Opinions of Sunday, 10 November 2019
Columnist: Kwaku Bimpeh
The pantomime villain Sammy Gyamfi can lie through his teeth at every opportunity to score political points. On the Ekosisen show recently, he confirmed that he will accept a position from John Mahama should he come back to power, however on being questioned that will equate to the same friends and family government he vehemently opposes, he backtracked and said he might not even want any position in government! An indecisive politician indeed. Not long-ago, leaked documents from the NDC camp highlighted the intentions of the NDC as per the advice of their chief propaganda officer Sammy Gyamfi, to pitch Ashanti’s against Akan’s within the NPP fraternity.
When asked about this on Omega TV in London during his appearance not long ago, he told viewers that such documents were fake documents that had been doctored by the NPP. Not surprising that they have pushed the wheel of their semantic plans into action, by choosing to highlight the ethnicity of government appointees through his “family and friends” grand scheme. For the purposes of this article, even though unnecessary, I would like to draw the attention of readers to a number of friends and family who were very key during the NDC years, including but not limited to the Tetteh family, the Ahwoi family, the Lithur family, the Sawyers, the Ocrans, the Iddrisu family and many more.
If indeed the President plan was to appoint his friends and family the way the villain portrays then, the President has failed woefully as out of the about 650,000 public sector workers of whom some 6000 were government appointees, 51 falls into this category? This accounts for an abysmal 0.85% of all appointments made, this is statistically insignificant.
The point of my writing not to support nepotism in any shape or form, but we must tread cautiously along such lines as it can be very divisive. Sammy Gyamfi is aiming to redefine the meaning of nepotism to suit his own evil agenda which we must not accept. We must not accept any politics of division in Ghana, we are much better than that and it’s not in our nature as a people, who have co-existed relatively peacefully over centuries, even though from very different ethnic backgrounds.
How can anyone look at comrades and patriots, who are qualified, experienced craftsmen, who have been in the trenches during political struggles, revolutions, and campaigns, made huge contributions to party activities and deny them a place in government, an opportunity to serve, only because they are family or friend? Should Ghana be running an “enemies and outsiders" government? Is this how Sammy Gyamfi believes corruption can be fought? Oh boy, that will surely redefine historical accounts of the evolution of our species as social animals, and I cannot wait to see how scholarship embraces this. As a county and as a people should we should be encouraging rewarding handwork, it’s the right thing to do.
What Sammy Gyamfi must do is to spend quality time with his colleagues to produce much better manifesto alternative that guarantees a better policy on how to make Accra cleaner, how to create jobs for the youth, how to build an educated workforce and how to create a much faster pace of development that Ghana so badly craves. The NDC has become desperate and wounded and its trying to use all sorts of dirty means and strategies to discredit the good policies such as Free SHS, a much lower budget deficit, lower inflation, lower interest rates, decentralised development work , ongoing extensive road constructions across the country, one constituency one ambulance, planting for food and jobs, rearing for food and jobs, 1D1F 1C1A, 1C1W and many more policies ensures an much faster take off in terms of our development.
Interestingly the NDC has left its own internal politics, which is in disarray, to focus on the internal politics of the NPP, a very tolerant political party. My advice to Sammy Gyamfi, the pantomime villain, is very simple “Never allow yourself to be so desperate that you settle for far less than what you deserve”.
God Bless Ghana
God Bless The NPP
Kwaku Bimpeh
Deputy Director of Communications
NPP UK