Has Truth Indeed Become A Rather Scarce Commodity In The NPP?

Today's blog post results from a series of conversations with students from Jayee University College and Regent University College of Science and Technology. It is based on notes made from conversations that took place a month ago.

It is meant to be free advice for the New Patriotic Party (NPP) - and one humbly offers it to its leaders, with the greatest respect, because one believes that it is in the supreme national interest of Ghana to do so.

Every patriotic Ghanaian ought to offer support to those one-nation politicians, who joined the NPP because they treasure freedom, and  value the rule of law - and want Ghana to remain a united nation of diverse-ethnicity: in which no ethnic group is superior or inferior to another.

They also want Ghana to remain a tolerant and peaceful society, in a nation whose people share a common destiny, and  also share more or less the same DNA.

Let us support such tolerant and truly democratic NPP members - so that together we can empower them to roundly defeat those anti-democratic plutocrats who now control the NPP, and whose feudal mindsets make them believe that it is their birthright to dominate the Republic of Ghana - and a Divine right of theirs to rule our nation.

That foolish notion of theirs is  a 21st century absurdity in today's modern Africa. No sincere and patriotic Ghanaian should encourage such backward individuals. They are a danger to national cohesion - and to the long-term stability of Ghana.

The hypocritical Atta Akyeas and Asare Otchere-Darkos, who love the sound of their voices so, and laugh at their own jokes, are classic examples of the NPP's malevolent plutocrats.

Their antediluvian sense of entitlement, is arrant nonsense, of course: Ghana is not a feudal state - surprising though that might be to those geniuses and their collaborators.  On the contrary, our homeland Ghana is a unitary republic, which is an African democracy aspiring to become  a meritocracy. And it will, one day, God willing.

Incidentally, meritocracy, as we all know, is the greatest enemy of inherited privilege - that backward holder-back-of-progress. Hmm, Ghana - eyeasem o. Asem ebeba debi ankasa!

Please read on:

It ought to be pretty obvious to any politician worth his or her salt, in today's Ghana, that there has been a  dramatic change in attitudes in many aspects of life, in Ghanaian society - as more and more of the younger generation have moved into top-level positions in many areas of our national life.

One such change in attitude, is the unwillingness of many ordinary people, to stomach high-level corruption amongst our ruling elites, any longer - because ordinary people who are  thinking-Ghanaians now clearly understand that high-level corruption poses a long-term threat to Ghana's stability.

Previously, most people in Ghana stoically accepted that nothing much could be done about high-level corruption. No longer, thank goodness.

It is a positive development in the Ghanaian polity that those in the NPP, who are acting as if their party is a replica of the North Korean Communist Party - which brooks no dissent whatsoever - ought to take into account, if they want to win power in the December 2016 presidential and parliamentary elections.

Instead of instituting a reign of terror in their party to silence dissenters - and shielding those guilty of financial malfeseance in the disbursement of cash belonging to the NPP, ditto in operating its  bank accounts - would it not be far more beneficial to Mother Ghana, were the NPP's current leaders to commit themselves to a policy of publicly publishing the assets of all appointed NPP office holders, and their spouses, before and after their tenures' in office, should the NPP win power in the December 2016 presidential and parliamentary elections?

One hopes to hear Dr Bawumia,  apparently the NPP's anti-corruption campaigner-in-chief, making such a commitment unequivocably to Ghanaians, soon.

The NPP's leaders  need to clearly understand that most Ghanaians have also come round to the view that no  truly democratic party will demand that all its members toe the same line - and hound party dissenters who refuse to be cowed into accepting such a libertarian abomination.

Additionally, thinking-Ghanaians recognise that it is only when there is competition of ideas amongst politicians and political parties, that the best ideas come to the fore - and help move free societies forward.

That is why the NPP's leaders quickly need to find a face-saving way to restore Paul Afoko and Kwabena Agyapong to their respective positions in the party again - if they want Ghanaians to believe that the NPP is actually a truly united political party: that is committed to individual liberty, including the right to speak one's mind freely, without any repercussions.

There is absolutely no other way around taking such a decision for those clever plutocrats, alas. That some of them think that future appointments of Afoko and Agyapong as ambassadors, in an NPP government after any victory in the December 2016 presidential election for the party's candidate, will repair the damage done by the coup against the two gentlemen,  shows what poor strategic thinkers they are.

It appears that it has never dawned on them that they themselves could be sidelined too, by the growing revulsion amongst the NPP's fair-minded silent majority, against their arrogance and presumption: A major political party like the NPP can never be manipulated and used as a special purpose vehicle for one family clan's grandoise dreams.

And it  will serve them right, too, were that to happen - for their high-handedness in dealing with Paul Afoko and Kwabena Agyapong so capriciously, by using absurd trumped-up charges against them, in order to justify the unfair removal of the two gentlemen from their elected positions in the NPP's national executive council. Some democratic party. Amazing.

It is also important that the NPP's current leaders understand clearly that thinking-Ghanaians now never fail to understand that the leaders of a truly democratic party, will not ever adopt a power-at-all-costs election campaign strategy, and carry on as if "Dominating Ghana by any means necessary - fair or foul" happens to be their political philosophy and Machiavellian personal motto.

That is precisely why some thinking-Ghanaians will find it rather difficult to forgive those NPP leaders who vowed to make Ghana ungovernable -  and have proceeded to do so ever since their party lost power in the December 2008 elections.

They have disrupted life for millions of ordinary people across the nation, on many occassions, by funding sundry strikes and public demonstrations - some organised by  civil society organisations whose critics insist are mere legal fronts, which  in reality, are covert appendages of the NPP.

Once upon a time, in explaining how party cash had been utilised,  during a current affairs radio programme, the John Boadus actually admitted that the NPP had part-funded the dumsor vigil and the wonbgo demonstration.

Since many in today's NPP leadership speak with forked-tongues, is it not reasonable to say that perhaps only a forensic audit of party funds, can shed light on such clandestine payments?

Incidentally, although they signed and took party money for the same purpose, the John Boadus vociferously condemned Paul Afoko for allegedly funding a trip to Accra by his supporters - so that they could apparently come and demonstrate at the party's headquarters building in Accra, and elsewhere in the capital, in his support.

The double standards demonstrated in that instance by the John Boadus is so typical of many individuals in the nest of vipers that the NPP has now been transformed into.

And the monstrosity that sabotaging the nation-building effort (by funding strikes and demonstrations) represents, has even been extended to include contacting foreign governments, multilateral organisations and international companies, including banks - asking them not to deal with Ghana: as part of the long-term scorched-earth political strategy that they have adopted in their ruthless quest for power, since 7th January, 2009.

It will be recalled that the Hon. Kennedy Adjapong, the NPP MP for Assin North, in Ghana's Central Region, once proudly claimed - during a radio interview - that he  had asked the Chinese government not  to give Ghana the remaining balance of US$1.5 billion out of a US$3 billion loan promised to Ghana by the government of China. Incredible - and a member of Parliament, too.

Amazingly, that selfsame genius could not contain his delight, at stabbing his own country in the back. It seems to have completely escaped him that he only ended up denying the government the wherewithal to develop Ghana with. It was lost on him that development projects  actually help to improve the quality of life of the vast majority of the people who reside in marginalised communities in both rural and urban areas across the country.

"People get shot in China for such treasonable activities, do they not?" quipped a female Jayee University College student.  And quite right too, sayeth I.

That it is morally wrong to adopt a scorched-earth political strategy in order to win power, was summned up succinctly, by a young student from Regent University College of Science and Technology: "Winning power in a true democracy is not a matter of life and death. That is why the peace and stability of our country must  never be allowed to be sacrificed at the alter of greed-and-lust-for-power, just to enable a few selfish and overly-ambitious politicians to either retain power, or win it. Ghana is neither the private property of any Ghanaian politcal party, nor the plaything of any Ghanaian politician."

In light of all the above, if they want to secure the long-term future of their party, those fair-minded and principled individuals in the NPP, who view democracy as a way of life based on tolerance, and joined the party because they treasure individual freedom and value the rule of law, ought to fight back to take full control of their party - from the anti-democratic plutocrats with feudal mindsets: into whose grasping hands their party has now fallen.

They must prise the NPP away from those amoral and super-ruthless individuals, who think that dealing with financial malfeasance in the handling of a political party's financial affairs, is not a matter for the police to investigate, but an internal party matter - no doubt because they want such "sensitive matters" to be dealt with behind closed doors to suit the vested interests that now dominate the NPP.

No independent-minded and patriotic Ghanaian, who truly abhors corruption, will ever vote for any political party whose leaders talk endlessly about high-level corruption in the Ghana of today, whiles their own party's elected executives, who rightly insist on transparency and accountability in the handling of the party's financial affairs - and therefore proceed to invite the police to investigate financial impropriety that they have discovered - are hounded out of their positions in that selfsame party.

Is that not corruption and hypocrisy of the very worst kind?

Ghanaians are not fools. Playing fast and loose with a political party's funds is a very serious crime in any democratic nation that actually values the rule of law - and it is a serious matter that the police in our democracy ought to swiftly step in to investigate once it has been brought to their notice.

No one is above the law in Ghana - and politicians who say they believe in the rule of law, and preach endlessly against high-level corruption, must condemn party members guilty of  fraudulently handling party funds, and expel them from their parties - not molly-coddle them: and promote them to new leadership positions in acting capacities, instead.

 Dealing with such a crime can never be regarded by honest politicians as an internal party matter. Ever. Those who now dominate the NPP must take cognisance of that, since the 2016 presidential and parliamentary elections now loom large.

And if the NPP's current leaders  truly believe in the rule of law, and value Ghana's stability,  then they must also ensure that the prevarication about the arms said to have been discovered at the NPP's headquarters building, ends - and encourage the police to thoroughly investigate how they got there.

Who wants Ghana to be ruled by a political party whose leaders acquire an arsenal? What exactly do they need arms for, one wonders?

There is yet another issue that the NPP's current leaders ought to confront immediately. The question many thinking-Ghanaians are pondering over is: What political party that truly believes in democracy will recruit thugs and set them up as a private security company, to hide their real purpose -  to intimidate their opponents inside their party and outside it?

Above all, the NPP's leaders must show the people of Ghana, that they really do abhor corruption - by openly acknowledging that those in their midst who engage in fraud in handling party funds, and operating its bank accounts, are committing serious crimes that the police must investigate.

Fraud is a crime - not a minor private party internal matter. Period.

That is why it is so important that the NPP ought to be open and transparent about a number of issues raised by the suspended national chairperson, Paul Afoko, and the suspended general secretary, Kwabena Agyapong, before their suspension - including the accusations made against those alledged to have unlawfully disbursed funds from a reactivated once-dormant bank account at the Trust Towers branch of Ecobank.

What those playing Kweku-Ananse-politricks in the NPP - and have buried their heads firmly in the sand about the effects of their egregious acts of omission and commission on their party - ought to realise, is that the only conclusion that any sincere and independent-minded Ghanaian patriot, who reads the minority report written by Mr. Ohene Ntow, the chairperson of the ad hoc committee set up by the NPP's national executive council, which dealt with that particular issue, can come to, is that unfortunately truth has become a rather scarce commodity in the NPP. Pity.

Naturally, some might say that that is a moot point. However, the mere fact that some indepedent-minded Ghanaians, can come to such a conclusion about the real nature of today's NPP, speaks volumes about the lack of moral compass in some of their number that has led to a number of unethical decisions by the NPP's current leadership. Ditto the unprincipled actions carried out by a number of those who now dominate that party so completely. How unfortunate for Mother Ghana.