NDC spine broken at birth

The National Democratic Congress was built by an amalgamation of great minds from diverse fields of knowledge and expertise with a collective ambition of building a political party that must stand the test of time.

After the formation of the NDC, a rude directive was directed to the cadres not to aspire for leadership positions within the congress, but rather should find others with liked minds to fill those positions, which was reluctantly adhered to, only a few of the cadres ignored that directive and put themselves up for parliamentary election and a majority of them won their seat comfortably

That directive betrayed the mission and vision of the new political tradition at birth by the reactionary forces within the PNDC. That decision was an orchestrated attack on the spine of the new political tradition

They worked as a monolithic group and delivered victory in the November 1992 presidential and December 1992 parliamentary elections. After the collective victory of the 1992 general elections, the cadres were gradually being sidelined by the very people they handed leadership positions to on a silver platter.

HOUNDING OUT GOOSIE TANOH:

Comrades Goosie Tanoh and co declined ministerial appointments way before the elections were won. The new government dangles a deputy ministerial appointment at Goosie to test his truthfulness, he passed the test by rejecting the offer to the chagrin of the conspirators, and that unruffled the feathers of the cabal.

They found Goosie and his like very uncomfortable working with hence the plot of creating series of lies which was peddled at him and incited the masses to see Goosie’s rejection of the deputy ministerial appointment offered him as an act of arrogance.

They fabricated all sorts of theories to make comrade Goosie appear bad within the rank and file of the party and that orchestration is still prevalent up to this day,

The Cabal of the PNDC were very strong personalities feared by their contemporaries, found some of the cadre’s leadership very firm and resolute in their decisions and actions, and felt their authorities is being challenged, hence the plot to keep the cadres at bay and impoverished.

COUNTER DEMONSTRATION AGAINST KUME PREKO:

The government decided to deploy the cadres to counter demonstrate against the 'kume preko' demonstrators which were being organized by the ALLIANCE FOR CHANGE. The cadre’s leadership kicked against that decision as unproductive and unwise to counter the kume preko demonstrators rather advised to allow the demonstrators to exercise their right to demonstrate.

To the astonishment of most Ghanaians, an army of hoodlums clothes in ACDRs insignia clashed with Alliance for Change demonstrators, and that caused the unfortunate death of those young people which had caused a blot on the image of the party up till this day.

The architects of that dastardly act realizing the public outcry was deafening, quickly shifted the blame on the very people whose advice they failed to listen to.

The leadership of the cadres quickly rebuffed the accusations and called for an investigation to unearth those characters behind that act, which didn’t sit well with the powers that be at that time, and ensure punishment was meted to the leaders.

Some of the leaders lost their jobs and notable amongst them was Comrade Sam Garba the political advisor to the president.

SALVAGE THE PARTY:

While watching from afar and seeing a defeat looming, some cadres rallied around Comrade Sam Garba and always brainstorming as to how the situation could be salvaged. The cabal misread the intent of that frequent gathering at Sam Garba’s house and decided to arrest him.

The intel of his arrest was leaked and quickly Comrade Goosie and others came to his rescue by having a human shield around him and also ensure they escalated the imminent arrest of Sam Garba globally.

The government realized any clandestine move to arrest him may escalate the issue and will destroy the image of the government, therefore sent an emissary in the person of the director of BNI to comrade Garba’s house on that very faithful night to debunk the alleged arrest and gave an assurance of comradeship.

After the abortive arrest of Sam Garba a lot more cadres heard about the reform movement and patronage of the meetings started swelling exponentially and it caused the government to change its strategy and called for a dialogue.

The Reform team was represented by Comrade Goosie and his team and the government side by Dr. Obed Asamoah and his loyalists. The dialogue meetings started with the spirit of comradeship for a few weeks, and to the amazement of all, Comrade Peter Kpordugbe was relieved of this position as the Executive Director of The National Service Scheme and a few others.

Few weeks after the termination of comrade Kpordugbe’s appointment some cadres started frequenting the meeting after the abortive arrest of Comrade Sam Garba, they became very loud calling for a breakaway from the National Democratic Congress, and seceding was not an option of the Reform Movement at that time.

Comrade Kpordugbe realized the deafening call by those cadres and made it clear to them that seceding wasn’t an option. The object is President Rawlings (now late) was being mismanaged by some group of people, therefore the option is to re-focus the head of Rawlings back to the founding vision of the National Democratic Congress.

Few days after the admonishment comrade Kpordugbe was relieved of his post for no apparent reason.

The inhumane decision was taken to divide the ranks of the movement, which could have precipitated that decision whilst in the middle of negotiation of having a resolution to the burning issues, the government acted in bad faith in terminating the appointments of those key negotiators.

The conspirators of that inhumane action succeeded in dividing the ranks of the Reform Movement. Comrade Sam Garba was very vulnerable because he was occupying a government bungalow, therefore he was held hostage to lead the splinter movement and the backlash is history.

The National Reform Party was formed as a protest to cowardly act against them. They were hounded by a party which they were part of the key promoters.

After the inevitable defeat of the NDC in the 2000 elections, National Reform Party became dormant, and one significant thing they did was to reject appointments from Pesident Kuffour’s government. This single act by the national reform party sent a signal to the world that they left on the conviction of principle.

The party took some of their grievances on board by introducing a competitive contest throughout the elective structures of the party. This model was skewed to the advantage of the money bags to influence delegates with money to vote for predetermined candidates.

LESSONS NEVER LEARNT:

The National Democratic Congress failed to learn the lesson from the Reform Party’s breakaway because a handful of party cohorts were afraid they might lose their grips on the party. They introduced a charade of an inner democracy where the delegates' lists were expanded to numbers they can confidently manipulate.

The sin that was visited on the reform leadership was quickly directed to Dr. Obed Asamoah, they schemed to abort his chairmanship ambition without success. Dr. Obed Asamoah’s chairmanship was a threat to their grand design of annexing the NDC, hence the vile propaganda and lies about him.

Dr. Asamoah’s chairmanship had chequered moments that galvanized his detractors to have him replaced by Dr. Kwabena Adjei (now late) at the next congress. A similar dose was given to Nana Konadu Agyeman Rawlings, she suffered that fate due to her inordinate ambition to be president at all cost.

Nana Konadu Agyeman Rawling was looking for power which she already had, she was then the 1St Vice-chairman of the party when she committed that political suicide.

She miscalculated the judgment of the party members for making her the 1st Vice, Nana Konadu could have annexed the party chairmanship easily at the next congress if she hadn’t committed that blunder.

Imagine Nana Konadu as party chair and the husband Papa Jay founder, which president or block within the party could have the courage to challenge the powers and authority of this duo?

The architects of the national democratic congress built a resilient political structure that stood the shocks of three breakaways and still appears formidable. It’s terribly worrying for party leadership and their cohorts not to learn any lesson from the reasons behind the breakaways.

Can we envisage how mighty and solid the NDC could have been without those three disruptions?

2016 CASTASTROPHIC DEFEAT:

The defeat of the party was very imminent, they failed to see it because most of the party leaders buried theirs heads looking for wealth to the detriment of the party. They were deceived by a bogus survey predicting victory for the NDC.

Is it not an irony for a social democratic party to deny trainee teachers and nurses allowances with the flimsy excuse of creating access, meanwhile a lot more teachers and nurses were sitting at home unemployed.

Is it not an irony for a social democratic party to inflict pain on its citizens by increasing fuel costs while the global prices of crude oil were at their lowest.

A social democratic party increased water and electricity bills on the eve of an election year and was expecting to win that election.

Some of the social democratic party members living an affluent lifestyle to the chagrin of the masses, and expected the electorates to exhibit blind allegiance to the party.

The catastrophic defeat of the NDC in the 2016 general elections was self-inflicted as a result of failures of not re-examining the challenges that had befell the party from birth.

Some political entrepreneurs were benefiting from that system to the detriment of the soul of the party. Ironically after every defeat of the NDC, those entrepreneurs are so comfortable financially but the party became very broke.

2020 ELECTION RESULTS:

The NDC shouldn’t be deceived by the 6.2million votes garnered during the 2020 election as a precursor to the 2024 general elections. An appreciable number of votes came from electorates who were disappointed with the abysmal performance of Nana Addo and the NPP government.

Ghanaians are very disillusioned with the political class, and the attitude of the minority MPs by exhibiting that disputable attitude of rail rolling all the appointed ministers had compounded the misery of the NDC.

No one can predict how Ghanaian electorates would behave come year 2024. It would be a herculean task for the NDC to regain the support of those floating Voters whose votes nearly gave victory to the party if they continue to dabble in deceptive politics.

The current structure of the party doesn’t appear like a political party, it looks like an election machine galvanized for elections and demobilized after elections.

Some members do not feel they belong to an organization that does not have data or information of their existence and are being expected to pay dues and cast their votes to a party that does not recognize them.

These account for the low interest in the payment of party dues by members, and this gave an advantage to the political entrepreneurs to demand unreasonable returns on their investments.

The time has come to build a solid party ready for battle come 2024 and that can only be achieved by amending the party constitution to reflect the current realities of life.

PARTY SURVIVOR:

It will be inimical to the survivor of the party if they rely on few deep-pocket party adherents to control the NDC. They’ve experimented with the bureaucratic model of governance for almost a third quarter of a century without building a solid political tradition.

The injury to the spine of the NDC from birth has contributed to the dwindling fortunes of the party. No one should be deceived by the numbers garnered at the last election as a renaissance of the party.

The proposed restructuring of the party must be done in the spirit of good faith.

SUGGESTIONS:

If possible by the close of 2021, a register containing the names of all members and their skill sets should be in place, it would facilitate the evaluation of the actual number of members and the army of professionals within the party.

This would help in the estimation of the financial benefits that will be accrued from dues, and other sources.

Members must be engaged in a transparent policy formulation, resource mobilization. Security and intelligence gathering etc.

Every card-bearing member of good standing must have a chance to vote and can be voted for at all levels of the party structures.

The survivor of the NDC is dependent on a change in strategies and policies which must involve every member of the party.

Finally, the broken spine must be healed by being candid in the recognition of cadres who had sacrificed their youthful age in the formation of the National Democratic Congress.

LET US REVIVE THE FOUNDATION SPIRIT OF THE NATIONAL DEMOCRATIC CONGRESS.