Rampaging NDC Youth: I Hope Akufo Addo’s ‘All Die Be Die’ Mantra Isn’t The Cause

An outspoken member of the ruling National Democratic Congress (NDC) and a Minister of State at the Presidency has impliedly fingered 2012 flagbearer of the New Patriotic Party (NPP), Nana Addo Danquah Akufo-Addo in the recent acts of vandalism by some irate NDC youth regarding the nomination and dismissal of some Metropolitan, Municipal and District Chief Executives (MMDCEs).

Fifi Kwetey says he hopes the NPP leader’s ‘all die be die’ mantra which has so far corrupted the opposition party is not what is accounting for the pervasiveness in the NDC and society currently.

“Extreme level of desperation where this all die be die mentality is pervading the whole country and if we are not careful children might go all die be die against parents… (Thinking) the only way to get what I want is to resort to violence. I am just hoping it is not the Nana Akufo Addo effect that has obviously corrupted the NPP that is also somehow pervading the NDC and the whole structure of the Ghanaian society…,” the Minister of State at the Presidency in charge of Financial and Allied Institutions said.

Some incensed youth of the ruling party have resorted to the burning government vehicles and destruction of other state properties in anger against the president’s choice of MMDCEs. The recent being the Nkwanta North in the Volta Region incident where 26 people allegedly took the law into their own hands in protest over the president’s decision to retain the DCE of the area, Paul Levin Gyato.

Speaking on Radio Gold, the Hon Minister condemned the ‘desperation’ among the youth and advised that they (youth) should go back to the values of the NDC.

He also attributed the uproar to the fact that a party is hopeful that when their candidate is chosen, they will benefit personally or as a group; ‘forgetting about development of the society and the country as a whole’

“…I want this battle to become a battle of wanting someone who is not going to be there in order to play the parochial business of a segment of the population in a district or society but someone who will cut across. Our politics is now too focused on what it is I can get as supposed to what it is I can do to bring change or transformation and that is the root of all these…” he said.

To resolve this, Fiifi Kwetey said the youth need to realize that “resorting to violence will never be the solution; they should rather dialogue and look for a person who will serve the general interest of the nation and not an individual or a group”.

“It simply shows that the whole local government structure has to be looked at again properly…we need to have deep thinking about how we can create a system which is far more than ‘the winner takes all’ that we have at the national level…” he added.