Feature

Getting it wrong in opposition; The NPP’s Infantile Trickeries.Nothing in the entire world is more dangerous than sincere ignorance and conscientious stupidity” Matin Luther King

Anybody who’s been in this country since January 2009 has heard the gripe and prangs of the opposition New Patriotic Party. The NPP in opposition is becoming irrelevant to national discourse due to their deliberate distortions of issues and undue politicization of governance.

Personal attacks are all the rage these days in politics. It’s as though anyone coming upon a policy with which he or she disagrees is constitutionally incapable of criticizing the policy without also proclaiming the advocate of the policy is not simply ill-advised, but the lowest form of animal life.

Having completely lost its way and mindlessly refusing to accept its electoral humiliation as the ruling party in the December 2008 general elections, the NPP continues to ratchet up its persecution of President Mills in the media by desperately trying to make a political event out of everything.

Not a single day goes by without the NPP reminding us about the chaos of governance in this country. They claim there is bad governance, pervasive injustice, ethnocentrism, nepotism etc. What are we to make of this charade? Can we take our NPP folks seriously on these infantile trickeries?

Obviously we cannot take the NPP seriously because they are just behaving in a hypocritical and disingenuous manner.

It is said that “wonders will never end” I am wondering if we all reside in the same Ghana and why some people take interest in confusing the rest of us because of their ability to hop from one media house to the other.

Indeed, all the arms of government under the Kufuor regime were culpable of bad governance yet the NPP have the gut to criticize the current regime of bad governance.

In their desperation and to jumpstart their campaign for 2012, they continue to ceaselessly demonize and attack President Mills.

The chairman of NPP Jake Obetsebi Lamptey, the general secretary Kwadwo Owusu Afriyie, the minority leader in parliament Honorable Osei Kyei Mensah Bonsu and other leading members of the party has on various platforms indicated that, President Mills has been a failure even though, he has a little more than two years to prove his mettle.

Of course one cannot behave like the proverbial ostrich and pretend that, we as nation do not have our problems and challenges. Of course we do, but we don’t need the NPP to tell us in their condescending craftiness. They created the mess! The economy is in dire mess thanks to 8 years of NPP’s mismanagement.

If the NPP had governed well and helped pillar the kind of democratic institutions, policies and structures that we need, both at the local and central level, there will be no need to shout wolf.

I get very perturbed when I hear some NPP elements continue to propagate their bankrupt ideas in the market place of public discourse.

Why should miss Ursula Owusu a trained lawyer and an NPP activist sit on a national television on Monday April 12, 2010 ( Metro Television-Good Morning Ghana) and say that the government is on agenda to prosecute Akans in public office?

These comments are unfortunate, baseless, infantile and ethnocentric. Miss Ursula Owusu and other NPP commentators have a gargantuan appetite for alluding and promoting tribal connotation to national debate.

These blood thirsty comments and interpretations to lawful conduct by para-statal institutions must be condemned by all and sundry.

Members of political parties are not immune to legal sanctions upon breaching any law in their quest to achieve any political objective through unlawful means.

Unfortunately, the NPP as a political party has continued to entertain impunity in the Ghanaian society by shielding their undisciplined members from legal discipline.

Sometimes, it makes you believe that, the NPP’s believe in the rule of law is just a fraudulent hoax.

This destabilizing phenomenon is the reason why some high profile offenders are now hiding behind their parties and tribes to avoid prosecution for their alleged crimes against the state.

Once again, let me register my total abhorrence for the way the NPP try to link every initiatives of government to politics. Would we ever be objective enough to discuss politics as dispassionately as we should?

We have polarized our political terrain so much so that every initiatives of government are giving a political tag.

What findings, government policy or an achievement of an NDC government can satisfy an acerbic NPP opposition who has continues to operate like the proverbial “Kweku Ananse” who thought he owned the world?

I weep when l hear outrageous verbal attacks on President Mills and his government. What makes these verbal assaults and distortions all the more painful is that, they are being orchestrated by nomadic minds who have abandoned our nations many problems and are making unsolicited careers out of a perverted politics.

Everything in this country has been politicized. From intermittent power outages to unreliable water supply are all laid at the doorsteps of the President Mills. Even uncollected rubbish and the rising temperature levels have all become issues.

What kind of world do these NPP guys live in?

If this is the ugly way the NPP and its media acolytes want to return to power, then they have a very long way to go.

Ghanaians should be mindful of this smear campaign. It is extremely dirty to say the least.

Giving every initiative in Ghana a “political name” would not facilitate our developmental goals; rather it would derail good intentions aimed at solving underdevelopment, poverty and rising canker of ignorance, hatred and ethnocentrism.

While the President has many faults, he has brought dignity and respect to the presidency and is changing the face of governance in this country. He is expanding the frontiers of our freedom and also giving Ghanaians hope to believe in Ghana.

President Mills and his ministers are fallible and that makes them human. They are not above the law; they do accept constructive criticisms, not criticisms characterized by falsehood and attrition.

Elsewhere in the world, opposition parties offers an alternatives ideas and constructive criticisms but here in this country, it is a regular doses of speculations, colorful lies, political biases and unnecessary vituperations.

In just under two years in opposition, the NPP appears to be the most confused, acrimonious and disorganized political party in Ghana today.

Instead of the NPP fighting their way to regain power, they have rather chosen to introduce attrition into the body politics of this country.

In the process, the party is failing to take care of itself; it is unable to play its role as a credible opposition party.

Infant, the situation is so terrible that today the NPP represents bad politics and complete epitome of political incorrectness.

I challenge the good folks in the NPP to take their party back and polish it to reflect the lofty ideals that they spout. A healthy NPP will reflect in the way it will play its role as a credible alternative to the current government.

The party must live its ideals not just spigot it.

The good Ghana-first folks in the NPP must breathe sensitivity in to the party, and at the same time, breath out arrogance, attrition, corruption and lies.

The time to stop the sneer campaign is now! And not later!

And respectfully, we must start growing up as smart people and leave behind this parochial kind of politics.

And whiles at it, let us, when we meet to debate issues, attack ideas and principles instead of people. Let us show courtesy and consideration to all and consign the politics of insults and attrition to the litter bins of our past.

I rest my case.

Emmanuel Dela Coffie The Writer is a Student Journalist. He welcomes your comments via [email protected] / www.delacoffie.wordpress.com