Collins Dauda
The National
Democratic Congress’ (NDC) worn-out tribal card game-plan is back at the front
burner as MP for Asutifi South in the Bono Region pits Northerners/Zongo
indigenes against the ruling New Patriotic Party (NPP).
Northerners and
Zongo indigenes in the NPP, according to Alhaji Collins Dauda, have no future
because they do not matter in the scheme of things in the ruling party.
He was addressing
a rally of NDC faithful in his constituency when he served notice of the direction
of his party’s campaign in the run-up to next year’s polls.
Ali Suraj ‒ one of the two NPP members who have announced their
intention to vie for the seat ahead of their party primary and his subsequent
radio programme ‒ appears to have pushed the MP to release
prematurely his party’s game-plan.
Collins Dauda, a
former Minister of Lands, Water Resources, Works & Housing, made a direct
reference to Ali Suraj’s remark on radio in which he reportedly asked members
of the constituency to vote for him.
According to
Collins Dauda, Ali Suraj asked Northerners or ‘Pepe’ as the Akans call them, to
vote for him because, after all he (Collins Dauda) is also of Northern
extraction or from the Zongo.
“The NPP have two
persons vying for their party’s candidacy. One of them is Yaw Owusu. The other
man said on radio that they have tried to no avail to remove a ‘Pepeman’ from
the seat.
“He is asking you
to vote for him so he would replace a ‘Pepeman’. So, why would you want to
replace a ‘Pepeman’ with another ‘Pepeman’”? he asked rhetorically.
Zongo elements
and their Northern counterparts have no future in the NPP, he said, adding, “In
the NDC, things are different, whether you are a Frafra, Dagarti, Dagomba, Wangara
or Fulani, there is no discrimination against you.”
“The NPP has no
good intentions for Northerners and the Zongos,” he said, indicating that “if
you are a Northerner and a member of the NPP, bear in mind that your fate is
stalled.”
Continuing, he
said, “If you are a Northerner and associated with the NPP and you allow your
child who has graduated from the university to join you in the NPP, know that
your child has no future… Because they (NPP) have sworn not to make him or her
progress.”
The opposition
party has played the tribal card for many years until a recent lull with the
appearance of Dr. Mahamudu Bawumia as a running mate and eventually as Vice
President, a feat the NDC itself has never been able to achieve till date.
Empirical
evidence presents the NPP as the political grouping with unequalled Zongo-friendly
policies.
For the first
time in the history of post-independence Ghana, a whole ministry has been
established and dedicated towards addressing the peculiar needs of these often
neglected segments of the country by the Akufo-Addo-led government.
There is also in
place a Zongo Development Fund whose first budgetary
allocation has already hit the accounts of the agency.
To activate this
ethnocentric campaign trick once more would surely trigger a long debate on the
political plane in the days to come.
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