The NDC Government- Three Years Of Comic Relief

In December 2008, Ghanaians prayed for change, the gods obliged and change came! In the heat of the electoral euphoria, the pertinent question regarding the change—whether positive or negative—eluded Ghanaians. However, the dose of change the NDC has served Ghanaians so far has been negative evidently perceived and patiently borne and endured by most discerning Ghanaians.

From its outset, the NDC government was doomed to fail! What did you expect from a party that was not creative enough to adapt its own campaign slogan but rather had to rely on the ingenuity of a certain Mr Ndoum? As fate will have it, as early as their first week in power, the NDC drew the curtains of the rather comical Ghanaian political theatre with its renowned actors being Ablakwa, Zita, Baba Jamal, Koku Anyidoho, Betty-Mould and the dreaded foot soldiers, to serve Ghanaians with a rib-roaring spectacle.

To reiterate their comical feat, the NDC’s first major policy was to unleash its foot soldiers on poor but well-meaning Ghanaians! The momentous year of 2009 saw to the criminalisation of cruising in any four-wheel drive; an act worthy of eliciting citizens’ arrest ably effected by foot soldiers with the help of a few bungling policemen. The few courageous people who ventured out in any posh vehicles were ruthlessly deprived of it by NDC foot soldiers and their apparatchiki—not even the NPP flag-bearer in the stature of Nana Akuffo Addo and the Managing Director of Barclays Bank (Ghana) were spared this Big Foot style of illegal raids reminiscent of the regrettable revolutionary days.

Clearly aware of the cost of fuelling and maintaining their newly acquired automobiles, these nation wreckers realised they needed a source of revenue. As weird as it may sound, their best bet was the seizure of public toilets. This arbitrary change in management confounded most public toilets resulting in long winding queues at peak periods—between 5am to 8am. Inevitably, the people of Chorkor and James Town had to bear the brunt of disappointed early morning beach-defecating Ghanaians. Please think again if you entertained the thought that the foot soldiers stopped after their frenzied public toilet commandeering! Having acquired new titles of Honourable and eminence with their enviable labelling of “foot soldiers” (Honourable foot soldiers), the NDC cohorts then graduated from seizing public toilets to the locking up of public offices and officials. Clearly amazed at their level of success and the attention they had amassed, our kind-hearted friends were now ambitiously threatening the President to sack certain DCEs and Regional Ministers they deemed inept. Surprisingly, the President was cowed into submission by the “patriotic” foot soldiers and the effect of that was the dismissal of perceived enemies of the state. It was soon discovered that the only thing to appease the foot soldiers from impeaching the President and installing one of their own was to give them some positions (jobs for the boys). The few foot soldiers who neither acquired any wealth nor positions decided to teach the Legislature a bitter lesson. They expertly invaded the House of Parliament after the President’s first State of the Nation Address by ransacking and consuming all the food reserved for the parliamentarians and other dignitaries.

Obviously in no mood to be outperformed by the foot soldiers that were held in awe and admiration by Ghanaians, the ministers-of-state and their deputies set to work—of course the ministers are more educated and creative enough to win the competition against their “riff-raff” foot-soldier friends. A few examples will suffice here: Does anyone recollect the Asaga saga? The alacrity with which Mr Asaga— who had then been nominated for consideration as Minister of Water Resources, Works and Housing— got deeply involved in the unconstitutional signing off of end-of-service package for former officials without consulting other government officials is beautiful to behold. Then, there emerged the Muntaka scandal. The then Minister of Sports did the right thing by using the Ministry’s funds in the visa application and onward travel of his girlfriend, Miss Edith Zinayel—after all, the money was earmarked for such purposes. This good-natured minister then applied further funds in the purchasing of household items such as baby oil, diapers and necessaries such as kebabs, giving that delicacy the rather unwanted accolade of “Muntaka”. Mr Ablakwa’s ghostly 1.6 million jobs pronouncement is also worth mentioning. These jobs were so glaring and surprising that the substantive Minister of Employment and Social Welfare, Honourable E.T. Mensah, was lost and had to deny any knowledge of the facts. Oh, we can only put this down to the desire to contradict and lack of communication between government officials which is really very heart-warming.

The Information Ministry has been at its best in the whole furore. Oh how I miss pretty-faced Zita Okaikoi’s numerous goofs but notably, her disreputable maternity leave to the US and her resulting ‘killing two stones with one bird’ interview. Baba Jamal whose appointment was hailed by NDC faithfuls did little to help issues with his capital advice to workers at the Information Ministry to lie about government achievements by “sheeping” cows (you know what I mean). Ingenious enough, he claimed that the airplanes procured for the military were purposeful enough to land anywhere and that the planes will be used to patrol the high seas and also to chase armed robbers. Baba Jamal further explained that the Casa 295 will be used to train military personnel and for countrywide surveillance, especially in areas where it is difficult to access during disasters and accidents, even in Butumejebu!

Goofs and misinformation seem to be the maxim of the feisty Koku Anyidoho, the so-called presidential spokesperson. For our history, I quote Mr Anyidoho on 1st March 2012: “Those who have made the presidential inquisition of kenkey price their chewing stick should go ahead with it because clearly they want to use that to clean their discoloured and stinking teeth”. His bitterest venomous vituperation was unleashed on his arch-enemies, FONKAR, in a Radio Gold interview describing the group as: "diaper-wearing, bed-wetting political infants who have grouped themselves into some something, and think that they are going to be able to sink the president in their bed-wetting agenda”. He also holds the leading role in the Save Woyome and demean-Akuffo-Addo smear campaigns with baseless fabrication of fondling and Mosque-defecating. Mr Ablakwa’s allegations of file-stealing by the NPP administration put me into uncontrollable guffaws. In their bid to scamper the Woyome prosecution, the NDC has sent their novice, Okudzeto Ablakwa, to start their miscalculated lie of file-stealing. Well, it appears that we are still taken for morons and ignoramuses and thus, we will buy every lie. This statement is sensible save that I wonder what formed the documental basis for the payment of the said judgement debt! How do we reconcile the EOCO report that claimed there were enough documents available to the Attorney General to have challenged the Woyome case in court? Is it possible that ex-government officials could have stolen files from their offices and all the other offices to which these documents were copied? These are only my infantile thoughts.

If the NDC ‘Team B’ comedy team could make us laugh this loud, then I do not wish to watch the ‘Team A’ comedy team perform. Enough of the comic relief; we need a serious-minded government to direct the affairs of this country. The year 2012 offers us the best opportunity to extricate ourselves from the shackles of mediocrity and vile propaganda. The driver of the Yutong bus is tired and needs to relax: a competent one is required to replace him!

By Kwame Yeboah.

(pinsonchapta@yahoo.com)