Information reaching Daily Guide indicates that the National Democratic Congress (NDC) has begun unfolding a number of activities intended to undermine the forthcoming Golden Jubilee celebration of the country’s independence. Details of an elaborate plan to pour cold water on this high profile event, which would witness the arrival of very important personalities from all over the world, included unleashing of thugs on celebrants.
This, Daily Guide has learnt, was to compel many people to stay away from the celebrations. Monday, March 5, 2007, would witness one of such deflating activities unfold at the Frankies Hotel at Nima in Accra, a reliable Daily Guide source hinted.
On that day, the party would inaugurate its Greater Accra Women’s Working Committee and have in attendance various party groups and thugs whose services would be needed to execute the programme. This seemingly innocuous inauguration would thus be but a ruse to put finishing touches to the plan; hence locating it in an area from which the NDC/CJA strategists intended to draw most of their support. The source hinted that the line-up of activities was the result of an elaborate planning by a body of party activists at the top.
In a brief telephone interview with Daily Guide, Ms. Maggie, the Okaikoi North constituency Women’s Organiser of the NDC, in charge of coordinating letters on the programme, said they would soon be sent out to the various media houses for coverage.
“We are trying to inaugurate our Women’s Wing and Working Committee,” she said. Asked why the event would take place at the time the country would be celebrating her Golden Jubilee anniversary celebration, she could not give any specific reason but confirmed the function would take place on March 5.
In an obvious coordination between the Committee for Joint Action (CJA) and the NDC, the former was said to have impressed upon the latter not to go ahead with the inauguration of the Working Committee which had been scheduled for February 24, and rather postpone it to the March 5 date.
On the heels of the Nima inauguration would be a rally at Jamestown, which party supporters were to attend in their numbers. The next day, March 6, would witness a mass protest procession of party faithful through the principal streets of Accra. A similar procession had already been announced by the Committee for Joint Action (CJA), the socialist arm of NDC. The objective of the change in date, according to one political observer, was “intended to divert attention from the anniversary and thereby rob it of the shine it deserves from all citizens of this country”.
Another strategy said to be up the sleeves of the NDC and its CJA collaborators was the organisation of a house-to-house campaign to discourage people from taking part in the anniversary celebrations. Cadres had not been left out in this grand design, as some of them had already been dispatched to the regional capitals to pour cold water on activities marking the Golden Jubilee of the country’s independence.
Impeccable information reaching Daily Guide indicate a certain Mustapha Mensah had been sent to the three Northern Regions while another, named Ampofo and one other cadre had been assigned for the Brong Ahafo Region. The cadres, it was revealed, covered the Ashanti Region on a similar mission even though they had said they were going to Nkoranza to campaign for the by-election.
The rest of the regions had also been covered by other cadres handpicked for the mission. Other activities lined up by the NDC included a re-enactment at the Old Polo Grounds where the late President Kwame Nkrumah declared the independence of Ghana. This, the source hinted, was another effort to divert attention from the official celebrations. The killjoys, Daily Guide learnt, would be dressed in black T-Shirts on that day.
It would be recalled that the CJA collaborators of the event-spoiling activities had earlier served notice that they would ignore a police order not to embark on a street procession to commemorate the anniversary.
Mr. Jerry John Rawlings, former President and founder of the NDC was yet to oblige a government invitation to grace the activities marking the Golden Jubilee anniversary.
When a delegation was dispatched to him on the subject, he put forth a number of conditions which must be honoured before considering the invitation. He, for instance, put forth the issue of the unfortunate murder of the late Ya Na Yakubu Andani II and the late Convention People’s Party Chairman in the Northern Region.
Mr. Rawlings expressed his anger at, what for him was, a deliberate design by government to humiliate him and the officials of his erstwhile administration.
