Fellow "Akatamansonians"; Let's Speak The Truth And Stand Up For Principles!!!
Am I the only guy in the NDC who’s fed up with what is happening? Where the hell
is our outrage? We should be screaming bloody traitor. We have gang of clueless
bozos steering our ship of state right over a cliff, We’ve got people who has no
idea where we are going leading us blind, and we can’t even tell the truth and
stand up for principle much less tell the President, he is failing us. But
instead of getting mad, everyone sits around and nods their heads when the
politicians say, “stay the course.”
“Stay on which course?” You might think I’m getting senile, that I’ve gone off
my rocker, and maybe I have. But someone has to speak up. I hardly recognize our
party anymore. The President of Ghana who is also the leader of our great party
is given a free pass to ignore party structures, divide our ranks, and look on
unconcerned whiles babies in diapers berate the founder like nobody’s business.
While we’re fiddling with governance, the party is disintegrating and nobody
seems to know what to do. And many of our people are looking on instead of
asking hard questions. That’s not the promise of NDC our founder toil for. I’ve
had enough. How about you?
A few fellow party activists who are blinded by petty parochial interest tell me
to calm down and leave the rage for the opposition. They say, “Dela, you’re a
party activist and you don’t have to wash our dirty linen in public.” I d love
to – as soon as the President put on his thinking cup and start living the
ideals, principles, values and idiosyncrasies of the NDC. I’m going to speak up
because it’s my patriotic duty. I think people will listen to me. They say I
have a reputation as straight shooter. So I’ll tell you how I see it, and it’s
not pretty, but at least it’s real.
Why are we in this mess? How did we end up with this leadership? Well, we voted
for them- or at least some of us did. But I’ll tell you what we didn’t do. We
didn’t agree to become gaping sycophants and praise poets. We didn’t agree to
stop asking questions or demanding answers. Some of us are tired with people who
call free speech treason. And don’t tell me the fault lies in our stars or what
have you. That’s an intellectually lazy argument, and it’s part of the reason
we’re in this stew.
Where are the voices of leaders who can inspire us to action and make us stand
taller? What happened to the strong and resolute party of Jerry Rawlings? What
happened to courageous leadership? There was a time in this country when the
voices of great leaders lifted us up and made us want to do better. Where have
all the leaders gone?
Is there a good justification for why a government that won an election so
narrowly should consciously marginalize so many among its core supporters? The
Presidency have adopted divide and rule tactics and have also introduced
exclusionism into the party. It is either you sing the chorus of “all is well”
or to hell with you. Woe betides you if you dare offer constructive criticisms
of the Mills’ administration. You are either label anti-NDC or “Rawlings Boy”
The Presidency has suddenly targeted some ardent NDC supporters as Rawlings boys
and girls who are rather out to destroy the party. During the recent pilgrimage
to Mecca, some of our Muslim brothers and sisters even suffered the brunt of
these unruly politicians on the basis that, they belong to Rawlings camp.
According to President Mills and his cronies, no one is supposed to be
sympathetic to Rawlings any longer because he is now in charge. How interesting
can it get? And they want us to be silent over these matters.
I will never allow my voice to be stifled by those who wish I was never born to
take position on issues that speak to the afflictions of my dearest party and
nation.
Since President Mills won power promising ‘Better Ghana”, we have seen the
adoption of a canker that was best identified with the NPP and which will
destroy our party if not stopped. We witnessed the abuse of our internal
electoral process through the distribution of money to sway the delegates to
vote in certain directions in our constituency, regional, women, youth and even
the national delegate conference in Tamale. Some of the elements who have
emerged through this abominable syndrome are even unfit for party office. No
wonder the likes of Ludwig Hlodze, the National Youth Organizer is unable to
fashion out a credible programme to empower many of our activists who have lost
faith with the system. Do we have to auction party positions and other
appointments to the highest bidder? Since when did “Moneycracy” become part of
NDC politics?
Whilst “the better Ghana agenda” is increasingly becoming a mirage by the day,
“A better Stomach Agenda” is being practiced openly by the likes of Ato Ahwoi,
John Mahama and other power mongers hovering around the presidency. Some are
quietly rebuilding their financial kingdoms as the President snores while
government PR machinery simply hallucinates and churns out one goof after
another.
What does social democracy mean to our political leaders? What is the value of a
governing concept that promises equitable distribution of resources, yet rewards
a few greedy elites, and selected party patrons, with pillages while the
majority bear the wrinkles of social adversity? How do we tell our nation’s
children to cultivate morality when, in fact, we glamorize a vice president who
has consistently shown gross indiscipline towards the founder? How can a leader
of a nation lecture his citizens on fiscal frugality, and responsibility, yet
his appointee’s displays unbridled opulence at the expense of the state?
Over the past few months, we have also seen the likes of Nii Lante Vanderpujie,
an aide to the President, Yaw Boateng Gyan, national Organizer and other
misguided persons from the Presidency travelling from region to region using the
powers of the Executive to indulge in dishonest and dishonourable behavior by
summoning party executives, telling stories, bad mouthing the founder and his
wife, spreading falsehood and promising them vehicles, motorbikes, cash and
other incentives in exchange for their silence. Can we survive on the path that
we are treading?
We have allowed the euphoria and political adrenalin that greeted the uprooting
of the NPP to dissipate because we have failed to pursue the agenda the
electorate voted for. As a party in power we have failed to inspire. Some who
should know better have chosen to sponsor the decimation and total obliteration
of the ideals, values, principles and the idiosyncrasies of the party. We have
failed to recognize the fact that the status quo that the NPP left behind is
still intact. We have also failed to correct the wrongs of the past, they have
become emboldened and Kufuor can look into Mills’ face and accuse him of
corruption. Where lies our moral mandate?
Why should we continue to use the mistakes of the past administration to
rationalize the growing failures of today? While there were some policy missteps
and unbridled corruption under the NPP administration, the current government
cannot sanitize its failures by juxtaposing them with the governing flaws of the
erstwhile administration. The nation chose the NDC government with the thinking
that they could offer a better alternative to the NPP administration. Sadly, we
are confronted with arrogance, duplicity, waste, “moneycracy”, corruption,
hypocrisy and colorful lies.
I mourn over the lack of consciousness among some of our leaders, our needless
justification of government policies and an elitist conduct that puts our
freedoms and dignity at risk. What has become of us? Were we not united people
under one umbrella? Was not Rawlings’ NDC the party that raised the standard of
governance in this country? When did the NDC that was blessed with competent
leaders start producing rulers with weak characters? The real problem in the
NDC is the battle between Truth and lies and it is the later that will be
defeated finally for peace to prevail. Ghanaians know that the country’s problem
cannot be solved in the term of a President (be it 4 or 8 years). However, it is
the approach that is adopted, the urgency with which problems are tackled, the
willingness to spend political capital to make structural changes and the
modesty and selflessness displayed in discharging the mandate that would be
noted in passing judgment on the government performance either at a polls or
when its legacy is being assessed.
Every single member or sympathizer of the NDC has the responsibility to help
government succeed or fail. If we choose not to criticize the obvious in the
name of protecting the party or some personalities, we would be doing more harm
than good.
I may come across, to some, as someone who is anti- establishment. But do I
really? I wish those who don’t understand the perspicuity of a revolutionary
mind would take some time to engage it, and not muddy their fine thoughts by
hurling expletives at me; a trademark that is not uncommon to an average lying
sycophant. Let’s free ourselves from a neocolonial mindset that adulates the
impositions of an indigenous leadership whose vision for our party, and
prescriptions for our nation’s many afflictions, far outweigh the economic
diseases their groundbreaking policies seek to cure. We are deafened by, and
tired of, the incoherence, and inconsistencies, of a leadership that lack
self-expression on our nation’s future, yet snort like overweight piglets in
anticipation for another four-year term in office.
The party gave birth to government and not vice-versa. The party therefore needs
to hold government together and ensure that it develops policies that protect
the lofty ideals of the NDC.
Enough Said!
I shall be back!
Emmanuel Dela Coffie
www.delacoffie.wordpress.com