The National Democratic Congress will stand, President Mills will be firmed and the Rawlingses will prevail, but the invisible hands and the conspirators will fall on their own dagger. Comrades, forward we must move with no sentimentality. Edward Bernays was once of the view that society could not be trusted to make coherent and informed decisions on their own, and that guiding public opinion was indispensable within any democratic society. Based on this conviction he founded the Council on Public Relations. His objective was to manipulate unconscious and uncritical minds in an effort to achieve desired effects such as a capacity to manufacture mass social adherence in support of products, political candidates and social movements.

In fact, today societies (governments, corporations and humans) have been impacted hugely upon by the idea that was generated some years back by Edward Bernays. You may wonder what is being driven at here! Your presumption may be as good as mine. Today,20th March 2012, I listened to a voice played on Radio Gold in Accra, Ghana, alleged to be that of the deputy general secretary of the NDC, who is also the aid to former president Rawlings, Mr. Kofi Adams. Mr. Kobby Fiagbe who claimed to have uncovered the “traitor” within the NDC may appear to be sympathetic towards the course of the NDC, but honestly I smelled fish as I listened carefully to him and to the tape. If Mr. Kobby Fiagbe wants the NDC and President Mills to secure a second term in the December elections, then I am afraid to say that his action in the media today was unfortunate.

Granted that the issues as he alleges were true, was Mr. Fiagbe’s conduct and medium used appropriate to maintain the relative peace that prevailed in the party in recent times? If Mr. Fiagbe had this information for some time now why has it become relevant now, months after congress? More importantly, why did he not choose alternative courses to bring the issue to the attention of party authorities to preserve the unity and peace of the party? What would be Mr. Kobby Fiagbe’s response to people who might see him as part of the “traitors” being sponsored by invisible hands in and without the party to sow seeds of disunity among the followers of the NDC? The fact is that Mr. Kobby Fiagbe cannot claim that his current action and the medium of presenting the issue was in the best interest of the party. In fact his action is an attempt to rekindle the already fragile situation we are all trying hard to resolve.

The NDC will stand but the conspirators and their masters will fall on their own blade.

I urge you all, the supporters and followers of the National Democratic Congress, to remain resolute and critical and should not allow yourselves to be manipulated by these selfish but invisible hands. Nations have fallen and life destroyed as a result of negative propaganda and activated ignorance mostly display in politics.

The NDC has achieved a lot. That is what we have to accept and propagate, not any other thing that does not inure to the welfare of the people of Ghana. The centuries-long history of how the media has been used to whip the nation into wartime frenzy, dehumanize the supposed enemies, and even to manipulate the public into believing in causes for war that, decades later, were admitted to be completely fictitious is still with us. Don’t believe everything you see, hear and even feel in the media, you may end up selling your family and future for nothing.

The monkey says that what hurts most is not the fact that he had been killed by the hunter, but that his flesh is being laid and advertised for the public to gleefully feast on. In the case of the NDC, the tape suggests that no monkey had been killed. Worst still, Kobby Fiagbe is not only maliciously advertising the monkey’s meat but also that he is promoting a political ponzy feast to the public.

Alexander Bediako

London