Rumor Mill of Wednesday, 4 January 2006

Source: Ghanaian Lens

NPP?s Move To Sponsor New Party Falls Into Water

Credible information gathered by The Ghanaian Lens over the weekend indicates that the stories that Ben Ephson?s Dispatch has been carrying for a while to the effect that a new political party will be formed is nothing but a well calculated kite flying agenda by the NPP and the coffee shop mafia to test the waters and create the opportunity for such a thing to happen.

The stories the Dispatch has been churning is to prepare the minds of whomever it is they hope to reach for the eventual break away of the few opportunistic elements from the NDC in pursuance of the NPP?s agenda to keep the largest opposition party divided.

Just like their forebears the UP did to the CPP after they helped overthrow Nkrumah, the NPP is hell bent on dismembering the NDC hoping that by so doing, they can perpetuate their stay in power even when it is very obvious that their visionless agenda has led the country down the path of destruction.

According to Ghanaian Lens sources within the national security apparatus, the NPP has been working very hard for about a year now to get some members of the NDC to breakaway and form a new party.

In fact, certain actions of some former key members of the party are all geared at creating the right atmosphere for the formation of a new political party. The NPPs agenda hit a crescendo when most of the horses they backed failed to cross the finishing line at the NDCs congress at Koforidua. The NPP, since the end of the congress, has intensified their move to get certain pained members of the NDC to walk out on the party.

Unfortunately for the NPP, some of the people they hoped to get to break away from the NDC were only taking advantage of the period leading to the congress and collecting huge sums of free kickback money from the NPP.

Truth to be told, a handful of MPs who were leading the NPP on, know that their very survival as politicians depends on their continued stay in the fold of the NDC. The MPs are no oblivious of the fact that there is no way they would be able to get a single vote in their constituencies if they dare leave the NDC and join a new and unknown political tradition.

One of the NDC MPs on whom the NPP hinged their hopes to lead the defection spoke to the Ghanaian Lens. According to the MP ?does the NPP think that I am stupid to leave the NDC at this point in time? After the way the NDC marshaled its forces and won the Asawase and Odododiodio bye-elections, coupled with the fact that Ghanaians are sick and tired of the NPP?s misrule, if myself and my colleagues defect, I can bet my last penny that the NDC will reclaim all the seats?.

Said the MP further ?I am too young to start committing political suicide. The NPP had lots of money to give out so some of us just played along and I can assure you that I have quite a fat bank account. Besides, after what they did to Kofi Asante, promising the world and leaving him hanging, it does not make sense to defect from the NDC to join a new party. As far as I am concerned, the NDC has spoken with one voice and we must all respect the verdict and unite for victory in 2008?.

Ben Ephson and the coffee shop mafia however still seem very optimistic that a new party will be formed sooner than later so we wait to see the people who will be members of the party. The Ghanaian Lens can assure Ben Ephson, Kwaku Baako and co that if a new party will be formed, it would not comprise any straight thinking member of the NDC.

If it is the likes of Frances Essiam that are going to be members of the new party, the Ghanaian Lens can only feel sorry for that party because it will die before its birth.