Senior members of the ruling NDC have been left bewildered at the brazen attempt
by the opposition NPP to lay claim to their party’s new campaign slogan which
was made public for the first time last week by a Deputy Minister for Local
Government, Elvis Afriyie-Ankrah.
Less than a week after the slogan, ‘People Matter, You Matter’ was
made public, the NPP has come forward to lay claim to it, a move that smacks of
daylight robbery.
Leading members of the NDC told the Daily Post that the party had
intended to outdoor the slogan at its national campaign launch which had been
scheduled for this month but after the programme was postponed, it was decided
to make it public a few days to the launch of the Odododiodio Constituency
campaign.
But the NPP says the slogan is its own and in fact the title of its
manifesto. Speaking to Joy FM yesterday, Gabby Otchere-Darko, the de
facto leader of the NPP says the party has documented evidence since August 2011
that proves it is its slogan for the 2012 elections.
According to him, the full title of the NPP manifesto is “People
Matter, You matter :Building a free and fair society of opportunities and hope
for every Ghanaian”
He claimed that the
slogan was proposed last year August and was subsequently accepted by the
Manifesto Committee on the 6th of December, 2011 in their meeting at a hotel in
Aburi.
He further narrated that the draft manifesto
bearing the slogan was presented to Akufo-Addo by Professor Yaw Twumasi in
February 2012.
Gabby said since the presentation of the draft
manifesto, there have been series of meetings by the hierarchy of the party to
improve on the contents.
However, it is
clear to the discerning that Gabby’s comments are being made as an after-thought.
Political watchers are asking why the opposition party has never made the
slogan known since August 2011 and are now suddenly claiming ownership after
the NDC has announced it as their slogan for the December elections.
Questions are also being asked about whether the NPP has abandoned the ‘all
die be die’ slogan which leading members of the party have touted as their
slogan for the elections.
It is obvious why the NPP would want to grab the slogan, “People
Matter, You Matter” from the NDC. Despised by the ordinary people of this
country because of their supremacist and ethnocentric beliefs, the only
election they have ever won by 2000 was the 1969 one after they got the
military government at the time to ban their political opponents, the CPP, from
taking part in the elections.
In the run-up to the December 2000 elections, however, realizing that
they would not be able to win as a result of the way the masses despise them, they
formed groups to hoodwink and entice the ordinary man to their cause. One of
such groups is the NASARA club which was targeted at the Zongo communities.
This somehow paid off and enabled
them win the elections that year. However, with political power in their hands,
they quickly abandoned the ordinary people they had hoodwinked to their fate by
pursuing vigorously their Property-Owning Democracy policies.
Desperate to win this year’s elections but with defeat staring them in
the face, the NPP has been trying to package itself to attract the down-trodden
as part of their winning “at all cost”. It is this desperation that has seen them
attempting a daylight robbery by claiming the NDC’s slogan, “People Matter,
You Matter” as their own.
With the aid of their hirelings in both the print and electronic media,
Ghanaians should expect the NPP to scream the loudest that the NDC slogan is
theirs. And, should the matter end up in court, the judgement that will be
delivered is everybody’s guess.
Meanwhile, information gathered by the Daily Post indicates that
the opposition party has held several crunch meetings since yesterday to devise
ways of snatching the slogan from the NDC. Proposals being considered include quickly
coming out with campaign songs that has the slogan in it