You sure did prevent Bawumia's lecture, NDC

This is not the first time that elements belonging to the Mahama-led National Democratic Congress (NDC) have prevent Dr. Mahamudu Bawumia from delivering a public lecture in the Volta Region. These persistent attempts by NDC operatives to effectively bar some leaders of the main opposition New Patriotic Party (NPP) from electioneering campaign tours of the region may have to be promptly taken up for serious deliberation on the floor of Parliament. Absolutely no region or district in Ghana is the especial preserve of any one particular political party (See “We Didn’t Prevent Bawumia’s Lecture – NDC” Citifmonline.com / Ghanaweb.com 3/16/16).

Not very long ago, the running-mate of the NPP Presidential Candidate, Nana Akufo-Addo, was prevented from delivering an electioneering campaign address in Ho, the Volta regional capital. The venue for the event was riotously besieged by some youthful thugs shilling for the local National Democratic Congress’ leadership. Here, too, top officials of the Volta Region’s NDC came public, after the fact, to vehemently deny that any such design to disrupt the lecture delivery by the former Deputy-Governor of the Bank of Ghana had been engineered by the accused. In the Ho incident, we were obliquely told that the scrapping of Dr. Bawumia’s address was in retaliation for a similar one in Kumasi, during which Mr. Samuel Okudzeto-Ablakwa had been prevented from giving a presentation to some disgruntled teacher trainees who were disaffected by the presence of the latter and Dr. Edward Omane-Boamah and another junior cabinet appointee, if I recall accurately, because President Mahama had taken the drastically unconscionable decision of withdrawing age-old stipends and training allowances paid these educators-in-training.

In the latest incident, we are told that the Oxbridge-educated economist had had his scheduled lecture at the Dambai College of Education summarily cancelled because some Abongo Boys, and perhaps Abongo Girls as well, did not like the fact that a significant aspect of the lecture aimed to spotlight the promise of an Akufo-Addo/Bawumia government’s promise to restore the scrapped stipends and allowances of these teacher trainees. Then there was the recent Bawumia lecture presentation at which some NDC operatives unsuccessfully attempted to divert the attention of attendees with cups of gari or grated and roasted cassava grains. It was the most obscene political gesture yet – strikingly akin to the sticking out of the thumb – that had been staged by elements doing the dirty work of President John Dramani Mahama.

As of this writing, the Gonja petty chieftain was widely reported to be traipsing the Volta Region and sneeringly asking eligible and potential voters to name a single project that the leaders of the main opposition New Patriotic Party have undertaken in the region for their quality-of-life improvement. Well, I am not living in Ghana presently and have never lived in the Volta Region, but I can readily name the National Health Insurance Scheme (NHIS), which NDC leaders like Mr. Mahama and his late boss, President John Evans Atta-Mills, vehemently pooh-poohed as a practical impossibility but today are the scheme’s most prominent and avid beneficiaries! President Kufuor has also mentioned the ultra-modern auditorium of the Ho Polytech Institute, the latter’s ICT center and the Hohoe-Dambai Highway and the Keta Sea Defense levees. I am quite certain that there are many others that I may not be aware of.

That the Mahama-led NDC government has so poorly managed the National Health Insurance Scheme as to threaten the viability and long-term survival of the same, is what these Volta-resident eligible voters ought to be thinking about come November 7, when they enter the polling booth to determine who steers their socioeconomic and political affairs for the next four years.

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