Opinions of Saturday, 7 January 2023

Columnist: Kwaku Bimpeh

The NDC still remains a scandalous political party

NDC flag NDC flag

As I lie in my bed watching and listening to the sounds of the night sky, bombarded with the frequent launching of fireworks on the 31st night, I couldn’t help but kept thinking over and over whether the NPP has been fair to Ghanaians, after being voted into power twice, first in 2016 and then in 2020.

In November 2019, I wrote an article about why ‘The NDC is a scandalous political party
(https://mobile.ghanaweb.com/GhanaHomePage/features/The-NDC-is-a-scandalous-political-party-796335)

I still stand by all the facts and information in that write-up.

I would however like to focus this write-up on the past year, which clearly has seen many highs and lows for Ghanaians, and of course, my very own NPP party, whose principles and ideas I hold dear.

The past year has clearly seen unprecedented events ranging from the NPP internal elections both locally and abroad, the NDC internal elections both locally and abroad and of course, the mightiest of all is the impact on our Ghanaian economy, as a result of both domestic and external forces which has had a direct impact on our most cherished currency, the cedi. I will address the latter in a different post.

For the NPP, the election of both their local officers and those from the external Branches went on smoothly. The NPP Party now has its’ elected and appointed officers, already planning and working towards 2024, and honouring their commitments to the good people of Ghana.

This shows nothing less than a planned political machine, with effective operators and managers who can lead, and make decisions. There were no reported violence nor litigation issues, and those who lost accepted the outcome of the elections and pledged to support the elected officers to move the Party forward.

On the NDC front, the story is quite the opposite, till now some of their external branches have not even had their own local elections! The NDC National party elections were also marred by lots of extreme violence, as evident on various social media platforms. Perhaps those involved in such violence were acting on the public pronouncement made by their former flagbearer, John Dramani Mahama, to the effect that the NDC Party has revolutionary roots, and when it comes to violence, no other political party can match the NDC. Let’s not forget what goes around does indeed come around.

But for the intervention of Former President John Dramani Mahama, the result of the NDC youth elections was sent to court by the defeated contestant who secured an injunction on the elected officials, Mr Opare Addo, to hold himself as such.

In addition, in his victory speech the newly elected Chairman of the NDC, Mr Asiedu Nketia, who has been tagged by many as very corrupt and a non-tactician, made his plans and wishes very clear to the people of Ghana. He was bold enough to proclaim while recognising that the path will not be smooth, provided an interesting solution by doing whatever it takes including sacrificing everything including lives.

The sad part for me was the poor ignorant around who kept on clapping for such pronouncements! Let’s not forget that ‘se aboa bi bekawoa, efiriwontomamu’ which translates roughly into ‘those close to you can bite you’. Did those clapping not think where or who the sacrificed might be?

This signals a broken NDC, desperate to win power at all costs to the detriment of their members and Ghanaians.

As far back as I remember, the NDC has nothing new to offer to Ghanaians.
They cannot organise a peaceful local party and international elections, let alone lead Ghana. Let’s not be naive, the NDC has voted against the majority, if not all, of some of the key commitments to the people of Ghana in Parliament, including the mighty free education policy of the NPP government.

My fellow Ghanaians, the violent NDC as a political party has nothing better to offer Ghanaians.