Those Who Stood By You Are Now Asking You To Listen – Open Letter To President
Mills
Dear President Mills,
I must apologize for intruding with this letter of mine. I write this letter to
you in my capacity as a youth activist of the great NDC and I am not the least
enthused about certain developments in our party. I have chosen this form of
communication to you because all other roads seem to be blocked by people who
now believe that for the good of their parochial interest, they must isolate you
from the rest of us. Energized by the spirit, ideals, principles and the
ideology of the NDC, and the promise of “better Ghana”, I actively championed
you and campaigned vigorously and aggressively to get you elected as the
president of the republic of Ghana.
But I'm afraid you've lost me.
I have watched in horror as the sweeping mandate you so skillfully won has been
squandered. You have failed at every turn to practice the politics necessary to
change the course of this country, sacrificing principles and the greater moral
mandate and the unity of your party and the country for that matter on the altar
of a reckless political mantra “father for all”. Your commitment to
bipartisanship and compromise on the issue of social justice has rather expose
your nakedness. The opposition NPP have derailed every initiative and gutted
every innovation, while you continue to reach out, coaxing and pleading for a
better day that simply will never come. Your opponents have won. Their
obstructionism has prevailed. I understand that you expect me to blame them for
their conduct. I do not. I blame you. Your desire to build a “better Ghana” has
remained a pipe dream. That is not the change I voted for.
Ghanaians are getting disillusioned because corruption is still rife, and the
people have been disappointed in their expectations of good governance and
social justice. You are not doing enough to retain credibility of the great NDC
among Ghanaians. All the perceived crimes of the NPP pales into insignificance
in the light of happenings and that’s the danger for your government. The
perception seems to be that the very few at the top are enjoying at the expense
of the numerous NDC supporters who toiled to ensure the party’s victory.
To imagine that you are still crawling even though you promised to hit the
ground running from the word go is a profound statement which draws light on the
utter ineffectiveness of your high road rhetoric. Majority of Ghanaians have
devoted their lives to help you make this country better, and I had pinned my
hopes on our ability to do that. I no longer believe that you will ever be up to
that task. I hope I am wrong, but as of now my heart is broken, and I am done
with you. We all worked in support of your election. When you were threatened,
we defended you and believed in your promises. I’m pretty sure some diehards are
not ready to abandon you but I’m very much concerned and I believe it is time
you listened to voices other than those that have managed to isolate you from
what we see as reality.
You are the third president under whom I have lived and unlike the others, you
truly scare me. You scare me because you are a cheerleader for “hate Rawlings”
crowd and want to kill the NDC’s goose that lays the golden egg. My most current
concern is with what appears to be a growing pattern of attempt to destroy the
National Democratic Congress, a party which propelled you to the high office of
president. Since assuming office some insiders within your administration have
bastardize the very ideals that the NDC was built on and the founder of our
great party without any reservation and have also called for the total
alienation of the legacy of Jerry Rawlings. As somebody, who worked closely with
President Rawlings, you must be aware by now that, the founder is a man with
strong convictions who has often stood alone and fought for what he believed
when others would not. His views on what he fought for in 1979/81 and defended
when others would not and could not has been what he is all about and he is
unlikely to change. Indeed he has borne the cross of what the NDC stands for.
His life has never been about pleasing people but standing for what he has
believed in and he never wavered. I’m therefore surprised that you are unable to
see through this fundamental attribute of Jerry Rawlings and his dynamics in our
current political dispensation.
The thorny issue of your ideological identity crisis has been in the public
domain for quite a while and over the past two years you may have witnessed that
the founder’s beliefs in what the NDC is about are all diametrically opposed to
that of your presidency. For instance, your public attack on the very ideals
that the NDC was built on. That is, June 4th and 31st Dec commemoration even
though in opposition, you had no difficulty joining thousands of adherents to
celebrate those events. There is another issue of your recognition of CPP values
and outward rejection of NDC values. Issues of probity, accountability and
social justice are all at the core of NDC values yet it appears you have no clue
what time it is.
The NDC as a political party campaigned on certain issues and part of the
campaign spiel was for new committees to be established on the assassination of
Ya-Na and 40 of his elders in March 2002 and also the Issah Mobilla killing.
Sadly this was not deemed necessary to your administration and we have all
witnessed the recent court decision on the Ya-Na case.
In politics, and in a democratic dispensation for that matter, it is a political
party that forms government and not vice versa. A government, whose party
structures are weak, is weak in delivering as a government. What is happening
under your watch as a leader of the NDC cannot be swept under the carpet if the
party hopes to retain power in next year’s general elections? As the leader of
the NDC, you failed to make structures work within the party. Since the party
assumed power in 2009, its affairs have been run from the castle, instead of
being run from the party’s headquarters. Unfortunately the party structures that
metaphorically represent its wheels that move steadily to mobilize its members
and floating voters to win the elections are no longer functioning as expected.
I am aware of a grand scheme being orchestrated at the heart of your presidency
by certain defunct National Convention Party (NCP) elements within both the CPP
and the NDC to divide the NDC with the hope of taking over the power base of the
NDC. Such NCP elements who formed the progressive alliance with Kow Nkensen
Arkaah with President Rawlings for the 1992 general election are still
embittered by the breakaway in 1996 that saw you running for Vice President with
President Rawlings. The dissolved NCP integrated mainly into the CPP and NDC.
Today, such people as the Ahwois, Totobi Quakyes, P.V. Obengs, Captain Tsikatas
etc, are collaborating with your trusted media contacts likes Kwesi Pratt, Ben
Ephson and their likes to tamper with the foundation of the NDC by scheming to
denigrate and openly attack its founder.
The activities of your leadership are not helping the party in any way. What
makes it worse is that, as a leader of the party, you also double as the head of
the party’s political committee yet you have turned your back on the party after
you assumed the reins of governance. You do not seems to recognize the essence
of spending time to project the cause of the party and tow its lines as
manifested in the party’s constitution . You do not seem to care about what
happens to the party after the party triumphed in the last general elections.
Immediately the NDC by the hard work of its members, supported by the majority
of Ghanaians won power, you formed a clique in the party with your vice and the
Ahwois to declare the party a “New NDC” and began distancing the party from its
objectives and principles in a deliberate attempt to destroy the party.
Mr President, it appears you have forgotten why the PNDC/NDC stayed in power for
19 years and also why we survived our stay in opposition for eight years. Your
leadership has brought up so much disillusionment to the grassroots. Many NDC
members and sympathizers who worked hard for your victory are now disillusioned.
The youth, the foot soldiers, the grassroots members and non card bearing
members of the public, who were out there to sacrifice their energies and lives
to campaign vigorously for the party, are aggrieved. This has resulted in some
party faithful and members of the public losing hope and confidence in your
leadership. Some have openly said they would never vote in elections again.
These people are aggrieved because they supported the party and joined its
campaign for “A Better Ghana”. The people were enthusiastic to bring the party
to power, with the expectation that your leadership would put in place measures
to make their lives better and ensure that power did not slip away from the
party again. They hoped your leadership would strengthen the structures of the
party in order to build a greater political party to draw more support and
sympathy from the general elections to enable it retain power in subsequent
elections.
You have also adopted divide and rule tactics and have also introduced
exclusionism into the party. It is either we sing your chorus or to hell with
those of us who prefer to stand in reality. Woe betides anyone who dare offer
constructive criticisms of your administration. You are either label anti-NDC or
“Rawlings Boy”. Under your watch, some ardent NDC supporters have been suddenly
targeted as Rawlings boys and girls who are rather out to destroy the party.
During the recent pilgrimage to Mecca, some of our Muslim brothers and sisters
even suffered the brunt of your appointees on the basis that, they belong to
Rawlings camp.
As I write this letter to you, a petition is pending at the party headquarters
on the dismissal from the party of Mr Peter Owusu Baffoe, a former Nkoranza
South Constituency Chairman who is also a member of the Brong Ahafo regional
executive committee of the party on the basis that he belongs to the Rawlings
camp. According to your cronies, no one is supposed to be sympathetic to
Rawlings any longer because you are now in charge. The question is how
interesting can it get?
The behaviour of your policy advisors and your good self towards the founder is
becoming nauseating for many, especially the true adherents of the NDC. As
things stand, there is hardly a day without the appearance of a new intrigue to
ridicule the founder of our great party. Whatever the motivation, it is obvious
that yourleadership is on to something, but it is within the party's best
interest to act in a manner that advances the party’s interest above the
political agenda of elements such as the Ahwois, Totobi Quakyes, P.V. Obengs,
Kojo Tsikatas etc. That notwithstanding, the agenda of your
administrationagainst President Rawlingsis very clear and it has been loudly
pronounced by agents of your government on several platforms and instances. The
intrigues of the likes of Ato Ahwoi only is sufficient to bring down your
government. Because a government that lacks credibility, for instance, cannot
govern effectively at all. It cannot be that any one individual has so much
political clout and power to be able to commandeer an entire political party and
government to assemble and deploy both human and financial resources to destroy
its founder. If I may ask politely, what has your office done to protect the
heritage of your party’s founder? Instead of protecting the ideals, principles
and the values on which the NDC was founded you have rather encouraged your
appointees and your trusted media contacts to run down the ideals of June 4th
and 31st December revolution. How can you be a Christian and not be Christ like?
How possible can you claim to be an NDC and not believe in the principles and
ideals that gave birth to the party?
Mr President, you have so far divided and polarized the NDC more than you have
united it since you became President. The NDC is not any better than it was in
the 1990s. You don’t appear to be in charge of governance and I seriously wonder
if you are really running this country or a bunch of political opportunists who
have your good ear are the one’s ruling Ghana. We rode on the back of
anti-corruption to the Castle. We have not nailed anyone yet for the corruption
rhetoric that we collectively put out during the 2008 campaign. You have allowed
the euphoria and the political adrenalin that greeted the uprooting of the NPP
to dissipate because you have failed to pursue the agenda the electorate voted
for. You have failed to recognize the fact that the status quo that the NPP left
behind is still intact. You have also failed to correct the wrongs of the past,
they have become emboldened and Kufuor can look into your face and accuse you of
corruption. Where lies your moral mandate? Consistently, too many people I come
into contact with in all shades of life are disenchanted with your leadership.
Mr. President, in all truth, you have done your part for Ghana. Yet you have
done very little in dispelling the growing perception that you have lost your
way and this country is basically on auto-pilot. Continually, incidents seem to
remind us of the NPP days. No matter how you see it, Sir, there is a lot of
disillusionment in the country and the sentiment seems to be growing. You claim
to be a “father for all” yet you are unable to clean your own house and unite
your party. I am unnerved by your legendary ungratefulness, hypocrisy and your
stance of leadership. Equally troubling is your double speak; a posture that
defies contemporary reasoning on national politics.You and your appointees have
consistently shown that pettiness and blind vindictiveness have become a trait
and a virtue under your administration. Your hypocrisy is becoming too noisy,
disappointing and divisive for the good of the NDC and Ghana for that matter.
Your leadership is in crisis, crisis that may push the nation over the edge. We
are all aware of it. We are facing a crisis, grinding poverty amid increasing
wealth in the hands of a very few. Those few, those wealthy few, hardly true
adherent to the values and principles we share as party but rather a government
of their own making, your cronies, policy advisors, are hardly invisible. There
is an emerging cabal of elites around you, who believe that for the good of
their parochial interest, it is their duty to turn Ghana into another Orwellian
failed state and a typical fascist regime at their beck and call.
It is clear for all to see, even non card holders of the NDC that you have lost
your mandate to lead the party. The charade is over and the mask has come off
and you are not as credible as we thought. The NDC under your leader ship is
despondent and divided. Never in the history of our great party have we been so
divided. Never have we been so visionless. The party under your leadership is at
a stalemate and the only solution is for you to take a second look at your
political career and step down as a leader of the party and not seek re-election
at congress. Somebody needs a new mandate to lead the NDC. We cannot go on like
this.
What we ask is that you stand down as the leader of the NDC and save the party.
With deepest regret.
Dela Coffie ( Youth Activist- National Democratic Congress)
www.delacoffie.wordpress.com
