You are here: HomeOpinionsArticles2012 05 15Article 238832

Opinions of Tuesday, 15 May 2012

Columnist: Sarpong, Justice

NDC, Losing The Umbrella Logo Will Spell Doom For You

The NDC logo imbroglio between Mrs Rawlings and the NDC Party if not settled with cool heads from both sides prevailing on each other will spell doom for NDC not only on its Presidential candidate but a lot of NDC Parliamentarians, especially those competing from the rural constituencies.

I have read from many sources where some NDC members have advised the Party to go ahead and give the logo back to Nana Konadu Rawlings and get a new logo. The first to come out with such a bonehead idea without thinking was Alhaji Bature. When I thought such an infantile idea will not be entertained, another so called NDC legal team member, Abraham Amaliba comes out calling on NDC to design a new logo to compete for the 2012 election. That is a losing idea and NDC will definitely lose if it is denied the use of the NDC Umbrella logo.Right now NDC shot of winning the 2012 election is hanging on a thin thread. Their chances of winning is SLIM to NONE and SLIM is about to walk out of the door if NDC fails to keep its logo.

The NPP member for Bimbila, Domnic Nitiwul said it better when he said; "Just change of symbol alone you can lose about 5% of your votes and if someone decides to use that symbol to run in the election,". How can this happen? I will quote CORNEY, one of my forum nemesis who I respect when he wrote tthis to respond to another forum contributor,DusTY-FooT-pHiloSophER.

"Your guess will not hold water,nobody will form any new party within the NDC. Even the dumbest in the party will not think of something stupid like that. I think that lawyer was smoking something to suggest the party gives away the logo. I thought lawyers are supposed to be smart people but that one just reason like Bature who cannot make any sense so far as this NDC brouhaha is concerned."

I sometimes doubt the credentials of these NDC Lawyers as to whether they paid bribes in Ghana to get their law degrees with their very low analytical skills on issues.

Ghana is a country with at least 30% of our electorates who have never set foot in a classroom and rely on symbols or logos of the Parties to vote when they enter the voting booth. Let's imagine a scenerio where NDC is denied the use of the Umbrella that most of its uneducated members rely on to cast their votes when they enter the booth. If Nana Konadu decides to run as an Independent candidate or forms a new Party with the NDC logo as her emblem, some people who intends to vote for NDC will mistakingly vote for her because of the logo alone. In some rural areas of Ghana where NDC is strong, the illiteracy level is even above 50% and these people depends on the picture of the candidates and the logo to cast their votes. Imagine a scenerio where an illiterate voter goes to the booth and sees an umbrella logo with the green, white and red NDC colors.

No amount of educating NDC voters about a new logo will eliminate such mistakes where votes are cast just by the logo. Six months or five months will not be enough to erase from the memory of people who have come to associate the umbrella with NDC. If the umbrella is not even used by anybody in 2012, NDC will lose between 3% to 5% of its votes by confused voters. If in an unlikely scenerio Nana Konadu decides to run with the umbrella logo by forming a new Party, that will spell a doom for NDC with the Presidential candidacy of Atta Mills and a lot of NDC Parliamentary candidates especially those contesting from the rural areas with a lot of uneducated voters.

When I hear NDC foot(fool) soldiers deriding Nana Konadu of having got only three percent(3%) at the Sunyani congress, I wonder what if they have any idea what that three percent transltes to. President Mills won the 2008 election with only 40,000 votes better than Nana Akuffo Addo having lost the first round by more than 200,000 votes to Akuffo Addo. That 40,000 votes translates into less than point five percent(.5%). If Nana Konadu's 3% is interpolated into the 2008 votes of what Mills got, 4.7 million votes, that is 141,000 votes and Mills will lose the elections even with the 2008 scenerio in play. The point is that, no matter what registration fraud NDC is counting on, it cannot win the 2012 election in the environment as prevailing now.

Don't let anybody gets me wrong, I have no sympathy for what is going on in their Party and hope things even get worse than it is now but the Party brought this on itself after the Sunyani Congress. Instead of Mills appealing to his GAME members to keep their buccal cavity closed, they opened them wide and went on insulting spree on the Rawlingses. I never thought I will in my lifetime see some hardened NDC members who have defended murderer Rawlings with all their might will turn against him and start calling him names some of us who have ni love for this man use the same adjectives to describe him. GOD IS GOOD ALL THE TIME AND ALL THE TIME, GOD IS GOOD, this is what is called Poetic justice and the Rawlingses are getting fed with it.

Let the fight begins, I have the best seat in the house.

Justice Sarpong

Houston, Texas

CARDINAL for TRUTH