so real that if you are not careful, you may end up transferring those happenings in the dream into reality by talking, laughing or crying in your sleep.

This is the dilemma in which I, and I believe most Ghanaians, find ourselves, in the light of the current blistering speed with which these apostles of ‘I care for you’ are scrambling for heavenly mansions, just like how the early European explorers scrambled for Africa.

By nature, every human-being is endowed with what is called an inherent right. This inherent right consists of (1) right to life, (2) freedom of thought and (3) pursuit to happiness. This simply means that a person who has not committed any crime has every right to live in freedom. A person who has not committed any crime cannot be restricted in his/her beliefs. And the biggest of all these inherent human right is the freedom to pursue happiness. Now, a party always put before the citizenry, a blue print (manifesto) containing the vision and programmes that it will work with if given the mandate, in order to bring relief to the people. It is in the light of this, that the NPP party came up with the concept of property owning democracy. This concept simply means the party’s vision for the nation was to put in place all the necessary structures on which every hardworking individual can take advantage of, to improve themselves, according to their capabilities. Happiness is an inherent desire that God imbibes in every person at creation. It is therefore a God-given drive for every individual to aspire to be happy in life. It for this reason that every able-person of sound mind desire to put his/her shoulders to the wheel by way of engaging in one activity or the other, in order to earn income with which an aspiration can be met. These aspirations could be in the area of building a house, educating one’s self or buying ‘chichinga’.

Just go on the street and talk to any ‘kayaye’ as to what her aspirations are, and she will tell you she is engaging in that activity so that she can save some money to be able to either set up her own small business or to pay her way to learn a trade.Now,when this ‘kayaye’ is able to fulfill such a dream, she can then go ahead to either put up a little modest abode to put her head after sleeping in kiosks on the streets of Accra for years. A modest ‘kayaye’ aspiring to attain such height, is a classic example of an individual’s inherent instinct to pursue happiness.

It is for this reason that the blistering negative tagging of the NPP’s property owning democracy policy by the NDC during the 2008 campaign period, can be described as an act of licentious political behaviour. Here, I will also describe the total paralysis of the NPP communication machinery to counter that evil and hypocritic propaganda by the NDC, at the time, as an act of absolute ‘political indiscretion’ (apologies to Egya Atta, not the mortuary man), please! The NPP, though a centre right party, ideologically, embarked upon some of the most socially centered policies this nation has ever known. Yet, the party hierarchy sat aloof for the NDC to succeed in their evil agenda of throwing dust into the eyes of Ghanaians by saying that the concept of property owning democracy was tantamount to the gas chambers of Ashweiz in Poland and the proponent of the concept (Kufuor) as the wicked and blood-thirsty camp guard called John Damnianyuck (who is also known as Ivan the terrible).

The people of Ghana ‘believed’ those NDC lies and saw the then NPP government as a group of ‘self-seeking’ individuals who had no compassion for the citizenry inspite of the introduction of human centered novelties as NHIS, NYEP, LEAP, MMT, free maternal care and so on.

Today, these so-called social democrats who claim to be highly allergic to the concept of property owning democracy are engaged in feverish competition of putting up heavenly mansions, with architectural designs, comparable only to that of the Hanging Gardens of Babylon.

President Mills, who introduced that wonderful phrase of “profligate expenditure” into our Ghanaian political lexicon, is himself; putting up a mansion on a piece of land he claims was bequeathed to him by his late father, many decades ago. A project he (the president) had not been able to start until becoming a president? ‘Hmmm, eye nsem piiiii’. A DCE, somewhere in the Volta region is putting up a multiple of houses which he claims to be financing with cash he won by, ‘CRASHING’ (as we say in Ghanaian parlance)all the lottery machines at the department of national lotteries(DNL).Ama ‘Chavez’ Benyiwa-Doe is putting up houses like nobody’s business.

John Abdulai-Jinapor (JA), who for his apparent affinity for sychophancy, now calls himself JJ, has been able to put up a Trasaco-like edifice just within 1-yr of NDC administration, with resources from his Ashaiman-based ‘Accra-Mall-look-alike’ shop.

Others are also ‘renovating’ government bungalows with billions of cedis from those ‘empty coffers’ bequeathed to them by the Kufuor administration, in order to bring these houses to their ‘vetinary-doctorate-standard’ before occupation. Alex Segbefia has also joined the race and says even if he renovates his house with a billion dollars; it is not our business because he has practiced as a lawyer in Britain for 20yrs (Net-2TV, 22/01/10).If Alex was earning so much as he claims, then why did he have to abandon his base in the U.K. to come and virtually lie prostrate before president Mills for an appointment? Is this not just the usual joke of doing it for the ‘service’ of mother Ghana? Alex Segbefia could be earning good income in U.K.as he claims, but I would like to know whether he (Alex),when practicing as a lawyer in U.K, had access, also, to free luxurious vehicles, unlimited volumes of fuel, telephones, lunch from 5-star hotels, health-care, housing, a driver, a bodyguard, domestic security, garden-boy, a cook, a fat salary, jolly trips (with concubines) to watch football matches and so on, as he is enjoying now?

Whatever ‘billions’ of pounds Alex claims he was earning in U.K, will surely pale into absolute insignificance when compared with the quantum of freebies he (Alex) now has at his beck-and-call. So Alex must cut-out this bogus ‘sacrificial’ mantra and spare the good people of this nation, such “sanctimonious effusions” (apologies to Atta, not the mortuary man). The new kid on the block in the current craze for mansions is Anita d’Chocho, oh! Sorry, d’So Soo? d’Zuza (as in the NDC slogan?) Or d’Sou-za? The name is just as confusing as the way the woman argues.

This brings to mind how the late Prof. Paul Archibald Vianey Ansah (PAVA) used to struggle with the name of the Ahwoi’s in his articles, “the woes of a kwatriot”, in the chronicle newspaper during the early 90’s.Prof.Ansah will always wonder whether it is spelt Ahoi, Awhoi, Ahwoe, Awhoy and so on. And in the end, he (PAVA) will say “the spelling of the name is as confusing as the name itself”.

Anita (the newly elected NDC national women’s organizer and a board member of one of our parastatals) was violently beating her chest during a Net-2 TV discussion on the morning of (22/01/10), that “me koraa mesi dan” (even me, have put up a house!!). It is such fragrant display of hypocrisy that cements the fact that the NDC lied their way to power with the sole purpose of arresting the downward spiral of their personal economic fortunes, and nothing else. Today, these ‘I care for you apostles’ are trampling upon one-another with lightening speed, to put up mansions; a behaviour which is in total conflict with their so-called avowed hatred for the concept of property owning democracy. The decent people of Ghana can therefore see clearly through the magnitude of fraud, by way of useless campaign promises, perpetrated on us by these self-seeking hypocrites. The NDC which has its umbilical cord tied to that of Cuba and North Korea, and therefore claimed to be highly allergic to the progressive concept of property owning democracy during the 2008 electioneering campaign, have now become what I will term as a cabal of property scavenging pseudo-democrats.

Indeed, sincerity must definately be absent from the lexicon of the ‘asomdwee hene’ and his cabal of greedy bastards, for them to be able to make such a dramatic u-turn, and engage in such hypocritic and contemptuous act of property ‘looting’, in the full glare of the good people of this nation. Oh! A lying-tongue NDC, where is your sense of shame?

And rather sadly, the media outfits which were, and still are, very critical of the Kufuor administration, have decided to turn a blind eye to the activities of this shameless NDC mansion-grabbing squadron and have rather become habitual praise singers of President Mills’ abysmal performance.

These media outfits are prepared to put their hands in the fire (Kwame Pianim style) to deny this their open-secret-notoriety when we complain. But, I will only advise such media outfits to just keep their ears on the ground, then; they can appreciate the mood of total despair, doom and gloom that has currently engulfed our dear nation as a result of a visionless and an un-inspiring leadership by Atta-Mills.

Justice Abeeku Newton-Offei, E-mail: justnoff@yahoo.com