By: Alex Asabere, GDM, London

Last February edition of the Africa Watch Magazine published a very irritating interview made by Mr. Kwame Mpianim who claimed to be a leading member of the main opposition New Patriotic Party. In the said interview, the renowned economist launched an attack on the NPP hierarchy for legally challenging the last general elections results at the Supreme Court.

He attributed the party’s defeat to among other things ‘mental and intellectual laziness’ and as a results the party must concede defeat and prepare for the 2016 general elections. Mr. Mpianim’s interview which was ill-informed irked and incurred the wrath of all the NPP bigwigs who granted interviews both in the print and electronic media. As an international person and a politician, I believe Mr. Kwame Mpianim’s altercations cannot be allowed to die a sound one without my candid opinions. Ever since the NPP returned to the opposition in 2009, my observations towards this man in question has shown to me that, he is not the Kwame Mpianim most NPP faithful used to know him. He has indeed changed like a Chamaleon within the last four years, and the earlier he is treated as an outsider of the NPP the better. Mr. Kwame Mpianim’s first frivolous comments came during the heat of NPP Presidential primary in 2008 when Prof. Kwabena Frimpong Boateng was launching his campaign. This so called leading member of the NPP said among other things that, ‘any idiot can hold a flag’. This statement instantly over shadowed the primary and soon gained a sudden currency among the media and exposed the party to all manner of ridicule from our political opponents.

As if this was not enough stab in the back of the NPP, Mr. Kwame Mpianim later painted the late President Mills as the cleanest politician as far as bribery and corruption are concerned. He blatantly stated that, the late President did not take brown envelopes and he could stick his neck out for him. But Mr. Kwame Mpianim’s testimony on President Mills was short lived as the ‘corruptless’ Mills led a team of unprecedented fraudulent Ministers who boldly hid behind judgment debt and siphoned the state of its meagre resources. Mr. Kwame Mpianim’s last salvo is the recent one on the party’s incontrovertible evidence to battle the elections results in court. These uncharitable and deliberate comments aimed to unstable the NPP and its teeming followers have compelled me to draw these conclusions on Mr. Kwame Mpianim and I think I sound convincing with my convictions about him. Some of us still wonder if he still harbours bad feelings towards the party after he was disqualified by the NPP not to contest the 1996 presidential primary due to his incarceration at the Nsawam Prisons by the PNDC government led by Rawlings for attempted but abortive coup d’etat.

In a very democratic system of government like ours, one cannot deny anybody a free speech. However, it does not mean that if someone has nothing reasonable to say, he or she has to open his mouth in the name of free speech. If Mr. Kwame Mpianim has nothing meaningful to offer, he should be reminded that when a fool even keeps quite it in assumed he is wise.

As a respected economist, most people would have expected Mr. Kwame Mpianin to offer prudent solutions to the economic problems haunting us daily, as a result of the incompetence of the NDC government which has woefully failed to provide our basic needs like power, water and gas.

Mr. Kwame Mpianim would have sounded more prudent in the minds of the Ghanaians if he had given alternative but parallel solutions to our economic policies. His failure to do this since 2009 smells of hypocrisy, and makes some of us believe wild rumours making rounds that he is a beneficiary of the NDC since 2009. As a former UN economic kingpin, some of us who had known your investment acumen in the 70s are of the view that you can still provide some answers to the current economic challenges and your continuous silence is breeding so much suspicion.

I want to appeal to the NPP party hierarchy to crack the whip on Mr. Kwame Mpianim if he still sees himself as one of our own. His recent comments on the party’s decision to drag the President Mahama and the EC to court depicts a betrayal attitude and if he is not immediately expelled from the party, he will continue to hide behind the leading member title conferred on him by the press to destabilize the party’s unity. This is the time the party needs a united front to pursue the case to its legal conclusion. He should be dismissed from the party since elements of his calibre draw the party into abyss. However, if he has not been reintegrated into the party, the press must be told so that a better title would be conferred on him in his subsequent stories. The party must also deal with Dr. Charles Wereko Brobbery for a similar comments made. I am calling for sanctions on the two because if the due sanction is not meted out to them, some of the party members would follow their bad example, and in the long run, ditch the party’s hopes of seeking a fervent ruling from the Supreme Court.

Long Live NPP

Long Live Ghana