The NPP's Moderates Must Take Control Of Their Party To Secure Its Future

For some fair-minded Ghanaians, it was  extraordinary that those who allege that  the Electoral Commissioner, Dr. Kwadwo Afari-Djan,  colluded with President Mahama,  to rig the December 2012 presidential election in the President's favour, objected to his being allowed to give evidence in the presidential election petition being heard by the Supreme Court.


For such discerning Ghanaians, it was an unfair legal tactic that  was hard to fathom -  and in their view  was  rightly over-ruled by the panel of judges.


In search of the truth, what did it matter that Dr. Afari-Djan's  deputy, rather than the chairperson of the Electoral Commission himself,  had  signed affidavits covering the Electoral Commission's documents  submitted to the Supreme Court?


To those  patriotic Ghanaians   who despise the extremists amongst our political class, that aborted legal manoeuvre by the petitioners' legal team,  illustrates perfectly, the cynicism  and ruthlessness  of the  hardliners who prevailed on the  New Patriotic Party (NPP) to agree to the Supreme Court being  petitioned to overturn the declaration by the Electoral Commissioner, of President Mahama as victor, in the 2013 presidential election.


Clearly, for that small group of  NPP the-end-justifies-the-means  hardliners,  who remote-control their party from the shadows -  and who are  depending on  a falsehood to secure the presidency for their party's defeated candidate -  the object of the presidential election petition before the Supreme Court, is not about  seeking  the truth as to  what actually occurred during the two days of polling in the 2012 presidential election, but the clever use of arguments  and legal technicalities,  to enable them achieve their objective. It is all "political" -  to quote one NPP genius.


There are many fair-minded Ghanaians,  for whom it was  against natural justice,  and most unfortunate, that those who have openly maligned  a man of  great honour,   who has  served his country diligently as Electoral Commissioner for many years, and supervised  presidential and parliamentary elections,  in which there have twice been transfers of power from one political party to another -   resulting from victories of  presidential candidates of opposition parties in December 2000 and December 2008 -  objected  to the Supreme Court allowing Dr. Afari-Djan  to give evidence,  to ascertain the truth or otherwise,  of their own allegations.


Those NPP hardliners and extremists,   for whom the late J. B. Da Rocha's patriotic principle  of a political party putting the national interest above momentary party advantage, when the country faces  an existential threat, is an  alien concept,  have brought Ghana to a dangerous moment in its history.


Those who are making life unbearable for millions of ordinary people,  as they make Ghana "ungovernable",  came to the Supreme Court merely to manipulate the legal system,  to enable them obtain what they failed to secure in the December 2012 presidential election: political power. Alas, they will fail there too.


To secure its future, when the inevitable  happens, one hopes that the NPP's many decent-minded moderates -  whom one is absolutely sure genuinely believe that the Supreme Court presidential election petition is a principled move  to  set a precedent to ensure the sanctity of all future elections -  will move swiftly  to seize  control of their party,  from those  hardliners and extremists,  into whose grasping and incompetent  hands their party has fallen. Without them, it could be third-time-lucky for Nana Addo Danquah Akufo-Addo.  A word to the wise...


Tel: 027 745 3109.


Email: peakofi.thompson@gmail.com.


Tel: 027 745 3109.