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Opinions of Wednesday, 19 September 2018

Columnist: Kwaku Badu

Please, don’t let the endless bickering disintegrate NDC: Ghana needs opposition party

NDC is the largest political party in opposition NDC is the largest political party in opposition

Whichever way you may view the ongoing confusion, Ghana needs a perpetual opposition party, thus we definitely need the NDC in our democratic dispensation, in spite of their maladaptive governance and ineffective opposition.

How true and sensible of our elders proverbial expression that ‘the full length of a frog is known only after its demise?’

Indeed, the truth is more likely to resurrect no matter how deep the grave. Somehow, the truth has resurfaced in the NDC following so many years of needless secrecy.

To be quite honest, I never dreamt in a million years that I will live to witness the sort of deep cleavages within the National Democratic Congress (NDC), as the party apparatchiks made us to believe that all was well with the party.

But there you go. The never ending tiffing within the NDC tells a different story, diametrical to what the NDC faithful sought to portray all along.

In fact, until their recent insuperable friction, we were made to believe that conflict is not synonymous with the NDC.

Unfortunately, however, the signs are already on the walls: the ongoing bickering could spell doom for the NDC, so to speak.

Apparently, the NDC faithful have been living in a denial all this while. The fact however is: they managed to sweep the insidious conflict under the carpet until their 2016 humiliating election defeat.

Indeed, the humiliating 2016 election defeat resurrected the hidden, albeit pernicious conflict.

Background

Subsequent to their humiliating 2016 election loss, there have been corruption accusations and counter accusations.

It all started with the founder of the NDC, former President Rawlings, who has been consistently accusing the leadership of the NDC as the most corrupt in Ghanaian political history.

The chilling exposition unsurprisingly infuriated the brassbound NDC faithful, who discourteously decided to revenge by tearing their founder, former President Rawlings into shreds.

It would, however, appear as an illustrative cliché of ‘it takes one to know one’ or ‘birds of the same feather flock together’.

In retrospect, the shock of the 2016 election defeat and the ensuing hue and cry prompted the leadership of the NDC to set up a Fact-finding Committee to unravel the otherwise widely known reasons for their humiliating election defeat.

Of course, back then, the NDC’s election defeat Facts finding Committee seemed extremely puzzling to many discerning Ghanaians, given the unpardonable incompetence, corruption and shenanigans they exhibited throughout their tenure in office which invariably caused their humiliating election loss.

So back then, one wondered what more evidence they wanted to find about their 2016 election defeat.

Anyway, no matter how baffling it seemed at the time, they were within their right to go out there and conduct their Fact -finding.

After a few months of painstaking investigations, the Committee nonetheless produced a damning report.

The Committee thus beseeched the NDC to address the divisions in the party, especially among the party apparatchiks, the party’s internal biometric registration of members, the licentious electioneering campaign, diversion of campaign cash and materials, public perception of corruption and complacency among others.

Interestingly, however, the vineyard news and other sources had it that the Professor Kwesi Botchwey Election Fact-finding Committee’s report indicted a number of NDC stalwarts, including former President Mahama.

The sources had it that former President Mahama contributed immensely to the NDC’s 2016 humiliating election defeat.

Apparently, there are those who share the Fact-finding Committee’s report that Ex-President Mahama’s woeful errors in judgement and the gargantuan corruptions accounted for the NDC’s 2016 election loss.

However, the die-hard supporters of Ex-President Mahama do not accept such a view point and have vowed to move heaven and earth to bring back Mahama as the flagbearer for the 2020 election regardless.

In spite of the dreadful errors in decision-making, the incompetence and the unbridled corruption amid untold economic hardships which led to their humiliating 2016 election defeat, a section of the NDC loyalists bizarrely hold Ex-President Mahama in high esteem.

It is also true that we can locate some disengaged brassbound NDC followers who do not wish to see Mahama as their next flagbearer.

The critics contend that former President Mahama’s government remains the worst ever in the history of Ghanaian politics.

However, the loyalists of former President Mahama, such as the 94 NDC Members of Parliament, are ridiculously holding on to a faint hope that they could bring Ex-President Mahama back and recapture power from the NPP in 2020.

Given the circumstances, we cannot blame the critics of Mahama for suggesting that NDC rather needs a more capable flagbearer other than Mahama to capture the elusive power in 2020.

That said, on the preponderance of probability, Mahama and his supporters will most likely come victorious in the NDC’s 2020 flagbearship race.

In ending, the impending flagbearership race which is generating disagreements amongst the supporters of the NDC presidential aspirants presages disunity. Indeed, the never ending bickering could spell doom for the NDC.