NDC CHAIRMANSHIP ELECTION - MERIT OR TRIBALISM?
POLITICS OF ETHNIC ARITHMETIC EMERGES IN NDC CHAIRMANSHIP ELECTION - IS IT MERIT OR TRIBALISM?
BY MARTIN A. B. K. AMIDU
The resemblance between the National Democratic Congress (NDC) and the New Patriotic Party (NPP) appears to have become indistinguishable to the extent that the leading members of the NDC appear to have turned the contest for the Chairmanship of the NDC into an ethnic conflict for supremacy. As a foundation member of the NDC who was in the room when Mr. Justice D. F. Annan advocated for an umbrella party to bring together all those diverse group of people from other political traditions and the revolutionary ranks who could not join an Nkrumaist formation political party which was in the works by another member of the PNDC, I was shocked to hear the incumbent Chairman of the NDC pleading his ethnicity as a qualification to be maintained as the Chairman of the NDC.
It is a shame that the National Democratic Congress which we founded and nursed to represent the 31st December Revolutionary tradition has now been reduced to the politics of ethnic arithmetic.
“I’m an Akyem, and I become the national organiser of the party. Do you know what I have suffered as an Akyem person to become NDC chairman or organiser? …Today, go to Kyebi and see; my hometown is Asikam, the next town from Kyebi. Roads are constructed in Kyebi, and the construction stops just at the border of my hometown. Not even one asphalt road has been constructed in my hometown…. (Samuel) Atta Akyea (Member of Parliament for Abuakwa South) distributed streetlights and when it got to my mother's downtown, Akyem Adukrom, they did not even get a light because they vote for the NDC.”
The incumbent NDC Chairman is reported to have said that his citrus plantation was burnt after the 2000 elections and he was nearly assassinated when he was running to become the Member of Parliament for the Fanteakwa Constituency in 2004.
Mr. Samuel Ofosu-Ampofo should be appreciated for his commitment and dedication to the NDC over the years but that should not be based on his ethnic origins. Other committed members of the NDC have died since 1992 for belonging to the National Democratic Congress, the latest being about eight dead in the 2020 elections. They did not die because they were Akyems or of any particular ethnic or tribal stock. There were so many Akyems who pitched their camp with the NDC or an NDC affiliate party in the Progressive Alliance since its inception such as the Dr. Adjei Marfo, the late Mr. Fred Ohene-Kena of Kukurantumi, the late Mr. Danny Ofori-Atta and Mr. Owuraku Amofah of Ofori Panin Fie of Kyebi itself, and others, out of volition.
My disappointment in the banal level to which the NDC Chairmanship election campaign had sunk was aggravated when it was reported that the former Eastern Regional Minister and native of Kukurantumi, Mr. Victor Smith, had said that he and other leading members of the party, including ex-President Mahama, advised Mr. Johnson Asiedu-Nketiah not to challenge Mr. Samuel Ofosu-Ampofo for the chairmanship position since it might create unnecessary tension, but he refused to listen to them. As if this was not enough side-taking by a senior member of the NDC, he added that:
“When the General Secretary called me one evening and indicated that he wanted to contest for the party’s chairmanship position, I told him that he was going to cause trouble in the party. But the General Secretary told me that he had already made up his mind…. I told him that his move would lead to people spilling out some secrets, but he did not listen. John Dramani Mahama and the party leaders advised him not to contest, but he said he had already decided and it was a democracy.”
The message that Mr. Victor Smith sought to convey by his interview apart from carrying the ethnic undertones of the messenger’s own place of ethnic origin also implicitly sought to inform the public that John Dramani Mahama does not support Mr. Aseidu-Nketiah’s bid to become Chairman of the NDC in the upcoming elections. Mr. Smith is simply urging Mr. Mahama’s supporters to vote against Mr. Aseidu-Nketiah. Mr. John Dramani Mahama has insinuated that he does not have any preference amongst the candidates contesting for executive positions but one of his ardent supporters just openly contradicted him in favour of the retention of the incumbent Chairman at the upcoming elections.
Then comes a National Vice-Chairman of the NDC openly taking sides in the upcoming Chairmanship elections in a manner that leaves one in doubt whether he understood what he was saying when in the teeth of Mr. Ofosu-Ampofo’s plea of his ethnicity as an Akyem as one of his qualifications, Mr. Said Sinare said:
“The national chairman that our party, the NDC, needs for the battle in 2024 must be a man who has been de-tribalized, a man whose humanity, humility, philanthropy, and respect for everyone, regardless of tribe, religion, or political affiliation, define him. a man who truly embodies national harmony and puts his party’s interests first…. Voting against Ampofo will be the biggest political blunder or treason our party will ever commit.”
Having worked as the General Secretary of the NDC for seventeen years, Mr. Aseidu-Nketiah is entitled to contest for the ultimate position of Chairman of the NDC. Mr. Aseidu-Nketiah was also entitled and deserved as of right to have wished to be nominated to be the Vice-Presidential candidate of the NDC in the 2020 elections and committed no sin for that wish. In any case, why single out Mr. Aseidu-Nketiah, out of the three contestants seeking to replace the incumbent Chairman of the NDC? How does the publication of leaked audio recordings attributed to Mr. Aseidu-Nketiah help the NDC as part of spilling secrets after the Chairmanship elections?
Mr. Ofosu-Ampofo, Mr. Aseidu-Nketiah, Nii Armah Ashitey, and Mr. Samuel Yaw Adusei who are contesting for the NDC Chairmanship position need a level playing field to enable each of them to convince the delegates to the NDC conference of his merit and what he brings to the table so that the delegates may choose who they think can best serve the interest of the NDC. The plea of Akyem ethnicity by Mr. Ofosu-Ampofo is negative electioneering and sins against the 31st December Revolution tradition. The interventions by leading members of the NDC who should not openly be taking sides in the electioneering with ethnic undertones as the qualification for election as the Chairman of the NDC is also doing and will do more damage to the Congress we founded in 1992, going forward.
The founder of the NDC, the late President Jerry John Rawlings, and the late Mr. Justice D. F. Annan who co-chaired the meeting at the Bluegate to agree to form the NDC were not ethnocentric or tribalistic. The introduction of the ethnic and tribal element in the Chairmanship election of the NDC is a dangerous development that does great damage to the image of the late President Jerry John Rawlings and the late Mr. Justice D. F. Annan a few days before the celebration of the ideals of the 31st December Revolution. It can only aid Nana Akufo-Addo’s long game for Election 2024 to install his preferred candidate as President of Ghana on 7 January 2025. We founded the NDC in 1992 for the grassroots citizen. Do not betray the people and the 31st December Revolutionary cause.
Martin A. B. K. Amidu
The continued political witch-hunt against Ken Ofori-Atta by the Office of the Special Prosecutor (OSP) and the Government of Ghana through sections of the rented Ghanaian media any time he prevailed in defending his rights under the INTERPOL and the US Immigration laws is nauseating and shameful.
The public is entitled to know the reasons Ms. Justice Akuffo assigned for her resignation to enable us to determine what the government had done to warrant the unprecedented step of a former Chief Justice resigning from the Council of State in the history of the 1992 Constitution. The Government also owes the people of Ghana an explanation for the delay in disclosing and informing the public of the tendering of her resignation.
Every election the NDC has won under the 1992 Constitution has consistently been based on promises to the electorate to implement policies anchored on the core values of probity, accountability, transparency, and social justice underpinning the 4 June 1979 Revolution and Constitution of the NDC: the 1992, 1996, 2008, 2012, and 2024 elections speak for themselves. The NDC’s ability to win the 2028 elections will depend on how the electorate perceives the party’s commitment to these values. It is too early for sycophancy, gloating, and flaunting of awards about successes when one remembers the adulations of the early years of the Akufo-Addo government.
The inerasable truth is that Dr. Bawumia is not the first incumbent Vice President and presidential candidate to concede defeat to his opponent under the 1992 Constitution to reduce electoral tensions in an atmosphere charged with suspicion of the ruling government intending to rig presidential elections.
I cannot as a person born in the then NT recommend Dr. Mahamudu Bawumia as a person with the trait of honesty, integrity and selfless service exhibited by our forebearers from the NT to the Republic of Ghana to be elected on 7 December 2024 as President symbolizing a representation of northerners on an NPP ticket for Ghana. Dr. Mahamudu Bawumia is not only an opportunist and pretender, he has lost track of the high moral character associated with his own biological family and the forebearers of Northern Ghana.
The corrupt and looting government machinery of Nana Akufo-Addo and Dr. Mahamudu Bawumia are so power drunk that they only see the ordinary Ghanaian as a zombified idiot whose vote can be bought after dangling a few television pictures, news broadcast, and other media propaganda of completed and uncompleted projects to becloud his memory. Let us defend the Constitution by demanding probity and accountability, now on 7 December 2024! Let us defend the Constitution by demanding probity and accountability, now on 7 December 2024!
The deep polarization and intense emotions generated by the governance of the country under the Akufo-Addo/ Mahamudu Bawumia administration shows that the future stability of the 1992 Constitution is dependent on how free, fair, and transparent the 7 December 2024 elections are seen to have been managed and conducted by all the public institutions entrusted with supervising the elections. The time to defend the 1992 Constitution against election interference is NOW!
The fact that the acting President, Dr. Mahamudu Bawumia, stands to be a beneficiary of the Bawku Traditional Area crisis precipitated due to the indolence of the Government only two months to the 2024 elections should the registered voters in the six constituencies in the UER be unable to exercise their franchise freely and fairly, comes into focus with his inaction as acting President during the October 2024 conflict period.
I exercised my right as a citizen of Ghana to bring the petition myself and I have no regrets for doing so despite the rigged outcome smacking of the exercise of the relics of imperial medieval powers. I am, however, confident that history shall absolve me when the content of my petition and the review submitted by the Chief Justice become available to the public for its evaluation. When the vendetta and trials of mere suspects in the court of public opinion start again, the utility of my petition will be remembered.
“Self-preservation is the first law of nature”, and it would be political suicide for Nana Akufo-Addo to assent to the LGBTQ+ Bill being passed by Parliament into law. Nana Akufo-Addo’s long game, the aura he has built around himself as a democrat in the Western tradition, and all the ingratiation efforts he has invested in, will come to nought should he assent to the Bill upon passage. The fact that other citizens knew the difficulty the Bill was going to face when it got to the desk of the President was articulated by no less a person than Minority Leader Ato Forson.
The problem with the manner the NDC Press Release was couched is that from my personal experience whosoever has been nominated by John Mahama as his running mate must have been invited and offered the nomination and he or she must have accepted the nomination already. The Ahwoi’s and their cohort, who now claim ownership of the NDC, speaking through Kwasi Ahwoi, named Prof. Naana Jane Opoku-Agyemang as the successor to the National Democratic Congress flagbearer John Mahama after 2024. John Mahama is tied to their apron strings.
The NPP and the NDC should be careful about quoting what I said or wrote in the past out of context to spuriously support allegations of corruption or mismanagement against each other for the purely propaganda purpose of deceiving the electorate for their votes and abandoning them thereafter. I hope that when eventually I determine by a considered examination and analysis of the facts and evidence the most corrupt of the two political parties, they will each accept my verdict without question since I have become their authority on this issue.
The 2024 elections are not going to take place in a vacuum. They are going to be informed by thirty years of electoral history under the 1992 Constitution. The Fourth Republican Constitution, 1992 underscores, like the three preceding Republican Constitutions, the sovereignty of the people as the foundation of the State. The citizen has since the 1969 Constitution been accorded a sovereign right to seek interpretation and enforcement of the provisions of the Constitution in the Supreme Court with guarantees of fundamental human rights and freedoms subject only to the provisions of the Constitution.
The facts, information and intelligence, and the available evidence demonstrate that the Special Prosecutor, William Kissi Agyebeng, is so desperate to protect the pervasive and endemic mismanagement, the culture of corruption, massive staff recruitment malpractices, and public procurement malpractices within the OSP by resorting to blackmailing the government with publications of former government appointees he is prosecuting to rally public support against possible impeachment for misconduct.
The cancer of a Special Prosecutor that has infected the OSP for the past two years cannot be allowed to metastasize to infect the healthy working relations between organic law enforcement, the citizen, and the administration of justice guaranteed under law. Consequently, patriotic citizens ought to be protecting the 1992 Constitution and the sanctity and independence of the judiciary by invoking the provisions of Section 15(3) of Act 959 for the removal of the Special Prosecutor from office.
Big Brother President Nana Akufo-Addo lied his way to the political office of President of Ghana to fight corruption only to supervise the most perceptually corrupt of all the Governments in Ghana in the Fourth Republic since 7 January 1993. The 1992 Constitution does not empower Big Brother President Nana Akufo-Addo to insist upon an investigation into a paltry 4 million Euros alleged Airbus SE-Ghana suspected corruption when he has pushed under the carpet the Gargantuan Agyapa Royalties Transactions procurement malpractices and corruption detailed in a 64-page report.
It is time to take seriously the warning about the intention of Nana Akufo-Addo to abuse the spirit of the 1992 Constitution so he can achieve an outcome at the 2024 Presidential and Parliamentary Elections favourable to him as an insurance in his retirement. Ghana’s democracy, the rule of law and constitutionalism enshrined in the letter and the spirit of the 1992 Constitution must be defended by all patriotic citizens even if the heavens fall.
Mahamudu Bawumia is a safe pair of hands to give Nana Akufo-Addo the third term in office he seeks using a surrogate. Whether Nana Akufo-Addo will succeed in actualizing his long game with Mahamudu Bawumia at the 2024 elections will unfold after his nomination on 4 November 2023. Nature’s justice will ultimately determine the final verdict.
I contend that the 26 August 2023 special regional congress and presidential primaries have been pre-programmed in such a way that the margin of victory will be overwhelming for Dr. Bawumia and constitute an invitation to the delegates at the 4 November 2023 election to return him without the necessity for a runoff and the possibility for any ganging up as projected by some of the candidates. It was pre-programmed as a coronation with the trappings of a democratic contest.
I have lived under threats of assassination, armed robbery, and the burning of my house, from this regime since 16 November 2020. The late Victor Newman aborted discussions to assassinate me then. These threats intensify any time I exercise my right to defend the Constitution just as I did on 28 June 2023 and 30 June 2023. There was a covert attack on my residence at dawn on Monday 3 July 2023. President Nana Akufo-Addo, is ultimately responsible for anything violent that befalls me or my residence. I shall not back down from defending the 1992 Constitution. No Ghanaian patriot must be cowed by threats of those violating the Constitution.
The Government’s attempt to escape investigation for suspected corruption arising from the Gold Mafia documentary and confessions of Alistair Mathias, the President’s good friend, through the side door of a purported threat of a defamation action is arbitrary, lacks candor, and constitutes a blatant abuse of the powers of Government under the Constitution. It is too late in the day for the President to be allowed to run away from consequences of his own endorsement of the “Anas Principle” [you may never know that the person you are giving the bribe to or receiving it from may be an undercover agent]. Nana Addo is now reaping what he sowed.
Nana Akufo-Addo’s long game was borne out of an agenda he conceived after his narrow defeat at the 2008 presidential elections with Dr. Bawumia as his running mate, and the lack of a long game by Mr. J. A. Kufour to have ensured a victorious outcome at all costs. Never again must that happen under Nana Akufo-Addo’s watch as President of Ghana. While Kufour exhibited better traits of a constitutionalist and democrat during his tenure as President, Nana Akufo-Addo has shown himself to be an autocrat working with the letter of the Constitution but subverting its spirit and core structural principles or doctrines.
President of Ghana, Nana Akufo-Addo, did not deny being Alistair Mathias’ friend in his response to Al Jazeera’s request for his comments. The argument that Nana Addo could not have been Mathias’ lawyer when the president himself does not remember, is spurious and diversionary. Nana Addo is an admitted friend of the alleged kingpin gold smuggler and money launderer for gold deals. Period! Befriending a criminal gang member and/or financial architects is typical of previous conduct of the President of Ghana.
Nana Akufo-Addo would not have abused the spirit of Chapter Seven (7) of the 1992 Constitution on the sanctity of the right to vote and the Electoral Commission if We the People had not in the past five and half years condoned the Government’s several abuses of power and impunity. By failing to act to defend our Constitution, we emboldened him to ignore the views of the majority of citizens and to do as he pleases. But all is not lost. Nature has its own way of dispensing justice to humanity
This examination and analysis of the “Galamsey Economy” documentary provide citizens with the materials to see beyond the stunts and swindles that the Presidency, and Anas Aremeyaw Anas with his Tiger Eye PI, tried to pull over the public, and reveals the motives of political self-interest underpinning each stunt and hoax undertaken by them. Citizens are also provided with the materials with which to have the courage to defend and protect the 1992 Constitution from scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites, like the President and the Vice President who lied their way to the Presidency only to strain a gnat but swallow a camel.
Elected members of parliament are sacrificing the national good of our country for their personal selfishness and partisan interest, contravening the letter and spirit of the 1992 Constitution. Their actions are the sole reason why for some time now, “Everyday things are getting worse” for the economic and social survival of ordinary Ghanaians. The selfish economic and political power motives underpinning the divergent positions and tactics that both sides of the House used to remove two ministers from office demonstrate to Ghanaians that these members of parliament cannot be relied upon to fight for what our citizens need.
Mr. President, in these difficult economic times you have brought upon the nation of Ghana, you cannot lead the resolution, because you are an inherent part of the problem. Our people are suffering under your failed and mismanaged policies and stewardship, and your November 2022 Budget is going to impose further austerity upon Ghanaians. Listen closely to the echoes of history and avoid replaying the discordant notes of past Governments that cost this nation dearly – for as Mark Twain once said: “History never repeats itself, but it does often rhyme”.
This year, the International Monetary Fund (IMF) is to be the excuse for Ghanaians being asked to tighten their belts while the political elites loosen their belts and feed fat on our sweat. We should not wait for the IMF to be used by the authors of our economic hardships to blackmail the nation and ram an austerity budget down our throats without any consultation for our inputs into and acceptance of the proposals. We have a duty to ask for transparency and accountability now.
President Nana Akufo-Addo has achieved finality in his deceptive long game with his recent national security apparatus appointments. If confirmed, these appointments will be a sign that Akufo-Addo has captured the National Security Secretariat and apparatus towards his electoral agenda for the 2024 parliamentary and presidential elections. While appearing to follow the letter of the law in making appointments to public office, the President’s long game substantively breaches the Constitution’s fundamental spirit of integrity, transparency, accountability, and merit – resulting in the actualization of a calculated and deliberate intention to undermine the 2024 electoral process. Ghana must always be put first.
The arrest and detention of Oliver Barker-Vormawor, the Convenor of #FixTheCountry, and the bail facilitation for Mr. Kwame Baffoe, the powerful Bono Regional Chairman of the governing political party, demonstrates the partiality with which the fundamental human rights and freedoms guaranteed to citizens might through the exercise of the investigatory and prosecutorial discretion in the system of criminal justice administration at the level of the executive branch of government has been wittingly or unwittingly abused in the matter of the “Kyei Mensah-Bonsu’s E-Levy cake for his 65th birthday” contrary to article 3(2) of the 1992 Constitution…