By Dr. Michael J.K. Bokor

E-mail: mjbokor@yahoo.com

Friday, November 24, 2011

The persistent issuing of threats by NPP activists has reinforced the horrible image that their political camp has. Of course, once perceived as a leopard, the NPP is not expected to shed off its dark spots. The party has deep roots in the tradition of violence, beginning from the pre-independence era through the anti-Nkrumah bomb-throwing escapades to what its functionaries are fast taking on these days as their tool for solving problems militating against their bid to return to power.

From open declarations that the party will match the NDC boot-to-boot in causing mayhem regarding the 2012 elections to disturbing utterances bordering on acts to cause instability, these NPP activists seem to know no bounds. Apparently, their flagbearer, Akufo-Addo, has already set the tone for them through his senseless war-cry of “All die be die,” which they seem to have latched on to in intensifying their campaign of threats and aggressiveness.
Coupled with their national chairman, Jake Obetsebi-Lamptey’s battle-cry and Kennedy Agyapong’s declaration that the NPP will turn Ghana into “Rwanda” if the NDC rigs the 2012 elections, these utterances create only one big nasty impression about the NPP, which is DESPERATION. But why should the NPP be so desperate as to turn national politics into a war situation?
The latest show of that belligerence and desperation has come from Kennedy Kamkam, the Ashanti Regional Organizer of the party, who has been reported as issuing a stern warning to the Electoral Commission to “stop siding with the ruling government in a bid to rig the 2012 elections.”
Accusing the Electoral Commission of fuelling electoral violence by not accepting the verification process as requested by the opposition for the 2012 elections, Kamkam is quoted as saying on a Kumasi-based radio station (OTEK FM) that Ghana will have two presidents come January 2013.
He warned that if the result of next year’s election does not favour Akufo-Addo and the NPP, the party will ensure at all cost that Nana Addo becomes President.
As he put it, “We have a lot of followers in the Ashanti Region who are willing to support the NPP in its agenda. If Christian groups and other civil society organizations have all called on the EC to ensure the verification process is put in place before the 2012 elections and the EC is still adamant, then we will do all we can to ensure fair play” he said in an interview on Adom TV’s BADWAM show on Multi TV (MyJoyFm, November 24, 2011).

According to him, the Electoral Commission is playing pranks with Ghanaians by siding with the government to rig the 2012 elections. “The EC should not try us” he warned, “If they want to assist the NDC to rig the elections, then they are in for trouble. We will fight them with the last drop of our blood. It is so clear that the EC is gradually planning chaos towards 2012 and we are ready for them” he added.
I condemn Kankam in the strongest terms for issuing such vain threats, which can come from such treacherous elements who deceive themselves that they are the only people destined to rule Ghana. Having assessed all these threats coming from these misguided NPP operatives, I have no doubt that they have already sensed something ominous awaiting them at the 2012 elections which they want to deflect with such threats.
As if often said, if a blind man says that he will stone you, it means he has the stone handy, probably under his foot to pick and cast at you. Is the NPP that proverbial blind man?
What emboldens these NPP activists to make them so foolhardy as to issue such threats? Where do they think they have the power and resources to take on a whole government and its security apparatus as they seek to bulldoze their way into office? Where will their “stone” come from? Or do they think that they have sympathizers or internal collaborators in the security services to help them prosecute their agenda? Or that they have trained their own security personnel (probably based in the Ashanti Region) for that purpose?
I don’t want to think that these NPP activists threatening mayhem here-and-there know the extent to which their arrogance and misguided conduct are pushing national politics. And to imagine that this Kankam can boldly say that the NPP has a huge following in the Ashanti Region to help it fulfill its agenda of confronting the security establishment of the country is nauseating.
We know that the Ashanti Region is the birth-place and source of nutrition for the NPP. After all, the NPP is nothing but an Ashanti-dominated party. One is not in the least surprised that Kankam will identify that support base as the source from which to draw the trouble-makers. But the Ashanti Region is an integral part of Ghana, not under the control of the NPP but the government of the day.
By his unguarded utterances, Kankam has certainly revealed something serious that must be taken up by the security services for thorough investigation. It is good for us to know who those supporters are and the extent to which they have prepared themselves to visit hell-fire and brimstone on the country in the pursuit of their agenda to install the NPP in office even if the election results determine otherwise.

What has happened so far in the electioneering process suggests that the NPP isn’t succeeding in its outreach programmes. I suspect strongly that their Presidential Candidate hasn’t been able to sell himself to the electorate so far; hence, he and his followers are already scared by the dark clouds that have begun hanging over him, meaning that the NPP will have to find ways and means to either prepare itself for a humiliation or to save its face through anarchy. The latter option seems to be appealing to its functionaries, and the threats that are emanating from them confirm my conjecture.
Looking at the haphazard manner in which Akufo-Addo’s door-to-door campaign (dubbed the “Listening to the People” tours) has been carried out—and considering the abrupt manner in which it ended (Or is it still being done on the quiet?)—I can only assume that nothing beneficial has emerged so far to tilt the scale in his favour.
At least, the negative fallouts from such door-to-door interactions and the persistence of the campaign of vilification against him by his political opponents seem to be dominating anything about him, which must have dampened his spirits and given his supporters an inkling of what awaits them in December 2012. The cowards that they are, they’ve chosen the easiest way out—needless intimidation and threats of violence!
The failure to register the expected impression on the electorate foreshadows an electoral defeat for Akufo-Addo. To avert anything of the sort, the NPP’s functionaries have resorted to these threats. It is not as if their call for the mechanism for verification of the electoral register and voters will be the panacea to their dwindling fortunes. They are just using this as a ruse to foment trouble.
What is it about this biometric registration that they think favours the NDC? Or what have they seen about the voters’ register that alarms them about the 2012 elections as far as the NDC’s chances are concerned? Are these NPP functionaries suggesting that there are more NDC voters on the register than they can get to root for their party?
I can’t wait to see what happens next year as the elections are held. Indeed, Ghana will be an interesting place to live in, especially if the NPP loses the elections, blames the EC for it, and unleashes its violence on the system. Of course, they can’t blame the NDC for that matter because the NDC will enter the elections to win and will, therefore, be expected to release all it has in its power to undermine the NPP.
To make matters worse for them, this line of politicking isn’t the solution to their credibility problems. They can’t win over voters with such threats. On the contrary, they will repel them. I don’t think that the voters will be prepared to be held to ransom. They know what to do and will do just that on the Election Day. If the NPP functionaries have enough justification to doubt the credibility of the electoral process, they have better means to register their discontent than resorting to empty threats of the sort that we are bombarded with day-in-day-out.
I am baffled by this constant recourse to vain threats and alarmist utterances by these NPP followers. In all these instances, they are behaving as if they are immune to the harm that their mayhem will cause. If they succeed in fomenting trouble, how sure are they that they will escape harm?
It is only fools who will behave the way they are doing things. What will they gain out of mayhem in the country? Or, if they install their Akufo-Addo as a parallel President of Ghana, where do they think he will establish himself to rule a country in turmoil? In the Ashanti Region?
We are waiting impatiently for that occasion. The time has come to ask them to bring on the fight. Those among them who are so full of themselves as to think that they are the cream of the Ghanaian society who must rule the country will have the shock of their lives.