Managing Editor of the Bilingual Free Press Alhaji Bature is cautioning the ruling National Democratic Congress will bid farewell to power if the wrangling within the party persists.
What is more, Alhaji Bature, who also is a sympathizer of the party, says these wrangling will threaten the unity of the party if nothing is done to solve it.
“Some of us, our motivation is the unity and stability of the National Democracy, because we know that without unity, the NDC is threatened. The NDC, if it loses power, is not likely to remain a viable political party”.
“I am not seeing the differences being addressed; until those differences are addressed, I am afraid, I do not see the NDC retaining power in 2012”, Alhaji Bature warns in an interview he had on Xfm 95.1, a privately owned commercial radio station in Accra.
His concerns are based on the fact that though the vast experience of former President Jerry John Rawlings is needed in governance, he (Ex-president Rawlings) has simply been sidelined by the government.
This he says is the root cause of the foot soldiers’ agitations and other wrangling within the party; and believes is having “a telling effect on the government and governance”.
“Look, some of the issues confronting the government today, would not have come up if this problem was not there. This issue of foot soldiers; if former President Rawlings was involved in the government, can you imagine him speaking to the foot soldiers and what their response will be? Because, they listen to him, they admire him.”
“And let me tell you, many people joined the NDC because of their love for Rawlings, not the ideologies. So if the founder was to be seen to be playing some roles in government, some of these problems will not have come up,” says Alhaji Bature rather passionately.
It is in this light that he is calling on the two leaders to patch up their differences or the party risks the consequences. He is of the opinion that the problem can be solved only if President John Mills and the former first family realize that it would be in their own interest to have their differences resolved.
“It is in their own interest that they shelve their personal narrow interest and resolve the problem and come back as one big family”.
Alhaji Bature
He laments the fact that the problem, which could have been solved from the teething stage, was allowed to escalate into something big that stands to cause the NDC a second berth in government.
He mildly chastised the elders of the party who looked on almost unconcerned when the problem started, saying “but I can understand them, they were constrained and handicapped. You have the Ex-President who virtually made all the council of elders what they are… so most of them are unable to sit down and have a genuine and frank discussion with him”.
“So there has been a void, a vacuum, and this is what has created this disagreement between the Ex-president and the current President.”
“Look, I am speaking to you on authority, because I have had the privilege to interact with both sides before the NDC even came to power, and I saw this problem, but unfortunately, they did not have people who could manage those problems successfully”.
Alhaji Bature praised Mills’-led government for good governance but added that it would have been better if both factions within the party are patched up.
Source: Abena Asiedua Tenkorang/Xfm 95.1/Accra/Ghana