NDC National Chairman, General Secretary & Regional Chairmen should stop destroying
the party
If there is anybody or persons whose actions and inactions are sabotaging both
President Mills and the NDC, then it is none other than the National Chairman of the
party, Dr. Kwabena Adjei and his General-Secretary, Johnson Asiedu Nketia.
These two gentlemen owe their current positions to the fact that by 2006, the
clarion call within the party was “Anybody but Obed”. So, Obed was booted out for
Dr. Kwabena Adjei while Asiedu Nketia soundly defeated Bide Zideng to become the
National Chairman and the General-Secretary respectively of the NDC.
There is no gain-saying that these two did a yeoman’s job leading the NDC to victory
in the 2008 elections. Since the party came to power, however, some of their
utterances, actions and inactions has left a sour taste in the mouths of lovers of
the NDC
That they have become symbols of disunity cannot be denied. Johnson Asiedu Nketia,
the General-Secretary of the party virtually bit the hands that once fed him when,
in reference to the influence of party Founder, Jerry John Rawlings, and the desire
of Mrs. Rawlings to contest for the position of Vice-Chairperson of the NDC prior to
the Tamale Congress said the NDC is not a spiritual church where the Founder passes
on the baton to a member of his family.
Why did Asiedu Nketia fail to make this observation when the Former President and
his wife threw their weight behind him against Bide Zideng when he was vying for the
position of the General Secretary of the party?
It is an open secret in the party that Gen. Mosquito has been badmouthing Rawlings.
Severally, he has said that Rawlings’ time is past.
Can such a person sit in to arbitrate in any matter that concern the Rawlingses and
others. Definitely not because of his bias.
As for Dr. Kwabena Adjei, the less said about him the better. Once the NDC came to
power, especially with his appointment as Chairman of the Board of the Getfund, he
lost focus.
The Daily Post has him on making very uncharitable remarks about Rawlings. For the
sake of the unity of the NDC, the paper will not state some of these uncharitable
remarks he has made against the Founder of the party.
Yet, this is a man who was always at the Ridge Office of the Former President when
he was seeking to replace Obed as party Chairman.
Rawlings initially was going to throw his weight behind Victor Gbeho but on second
thoughts, he opted for Kwabena Adjei and moved Mount Olympus to ensure he gets
delegates’ nod at the Koforidua congress.
If Dr. Kwabena Adjei and Gen. Mosquito had been impartial in their utterances and
actions, they, as party Chairman and General-Secretary respectively would have been
the best persons to iron out any difference between President Mills and Rawlings.
But, alas, thanks to their partiality, they have become divisive instruments in the
party, unable to broker peace under any circumstance.
Dr. Kwabena Adjei, in particular, should be held responsible if foot soldiers of the
party decided to fold their arms as they did during the Atiwa by-elections which
allowed the NPP to do as they please and finally ran away with victory.
His comments about foot-soldiers of the party have left a lot to be desired. No one
has said that foot-soldiers are a branch of the party. Foot-soldiers are simply
grassroot supporters of the party who have coined a name for themselves to depict
the kind of job they do for the party.
They can call themselves any name. They might as well call themselves Foot Policemen
of the party, Veranda boys or Tea party movement and they wouldn’t have committed
any crime against the NDC or the 1992 constitution.
They are the party’s grassroot supporters who kept the NDC intact soon after the NPP
came to power and decided to dismember the NDC. Did J.H. Mensah not say by the time
they finish with the NDC, the party will be no more?
Those were the heady days when many of the people in the NDC government who are
making the loudest noise now decided to resign from politics. Others left the party
to further their education here in Ghana or abroad.
The foot-soldiers kept the party going in spite of the machinations of the vicious
NPP government.
During the 2008 elections, when the NPP wanted to steal the results, it was these
foot soldiers, after all the sacrifices they had already made, who massed up in
front of the offices of the Electoral Commission in front of gun-totting soldiers to
put pressure on the Commission to do the right thing.
The foot-soldiers did things that Kwabena Adjei and his colleagues will not allow
their children to do just to bring the NDC back to power. Yet, today, they have the
effrontery to call on the police to arrest agitating foot soldiers who were seizing
public offices.
There is no doubt that the act of seizing public offices is illegal and should not
be condoned. But what one expected Kwabena Adjei and his lieutenants to do is find
ways of engaging the foot-soldiers, listen to their concerns and find ways of
addressing them so they won’t go seizing NHIS and NYEP offices as well as those of
DCEs.
Surely, the police has to act by arresting those who perpetuate these illegal acts
but it is not for the party to call on the police to arrest them. That call was like
the call of a father on the police to arrest his children who go stealing food
because he, the father, has not fed them for days.
Why must the foot -soldiers not fret when they realize that after the elections, the
lifestyle of some of the people they fought with in the trenches has changed for the
better while theirs remain the same or even deteriorate. They are not fools. The
call for them to be patient is balderdash. Why should one be patient in the face of
poverty when others who are no better have had their circumstances change?
Yet, with their inability to offer any solution as party Chairman and General
Secretary, all Kwabena Adjei and Asiedu Nketia could do is call for the arrest of
the foot soldiers.
Are they aware of the fact that the sight of Shakespeare, the leader of the foot
soldiers arrested in Kibi, on the front page of the Graphic was a psychological blow
to the rank and file of the NDC not because of the arrest but because of those who
called for it?
During the Atiwa elections, NDC foot-soldiers looked on in amusement as the NPP did
their own thing to ensure that they win the elections if even by foul means. Some of
the NDC’s footsoldiers could be heard saying there is no way they would stop the NPP
apparatchiks from stealing because they did not want to end up in jail. Simply put,
the foot-soldiers were saying helping the NDC to win the elections may end one in
jail.
The latest call on the police by Dr. Kwabena Adjei to arrest foot-soldiers pasting
posters of Mrs. Rawlings around is an indication of his bias and ineptitude un
becoming of a party Chairman.
When the police arrest the foot soldiers doing this, what charge will they bring
against them? The party Chariman does not realize that his call is not only childish
but also illegal. It’s an affront to the 1992 constitution of Ghana.
The NDC may have its time table and the time for people who so wish to declare their
intention to contest for the flag bearer slot but that time table cannot stop anyone
within or outside the party from making calling on another person to offer him or
herself for elections.
Anyone can even go ahead to state or campaign for whoever he or she wants to contest
for the 2016 elections and no offence would have been committed. What Kwabena Adei
and Gen. Mosquito should be doing is calling those who are campaigning to order by
appealing to them to respect the party’s time table since they are party supporters.
Dr. Kwabena Adjei, Asiedu Nketiah and the Regional Chairmen of the NDC should know
that they cannot ban the foot soldiers nor can they order for their arrest. The call
on the police to arrest the foot-soldiers is an exercise in futility and shows how
suddenly the leadership of the NDC is bereft of ideas and has no solutions to the
myriad of problems the party is facing.
Our advice to Kwabena Adjei and Gen. Mosquito is that they must learn conflict
resolution techniques which they could deploy to solve problems in the NDC instead
of resorting to the biased knee-jerk reactions which has become their lot.
Let them acquaint themselves with the 1992 constitution, especially with the rights
and freedoms enshrined in it so they would understand why calling on the police to
arrest foot-soldiers is an attempt to violate the human rights of others.
