By Dr. Michael J.K. Bokor
Tuesday, January 5, 2016
Folks, I have insisted all this while that the NPP can save itself from more disaster (at least, by presenting workable and reliable alternatives for governance to spice contemporary Ghanaian politics) if it abandons its anachronistic rogue and book politics to turn attention toward issues dear to the lives of the people.
I have made it clear that elections are won at the polls when voters are persuaded to give their consent to candidates assuring them of good governance, based on policies and tested personal integrity, and not through the rhetorical acrobatics in the mass media or just any public space or even through legal gymnastics in court at the least prompting.
So also have I made it clear that the NPP's Akufo-Addo and his running mate (Dr. Mahamudu Bawumia) haven't learnt any new lesson to add value to themselves and their party so as to win the hearts and minds of the electorate. From what has unfolded so far, it is clear that the NPP isn't making any progress at all to indicate that it can win Election 2016.
The party's fixation on technicalities, culminating in the "huhudious" work by Dr. Bawumia and all those wasting time, money, and energy looking for just anything in the form of a political straw to hang on to won't solve any problem for the NPP. Instead, they will erode their credibility further, as is the case of the 76,000 Togolese voters' case that the Electoral Commission has discredited and for which the NDC is urging that Dr. Bawumia be arrested for deceiving Ghanaians. Terrible harm to his integrity!!
Now, the issues are assuming a more interesting turn for the worse. Dr. Charles Wereko-Brobby, a suspended high-ranking member of the NPP, has hit hard the same chord that resonates with me:
"I want to hear NPP talk about the fuel price hikes, the wrongs going on in Ghana. This is the time to offer alternatives, not keep complaining and wasting our time with threats of going to court. There’ll be no new register. End of the story,” he said on Asempa FM Monday."
Certainly, an astute observation to make! But instead of seeing sense in Dr. Wereko-Brobby's advice, the NPP leaders are going for his throat, dismissing him as a "mysterious and greedy politician" (as framed by Nana Obiri Boahen, Deputy General Secretary).(See http://www.myjoyonline.com/politics/2016/January-5th/npp-descends-on-mysterious-greedy-wereko-brobby.php).
Is that so? Dr. Wereko-Brobby a mysterious and greedy politician? I don’t think so. Having formed his own party and collapsing it into the NPP, how would he turn out to be mysterious and greedy? I think otherwise about the man. He may be too brazen, but he is telling the NPP what it needs to know and act on to improve its politicking.
Of course, there is a lot happening that the NPP can capitalize on for its campaigns; that is, if there is any change in the direction of campaigning for it to make. Dr. Brobby is on suspension but not prevented from commenting on the party's lack of purposefulness. Or...?
As is the case now, all those suspended by the Akufo-Addo team are free to say whatever is on their minds. Will the NPP now turn to gagging them in addition? Or will they be expelled from the party to end it all? Even then, they have every right to make their voices heard. Folks, do you see how these NPP people behave?
I shall return…
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