Ode To The NDC (3)

NDC Flag

“REARS – Rawlings-Egya Atta Reconciliation Society, ALOMO- All Loyalists of Mills Organization, VRAAM – Volta Region Admire Atta Mills. Motto : World Bank, Sure Banker!!, PRODFC – Professor Dolittle Fan Club, MAFIA – Mills and Friends in Action – Motto: Yenso Yaye Wild Paa”, DWFA – Defected Workers and Friends of Atta (they have now affiliated with FONKAR, WUSAM – Workers United in Support of Atta Mills, AWAM – Aggrieved Workers Against Mills, KSM – Konadu Supporters Movement”—Anon

In the mean time, a cursory observation can be made of the two NDC presidential candidates. Both of them are university law lecturers. Both of them claim to belong to the Nkrumahaist socialist tradition. Perhaps, the comparison ends here.

While Dr. Botchwey started with Mr. Rawlings and the PNDC, Prof Mills only got converted when the PNDC turned into NDC and Mr. Rawlings virtually lifted him from political obscurity to occupy the second most important position in this country. While the socialist ideology reflected in Prof. Mills in the simple political suits and the Filipino type shirt he wore, Dr. Botchwey dressed in some of the most expensive jeans and shirts which could make the skin of a true and dedicated socialist develop goose pimples. While Prof. Mills did professional job as a lecturer in the lecturer room, former students of Dr. Botchwey will tell you that he spent about 50% of the lecture time blasting Dr. Hilla Limann and the PNP for selling this country to the IMF and the World Bank.

Despite all the spirited attempt to distance himself from the big stick of Mr. Rawlings, Prof Mills is not fooling anybody. Prof. Mills is somebody who will feel hurt if anything bad is said about him. When he went to Kawukudi Junction and mounted the NDC platform and started behaving according to the NDC norms, Prof. Mills suddenly developed veins all over the face when people started blasting him for his uncouth language. When Prof. Mills was quoted at saying that he will consult Mr. Rawlings 24 hours a day, he never stopped burning the midnight oil while trying to stay awake to tell those who cared to listen to him that the quoted statement was not part of his prepared speech. He is not fooling anybody.

Prof. Mills will feel greatly hurt to be accused of showing ingratitude towards Mr. Rawlings. That is the lever Mr. Rawlings will always have on Prof. Mills.

Should Prof. Mills win the presidency of this country, the first thing he is likely to do is to take a trip to Aburi to consult one of the wood carvers. He will commission a wood carver to make for him a carving of the four mythical monkeys. The first monkey has covered his two ears; the second his eyes; the third his mouth and the fourth with his arms folded on his chest. The message is simple: “hear no evil, see no evil, speak no evil, be at peace with one another”.

Dr. Botchwey is likely to prove opposite to Prof. Mills should he win the presidency. He knows the good things in life and knows how to go after them. He could be ruthless and send 80% of the population to the grave if that would mean bringing the inflation rate, interest rate and the exchange rate down. The first thing Dr. Botchwey is likely to do as a president is to commission Prof. Ablade Glover of Nungua to make a painting  of a Red Indian chief going to war with his warriors. The picture will show the warriors at the receiving end of the enemies, with the chief sitting on his horse ready to flee with a safe distance between his suffering warriors and his horse and with a shrill cry of “FLEE” coming from his mouth.

Can the people of this country put their destiny into the hands of either Prof. Mills or Dr. Botchwey? To me that is the wrong question to ask. The issue is not whether Prof. Tampico or Dr. Black Mamba will win the presidency. When the NDC was in full flight, it harboured too many people whose appearances on television screens brought blood pressures up or down. Despite the hatred people had for the godfather, his gestures and actions anytime he appeared on the television screens provided much needed comic relief.

On the other hand, the appearance of the mistress of the house on television screens proved so provocative that her moment of appearance reminded viewers the need to visit the washroom for one reason or the other.

Today, there are too many NDC activists who brought so much untold hardship to the good people of this country. Some corrupted the system and grossly benefitted from it. They are still around. The Fast Track Court remains a constant danger to their well being. Today, if the NDC should win power, Ghana will become Mexico. The NDC is likely to manipulate all the rules to enable it to remain in power for the next 50 years. While Prof. Mills is likely to treat the existing laws with benign neglect to help perpetuate the NDC rule, Dr. Botchwey is likely to show proactive tendencies leading to the same course. While Prof. Mills will have the carving of his mythical monkeys on his table, Dr. Botchwey will hang the painting of his Red Indian chief directly behind him in his office.

The NDC will need not less than twelve years to purge itself of all the people who virtually brought so much injustice, corruption, indiscipline to us. Today, now that the NDC is in hell, somebody needs to remind the party of that quotation from the Holy Qur’an.

Post script: Obviously, President Kufuor did a lot of favour to the NDC and a lot of disservice to the nation when his NPP administration managed to lose power to the NDC after only eight years in government.

The NDC, which needed at least twelve years to purge itself of all the enfant terrible within its rank, shot back to power with vengeance within eight years of losing power due to the benign neglect  and incompetence of an administration in which many Ghanaians had put so much hope and welcomed with massive enthusiasm.

At a time when what the country needed was a benevolent dictator, the Kufuor administration hid its shortcomings and incompetence in governance and its inability to fight corruption and indiscipline under the guise of being a benign democrat.

Today, the NPP apparatchik talks of the good works of President Kufuor. Who slaughters his female fowl for the fun of it? Why did the NPP lose the 2008 elections? It is quite clear the NPP has never critically analysed the reasons why it lost power to the NDC. The pitfall which the NPP continues to fall into from which it might never recover is that the NPP tends to use the Rawlings NDC administration as a standard to measure Kufuor’s NPP administration’s achievement, quite an uncanny comparison.

How do you compare yourself to a disastrous failure or use a disastrous failure as a standard of measurement? I shall always hold the belief that President Kufuor’s NPP administration was a failure for all the opportunities it had to turn this country round but failed to seize them to advantage of the nation.

Tel: 027 – 7588256

E-mail: makgyasi@ug.edugh

By Kwame Gyasi