NDC rally. File photo.
It is amazing to hear a sitting president in a crucial campaign into a general election, focusing so much on his warped perception of disunity in his closest political challenger instead of telling the people what he has done to improve the lives of the people whose mandate he sought the last four years and still seeking for the four coming years.
President Mahama keeps on touting the unity in his party and taking on Nana Akufo Addo in particular for what he (President Mahama) believes to be division in the NPP which is on the verge of taking power from him in less than 80 days from now.
With no convincing message to offer Ghanaians, what is purely an internal problem in a political party, though is of interest to the public generally, has become the most important political message to propel President Mahama back to power.
What is mind-boggling in this obsession of President Mahama with the issues in the NPP is the fact that the decision the NPP took recently to address, what I will describe as Trojan horses at the helm of affairs of the party, is not the first to have happened in our democratic journey, at least since the fourth republic.
The first political party under the fourth republic to have suspended its elected General Secretary was the NDC currently led by President Mahama. Dr. Josiah Aryee was suspended on an allegation of having received some monies from the NPP. He never appeared before any disciplinary committee to defend himself and clear his good name. He still remains suspended, technically. Kofi Adams alias Kofi Adamu, according to the NDC, was suspended as well without any recourse to defend himself before his own party. He used the media to make his case and even went to court to challenge his suspension. He withdrew the case thereafter.
I am wondering whether President Mahama appreciates the importance of putting in place Disciplinary Committees in the Constitutions of Political Parties and the membership of these committees explicitly stated in the constitutions. Political parties are made of human beings and not angels and in anticipation of errant members, whose actions and inactions have the potent to project the party in a negative light in the minds of right thinking citizens of the nation, provisions are made to instill discipline in the political parties per stated constitutional provisions.
It is therefore so strange that the NDC and President Mahama whose own party has on at least two previous occasions suspended members of their national executive committee turn round to chastise the NPP or Nana Akufo Addo for bringing disunity into the NPP and for which reason he cannot lead this country. Thoughts of a barren mind indeed! Did the NDC recently not suspend one of its Parliamentary candidates in the Ashanti Region for openly criticizing an overbearing Chief Executive of her District? That was the work of President Mahama.
Mr. Ade Coker, the Greater Accra Regional Chairman suspended a sitting Member of Parliament in the region for what he described as indiscipline on the part of the Member of Parliament. President Mahama knew about it and that did not constitute division in the NDC. Since the fourth Republic, once again, the only political party which has experienced three breakaway political parties which went ahead to contest general elections was the NDC. In the year 2000, embittered vibrant young outspoken hard working people in the NDC, led by Mr. Goosie Tanoh left the NDC and formed the National Reform Party (NRP) ostensibly to bring reforms into the NDC.
In 2006, so violent was the NDC towards its then national chairman and his loyal followers that he resigned from the party and floated and registered the Democratic Freedom Party (DFP) just after its National Congress in Koforidua. Today, Nana Konadu Agyeman Rawlings, a woman who in her own right worked so tirelessly to see the formation of the NDC, nurturing of it and growing it into maturity, is today out of the party, under Mahama as Vice President and as President too. President Mahama does not see these logs of disunity in terms of ideas and beliefs in his eyes which need to be removed; he comfortably sees the speck in the eye of his political opponents.
As I write, the factions and disunity in the NDC is phenomenal and just waiting to explode after the December 7 general elections. From the outside, the NDC looks so beautiful and united, that unity is engendered by fear of the unknown should they lose political power. The amount of criminality that the party and government have engaged in and entangled itself in, is so massive that members of the party and government need to work together to hold on to power to avoid jail. The most united group of people the world over is criminals, they protect themselves individually and as a group because of the consequences awaiting them should they be exposed.
As I write and same in a previous article in this column, Ms Dzifa Attivor is meeting Ewe residents in other communities polluting their minds against Akans generally and the NPP in particular for fear of being prosecuted in future for her thievery as a former Minister of State and not on the achievements of her government. Members of the NDC government are having sleepless nights over what awaits them in 2017 when a new government is ushered into office. As the days inch closer to the election day, the fear of the unknown further unite them to work to avoid the shame and imprisonment that some of them will suffer. Their new motto is ‘United we steal, divided we are jailed’.
The thievery in the Mahama regime in the words of John Kerry ‘is so destructive, demoralizing and disempowering of the citizenry’. The stealing brigands in government today have made it so difficult for the majority of the people of this country to live as human beings with self -esteem. They have stolen so much, impoverished the majority, destroyed opportunities available to the youth, facilitating crookish and mafia style destruction of our environment as if there is no tomorrow for another generation, openly ignoring organized crimes and creating and supporting violence to cow their political opponents all in fear of tomorrow.
The fight against corruption is not a priority for the Mahama administration as evidenced in their recently launched manifesto. The unwritten philosophy of the NDC led by John Dramani Mahama is steal as much as you can, keep the people poor, ignorant, hungry and helpless then you can buy them with pittance during election periods. Not once has any Head of State of this republic been caught on camera during his campaign, openly sharing money himself in an open-top vehicle to people he has willfully impoverished instead of empowering them. He has lowered the living standards of the people, wiped away their self-esteem and replacing them with crumbs from his stolen resources from the public.
The distribution of outboard motors, fishing nets, aluminium pans, gas cylinders, to poor communities is a sign of disrespect for the people of this country. In four years that is what an elected President of a country as dignified as Ghana can offer her sons and daughters, and that is what they are expected to live on for the next four years should he be elected into office. Even as he was aware that he had to offer himself to the electorate for elections this year, Ghanaians must just consider the policies of John Mahama, so harsh and biting; there is pain in every home except those of the organized thieves.
Can anyone imagine what policies will be unleashed on us from 2017 and the amount of thievery President Mahama and his cohorts will be engaged in when he will no longer seek our mandate in any elections after 2017? Let us reject Mahama and break the stealing mafia of our resources. Help restore dignity in governance and protect our national resources particularly the water bodies. The future of Ghana under Mahama is destructive and hopeless. We can only protect the future by changing Mahama and the NDC.
Daavi, three tots to console myself.
