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Opinions of Sunday, 6 January 2013

Columnist: Ashiagbor, Kwaku Kele

Can The NPP Draw Back From The Political Cliff?

THE GHANAIAN CONDITION (PART 32)

If you do not have a reverse gear in your car, you inevitably run into a ditch or end up hitting a brick wall.

Ever since the General Elections were declared a couple of weeks ago, the leadership of the New Patriotic Party seem to be going about in circles like a headless chicken or like the proverbial ostrich burying their heads in the sand. It is so sad to see these so-called clever people in a state of total denial and refusing to acknowledge the simple fact that they have lost both the Parliamentary and Presidential Elections.

The Press Conference called last Friday at the Alisa Hotel where the NPP Leadership presented what they claimed to be series of incontrovertible evidence to support their claim that the elections were rigged in favour of President John Dramani Mahama was so laughable and pathetic were it not for the serious nature of their claim.

To assert that a whopping figure of more than one million and thirty thousand votes were credited to President John Mahama wrongfully and that resulted in his being declared the winner is stretching credibility just too far. Are these guys serious? Do they actually expect the average Ghanaian and the world at large to believe them?

It is about time the NPP Leadership stopped treating Ghanaians as village idiots.

The presentation of Dr Bawumia reminded me of an unforgettable advice my illiterate mother gave me over 60 years ago when I was about ten years old. Her advice was this, son I did not send you to school just to learn from the whiteman’s books and ways of doing things alone, I also expect you to have common sense all the time when you are confronted with challenges in life. In fact she drilled it into me that not all problems can be solved the ‘bookish’ way hence I should use my brains to reason.

I am passing on this gem of wisdom to Dr Bawumia free of charge. To think that Dr Bawumia is a Phd holder and has once occupied the enviable post of a Deputy Governor of the Bank of Ghana beggar’s belief. This guy has not done justice to his academic education. If anything, I humbly submit he goes back to school, but not the Free S.H.S type of education that his boss Nana Akuffo Addo has been touting about.

The question of whether the NPP should petition the Supreme Court or not, is neither here nor there as this is their constitutional right and they are 100% entitled to take that course.

As to their winning the case and being granted the reliefs that they are seeking is totally a different kettle of fish.

Not being a lawyer I won’t be able to offer an advice but from my lay man’s point of view Ghana will soon be entering a very interesting Constitutional minefield---to put it mildly.

The idea or believe that the Supreme Court of Ghana will set aside the views of our own internal Poll Observers such as Codeo, International Observers such as the AU, ECOWAS and other Internationally Accredited Observers who all asserted that the Elections were ‘Free, Fair and Transparent will be asking too much of Ghanaians to accept. This is just an opinion of a simple non-legal person. What is so frightening and difficult to fathom out is why there is the reluctance on the part of decent minded people in the NPP to come out boldly and speak publicly against the reckless and dangerous course of action being undertaken by the few disgruntled leaders which in the end will do an irreparable damage to the NPP. The likes of Mr Wereko Brobbey and Mr Appiah Menkah will be long remembered for being the only men who were bold enough to advice against the suicidal mission being undertaken by the Party Leadership. When all is done and dusted and the NPP loses their court case as they surely will, I hope the Leadership will be brave enough to face the wrath and anger of the rank and file members of the Party for having been lying to them all these while.

The pity of it all is that the NPP can now kiss goodbye to the 2016 General Elections.

It is so sad not to have a reverse gear in one’s car. Death, we are told is inevitable but suicide is not.

KWAKU.KELE.ASHIAGBOR