Ghana has traveled a long way on her journey to political freedom and participatory democracy where citizens have assumed the center stage of choosing who governs us. Ghanaians within the age bracket of 20 to 30 years at the moment might not have an idea about what the revolutionary days in Ghana were all about. And even those in this age group who might have seen it will have a very faint memory since they might have been “pampers-wearing” toddlers at the time (apologies to the great over-lord of kingdom of volta regional enclave of Tanyingbe,‘the late’ Koku Anyidoho). The dilemma of this group that actually forms the biggest voter population, also have the additional disadvantage of this legendary forgetfulness of the Ghanaian where we tend to make a lot of noise about a prevailing issue only to go back ,within a matter of days, to sleep and pretend nothing had happen.
This Ghanaian behavior has proven to be very much detrimental when we decided to vote out the NPP and brought in NDC in 2008.A party that had been in power for 19years,uninterrupted, and left Ghana with a shameful economic legacy of HIPC was able to deceive the citizenry into thinking that a party that had been in the political wilderness for 30years until the year 2000,had rather worsened the plight of Ghanaians after haven introduced NHIS,MMT,LEAP,NYEP,CAPITATION GRANT,FREE ANTE-NATAL CARE,COCOA SPRAYING and actually halving poverty, all within a period of 8years.
A party that had been in power for 19years, consecutively, and bequeathed to Ghanaians a wicked policy of ‘cash-and-carry’ where mothers and their newly born babies were held hostage in health delivery facilities for not being able to settle hospital bills, was able to deceive Ghanaians into thinking that they could rather do better than NPP, when the records on the ground clearly pointed to the contrary.
NDC electoral skullduggery
Traditionally, the NDC has a much better ‘kuluulu’ election ‘winning’ machine when it comes to naked violence, unprecedented skullduggery, matchless thievery, gargantuan ballot-box snatching,EC invasion by machete-wielding wee-smoking thugs and block-headed adult vagabonds who organize mid-night press conferences to accuse sitting governments of rigging elections, when result hadn’t even started coming in, and warn of total civil war.
Even their late ‘asomdwee hene’ joined the fray in 2008 when he declared that Ghana was going to go the “way of Kenya” if election results were not declared in-favor of NDC.They engaged in this kind of naked armed-robbery, got the power and simply use it to loot state coffers under the cloak of fictitiously gargantuan ISOFOTONIC “judgment debts”.
On the other hand, the NPP has always been weak in the area of election-winning strategy but highly efficient in governance. In 2008, the NPP as a ruling government, had all its polling agents totally barred from the whole of Volta Region by agents of then opposition NDC.NPP agents who dared ventured into the region on election day were beaten into pulp with some of them having their skulls crushed, eyes scooped out of its sockets, bones broken and flesh torn into shreds!!!
But in the light of this crass timidity in the face of NDC matchless electoral thuggery, particularly during the 2000 and 2008 elections, the NPP has always turned out to be fantastic managers of our nation’s economy whenever given the chance; a classic testament is the transformation of our nation’s HIPC status into that of a middle income within a period of just 8years. Our GDP also quadrupled and so many other social intervention novelties, never witnessed in our history, were also brought into existence.
Accountability phobic NDC
The NDC party constitution is premised on particular core values prominent of which are probity, accountability, transparency and social justice. These core values were born out of the revolutionary period where instant justice was order of the day. This set of values are also captured in our national constitution and I believe our collective adherence to them is a sure bet to building a prosperous society where we can all live in peace, harmony and relative comfort.
A ruling government, by the nature of our “winner takes all” kind of political system, actually places our entire nation’s revenue at the disposal of people in power and their operatives. For this reason, politics which should be practiced by decent, patriotic, visionary and self-made men/women that are motivated solely by desire to serve their nation to make sure economic well-being of ordinary citizens are enhanced, has now been taken over by NDC impecunious hooligans, ugly juvenile-delinquent errand boys/girls, sex-crazed adult vagabonds, unprecedentedly gargantuan looters of state coffers and blasphemous self-style Jesus Christ incarnates.
Indeed, because these people have not achieved anything in life and have no brains to think, they always resort to insults and character assassination of political opponents. They see political power as their only surety out of poverty and therefore are always quick to resort to all kinds of foolish tactics just to win power.
Our nation has developed a convention where presidential candidates of various political parties present themselves at a platform offered by Institute of Economic Affairs (IEA) to put forth their plan of action before the nation, if given the nod by the citizenry to manage their affairs. Questions on many sectors of our nation’s economy are also posed to these presidential aspirants by various interest groups.Assessements are made by Ghanaians after appearance by each of these presidential candidates which I believe affords a section of the populace to decide on which particular one to vote for.
Illusionist 2008 campaign promises
In 2008, Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo made himself available at this IEA forum and he ended up becoming a target of attack by all the other presidential aspirants for the simple reason that, his government was in power and its 8year record was what was being scrutinized. The late professor Atta-Mills (NDC) and Dr. Paa Kwesi Nduom (CPP) were particularly vociferous with their criticism of NPP’s record and actually proffered highly juicy economic prospects for Ghanaians, if they were given the mandate to govern.
NDC,under the leadership of the late president Atta-Mills, promised to turn the streets of Accra into that of Switzerland by way of environmental cleanliness, one-time premium for NHIS subscribers, Accra plains into food-producing highlands of Israel, the whole of northern region into prairies of Canada where grains to feed the whole world will be produced under the magic of SADA and a Heathrow-like airport at Tamale ostensibly to fly Hajj pilgrims direct to Holy land of Mecca. In the end, NDC was given the mandate after 3-rounds of voting and the president, Atta-Mills, ultimately died and took with him into the grave, all those lofty promises.
A ruling government that has the responsibility to account to the citizenry and also convince us of why their mandate must be renewed, rather gave us a dirty slap in the face when we were told by the greedy bastards who held Atta-Mills hostage for their selfish ends, that the man wasn’t going to appear before IEA to render account of his stewardship and to be scrutinized by the ordinary Ghanaian taxpayer. They claimed IEA is an NPP appendage institution, and that, there are many other proper platforms where Atta-Mills could articulate his non-existent achievements.
Clearly, that excuse was made not because there are any other platforms for the man to have spoken about his stewardship but it was because he was grievously sick and therefore simply couldn’t make any public appearance since his voice had even ceased.
Now, because these NDC people are totally bereft of decency, integrity and sense of shame, they have declined to even allow their so-called 54year old ‘young’ president and flagbearer to appear at IEA after the demise of incapacitated Atta-Mills, yet, they are still going about discussing what Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo went to say at that forum. Indeed, before Nana Addo’s turn at IEA, Hassan Ayariga (PNC) and Dr. Abu Sakara (CPP) had taken their turn but I never heard these NDC hypocrites jumping up and down with frenzied verbal flatulence as they are doing in the case of Nana Addo.
Negativistic NDC silenced
At the IEA encounter, Nana Addo spoke on four key areas of our nation’s economy namely; security, health delivery, corruption, and the biggest of all, education. On security, he made mention of “building a society that protects everybody and where rule of law works”. This is very significant in the light of massacres at Kyereponi, Gushegu, Agbogbloshie and Atiwa where nothing has been done. He spoke about how NHIS has now degenerated and his plans to restore it to its efficient past. He boldly told the whole world about his incorruptible nature and promised to demand same from his team and none of these NDC looting brigade has dared challenge him. He finally gave details of his free SHS policy and myopic NDC nihilists kept their mouths shut!!!
Indeed, Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo went to IEA, laid out his blue-print to transform our nation into a modern society, and NDC myopic cynics panicked because he touched on cogent issues that concern the masses. Undoubtedly, this is what will make the difference at the polls on December 7th and determine our nation’s course of direction beyond 7th January, 2013.
Justice Abeeku Newton-Offei
E-mail: justnoff@yahoo.com