– THE NPP VRS THE NDC
Ghana’s democracy is increasingly being redefined by politicians to mean a system of governance where an act of political irresponsibility is cured by a bigger irresponsible reaction from political opponents. This is aided by a heavily polarised media dominated by journalists and press houses with active or tacit political agenda. The media landscape has unfortunately become nothing more than a conveyor belt for carrying political mud for slinging at political opponents.
Take the case of Nana Darkwa, an opposition political activist, for example. He made an irresponsible statement on radio that the recent fire that gutted the state owned residence of former president Rawlings was intentionally set by Jerry John Rawlings himself. This triggered a chain of reactions from the political class which ended up as nothing more than a who is who contest in political dissonance.
Kofi Adams, the special aide of the former president, and his collaborators were the first to react. They used their political connections to cause the arrest of Nana Darkwa and got him arraigned before court the same day where he was remanded in prison custody for two weeks! Nana Darkwa’s comments were said to have offended a provision in the country’s criminal code, a provision which could only make sense to the witch doctor of King Solomon’s Mines fame. Is the name Gagool? What is more, the law itself is said to have recognized the offence as a misdemeanour, which under normal circumstances, should not attract even a second’s remand on the beach!
Then what happened? The NPP caucus in parliament responded the following day with a boycott of parliamentary proceedings. They held a press conference to demand the immediate cessation of the trial of Nana Darkwa and until that was done, they would not return to parliament. My Goodness! As if to spice up the unfolding intrigue, the courts had dramatically regained their conscience to grant Darkwa bail ahead of the NPP’s press conference. This is not all. The opposition MPs also accused the Mills government of discrimination in the application of the country’s laws against their political opponents. I guess the NDC caucus may also by now be plotting a counter response that will raise the bar of irresponsibility to such exotic levels that will make the NPP look like saints.
Most fair minded people agree that Nana Darkwa’s comments were malicious and irresponsible. There is also a great deal of convergence of opinions on the fact that Kofi Adam’s response was capricious and more irresponsible than that of Nana Darkwa. Infact Kofi Adam’s irresponsibility provided an unwelcome patriot missile that diverted media and social attention from Kwadwo Mpiani’s assertions that mega-buck contracts were awarded in former president Kufuor’s Ghana on the basis of pity. Yes, you heard me right. The Republic of Ghana indeed awarded multi-million dollar contracts for the purchase of electricity generating turbines not on the basis of approved technical specs, but on the basis of what make of turbine the person who won the presidential pity could supply. This was a week in which we were told that presidential pity superseded the provisions of the Procurement Act in the award of contracts and yet Kofi Adams drowned its significance in his irresponsible response to Nana Darkwa. At a time when the NDC should have been bullish in attack, they found themselves on the back foot defending the indefensible. Or could Nana Darkwa have been a decoy that was thrown at the NDC? If that was the case, then I salute the political wits of NPP in this regard. It should serve as a warning to the NDC that the Metarazzis are not limited to the football pitch, they can be found right here in our politics and can cause a red card if one does not exercise circumspection. Metarrazi might not be right in his provocation of Zidane but the latter’s reaction caused him a red card, whilst Metarazzi went on to win the Gold Medal with the Azzuris.
Let us come back to the NPP parliamentary caucus. By asking for the withdrawal of the case, are they using a minority fiat to retrospectively repeal the law under which Nana Darkwa was charged? Are they trying to intimidate the judiciary? Do they have the locus standi under our constitution to demand the withdrawal of a case from court? If the case does not have merit, isn’t it the prerogative of the judiciary to so determine; and is the courtroom not the legitimate place for doing so? The stand of the NPP caucus appears to me as nothing more than a coup d’etat against our judicial system and yet they want us to see them as the apostles of the rule of law.
I believe the law under which Nana Darkwa was charged is antiquated and should not find any place whatsoever in our statute books in so far as it criminalises free speech. It should be repealed WITHOUT the slightest delay. If the NDC wants us to see them as believers in a legal environment that facilitates freedom of speech, then they must act with dispatch to repeal this obnoxious provision in our criminal code. It is a fantastic opportunity for them to demonstrate that they are indeed new wine in new skin. It will benefit them politically to do so since it will help them dilute the political mileage that the NPP makes from the repeal of the criminal libel law when they were in power. And guess what, responsible free speech in Ghana will be the victor.
Let us also look at the accusation of discrimination in the application of the law levelled against the NDC government by the NPP minority in parliament. Yes, the NDC operatives acted in bad faith and they must be condemned by all well meaning Ghanaians, but the NPP folks are no saints either. They are equally guilty of such judicial manipulations. The NPP is even setting a worse record by trying to use their parliamentary caucus to influence the judicial process even when they are in opposition. They are seeking to extend the frontiers of interference beyond the executive.
I am not a student of the history of political trials in Ghana but I can faintly remember two incidents that occurred in the run-up to the December 08 elections. In the first one, an NDC activist was said to have been caught in a double electoral registration somewhere in the Brong Ahafo Region. Within 24 hours, he was an inmate of one of the country’s prisons serving a prison sentence – charged, prosecuted and sentenced by a court. Nobody protested. A few days later, an NPP activist was reported to have been caught with several voter ID cards, an act which was also said to have offended the country’s electoral laws in much the same way as the double registration did. I am however yet to hear of the appearance of this NPP activist before any court let alone his sentence. This was in the NPP era.
The point needs to be made that the two political parties that have governed Ghana since our return to democratic rule stand accused of executive interference in our judicial process. We therefore have to condemn this development as a political ailment that needs to be cured across the political divide. Any attempt to pin it down to the corridors of any one party will be hypocritical and will not lead to the solution that we should be looking for.
For now, the NPP is leading the irresponsibility chart in the Nana Darkwa case but I can see the NDC warming up to overtake them sooner than later. This game of irresponsible political behaviour must stop!