Opinions of Thursday, 26 December 2013

Columnist: Young Democrats

When a political leader becomes a donkey, blame the people

The leadership of Young Democrats are highly indebted to be here with its entire membership. Before proceeding, we would like to acknowledge your presence once again. We are extremely grateful and may the Almighty Allah give us the ability, tenacity and good spirit to enable us hold our political leaders accountable. Tortimmah Ali once said, ‘‘In this world, as one lives it is good to aspire to inspire others before one expires".
The reason for your invitation is in perfect sync with the President's appraisal of his ministers. We will be extremely naked if we keep mute at the look of Hon. Alijata's current appalling performance. In fact, the abysmal performance of Hon. Alijata (the MP for Sissala East Constituency) is driving us up the wall and it is time we raised the roof. Young Democrats have this message for fellow district men and women, “Let's be bold to pull down all the stops so that our district sees development”. Let's strike! Let's join hands and put pressure on her to deliver during the remaining three years due her. Thereafter, if she then ends in smoke or fails to deliver, we will humbly kick her out in the primaries before the 2016 general elections.

To start with, the Hon. MP just as the other lawmakers accrues monies not only from her fat salary but also from other allowances including common fund to better the lives of only her family members without doing any work. Can we go for them? It suggests to us that we are creating lucrative business avenues for our politicians to better their lives and those of their families rather than working to better the lives of the entire electorate. What a pity! We (Young Democrats) ask this all-important question without any malice: ‘Can any body volunteer to tabulate the achievements of Hon. Alijata during the entire first year of her MPship?’ Thus, is our district catching up with others? The answer to the second question, backed by plentiful evidence, is a big NO! Hon. Alijata’s self-seeking activities are open and above board for all of us to know and even for the blind to see. She is never ready to move our district forward.

Young Democrats (agents for development) posted a write-up demanding the achievements of the Hon. MP in her first year which has just come to an end. Over a week now, nobody responded to the group in that regard or simply put ‘some people turned a deaf ear to this crucial request’. What pissed us off is that the Hon. MP has brothers and other relatives who attack the character of Ali Justice, our communication director, with all sorts of name-calling and untruth. Ironically, these gullible critics and bootlickers often failed dolefully to provide us with any information in that regard. What a political red herring! Are they now ashamed of themselves or are they capital hypocrites who only have vested interested in Alijata enriching herself with the poor taxpayers' monies to the detriment of the absolute majority who want development? When a political leader becomes a donkey, blame the people. You and I know the lackadaisical attitude of a donkey towards work. Unless pressure is put on it, it will never work as expected. So is Hon. Alijata! Accordingly, let’s join hands and brains to pressurize her to work.

The Hon. MP must recognize that vindictiveness is never an option in politics let alone being the best one. Thus, she needs to stop her immature and childish behaviour as well as her divisive tactics. A typical conflict-ridden and politically immature behaviour is her hand picking polling station executives, instead of the party conducting open and transparent elections to have qualified people elected to handle this important grass-root position. Also, had it not been her aggressive- and egocentric-lobbying approach to impose an incompetent person on us as the district chief executive, we would have got a capable and development-oriented person as our DCE. As at now, Sissala East is the only one out of the 11 districts in the Upper West Region without a DCE. We plead with her to kindly stop this self-centred behaviour and let’s have someone as our DCE who can strategize to deal with the challenges of our district. In consequence, we (the Young Democrats) call on you (Fellow District Men and Women) once again to let us hold water, up and doing in lieu of lame excuses and hold her accountable but fight shy or "stay clear of" of abusive words in our critique.

We would like to conclude by drawing the attention of Hon. Alijata Sulemani about the concerns raised by several communities notably Kelfuo. These communities are sincerely in need of day care centres. She should kindly provide them with such amenities within next year or at a reasonable time. We will also use this opportunity to wish her, Constituency and Ward Executives, and all patriotic Sissalas a happy Christmas and a more productive New Year in advance.
Endorsed by:
Mr. Justice Ali; Director of Communication of Young Democrats
Cell; 0204803328
Mr. Hillia Fuseini; Convener of Young Democrats
Cell: 0209131254
Frank Fuseini Kusaiu- Secretary for Young Democrats . 0208291355

Kanton Dan- Deputy Secretary for Young Democrats 0208754143