Opinions of Tuesday, 9 October 2012

Columnist: Grant,Kweku

God Is NDC!

By Kweku Grant

I can see many readers, even NDC supporters, wincing at the headline of this piece. They must be wondering ‘what the hell is this fella talking about? It is almost a blasphemy to them for anyone to even insinuate that God can be bias. In the first place, on the issue of God being an unbiased God, the bible does not support this fact. Is it not true that in the biblical days, He, who created all humans, set the Hebrews apart and dealt with them specially? Again, did Jesus not say he had come to save ONLY the lost sheep of Israel?

So, my take is simply that God is not always neutral; he has his favourites. Until somebody disproves my claim, I am sticking to the assertion that God does not treat us all equally always; that he has favourites.

Now, I am also convinced that God is NDC. It is the umbrella party that He supports in Ghana. If God is not NDC, there is no way the NDC can win any election inGhana because majority of the major stakeholders, I mean the opinion leaders, the agenda setters, the big time business men and the movers and shakers of the country have all lined up against the part The judiciary is a very powerful organ of state. In Ghana, even a simpleton knows that this organ of state is anti-NDC. They are therefore pro-NPP. Some trace the judiciary’s anti-NDC stance to the murder of the three High Court judges and the retired army officer on June 30, 1982 during the era of the PNDC. Of course, there is no evidence that the murder was officially sanctioned by the then PNDC government. What is more, those who took part in the murder, Amartey Kwei, Michael Komla Senya, Tony Tekpor and Johnny Dzandu were arrested for the murders, tried, found guilty and sentenced to death. The sentence was carried out accordingly. The only one of them who is alive is L/Cpl Amedeka who escaped from jail.

So, why should the judiciary be against the NDC because of a gruesome act that has nothing to do with the party? But unfortunately, majority of judges nurse a grudge against the NDC and this shows in their rulings.

Maybe it has nothing to do with the 1982 murders; they simply love the NPP. So, in Ghana today, an NDC person will be jailed or dealt with severely by many judges for the very crime an NPP person will be acquitted by the same court. Had God not intervened, Mr. Tsatsu Tsikata will have died in prison after the judge handling the case he was involved in turned the law upside down and jailed him. Sipa Yankey, Kwame Peprah and Ibrahim Adam were jailed by a judge who in his ruling said the accused persons did not steal, were not involved in any corrupt act and did not benefit from the scheme for which they were jailed. Yet, he jailed them!

The number of cases the NDC government has lost since coming to power has nothing to do with legal issues. It simply has to do with the judges wanting to give the ruling party a raw deal even if it means letting off the hook crooks, thieves, national saboteurs and murderers! What of our lawyers? Has the umbrella body of lawyers in Ghana, the Ghana Bar Association (GBA) not become the de facto legal wing of the NPP? When the NPP ruled Ghana from 2001 to 2008, they went mute, seeing everything right with the actions of the government. They saw nothing wrong with the NPP government arresting people in church while service was going on. They saw nothing wrong with the murder of the Ya Na, Alhaji Issa Mobila or Rokko Frimpong. They saw nothing wrong with the beating up of Ghanaians who had been demonstrating peacefully. They simply saw no evil, heard no evil and spoke no evil when the NPP was in power. Hitherto, when the NDC was in government between 1992 and 2000, the GBA hardly allowed a day to pass by without making an adverse comment about the government. And, after keeping quiet during the NPP era, they are back!

Then comes the clergy; the vast majority of them have pander to the whims and caprices of the NPP, spitting in the face of God as a result. Instead of using the pulpit to preach the word of God, they use it to preach against the NDC. Just imagine that one of them, the Rev. Asante Antwi, is a founding member of the NPP! Others like Rev. Aboagye-Mensah, Rev. Frimpong Manso and Rt Rev. Prof. Martey, Pastor Mensa Otabil, Bishop Addae Mensah and Rev. Owusu Ansah have made themselves appendages of the NPP. How they hate they hate the guts of the NDC!

What of the media? There is no gain saying that the media in Ghana is generally pro-NPP. Any visitor to Ghana who tunes in to many of the radio stations in the country will be forgiven for thinking that the NDC is headed by Lucifer himself. Almost every issue that is dealt with on these radio stations is to make the NDC look bad. Many of the half-baked journalists who parade themselves as presenters spend all their time trying to run down the NDC. The situation is no different when it comes to the print media. The Trade Union Congress is another powerful group in Ghana which has become pro-NPP. They become active and remember the rights of their members (workers) only when the NDC is in power. When the NPP is in power, the group goes to sleep. Under Mr. Adu Amankw during the era of the NPP, the TUC became a toothless bull dog. However, as soon as the NDC came to power, they began to bite.

The Ghana Union Traders Association (GUTA) is also another identifiable group that is anti-NDC and pro-NPP. Over the years, Ghanaians have witnessed with revulsion the way they sabotage an NDC government and kotow to an NPP one. Then also is the Ghana Medical Association (GMA) who have thrown the oath they took before becoming doctors to the dogs and made themselves too an appendage of the NPP.

With all these powerful bodies and many more against the NDC, the party should not have been able to win even one general election in Ghana. It should be easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for the NDC to win an election. Yet, the party still manages to win elections in Ghana and have in fact won three out of the five elections since 1992. All that the umbrella party can count on is the ordinary Ghanaian whose interest it fights for. Together with the security services, particularly the military, the NDC continues to grow from strength to strength. It isn’t as if the NDC have exactly kept faith with themselves. Some within the leadership of the party might as well be NPP supporters at heart. They prefer awarding contracts to pro-NPP businessmen than to NDC ones who contributed financially to their coming to power. They will prefer to assuage the anger of NPP foot-soldiers than NDC ones who risked their lives and limbs to bring the NDC to power. The party’s attitude to the pro-NDC media is even worse. Just see how they have given President John Mahama’s adverts out to the pro-NPP papers. So, they are virtually financing newspapers who want the NDC out of power? Anyone who defends this as a political strategy to maximize votes must be sick in the head. No one arms the enemy he is fighting against. The NPP will never give Nana Akufo-Addo adverts to the Lens, Catalyst, Democrat, Republic, Informer, Herald or the Daily Post, especially when the front-pages of these newspapers are very critical of Akufo-Addo. This is one political mistake the NPP will never do. I am ready to bet on that. What is even bizarre is that the pro-NPP newspaper got the adverts before the pro-NDC ones did. And I hear, the pro-NPP papers have been paid but the NDC ones haven’t! Sometimes, I believe someone has cast a spell on the NDC. Even a political neophyte knows that giving a newspaper opposed to one’s party adverts is a stupid political strategy but believe it or not, the so-called strategists in the NDC have a defence to put up for it!

So, the NDC itself, have some of their leaders being pro-NPP. They prefer to please NPP supporters and media than their own. Yet, in spite of this treachery, the NDC keeps surviving. If in a country, the judiciary, media, Bar, Traders Association, Medical Association, Clergy, Workers Association are all against a party, and even some of the leaders of the party are also against it, yet the party keeps winning thanks to the never dying spirit of the ordinary folks of the country, then that party must really by God’s party! I rest my case. Allow me to gulp down what is left of my hot coffee this first day of the week before it turns cold. I will catch you next week. Remember, I don’t give them Hell, I just tell the truth and they think it is Hell – Harry Truman

Kwekugrant

133@yahoo.com