Please kindly consider a space in your newspaper for this rejoinder to the above-titled news article which appeared in the political section of your paper on Friday, October 7, 2011. I wish to inform the general public that the group calling itself Youth for Action Group of the National Democratic Congress (NDC) is a discredited group of hooligans whose views may not represent the views of any youth in the NDC let alone views of the youth of the Volta Region.

For the information of the general public, the so-called leaders of this self-styled group, Alhaji Bello and his accomplice Daniel Idikoko, have been suspended from the NDC and cannot be purported to be speaking on behalf of the NDC youth in the Volta Region nor the diverse groups of youth in the region. They must, at best, be speaking for themselves on their own behalf. On August 3, 2011, the Ho Central NDC Constituency Secretary, Mr. Stanley Glatey, summarily suspended the aforementioned individuals for misconducting themselves as members of the NDC. This decision was upheld by Regional Executives of the party nine days later.

I am yet to be guided by any reversal of their dismissal by any other authority in the public domain.

Following these developments and the overnight emergence of all forms of splinter groups or what the General-Secretary of the NDC, Mr. Asiedu Nketia, referred to as “auxiliary” groups, the party hierarchy issued a statement disbanding all auxiliary groups within its rank and file on August 17, 20011. “The National Democratic Congress has banned all auxiliary groups or associations which were formed prior to the recent presidential primaries of the party. Such groups were illegal and undermined the constitution and structure of the NDC,” the release said.

With the above-evidence adduced, the general public should consider the so-called Youth for Action Group of the NDC to be a figment in the imaginations of its purported leaders. It is pure hallucination to wake up one day and decide to speak for a group you are no longer a part of, as long as human reasoning is not lost in a civilized society. Why should a discerning Police Service and a Media which is supposed to be a watchdog stoop for these discordant hooligans who do not know their left from right?

To the substantive issues, let it be borne on the minds of all NDC sympathizers and its leadership, traditional leadership of the Region, and anyone who is concerned about the development of the Region and issues that confront its development - especially issues concerning the construction of the Eastern Corridor and the establishment of the University of Allied Health Sciences – that these are not issues for the so-called Youth for Action Group of the NDC to be toying with. Granted that at their level of competence and aptitude they can bark at the enormity of these issues, which they did in their August 3, 2011 demonstration in Ho, I bet this group is better off discussing how to manage community-level resources such as toilets, lorry stations, cleaning of gutters and pot-hole patching within the Ho Municipality. While astute minds and efforts continue to engage the NDC in its poor performance in all spheres of governance in the Volta Region, including poor BECE performance since 2009, poor athletic and sports performance since 2009, poor health and sanitation since 2009, poor political and socio-cultural engagement of the region since 2009, and poor agricultural output from the region’s subsistence and irrigation schemes since 2009, and a litany of other poor score cards.

Monkeys, they say, play by sizes.

Indeed, if the chips fall in place and we are talking about education and for that matter higher education, road construction, funding modalities, equitable distribution of national resources and issues thereof, there is no doubt that we may be dealing with individuals who, perhaps, cannot scribble up their own names. If for the sake of democratic participation we encourage all voices to be part of the democratic process, it does not mean that there is not a higher level of knowledge out there which is attainable through the training of the mind. To that extent, such minds abound in the region which can ruminate, digest and comment on these sorts of issues with a profound understanding of what is at stake, if only the NDC can find the mechanism to properly engage them rather than the news article in the Daily Graphic which engendered this rejoinder.

To the Daily Graphic correspondent in Ho, I am sure you are a trained journalist who should steer clear of these window-dressings and petty-trading by political leadership and their underlings who have clearly demonstrated hitherto, that they do not appreciate our intelligence, resources, motive and goals. You may at best be undermining the credibility of your newspaper which is fast becoming a tool for propaganda, especially when you could not apply a bit of acumen to the news by asking the few questions I posed in this rejoinder.

Once again, I wish to task the Youth for Action or whatever they call themselves to find out who had said ‘until the rotten tooth is removed, the mouth must chew with caution,’ and why this advice may be apt for them.

And finally, the Youth for Action and any other group like them must always be mindful to weight their battles properly in order not to bite what they cannot chew.

Let there be order!!!

Derrick Obimpeh, Msc.
C/O Private Mail Bag
Hohoe Post Office
Hohoe
Email: derrick.obimbeh@yahoo.com

Cc:
All Media houses