Over the past few weeks, the NDC government has witnessed an increase in agitation by foot soldiers of the party. This has led to several verbal attacks on them by various people in leadership positions, especially within the NDC.
In recent times, the agitations have seen the foot soldiers invading the party’s headquarters and locking out the workers, vowing to let them in only if President Mills sacks Mr. Carl Wilson, the then Chairman of the Confiscated Vehicles Allocation Committee (CVAC).
Then also was the demonstration against the Municipal Chief Executive of Yendi, Imoro Hudu Walvis by the foot soldiers, calling on the government to withdraw him or they would kill him.
Of course, any situation that leads to violence, the destruction of property and the loss of life should not be condoned. Definitely therefore, we unreservedly condemn the threat to kill the DCE and hope the security agencies are on top of the situation to arrest those behind this threat.
Be that as it may, we are dismayed at the verbal attacks on the party’s foot soldiers by people within the NDC some of whom have created these conditions by their own actions and inactions.
We believe that the growing agitations are an indication that something somewhere is wrong. There seems to be a disconnect between the hierarchy and the foot soldiers making those in the latter group become frustrated and attempting to take the law into their hands.
Rather than making pronouncements that criminalise these agitations we believe that those in authority should come down from the ivory tower and engage the foot soldiers in frank and fruitful discussions.
We find it ridiculous the attempt to portray the foot soldiers as a bunch of mindless rogues who are being used by people to cause unrest within the NDC.
We have said and we shall repeat it that it is the foot soldiers who sustain the NDC during the heady days of the party in opposition.
The foot soldiers stood toe to toe with the vicious NPP government of J.A. Kufuor, refusing to budge. They would not allow the gruesome murder of the late Ya Na as well as the murder and torture of Alhaji Mobila to be swept under the carpet.
They would not let all the lies that were told about the party by the NPP government’s propaganda machine force them to go underground.
Those were the days when the NDC was so much bastardised and criminalized that most of the party’s big men went underground. They were scared into inaction. Some left the country claiming they were going for further studies while some, when called upon to defend the party refused to do so, saying they had retired from politics. Ironically, most of these brave cowards have crept back into government and some of them have the gut to tell the foot soldiers to shut up.
Some Johnny Just Come, who joined to campaign for the NDC towards the dying days of the NPP also have the guts to tell the foot soldiers to shut up! How times have changed!
The NDC, with power, is like a dog that has returned to its own vomit. In the run-up to the 2000 elections they ignored the agitation of the foot soldiers and imposed candidates on constituencies. The foot soldiers simply waited and showed them where the power lay when they helped kick the NDC out of power.
Eight years in opposition and the party seems not to have learnt any lessons. Rather than find out what is causing the foot soldiers to fret, they are simply tongue lashing them, describing them as robots who do not think and cannot think for themselves, that they can only act upon the instigation of others.
Were they not thinking when they stormed Radio Gold to protect it from the plot by the NPP government to attack them? Were they not thinking when they stormed the Electoral Commission in their numbers to dare the electoral results?
Those who are casting insinuation at the foot soldiers should know that they are doing more harm to the NDC than they claim the foot soldiers are doing to the party. Those who claim it is the NDC foot soldiers who would send the party back to opposition are rather the ones who are sending the party back to opposition. For, when the foot soldiers decide that they have had enough, let those who say the floating voters decide the faith of the NDC go and bring the floating voters to replace the foot soldiers.
Those who are calling for foot soldiers to exercise restraint should quit their offices and leave the parks behind to join foot soldiers to exercise that restraint. If they cannot do so, then let them address the concerns of the foot soldiers and stop telling them to exercise restraint.
Some in the NDC are behaving as if foot soldiers are animals or tools to be used to win elections and dumped. If they do not stop their unguarded utterances, and the foot soldiers desert the party as they did in 2000, a more vicious NPP would come to power. Then, we shall see who would be dragged to Fast Track High Court on a trumped up charge of wilfully causing financial loss to the state. Â
