Opinions of Monday, 22 December 2008

Columnist: Damptey, Daniel Danquah

Are Ghanaians Heading Towards The Land Of Canaan or Egypt?.

In Exodus chapter 14, we read that after Pharaoh had allowed the Israelites to depart from the land of Egypt, his heart was hardened again and he and his elders regretted the decision and so decided to chase them and bring back into slavery.

They chased them. At this time the Israelites had reached the Red Sea. And when they raised their eyes, they saw Pharaoh and his army pursuing them. Moving forward became impossible for there was the Red Sea. They could also not go backwards for the Egyptians were behind them. The Israelites were therefore between the devil and the deep blue sea. It was then that they started murmuring against Moses and God. They accused Moses of bringing them out of Egypt to be killed. They asked why they should be brought from Egypt, for at least they didn’t have much problem serving as slaves in Egypt. Moses told the people not to fear for the Lord would do their battle for them. “The Egyptian you see today will not be seen again”.

The lord instructed Moses to raise up his hands and point his rod at the Red Sea. As soon as he did that the sea divided into two to permit the Israelites to pass through. Pharaoh and the Egyptian army seized the opportunity and attempted to cross the sea in pursuit of the Israelites. The Lord brought many calamities to the Egyptians and when the last Israelite had crossed, the lord ordered Moses to once more stretch his hand on the sea. As soon as he did that the water now came back and covered the Egyptians and their armament. That is the way of the Lord and nobody understands how he moves or does his things. There is a lesson we can learn from the above extract and it is that human beings, especially Ghanaians have very short memory. “S? Akok? didi wie na ne wer? afiri akr?mah. (If the hen eats to its satisfaction, it loses it guard and forgets that the hawk is hovering around looking for an opportunity to pounce on it.

The NDC symbolizes the land of Egypt and Pharaoh is represented by the Rawlings and Mills. The Moses of our time is President Kufuor who will soon hand over to Joshua as symbolized by Nana Addo Dankwa Akuffo Addo.

It is a pain to the heart that inspite of the hardship we went through under the draconian regime of Rawlings and Mills, Ghanaians like the Israelites in the land of Egypt are still yearning for those evil days. But I am not surprised. God allows certain things to happen to us in so that his greatness, goodness and power would be made manifest. The Lord allowed the NDC to have many seats in parliament so that they would become overconfident and proud and challenge their “chi” to a fight. By their pyrrhic victory, the NDC has become reckless and is making all sorts threatening and inflammatory statements as if all powers have been given to it. If not why should Asiedu Nketia, General Secretary of the NDC say that as soon as Kufuor hands over to them by 1:30 pm, the NDC will close all borders(land, sea and air) so that no top NPP activist can escape. Kufuor would then be put under House Arrest. You see the Lord asked Moses to tell the Israelites to remain quiet and look up unto Him for “the Egyptians we see today would be seen no more.”

How can someone say Mills is his own man? Did anyone cajole Mills into admitting that he would consult Rawlings every single second of the day? Obviously, the answer is a big “no”. And true to type, Mills has been doing so ever since he was foisted on the party, first as a Vice Presidential Candidate and later as Presidential Candidate - all thanks to the greatest bully that ever bestrode the corridors of political power.

“Birds of the same feathers”, the saying goes, “congregate together”. It wasn’t for nothing that Rawlings brought Mills into prominence when he made him his vice and later gave him the choicest part of the chicken much against protestations of long serving and committed party men and women. Let’s cast our minds back to the launching of the party’s manifesto at the Trade Fair Site this year. What did Rawlings do when Mills was holding the microphone and addressing party supporters? Rawlings snatched the microphone from Mills hands and the latter looked on sheepishly without uttering a word.

What about the national award Mills was nominated for? Having given his word that he would attend, he reneged on the promised after he might have been warned by Rawlings not to accept. Remember the song, “Let your yea be yes and your no be no”? There are numerous things Professor Mills has either done or not done which give us cause for concern when the issue of his bid for the highest office of the comes for discussion.

Was Mills not in the Castle, the seat of Government when the poor, battered, and crying innocent victim, Djentu O”Sullivan was brought there and held by fierce looking soldiers who used broken bottles and rusty blades [which might have been contaminated] to shave off his hair? A serious matter of such magnitude was turned into a joke when Mrs. Rawlings referred to it as “identification mark”. Trade mark indeed!

Up till now, Mills has not deemed it expedient to comment on it nor apologize to the victim whose only “crime” was to call off the relationship with the President’s daughter when word got to him that she was cheating on him. But how could a bloody civilian and for that matter decide to dump the daughter of he and she who must be obeyed at all times? It had to be the other way round, so Mr and madam President reasoned. And so the command was given to soldiers to teach him a lesson he would never forget.

Next comes the issue involving the abduction of an old man from the comfort of his room at Labadi, and taken to the ‘Holy Gardens” at the Circle where he was tortured to death by the late W/O Salifu Amankwa. The culprit was sentenced to death but our Rawlings in his “solomonian” wisdom pardoned him. Mills is yet to make a statement on this extra-judicial killing We have also not forgotten the demolition of a Hotel building in the Airport Residential Area on the eve of its opening by agents of Rawlings and Mills. Till date, we are yet to hear the views of our learned professor on the matter; And John Evans Atta Mills is a member of the learned fraternity.

It will also interest readers to know that the Ghana Bar Association has set aside a day to be observed as “Martyr Day” by all its members. Professor Mills is one of the few members who have not participated in any of the activities earmarked for that day. Why? Can the learnerd Professor give us at least a reason why he has gone against the resolution of an association of which he is a member? It is an uncontestable fact that Rawlings has been fanning the embers of ethnicity in the country. Yet Mills and the NDC look on helplessly and sheepishly as the former President, behaving like a bull in china’s shop tells the people of the Volta Region not to vote for the NPP because it is the party for Ashantis. But when a chief takes a stand, NDC members crucify him. Sometimes, I don’t understand these NDC people. It is like the poem Logaligi logarithms by Atukwei Okai. Rawlings tells people that if one goes to Kumasi, he can only see the red flags of Kotoko, forgetting that there are other football clubs in Kumasi. As if that is not enough, he tells the people of Nima to elect indigenes as constituency executives. To Akwatia he next went with the same message of destabilization – that the constituency should not present Baba Jamal as the party’s parliamentary candidate, and that if any northerner wants to contest any elective position in the party, such a person should go the North where they rightly belong.

Till date, Mills has made no comment, and the NDC as a party, including the Northerners who were being denigrated have pushed the issue to the background and acting as if everything was well with the party.

If Mills were to be in control of affairs of the party, he would have taken relevant steps to nip all these reckless statements in the bud. Just last weekend, Rawlings was invited to a reception at the Japanese Embassy and he exclaimed “I’m back!” Back to where? Power, of course! It would have been better if he had said, “we‘re back”. Who will hold in check this Khrushchev of a man? Only the people’s power can!

Now the NDC swims in the accolade of Professor Mills being “Asomdwehene”. The party claims the title was given to him by the masses. Now these same masses are saying, he is not his own man, but an appendage of the ex-president and the party is attempting to repudiate it . Why?

Now to the Hit List. The NDC is denying that any such list exists. But a dress rehearsal of what the party plans to do is unfolding. One, Dzidzor Tay sent a threatening text message to Frances Essiam on 24th November, 2008. The message read: “You can let e police protect u or run 2 e radio stations. I don’t care. Let e coffee shop mafias protect u, I don’t give a f. Watch out” Frances knew immediately the author of such message. Having been a top member of the Nefarious Destructive Cancer, she has the phone numbers of some of their people and straight away she mentioned Dzidzor Tay as source of the mail. And when the number was dialed, lo and behold the woman picked up the call. You see how nature works.

We should enact the scenario of what would have happened if the nefarious activities of the NDC had succeeded during the celebration of a festival as peaceful as the Akwasidae at Manhyia Palace last Sunday. In fact, that was to be the first stage of Plan A. Kufuor, Nana Addo and most members of the NPP and others who had been marked or slated for elimination were present. What a better way to carry out such a plot! But our God is Alive. He that keepeth the Ghanaian is neither dead nor asleep.

What about the NDC spy who acted as camera man and managed to infiltrate the ranks and file of Nana entourage? And when he was caught instead of handing over the film clip as demanded by the NPP, he resisted. It was in an attempt to retrieve the film from him that he was injured.

Even though, two wrongs do not make a right, I would like to refer readers to what Asiedu Nketia and Kwabena Adjei said during one of their inner party meetings at the Kuku Hill office of Professor Mills. They warned the NDC members whom they suspected to be fifth columnists amongst them and thought to be spying for the NPP that if they were caught, their punishment would be worse than the atrocities visited upon AFRC convicts.

I, at this stage appeal to my Christian and Moslem brothers and sisters. Let us not forget what would happen to our leaders if the NDC finds itself in power. Do not give your votes to those who don’t believe in the existence of a Supreme Being called God. After all, the founder of the NDC has shown his disdain towards God by saying, “ I do not fear God”. Ohene Agyekum, Ashanti Regional Chairman of the Nefarious Contraption, in full view of the watching public{TV] brought out two ‘ohene agyekums’ [eggs], a bottle of Schnapps and some leaf and invoked the antoa nyama deity to kill some NPP members he claimed had told lies about the NDC. Do you give power to those whose dictionaries and vocabularies are devoid of forgiveness? The written records of the Nefarious Destructive Cancer drip with Ghanaian blood.

Fellow Ghanaians, do the right thing. A vote for the NDC is tantamount to elimination of the Mensah Otabils, the Aboagye Mensahs, the John Agyekum Kufuors, the Kwaku Baakos, the Baby Ansabahs, the Ken Kuranchies, the Akufo Addos, the Courage Quarshigas, the Sam Korankye Ankras, the Kwame Sefa Kayis, the Francis Essiams, the Alan Kyeramantens, the Palmer Buckles and a host of others. Do the right thing. Vote Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo Addo and the Ghana our forefathers toiled for would be safer for you and me.

I cannot end this piece without referring to the lies and deceit being perpetrated by the NDC. You see, the party is yet to renounce violence as its official policy. Immediately after the elections, NDC agents hit the town, claiming that they had won the election and unleashed violence on their political opponents. Could you imagine that Mr Kwasi Yeboah, former Volta Regional Minister was held hostage and nearly lynched by supporters of the NDC and had to be rescued by the Volta Region Security Task Force on Elections? Well, if such a thing could happen to a former Regional Minister, I wonder what they would do to those of us who have taken such a strong stand against the NDC.

This brings me to in incident that happened when the Akwatia issue was being discussed on Metro TV during the newspaper review segment of Good Morning Ghana a few days ago. The discussants were Alex Segbefia and Kwabena Agyapong. Now hear the mother of all lies. Alex Segbefia stated with emphasis that one of the ballot boxes was retrieved from the house of the constituency chairman of the NPP and when the ballot papers were counted, there was not a single vote for the NDC. The most surprising thing was that the ballot box was taken from the Zongo which was their stronghold.

I said, hold it there, Alex. Please, give us a break and come out with the true facts. Six ballot boxes were snatched by macho men imported from Chad, Mali and Burkina Faso by Baba Jamal and the NDC. They were led by people from Akwatia. Two of the ballot boxes were smashed and had their contents spilled all over the place. The other four, including the one from the Zongo were not counted because their seals were tampered with This is the simple truth and any body from Akwatia and Kade would tell you that. There was no occasion that any of the six boxes were counted

Another big lie the NDC told was that they won the Ayawaso Central Parliamentary seat and Sheik I.C.Quaye insisted the ballot papers should be counted and on each occasion, Sheik lost until the fifth time. The question is, where did the winning papers for Sheik come from during the fifth count? The truth of the matter is that it was the NDC supporters who went to town with the news that their candidate had won. This was before collation was done. After collation, Sheik was victorious and it was the NDC which asked that the collation be done and on each occasion Sheik I.C.Quaye won. There was no time that the ballot papers were recounted. This could only be done by a court order. And so you see the true nature of the Nefarious Destructive Cancer.

Now, something funny for you. I learnt some of the monies which were distributed by the NDC to influence the voting pattern have turned out to be fake. Ha! Ha! Haa!!

In conclusion, let me reiterate the fact that we of the NPP have remained focused and quiet inspite of the numerous provocations on us by the NDC. We are looking up to the Lord for deliverance and we believe he would do so, come December 28, 2008. Let all be vigilant on that day and the Good Lord will never forsake us.

Nana and Bawumia all the way! Let us move forward and victory will be ours. Let us not look backward else we all become pillars of Salt as happened to the wife of Lot. We shall move forward. We shall not surrender. NPP all the way! God bless you all good people of Ghana as you make a wise and informed decision.

Daniel Danquah Damptey

Danieldanquah_damptey@yahoo.com 0243715297