Fellow Ghanaians, it was Victor Hugo, the French literary war fighter, the Romanticist to be exact, who said that, “it is not easy to keep silent when silence is a lie!” And in his immortal words, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr said, “there comes a time when silence is betrayal.”
Agreeably, these are not the best of times in our clime. The Ghanaian political climate looks very bleak, gloomy and hopeless due to political bickering and bigotry of alarming proportions.
According to Winston Churchill, “a fanatic is the one who can’t change his mind and won’t change the subject. And that, “an appeaser is one who feeds a crocodile – hoping it will eat him last.”
There’s no gainsay the government of Ghana is feeding a huge alligator, and probably it is its leadership it will eat at last.
One of the moonlight tales I enjoyed listening to over and over again from my grandma growing up, was a story about a certain epic war between Fools and Blind men which I believe is playing out non-fictionally between the National Democratic Congress and the New Patriotic Party.
Once upon a time, a group of Fools and Blind men decided to go to war to settle their endless discord. The venue was decided and the date and time agreed upon.
On the D-day, the blind men happened to get to the location earlier waiting for their enemies to show up.
Unfortunately, where they congregated was under a big mango tree that had very riped mangoes.
Amid their anxiousness, wind blew and some ripe mango plugged and dropped on the leader. Without hesitation, he announced and commanded with ferocity: “our enemies have arrived, attack!” Then they got up and engaged one another, fighting to kill!
Interestingly, when the Fools arrived in the battle scene little later and saw how ferocious the blind men were fighting among themselves, they thought it was only in a training session. So, the leader of the Fools yelled, “guys! we must retrieve! If this is their rehearsal session, I can’t imagine what they can do to an enemy when the war starts.”
That was how the blind men won the war having killed one another because nobody could tell them to stop for they were fighting themselves due to a drop of a ripe mango on their leader.
Fellow Ghanaians, the NPP government is in a war with itself because “a ripe mango” fell upon President Akufo Addo. Unfortunately, unlike the Fools, their “enemies” the NDC is not ready to retrieve. President Mahama is enthusiastic with unbroken resolve to wait and “finish” the survivors of Nana Akufo Addo’s government’s war against itself.
The adamance of the Electoral Commission to compile a new register at all cost with a skewed and grossly lopsided depopulated voters, is nothing more than a Frankenstein monster created by the NPP.
Unbelievably in this whole issue, is the lackadaisical attitude of Ghanaians especially traditional leaders and opinion leaders.
The government has refused to listen to wise counsel from impartial intellectuals in the country. Yet, the real rulers of the people, traditional leaders, have been quiet over this dangerous path the Independent EC (may Allah forgive me for combining such two words together) is dragging this country on.
Talking of the traditional rulers, I wonder the spell cast upon the National Peace Council today. Every man seems to be under the jackboot and manipulation of the influential political capos. Majority of the kings and chiefs have been silenced with gifts by politicians.
Was it not shameful that the National House of Chiefs was divided along political lines regarding the rendering of MMDCEs partisan?
Was it not equally disgraceful, that the Peace Council came out at a breakneck speed to condemn President Mahama’s “boot-for-boot” comment but has since been missing in this gross logical mistake on the part of government in tandem with the EC to compile voters register with a miasma population data?
You see, “tact is the ability to tell someone to go to hell in such a way that he or she looks forward to the trip!” Politics in Ghana has tactically blindfolded every independent-minded man and institutions in this country. The beginning of our wahala.
In Dagbani we say, “lana piligu ka a yen-bang ni din ning poli”. It is in the cradle one may tell the size of a scrotum is capable of developing into hernia or not.”
One thing President Akufo Addo overly spoke about in his speeches immediately after the 2016 presidential election, was his consistent acknowledgments of President Mahama’s conduct to our democracy being a plus.
In his acceptance speech after President Mahama called him to concede defeat, he spoke about his amazing conduct; During his inaugural speech, he reminded Ghanaians about president Mahama’s conduct; In his first State of the Nation Address, he hammered on the character of the former President after the election.
President Akufo Addo on many platforms saluted the conduct of former President Mahama after the election. Fellow Ghanaians, one may have thought the President was simply giving credit where it was due for the statesmanship and responsibility president Mahama provided after the election. But I think we were dead wrong! It is now that the reality is dawning upon us about president Akufo Addo’s perpetual compliments heaped upon the former President.
President Akufo Addo was simply hinting that, had it been him he would never have conceded defeat to become a one-term president! So, he was therefore taken aback at the meek and relaxed posture of President Mahama, because perhaps were he the one he would have continued to hold on to power by every possible or impossible means.
The reality is now obvious for all to see. In fact, there’s no fear of contradiction that it is the same reason the President has decided to go on with the compilation of the new voters register by hook, or by crook despite the implications looming! Because he has beheld defeat staring him in the face after a colossal failure of his government.
According to the quintessential USA inventor, Thomas Alva Edison, “show me a thoroughly satisfied man and I would show you a failure.” There has never been a government in the annals of Ghana’s history that is not only intellectually thoroughly satisfied of themselves but brimming with pomposity of governmental muscle like the current NPP administration under President Akufo Addo and his gathering of angel ministers.
For the record, I’m not against making our electoral process being made democratically credible. I am against a jaundiced attempt to rig election in the name of getting rid of a so-called bloated register with a fraud register.
The question is, isn’t the new voters register already bloated on arrival, if chunkiest of Ghanaians are going to be disenfranchised?
Won’t it amount to an exercise in futility if nothing is done to avoid the same circumstances that rendered the current voters register bloated with the yet to be compiled voters register?
Nevertheless, the NPP could be shooting itself in the foot if they continue with the exercise for three reasons.
One, if the number of cases of the novel corona virus continue to increase in the greater Accra and the Ashanti Regions, there’s going to be possible curfew or another partial lockdown in those Regions with consideration of the compilation of the new register, no doubt, as one of the essentials. The government indeed would have the power to determine what is essential but the people can decide for themselves. Hence, there’s likely going to be low turnout in the Ashanti Region in particular, which would be an electoral bloody nose for the NPP should they proceed with the exercise.
Again, there’s the expectation of NPP’s votes to dwindle significantly in the Ashanti Region due to the internal political cannibalism which got the General Secretary Kwabena Agyei Agyapong and Company, indefinitely suspended. Followers of his and his colleagues who sympathised with the NPP, would embark on an electoral sit down strike on the election day.
Also, the continuous sidelining and political ostracization of some prominent members of the party who labored laboriously to bring the NPP to power, has the tendency to bring about voter apathy in that “political IMF” of the NPP. And there’s no two ways about that.
There are dire and bitter electoral consequences to be learnt by the Akufo Addo government in this year’s election in the Ashanti Region, their stronghold. Therefore, targeting the population of the Region to win by disenfranchising majority of voters in NDC’s strongholds, can backfire big time!
The last thing that would hunt down the NPP in this year’s election, is their seemingly lost of confidence in God who undoubtedly gave them the power in 2016.
President Akufo Addo and his party appear to have forgotten that it was not their strategies which brought them to the Flagstaff House! To the NPP, the battle is no longer the Lord’s in 2020 because they have everything State under their watch. That defines their unfortunate Machiavellian politicking having adopted every foul means, including character assassination, intimidation of their political opponents, and gagging of the media through “terror” and peddling thousand and one falsehood to Ghanaians.
The NPP is really committed to burning down a house in order to get rid of a salamander!
Fellow Ghanaians, “the word which God has written on the borrow of every man is Hope.” Let’s keep hope alive, and pray for peace before, during, and after the elections.
Let’s pray to God to entrust Ghana in the hands of those leaders who would not squander our tax and bully us in addition.
May Allah appoint for us leaders who are compassionate and passionate about our real welfare. May Allah snatch from or deny, the leadership of this country, those crooks who only do more in order to steal more through kickbacks!
I leave you with the words of Victor Hugo again, when he said, “Civil War? What does that mean? Is there any foreign war? Isn’t every war fought between men, between brothers?”
May Allah take care of every war-monger.
Barka Da Sallah to all Ghanaians.
Abdul Hakeem Iddrisu,
The Young Prof.
Contact: 0261669954 (What’s Up Only)/0557762967
