Opinions of Friday, 7 May 2021

Columnist: King Ofori

Fix the country tag: A clandestine NDC campaign

Some Ghanaians want to see a change in narrative Some Ghanaians want to see a change in narrative

The African continent is riddled with many puzzles of events and actions that are unfathomable. With massive under development staring at us in this modern era, it is obvious that it will take a sweep of conscious and deliberate action to reverse the negative trend.

Politics built-in democracy had been our devil infesting our very attitude into undermining our values and building a society of hate, pull him down and malice. Under development in most of Africa had been the result of ill practice politics that seeks to divide our front and apportion resources to some few opportunists at the detriment of the masses.

Come to think of it, amid a global pandemic where all nations are hard hit by economic difficulties of which Ghana is no exception, a campaign has started to put pressure on the government to start fixing the country. This is absurd and unusual and questions the very intelligence of cognitive understanding. This campaign is being fueled by NDC who are hiding behind individuals claiming they want to put the government on its toes.

This is completely absurd. Fortunately and unfortunately, social media users especially Twitter and Facebook had taken the campaign to the next level to the extent that DW TV had done a documentary on the matter. The impression is being created that Ghana is under the hard-pressed of being collapsing into the abyss.

In 2009, after the NDC assumed office, they blamed the then NPP government for mismanaging the economy. Fast down the line, they ate most of their words claiming things were not all that glittering as they perceived. They run the country the way they wanted and we were in this country when they came to announce in 2012 that the meat is left with bones. They struggled to put the economy to its health and in 2016 Ghanaians showed them the exit.

Since NPP assumed office, barely three years into office, they were hit by a global pandemic. Despite the challenges, they tried to salvage the situation by giving many basic utilities for free. We enjoyed free light, water and stable fuel prices for more than six months. Many public and civil servants stayed home without productivity and took a salary.

Closed to 200,000 teachers stayed home without productivity. The government had to bore the responsibility for all these shocks. Before the COVID, the economic indicators were good and healthy and were pointing to a booming economy in no time. Even amid the COVID coupled with the 2020 general elections, the economic indicators are far better than we have known with NDC.

The government at this point is trying to salvage the loss by retooling the economy and this call for difficult measures. Even the world biggest economies are staggering with the shocks and Ghana should not be held to ransom for trying to revamp. We bear with the current difficulties with the hikes in cement prices, fuel and other basic commodities, but all of these did not just happen on nothing.

Strangely, NDC wants to ride on these measures to revamp the economy by the government to gain political capital. They are hiding behind certain individuals to propagate a campaign to destroy the image of the government. This is a clandestine means to tell Ghanaians that they are the option to be considered for the next elections.

What is the essence of NDC criticizing the government for their political gain? If NDC should win power today, they will come and repeat or even aggravate the same mistakes that they are accusing NPP of and Ghanaians do complain about every day.

I think the best for all of us is to eschew extreme politicization of the economy and change our attitude and change it for the better Ghana instead of better NDC. This is Ghana and hypocrisy in politics is a virtue. Let support the government to succeed by changing our attitude and helping to fix the country together rather than making a flimsy case for NDC propaganda.