It has been an amazing past weekend especially for curious observers of the so-called TEIN-NDC national conference organized by the ruling party at Winneba in the central region. Even before the end of the first day of the conference, it became apparent that it was a shambolic one with a hidden agenda. Not only that. The events of the first day also revealed that the conference was organized under the auspices of TEIN-NDC but as a cover to create a platform for vice President John Mahama to launch and project his political schemes.
Why, can John Mahama say, heart in hand, that he would have said the things he said there if others including the NDC founder Jerry Rawlings were present in that conference? I double doubt it in my books.

First, let’s examine the substance or lack of it in some of the things he said. Talking about so-called indiscipline within the NDC, he claimed that President Rawlings succeeded during his reign largely due to total discipline and unity that existed within the P-NDC. It goes without saying from that premise that President Mills is largely not succeeding because of the lack of discipline and unity within the NDC today. What the vice president failed to tell us is that President Rawlings exhibited certain leadership qualities that elicited such discipline and unity from party faithful—qualities that are woefully missing in this current government which includes John Mahama who is lamenting endlessly about indiscipline and lack of unity. Why is the veep looking at only the symptoms and disregarding the main cause of the so-called indiscipline and lack of unity? Does he think that President Rawlings would have succeeded in instilling discipline in the P-NDC if he engaged in politics of exclusion ism as they’re doing now? Would President Rawlings have succeeded if he disregarded and treated with disdain the people who put him at the helm of affairs? Absolutely not!
It even mesmerizes me the more that the veep does not realize that his usage of that TEIN platform as though it was his personally organized platform to respond to accusations put out against him by party members is the height of indiscipline. Does the veep want to tell Ghanaians that if Dr. E-spio-G and founder Rawlings and the others he accused of spearheading the internal indiscipline and disunity were present at that shambolic conference, he would have made those statements nonetheless? Again, I double doubt that because if he did, and these people also took their turn to speak and make similar remarks, the result would be absolute pandemonium. Therefore, the veep in his attempt to address the issue of indiscipline ended up grossly demonstrating such same attitude. I can remember on July 1st 2008 when President Rawlings wanted the NDC leadership to wake up from what he called their ‘anesthesia’ before the general election, he called a press conference in his house. Recently, when the founder wanted to point out internal machinations against him and his wife throughout the country, he issued a press statement. Can John Mahama and his cohorts take a cue from that the next time and stop abusing the NDC platform before their actions finally tear apart the already disintegrating NDC as a party?

Meanwhile, whoever that coordinated that shambolic TEIN-NDC conference must be telling us why the entire conference was turned into a John Mahama campaign platform. They should also be telling us why articles were circulated among the audience, of people such as Dr. E-Spio-G and others whiles speakers addressed the conference. Was it meant to cause disaffection among the students for such personalities? And can the vice president tell us that that was a much disciplined thing to do? Do I need to prompt the vice president John Dramani Mahama to either try to practice what he preaches or stop pontificating?
As for John Mahama telling Ghanaians that people within the NDC are meeting every Sunday and plotting against him because he has suddenly become the greatest threat to their political ambition, he needs to come again on that! For how could a man who recently went on radio to announce emphatically that he would not contest President Mills for president suddenly perceive himself as the greatest threat to someone’s political ambition? Is he now trying to confirm to Ghanaians that his pronouncements on radio Ghana were mere gimmicks just to throw dust into our eyes? Because since he is not contesting Mills in 2012, how is he a threat to someone else who may be harboring ambitions to contest President Mills? Or is there something the vice president is not revealing to discerning Ghanaians as yet?
Vice President John Mahama took advantage of the platform created exclusively for him to give lame responses to accusations that have been put out against him. I will not address all of them—only the one that concerns me. For I stated recently in an open letter to the vice President That; He only accepted to partner Prof Mills in 2008 general election after seeing a ‘horrible health file’ of the main candidate shown him by Ato Ahwoi. I say he lamely responded to this because he merely denied seeing any such file. But who would expect anything different from him? Merely denying is a useless endeavor and does not answer the main questions raised. Namely that; during the occasion to announce him as the running mate to Prof. Mills, NDC founder Jerry Rawlings was conspicuously absent, and we know that he was not absent because he wanted to be, but because John Mahama and his co-conspirators including Victor Smith and Ato Ahwoi wanted him absent. The founder even made a last-minute effort to be there when he realized the plot against him but was too late to the event—and this is on public record. What Ghanaians would therefore expect John Mahama to be telling us is why he didn’t communicate his sudden decision to run as veep to the NDC founder, and why he didn’t want him present at the announcement even though admittedly, founder Jerry Rawlings was on his heels to take that decision? Only then can we tell between the lines. Until then, I maintain that the reason for all those machinations against the NDC founder is the ingenuity and dishonesty that culminated in that decision to run as vice President.
And why is John Mahama running away from being associated with the Mills presidency? What is wrong if people call it a Mills-Mahama presidency? The fact that it’s unprecedented doesn’t make it wrong. Or does it? So why is John Mahama complaining or rather amplifying that his name has been equated with Prof. Mills in this presidency? Could it be that he is ashamed of Mills’ leadership qualities? Shouldn’t he rather be excited over that elevation—that is if he himself is not the one trying to amplify this self elevation? He should tell us if this is all a part of his grand campaign to succeed Mills on a silver platter on the blind side of all of us.
The actions of John Mahama and his surrogates at that TEIN conference have rendered the theme of that conference meaningless and useless. Or perhaps, given it a different meaning, for how can there be unity and victory for the NDC when he decides to usurp such an important occasion for his personal benefit at the expense of other crucial NDC figures who were absent at the ceremony? Is this different from what they did in Tamale recently during the funeral of the late northern regional chairman of the NDC when as a deliberate policy and action, Haruna Iddrisu as Master of Ceremony in cahoots with others blatantly refused to openly announce the donation of the NDC founder to the family despite several promptings, and even though there was a prominent chief designated by the NDC founder to represent him at that funeral in his absence? Did John Mahama and his cohorts foster unity within the NDC at that funeral by refusing to acknowledge the presence of the NDC founder’s representative at that funeral or they promoted pettiness and divisiveness? How long can we sustain this hypocrisy of preaching virtue and practicing vice? How long?

There is no wonder that the discerning NDC students at that Winneba conference loudly protested against many of the hidden machinations to deepen the disunity and promote John Mahama. They openly protested and even disrupted the speech of P.V Obeng when articles were been circulated about other NDC people absent at the conference. They also protested and even hooted away and disallowed from speaking, a known charlatan Vincent Kuagbenu (National service coordinator) whose main purpose on that platform was to denigrate the NDC founder and wife, the former first lady—something he’s been known for doing lately. Even the incompetent NDC national youth organizer Ludwig Hlodze was booed away disgracefully when transport allowances for delegates was unexpectedly slashed down from the promised 45gh to less than enough to transport some delegates back to their home regions—an occurrence that generated a lot of dissatisfaction and confusion leading to some of them deserting the grounds in protest. So: I couldn’t be wrong if I describe that TEIN conference as shambolic.

Let’s all stop digging our own graves if we don’t want to sing our own dirges.

SaCut Amenga-Etego
(NDC youth with conviction of principle)