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Politics Of deception and subterfuge

Wed, 13 Apr 2016 Source: Innocent, Ivan Kyei

Politics of deception and subterfuge has unfortunately taken the centre stage going into the November 7th polls, lies and spatial street propaganda with malicious intents, a damaging tool for a moral democratic society hovers around the corridors of Ghana which I employ all to resist at all cost by availing ourselves to the factual realities on the ground contrary to the known partisan intimations and projections which are predominantly coined out of puerile political agenda for electoral gains.

Let's look at the turns and trends in our political system in oder to have a genuine appreciation of the concept of governance and the emerging partisan interest in Ghana and the possible threats these partisan interest pose to our collective band of unity as people with a common destiny.

The agenda of artificially orchestrating negative impression about one government with a singular intention of gaining political popularity has hasten the destruction of healthy politics in Ghana.

Many have argued that the decision by the main opposition party, after loosing the 2012 election to the Ndc to go to the supreme Court to challenge the legitimacy of the then president elect John Mahama was a deliberate attempt to heckle and distract his tenure of rule.

This assertion may not be wrong based on certain unpopular statements made by some top apparatchiks of the Npp who vowed to make the country ungovernable, and true to this promise, have since jumped on to the neck of the Mahama led government virtually blaming everything including naturally occurring disasters on the person of President.

The Mahama led administration is grossly abused and disregarded by members of the leading opposition party, the npp and the only acceptable disposition on this nasty development is not the fact that the npp is a better option than the Mahama led government but rather they are in the play of their normal league of destructive politic.

Both parties the npp and the ndc, have had the opportunity to rule in the past but the current ndc government under His excellency John Mahama who is in his first four years of rule, have indeed achieved an enviable record in infrastructure across the various sectors, achievements which many Ghanaians have described unprecedented in the first term of a particular governments since the inception of the first Republic.

The infrastructural undertakings in road constructions and upgrade of existing ones, extension and construction of regional hospitals, teaching hospitals, district hospital, police hospital and the innumerable CHPS compounds across the length and breadth of the country are clear indications of the much talked about wind of transformation blowing in the country.

His records in the field of education are undeniably enviable with the number of senior high school dumbed community day senior high school which are about 75 in number at the various stages of completion.

Ghana which was once a hub of hope in electricity generation was plunged into darkness for a decade which carved a name "dumsor" a development which affected the industrial sector over years crippling lot of industries and ultimately resulted in the closure and unfortunate retrenchment exercise in the private sector. The already troubled state of unemployment was pushed into a sad state with a resounding wave of economic trepidation which forced several politicians hiding in cassocks to be striped naked exposing their partisan alliances and affiliations through reckless commentary most of them made but blaming them was not an option.

The opposition parties, especially the npp capitalised on this power crises for partisan expediency after they had failed to address the same power crises for eight good years, the only management protocol l could remember was the importation of generators into the country which became a money making venture by top party officials, the christened dumsor was a targeted campaign message for the party going into 2016 elections but to their disappointment the troubling power situation in Ghana has been fixed driving the word dumsor from the lips of celebrities, snatching the same word from the jaws of the opposition and scrapping it from the dictionary of roadside grammarians. Remember the dumsor crises was weaved into choruses of mockery for campaign in various mini assemblies held by the main opposition party, where they celebrated and danced to the woes of the people of Ghana just because they are not in command but it's also on record that John Mahama led government inherited the power crises and made a promised to fix it after publically admitting the damming consequences of the much touted power showdown.

Being able to accomplish the impossible within a stretch of four years could not kill the interest in destructive politics and opportunism which has become the main crafty artillery being used by the opposition speculate lies. The word incompetence has been largely misused unless maybe it has been re-coined with a different rendition. Every public commentary by the opposition has been given the prefix "incompetence" as if it is a new word discovered by a wordmonger who decides to use it anyhow. The President felt he had had enough of the spin of incompetence campaign by the npp and responded as such by describing Bawumia and his likes as men who have never held any responsibility, a statement which was quiet uncharacteristic of the President l know so much but who could blame him when your opposition decides not to make any reasonable contributions to the running of a country and only contend to live within the meaning of the word opposition holding screws, bolts and nuts for a single purpose of nasty criticisms.

The indecent politics characterised by politics of tribal segregation, frequent use of abusive expressions, tribal bigotry and the omissions of candor in the dealings of the Npp since the timely retirement of Mr. Kuffour and the subsequent taking over of the NPP by Nana Addo has decimated the fortunes and the electoral credibility of the Npp. Infact it was not for any reason that Mr. Kuffour admonished the executives of the party to elect a unifier to succeed him but he knew the war-wish tendencies in Nana Addo and the possibility of further disintegration of a party he had structured to win power in 2008 which according to him the job was 90%complete but Nana couldn't add the remaining 10% to consolidate the victory Mr. Kuffour had earlier predicted.

A situation which has drawn several debates from a significant number of Ghanaians as to whether Nana Addo is a credible electoral material or not after a leading member of the party Maxewel Kofi Gyima had publically described the embattled flagbearer Nana Addo as a rotten goods not likely to be considered by a Ghanaian voter, this was contained in his campaigned bulletin for Allan Kyeremanteng in the run up to 2012 election and truly Ghanaians referenced the candor in Mr. Gyimah's statement and rejected Nana Addo.

Per the description by the npp, the ndc government is stained and tainted with scandals of corruption and mismanagement.

It will be highly disingenuous on my part to assert everything is fine, l sincerely believe we still have a distance to cover as a nation. But we still need to appreciate the fact that every government is like a coin with two faces, positive and negative sides, it only plays into the books of mischief when one decides to dwell only on the negativity and stretches it into the realms of partisan propaganda. A move by the npp fits this mischievous description.

Not even the president could deny the existence and traces of corruption in his government and other public offices but the mass attempt to create artificial impression of corruption based on exposed cases of corruption for investigation and a possible trial is a height of deception and supprisenly this crusade of lies and subterfuge is being led by the main stream media houses.

How many governments around the world have the courage to expose corruption in their own government? But at the behest of our mutual benefit, the government has defiled every interest by subjecting elements tagged with corruption scandals to legal scrutiny. Retrospective analysis is my greatest antipathy but it's on record some previous governments had refused to investigate cases of corruption levelled against officials in their government with a fear of carving a negative image for their government. I hope you remember the popular Kuffour's defence on corruption when he described corruption as old as Adam, impossible to eradicate and respectfully l was hoping this will end the charades and the double standards gradually grasping every public debate.

Barely few months into 2016 elections, the npp as the main opposition party is yet to tell Ghanaians their actual campaign message. As if the party cannot be disentangled from the realms of failure and embarrassment under its current leadership, the embattled acting chairman of the party, Freddie Blay was bold enough to go public to respond to a statement by some figures in the ndc that Akuffo Addo's campaign message is "try me " many of us thought it time to let the cat out of the bag by telling the good people of Ghana why they should vote the party into power but shockingly all he could say was "try me is not Nana Addo's campaign message so l ask again what then is the message the party is carrying into 7Noember poll aside the the usual try me mantra?

The party is obviously facing communication paralysis aside the in fighting, corruption scandals and the numerous sanctions of elected officers.

Nana Akomea is found of throwing poor and infamous defence on sensitive issues..was it not this gentleman who held a press conference in the name of the party npp and alluded to the fact that the npp's decisions to import hired mercenaries to offer military training to some gang of societal miscreants to cause mayhem following the eventual defeat starring at the party come 7 November polls was informed by a statement purported to have been made by a radio presenter, named Mugabe Maase of montie fm an Accra based radio station, quiet a childish and infantile defence from a director of communications of such a larger political party. But l hope many would not be surprised because his abysmal track records in communication after leading the party into two successive electoral failure.

I sincerely believe there's still a chance to turn around the scope of our political orientation for an effective one that's built on substantive issues with a defined academic margins to influence our society positively by providing with us a chance of extinguishing the consist inflammation of passions going into every elections in this country. The Bible is my witness.

From Ivan Kyei Innocent / 0206262717 /nanakyei81@gmail.com

Columnist: Innocent, Ivan Kyei