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General News of Tuesday, 16 December 2008

Source: THE SUN

Electoral Lesson For Shocked NPP

President Blamed, Complacency & Arrogance Cited

Deep-seethed lessons are being learnt by none other than the ruling NEW PATRIOTIC PARTY, just days after the perceived ice-cold NATIONAL DEMOCRATIC CONGRESS PARTY, thought to be on the brink of death suddenly somersaulted from the land of the supposed dead. Even with a factual 183,000 superiority in electorate figures NPP stalwarts still quake in their boots with the thought of the fearful return of none other than J.J.

RAWLINGS and his NDC Party. Suddenly the haughty, who, only yesterday saw journalists and other professionals as way below them in human terms are now begging palm-in-palm for the same down-graded number of people to go vote for them. But indeed in all possible worlds time has peeled away, since some concerned citizens suggested that national cash has to be saved by not hitting the road to national elections, but that one magical man (BEN EPHSON) has to be asked just who or which Party has to govern at a particular dispensation.

Ephson, a journalist who fought his way into coming out almost a lawyer and with 35 years of polling experience under his belt cannot be dismissed outright, just as the NPP did when he mouthed on the roof-top that there was going to be a run-off quite definitely.

Yet again the specific case of the NPP losing the Central region had also been on his lips for close to two months too. While THE SUN is not a BEN EPHSON hero-worshipper, he ought to be appreciated for his dead-right polling dictation in an endeavour quite definitely filled with booby-traps of all kinds.

Never again would yet another Party ignore the sufferings of a deprived people as the NPP learnt too late with the reduction in fuel prices after the initial shock it faced from the NDC through the electorate. Ghanaians were naked yet government chose to reserve our best wear for Christmas when we needed to wear something decent immediately.

Yet again the elections threw up some developments never reserved fro the NPP alone. In what has come to be known as the tale of two ladies: SAMIA NKRUMAH (CPP) and FREMA BUSIA (NPP) who contested Parliamentary seats dreaming of the benevolent benefits of their dead fathers (Dr. KWAME NKRUMAH and PROFESSOR KOFI ABREFA BUSIA) who, once-upon-a-time ruled this nation, is fascinating indeed.

And then the star-problem called PRE-MIX FUEL NDITS MIS-HANDLING. The monumental losses incurred by the NPP along the coastal belt because the fishing industry hinges on the product is one of the major shocks of out contemporary times, ever since the mosquito beat powerful animals to the off-loading of 1000 tonnes of cement off an articulator truck into a warehouse.

An oldie called Gladys Asmah who had served three terms in Parliament and was in charge of the fishery Ministry would just not listen to elements on the ground. For a former teacher who spent most years in the classroom, it remains an irony of fate that recalcitrant Gladys was allowed to carry on in the saddle by the President, J.A Kufuor when indeed she turned out to be A BAD LISTENER.

When Central and Western region fisher-folks cried over Pair Trawling and the wide-scale fraud that had engulfed PRE-MIX fuel, she chose to paint an entirely different picture of the whole adventure. Minister Asmah held press conferences debunking even genuine claims of all sorts when indeed he opposite was the case. For us at THE SUN we knew it for a fact that the NPP had elected to lose the elections hence the continued retention of the oldie at that particular Ministry. In one of two stories we did back in the day she and her Ministry could not escape the sustained scrutiny we subjected them to by our scorching lenses over a couple of untoward developments.

When genuine complaints of inefficiency and corruption shot up the President chose to roll it all in one piece, tagging it perception when he had the state’s investigative machinery at his disposal to use. Today thanks to the deafness of the NPP towards the cry of the people, flaunting politicians have lived to learn a huge lesson. The tribal voting was also a regrettable development because we seemed to have polarized the country in such sharp rifts that the rest of the opposition Parties hardly mattered. What we could do to arrest the situation is to embark on inter-marriages for in that way, we could fuse together so well.

Any fusion with human beings at the centre is a sure recipe or a great turn-around, where people will vote because they have had a thorough thought in conscience ad not because a Party is perceived to be inclined towards a particular ethnic grouping. For us at THE SUN we salute that son-of-the-heavenly-soil Pastor Enoch Boateng who told the world months ago before the ELECTIONS that God will purge Parliament of the lisks so that, only the kennels in the national nut would sneak through to Parliament at the end of the day.

True to his word the NPP has surrendered its majority to the NDC and that is enough food for thought indeed. Now we know with the benefit of hindsight that the monumental changes had to occur because God willed it at least for reasons of arrogance of the most nauseating kind.

National lessons have been learnt indeed, particularly for the wounded NPP. As for the NDC it can never have thanked heaven anymore than it has to do at the present time. The NPP ought to have been home and dry with the NHIS, Capitation Grant, the Roads Network Improvement Drive, an enabling atmosphere for Macro and Micro businesses, the building of four major stadiums etc yet, the very arrogance that caused SATAN'S FALL FROM HEAVEN did them in.

At the end of the day God had to turn their day into night so that next time around politicians of their ilk will think twice before taking the electorate for granted. The 2008 elections had been cooked for them by providence yet faced with a Party that had had altogether 19 years in the saddle with pretty little to show when crude oil was under $25 for most of their years in power when Anerica had not gone to war in Iraq, the NPP still faulted minus the 50 plus 1%.

Salient developments do not happen for jokes, which is why there is this parliamentary majority by the NDC. Quite definitely Parliament will be nobody's idea of a joking ground. It is not for nothing that Ghana has struck oil in commercial quantities. If anybody thinks he or she has arrived because of the oil, such a person must wait for the full force of the fury of the Lord. THE SUN would want to go along with MEN OF GOD that greedy politicians will die while others suffer fates that will make white collar thieves fear the Lord in the strangest of ways.

It lies within the ambit of the greedy politician to believe it or not but then we at THE SUN will buckle on just the same with a very strange but sane Ghanaian electorate who will always thumbprint the arrogant out of power.