NPP takes on Mahama over “selective myopia” comment

The main opposition New Patriotic Party (NPP) has condemned the name-calling of CPP General Secretary Ivor Greenstreet by members of the governing party for his blunt criticism of the President and the Government.

Ivor Greenstreet said directly to President John Mahama and Vice President Kwesi Amissah-Arthur that: “You don’t care”.

“Nobody is feeling your better Ghana”, Greenstreet shouted when he delivered his party’s solidarity message to the NDC at the party’s congress at the Baba Yara Stadium in the Ashanti regional Captial, Kumasi on Saturday.

He said: “…Currently nobody, I mean nobody is feeling your better Ghana. Continuous ‘dumsor dumsor,’ corruption from top to bottom, left right inside out, and all the challenges you are facing [are] suffocating the Ghanaian people.”

“We would have thought that perhaps you may have used an occasion like this to discuss policies, programmes and solutions to all the difficulties we are facing as a nation, but no, you chose today to share your Christmas gifts with each other.

“Ghanaians are not happy at all. This ‘bronya’ is dry. Too too dry,” he told the President, adding: “The most painful thing of all is that you don’t care.

“NDC continue, we are watching you, Ghana is watching you, do what you want to do, we also know what we’ll come and do…make sure you’ll elect executives who will be able to steer your parties affairs when you are in opposition. Boys abr3,” he bellowed.

The wheelchair-bound Politicians has been called names and criticised by leaders and supporters of the NDC after his bluntness. President John Mahama said Greenstreet was suffering from “incurable selective myopia”.

Majority Leader Alban Bagbin also said he believed Greenstreet was possessed by some demons, which caused him to be “so emotional”, while presidential staffer Sam George wrote on his Facebook wall that: “Ivor Greenstreet apparently needs elevation to see the Better Ghana.”

Condemning the name-calling, the NPP in a statement issued Monday signed by Communication Director Nana Akomea, said: “…We are disturbed by the terrible insults heaped on the General Secretary of the CPP, Ivor Greenstreet, in the aftermath of his solidarity message.”

“He has been told he needs to “elevate” himself, a direct reference to his disability, which makes him wheelchair-bound. He has also been told he needed psychiatric help. He has also been accused of possession by demons.

The questions for us are as follows:

• Does one need an elevator to see ‘dumsor-dumsor’ or the calamitous fall in the value of the cedi?

• Does one need to stand on one’s feet to see the horrible hardship that Ghanaians are in today or the unspeakable corruption around us?

“The wicked cut of all to Mr. Grenstreet came from the President himself. Even though the President said he was exercising restraint on the matter, he diagnosed Mr. Greestreet as suffering from “incurable selective myopia”; that Mr. Greenstreet was motivated by partisan quest to win power, that he was wearing politically tainted lenses that made him difficult to see reality.

"So we ask, is criticism today equated to not seeing reality?

“What about all the criticism that President Mahama had made in opposition to national welfare issues such as the NHIS, LEAP, NYEP, and the proposal for the Savannah Development Fund, among others?

“How about the other criticism of government performance from labour, the clergy, civil society organisations, international newspaper, magazines and even from the NDC itself?” the statement asked.