“Be glad today. Tomorrow may bring tears
Be brave today. The darkest night will pass
And golden rays will usher in the dawn
Who conquers now shall rule the coming years” – Sarah Knowles Bolton
I still believe the presidential ‘materials’ for the National Democratic Congress are Kwesi B, Goosie Tanoh, Hannah Serwaa Tetteh and former Bank of Ghana Governor Dr. Kwabena Duffuor. Plus, Spio and Alban Bagbin.
Sir Sam Jonah, if he is interested, should have arrived long ago, in my opinion – as a major force. So patriotic that each time he lectured at the Ghana Armed Forces Staff College some 40 years ago, and he is given his honorarium, he politely returned the cheque. I recall true firebrand Sam Okudzeto (not the noisy one) also returning his. He and Kofi Annan put Ghana on the map; then JAK and Billy, the Show Boy.
Having been walloped 2-1 by Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo Addo, and that 2012 defeat very controversial to the hilt, John Dramani Mahama is sounding so cagey into 2024; indeed, so cagey that he tends to get the jitters characteristic of nightmares suffered by a convict slated for the firing squad next morning.
So, occasionally, it shows in his engagement of his publics – though the national conversations are two-a- pesewa, even from the anvils of his own grand propagandists. He simply cannot imagine taking in 2024 another slap to a 3-1 defeat to the NPP. I don’t envy him at all.
I wouldn’t imagine him waking up to December 10, 2024 to be declared loser by That [despicable] Woman. How long can a flag bearer’s face look? That was the disease that killed President Hilla Limann – not malaria.
Familiar
I thought he could have hung on to the issue of ‘corruption’ or ‘over-borrowing’ or ‘family trips’ at ‘government expense,’ since their ‘public opinion’ schools savour those topics. I could bet you, those were hurting the NPP communicators, however mischievous and ill-founded those allegations largely are. Again, I believe, since they themselves don’t trust the capacity of some of their propaganda to stick, they fly it and drop it, with the same alacrity as their lawyers filed litigation documents at the last Election Petition.
In a voter region that was tight in 2020, I thought that he [Fine John] could have been persuasive, conciliatory, nice and positively jocular in the environment he had found himself, rather than the atomic bombs he chose to drop in his in-law’s communities. Does that mean that those who decided to allow him choose his topics made a mistake? Verily…But that’s probably because, like what we were treated to in 2008 when ethnicity sneaked into the campaign because the corruption lies were not working.
That was when we had pictures of General JA Ankrah, Okatakyie AA Afrifa, KA Busia, Kutu Acheampong, Hilla Limann, JJ and JAK circulating in the countryside, with propagandists piping the mischief that it was now time for a Fante (JEA Mills) to lead Ghana.
All we like sheep
Jesus Christ, in one of his sermons, likened us poor, ignorant sinners to sheep. And, I guess, it is because sheep always tend to look down (Earth) in search of food for their stomach, without looking up to God first who provides man with all his needs.
The poor, vulnerable sheep, as a consequence, fails to notice the presence of enemies and pits which they might fall into; or thorns that would stick in the skin and diminish opportunities for the sheep owner (our Lord) getting quality wool from his investments.
Littler wonder that, in our part of the world, we see in communities like Ashaiman and Madina, sheep knocked down by passing cars when their cousin the goats get hardly bruised by man or vehicle. So, when we are referred to sheep that have gone astray, it is because it is driven by its desire to look only in the direction of his stomach, unlike the thieving goat which is mischievously vigilant.
That why I believe the political conversation into the future will change, only if we have the other side, which has development and credible governance exposure at global level like those I cited, providing a flag bearer and leading campaigns.
‘Stolen NDC agric ideas’
And what’s this other goof I heard about the New Patriotic Party’s agric initiatives being a ‘stolen’ version of the failed SADA? I, as a politician, should be ashamed to have even cited anything SADA in the northern regions because of the level of fraudulence and graft that afflicted the project and negative impact on economies up north.
Was that to mean there are no agric alternatives left for the benefit of his brothers and sisters in the northern region – from livestock to crop?
Business, for instance, was Goosie’s area. Long before we were talking agro processing and Planting for Export and Planting For Food and Jobs, he was streets ahead, making waves in the emerging Ghanaian business space. Where’s he today on the campaign line? I will tell you: he is a ‘traitor,’ who ‘colluded’ with the opposition NPP in jettisoning the chances of the NDC in retaining power in 2000. That’s the propaganda that is being sold to party minions to chock him from the frontline.
But we can also cite Kwesi Ahwoi from the other corner. The worry is why he is also absent from the frontline helping to sanitize the campaign away from the bizarre to the refreshing.
Reports that NDC outlaw Stephen Atubiga and the controversial JoyNews Ejura correspondent are on the wanted list doesn’t speak well of a party campaigning against the ruling party’s handling of journalists and calls on the international community for the NPP to be punished or even pushed over the precipice like we are having, to the glee of the NDC, in coup riddled Guinea.
NDC’s Benched Cream
Not many of our today’s crop of ‘Ejura’ journalists know, for instance, that Sam Jonah was a good friend of the opposition media, even in the heady days of the Rawlings democratic dispensation.
Yes, he was…and financially supportive, too. He has, however, so solid credentials that he may look awkward in Johnson Asiedu Nketia’s NDC, except he chooses to play a laidback Ato Ahwoi or Kwamena Ahwoi. Kwesi B is hugely exposed and would be no stranger on the global development and partnerships space. And, he speaks grassroots, without attacking traditional and religious authorities, academia and industry.
Goosie is a political leper and Naaman struggling to meet Elisha and be cleansed. From what is brewing on the grounds, he might go his way, if the party persists in refusing to reform itself and clean its language.
Dr. Duffuor is a Prof John Evans Atta Mills – pious, decent, accomplished…As Finance Minister, he delivered Prof JEA Mills’ eight per cent growth that was whittled to a paltry and insignificant three by his running mate that he trusted to a fault. And, Duffuor is also hugely respected across the political and media divides.
Lady Hannah Tetteh
Foreign Affairs and MOTI staff hail her as decent and a reformer…Adept at policy generation and excellent at engaging industry players. Contributed greatly to the implementation of trade protocols before the AfCFTA vision; and friend to GUTA and the embattled Tomato Traders Association…Moving on as a development expert on the global and international relations space.
Unfortunately, these are all a benched, marooned breed, who are nothing before the Asiedu Nketias and Sammy Ablakwas; Sammy Apofos and Sammy Gyamfis.
Political Party or Mischief Clan
Most grown-up NDC sympathisers living in the countryside respect the party for rural electrification; control of guinea worm and its then principles of probity and accountability. They also recall legal instruments that were enacted around that period to protect women from violence, but also get girls to enter the classroom just like Nana Addo Dankwa’s Free SHS Programme intended at empowering youth to be part of the national transformational agenda. That spirit is evaporated. In its place today, they see and hear, instead, noise, noise and all noise…
Another ingredient in the credibility that the party enjoyed at the grassroots lay in the fact that its constituencies were patient, waiting that hope [for a better tomorrow] would show up, only to witness young boys and girls from nowhere living ‘good’ just for learning to talk big. Are these safe constituencies still truly safe 2024?
The Oti Region chief who expressed regret at communities in his area not giving seats in the region to the NPP before a large crowd speaks volumes. That is aside of other such sentiments being expressed in the northern regions. That’s why the NDC Council of Elders should be thinking ‘tomorrow’ instead of ‘noise,’ before barking dogs and stray sheep rock the boat.
Engaging
Yes, it is time, in the opinion of Papavi for someone in the NDC to speak out, in the name of patriotism and good governance and, particularly, since parties are public institutions. That means open, robust engagement; sincere, heartfelt engagement that looks at the larger picture…That is, if they (Council of Elders) are worried.
- It is time for the NDC to throw out Larry Adjetey from his comfort zone into the turbulent indigenous Accra political waters of Dadekotopon to prove that he can replicate Dad PA. Not cut for that, he would argue.
