My Cry To The Youth Of My Party

By: Abu Jinapor

I write as a young man. I write as a Ghanaian. I write as a member of the New Patriotic Party (NPP). I write as one who presumes to contribute to the development of his nation. I write as one who presumes to energise the youth of the NPP for victory in 2012. Indeed I am proud of youth. But before I proceed any further, may I humbly quote Francis Bacon on youth.

“Young men are fitter to invent, than to judge; fitter for execution than for counsel; and fitter for new projects than for settled business; …Young men, in the conduct and manage of actions, embrace more than they can hold; stir more than they can quiet; fly to the end, without consideration of the means and degrees; pursue some few principles which they have chanced upon absurdly; care not to innovate, which draws unknown inconveniences; use extreme remedies at first; and that, which doubleth all errors, will not acknowledge or retract them, like an unruly horse, that will neither stop nor turn. Men of age object too much, consult too long, adventure too little, repent too soon, and seldom drive business home to the full period, but content themselves with mediocrity of success”.

This is a rather long quotation but it virtually summarises my thoughts about how the youth of the NPP can contribute to the party’s re-organisation process. I believe that the youth of the NPP should immediately gird their loins for execution. In other words, we should hit the ground running as they say. Hopefully not hard enough to tear a few ligaments as Prof. Mills has done.

Already, the NDC has displayed enough ineptitude and insincerity to give us ammunition to fight back. We cannot afford the luxury of cooling off until a so-called political season. If we were to wait, the NDC would have done enough damage to the country, that we risk jeopardising our whole future on the altar of a so-called off season of politics.

Already the NPP has a rich history of political battles, fought on the back of hard working, intelligent and enterprising youth. We still have a corp of dedicated youth to carry the fight to the NDC. I must with haste, pay my respects to Alhaji Malik Alhassan who is the pioneer Youth Organiser and after him the likes of Andy Appiah-Kubi, Abeiku Dickson, Kwame Twumasi Awuah, Mustapha Hamid and currently John Boadu.

As Francis Bacon says, we as youth are “fitter for execution than for counsel”. In other words, youth are impatient with unnecessary consultative processes that waste a lot of time and retard progress. Action! Action! And more Action! That should be our battle cry. For those of us who are already on radio, it is all well and good. There are other young avid writers who must also be encouraged to use their pens as a scourge for the NDC.

Today the art of whispering campaign and rumour mongering have become a part of political party campaigning. The NDC used it to effect in the 2008 campaign. It is high time we paid them back in their coin. Even while the party is waiting for the committee that is reviewing the last election to present its report, the National Youth Organiser should be enabled to go on a nation-wide tour immediately, to energise the bases and get the youth talking. One would be amazed how rapidly a little fire set in Bunkpurugu can spread to engulf the whole nation.

However, such concerted action can only come on the back of unity. Unity! Unity! Unity! Currently there is a lot of talk about how former President Kufuor took or did not take care of the youth of the party. Well, in my view, the past is gone. It is we, the youth who have a future to protect. We cannot waste time being bitter about the past. The former President is human, and to the extent that he is human, he would have committed mistakes.

But I urge my brothers to please forgive the hurt of the past and let us rally together for the future. I must also recognise that there are artificial divisions that can serve to stifle our effort at unity. But as young people with a common belief and common aspirations, I believe we can overcome our petty differences and unite for the sake of our common future.

I am not interested in labels. I am interested in content. Indeed some of the labelling which we have inadvertently accepted has been pinned on us by our opponents. We share a common belief in the rule of law, individual freedoms and liberty, individual responsibility and the free markets. There is more that unites us than divides us.

Let us unite to tell the Ghanaian people that we are the best operators of the liberal democratic environment and the markets. In today’s world where the markets rule, the so called social democracy of the NDC is an anathema. Today the NDC says it will in the next few months, completely remove the subsidies on electricity tariffs. These are tariffs that were instituted by the NPP, a so-called anti-poor party. Now a party that is supposedly for the poor is the party that seeks to implement full cost recovery?

The Ghanaian people need to appreciate the hypocrisy of the NDC. And who are better able to tell this story than the youth who have the energy, zeal, drive and above all, the enthusiasm.

The youth of the NPP should not shy away from contesting available positions at all levels of the party’s structures, from the Polling Station level to the National. We cannot afford to continue sitting on the fence while complaining that the elderly have side lined us. We need to take our destiny into our own hands to move our party forward.

As Francis Bacon sought to say, youth are both positive and negative energy. One of our positive sides, he says, is that we the capacity to fly to the end without considering the means. Therefore I will urge all of us to sacrifice a little for our party. For in doing so we sacrifice also for our nation and our future. “Ask not what your nation can do for you but what you can do for your nation” is a famous American quote.

I will dare say that, it is high time we asked what we can do for our party and not what our party can do for us.