Only Rawlings can salvage NDC from destruction

In fact, one does not have to look far for the evidence of Ex-President Rawlings devoted attachment to the party he convivially autographed with his blood. Yes, his 31st December 1981 revolution commemoration speeches are clear manifestations of his unbridled attachment to the party he founded in 1992.

Indeed, Ex-President Rawlings’s unconditional love for his brainchild (NDC) has not tapered off, not by any stretch of the imagination.

Regrettably, however, the founder of NDC, J. J. Rawlings, may well have to come out of retirement and rescue his beloved NDC from the people he passionately describes as “babies with hard teeth” who lack any integrity to make the party great again.

In the wake of the NDC’s humiliating 2016 election defeat, Ex-President Rawlings lamented: “Most people are yet to recover from the traumatic shock of the December 7th election results. “But I will have to state that if we turn our backs to our history us a party, we cannot escape the responsibility for the result”.

“I kept providing the warning whenever and wherever I could, and in public as well. “But no, once again the uncouth and uncultured in our party and government chose to insult and disrespect some of us” (Rawlings, 2016).

“Need I remind you that the NDC was built on principles and values that emerged as a result of circumstances that led to our birth?”

“The fallen heroes we honour today expect of us in the least, never to relapse into those same old days. But that has not been the case.

“In the wake of the revolution we made pronouncements that summed up the state of affairs that prevailed then.

“I admonished back then that; “Ghana should be a land where it will be accepted practice and norm that those who earn the privilege to govern, should administer in humility, conscious that they are the servants of the people and are ready to submit themselves and their actions to public scrutiny and accountability” (Rawlings, 2016).

It is absolutely true that some people who called themselves NDC supporters have been showing gross disrespect to their party founder. After all, didn’t the party General Secretary, Asiedu Nketia, who was proselytised and christened into the Umbrella fraternity by Rawlings, once call Rawlings a barking dog? Yes he did.

And, haven’t the NDC’s boisterous brats (the babies with sharp teeth), who are not privy to their party’s history been castigating Rawlings all the time for expressing his grievances over the unobjectionable mess in his party?

In fact, the NDC loyalists are committing political suicide, or worst still, they are living in a denial for refusing to accept the fact that former President Rawlings is indeed revered by the party foot soldiers more than any other member of the party.

After all, former President Rawlings founded the NDC and managed to bring along a lot of supporters to his corner. It would thus appear extremely incredulous for anybody to suggest that former President Rawlings is currently irrelevant in the Umbrella fraternity.

The undeniable fact however is, former President Rawlings still commands respect among the teeming party foot soldiers and it is possible that some of his supporters will be aggrieved over the NDC leadership’s abhorrent attitude towards him.

Unfortunately, however, the NDC’s boisterous brats who are not privy to their party’s history have been rebuking Rawlings for rightly expressing his grievances over the irreversible mess in the party he undersigned with his blood. .

Why wouldn’t he shriek and scold on the chilling news of some NDC Members of Parliament allegedly keeping double salaries over a period of two years?

In the past, Rawlings had raised concerns over the insulting behaviour of the NDC brats, many of whom do not even have passing acquaintance with the formation of the party.

Take, for example, Rawlings had this to say during the NDC’s 2012 National Congress: “Mr. President, fellow Ghanaians it is said that we should not throw out the baby with the bath water, but what we do when some of the babies in the tub are babies with hard teeth, biting and spewing some very horrible invectives? Should they not be lowered out with the dirty water? After all one bad nut is all it takes to spoil the taste in your mouth.

“When we find ourselves at a wooden bridge with some planks rotten, do we wait to get new planks before removing the rotten ones or do we remove the rotten ones immediately?” (JJ Rawlings, August 30, 2012).

In so far as I am an unrepentant critic of Rawlings, I do not think the man deserves all the effusions from the members of the party he worked studiously to bring to existence.

Given that the vast majority of the members of the current NDC Party executive were proselytised and baptised into the NDC fraternity by Ex-President Rawlings, one would have expected an outright condemnation of the incessant insults directed at the founder of the party, but that has not been the case.

However the alleged sour relations between the founder and some of the current national party executives, it is boundlessly out of order for any member to show gross disrespect to the indefatigable Rawlings.

Former President Rawlings has been lamenting plangently: “I have worked with good people all my life. “I have worked with bad people all my life, some wicked, some with character defects but evil natured people must be kept away”.

And, who says that it will come as a surprise when the NDC founder, Rawlings, decides to take over and clean the party he cherishes so much?