The ungrateful NDC MPs must bow their heads in shame!

It is, indeed, understatement to stress that some of us were flabbergasted over the abhorrent conduct of the NDC members of parliament during the state of the nation address on Thursday 8th February 2018.

As for their ‘resist the oppressor’s rule’ rendition, we shall ignore, simply because there is not much we could do about senility and puerility. But all said and done, the ‘resist the oppressor’s rule’ chorus brings nothing but sad memories to some of us. Verily, some of us were old and fortunate enough to witness the boundless oppression and sheer lawlessness which took place during the P/NDC administrations over a period of three decades (1970-1990s).

Aside from the extraneous and incessant heckling of President Akufo-Addo, the minority MPs puerilely cheered their Doyen Mahama and ignominiously ‘catcalled’ at their founder Rawlings and his wife Nana Konadu Agyemang Rawlings.

It all began when President Akufo-Addo was blissfully introducing the dignitaries present at the state of the nation address. The minority MPs plangently cheered at the mentioning of Ex-President Mahama’s name and sonorously hooted upon hearing the names of the founders of NDC. Their conduct, so to speak, was destitute of honour and respect.

Whatever the case, it is dishonourable for the honourable NDC members of parliament to disrespectfully hoot at the very person whose brainchild (NDC) has rather made them ‘somebody’s’.

Personally, I was extremely depressed in spirits and could hardly contain my emotional intelligence. Nonetheless, in a state of utter puzzled countenance, I soliloquised: “how could human beings be so ungrateful?” “How on earth could any human being show utter disrespect to the breast that fed him/her?” “The world is not fair indeed.”

I need not be belabouring on the evolution of National Democratic Congress (NDC), but for the sake of balanced annotation, I shall give a brief history of the making of NDC at some point.

In fact, some recalcitrant members within the NDC have made it a habit of abusing their founder. Take, for example, prior to the 2016 election, some elements in the National Democratic Congress (NDC) were reported to have called for their founder Rawlings’s blood.

Back then, Ex-President Rawlings morosely expressed his surprise as to how and why some people within the NDC, the party he founded could orchestrate needless attacks on him.

“The ex-President cited the petition presented by the Great Consolidated Popular Party (GCPP) leader, Henry Lartey to the Economic and Organised Crime Office (EOCO) and the Commission on Human Rights and Administrative Justice (CHRAJ) asking them to investigate circumstances under which he (Mr Rawlings) reportedly received an amount of $5 million from the late Nigerian Head of State, General Sani Abacha, as gift in 1998.

“Mr Rawlings says his own people in the NDC are behind the ploy to sully his hard-won reputation” (See: ‘$5m Abacha cash, NDC chasing me-says Rawlings’; dailyguideafrica.com, 18/10/2016).

In fact, back then, I was not least surprised that some elements in the NDC could go to such an extent of bringing the name of their party founder into disrepute. After all, didn’t the party General Secretary, Asiedu Nketia, once call Rawlings a barking dog?

Besides, Haven’t the NDC’s boisterous brats who are not privy to their party’s history been upbraiding Rawlings all the time for expressing his grievances over the rot in his party?

In so far as I am not a fun of Rawlings, I do not think the man deserves all those effusions from the members of the party he worked strenuously to bring to existence.

Short history of the formation of NDC

On 15th May 1979, a group of disgruntled junior army officers led by Flight Lieutenant Jerry John Rawlings failed in their insurrection against General Fred Akuffo’s regime, which culminated in the arrest and trial of Rawlings.

However, a group of army officers who happened to be Rawlings’s apologists revolted on 4th June 1979; broke jail and released Rawlings and his cohorts.

After successfully deposing General Akuffo and his Supreme Military Council (SMC) government, the mutinous officers went ahead and formed their own government, which they called as the Armed Forces Revolutionary Council (AFRC) and appointed Flt. Rawlings as their chairman.

Rawlings and his conspiratorial plotters vowed to lustrate the country of the rampant sleaze, corruption and social injustices which instigated their coup d’état.

So in their attempt to purge the country of the perceived injustices, they carried out what they termed “house cleaning exercise”,--they dealt with perceived offenders arbitrarily.

The cabals proceeded with their intentions and callously murdered prominent people including General Fred Akuffo, General Kutu Acheampong, General Akwasi Afrifa and many others.

After getting rid of those they saw as threat to their hidden agenda, they decided to conduct general elections for political parties in the same year-1979.

Following the successful conduct of general elections, Dr Hilla Limann and his People’s National Party (PNP) emerged victorious in 1979.

Nevertheless, Rawlings and his cohorts did not give Dr Liman the opportunity to carry out his mandated responsibility. For Rawlings and his conspiratorial plotters unfairly kept criticising Dr Limann’s administration for what they perceived as economic mismanagement, until he, Rawlings, decided to depose Dr Limann.

And to fulfil his lifetime ambition of becoming the head of state, J. J. Rawlings and some obstreperous army officers took arms and succeeded in overthrowing the constitutionally elected government of Dr Hilla Limann on 31st December 1981.

Rawlings subsequently formed a government which he called the Provisional national Defence Council (PNDC) and appointed himself as the chairman.

Although the PNDC government boasted some seasoned politicians, the vast majority of the military personnel who headed the core Ministries were novices in the political terrain.

And, in his weird attempt to get rid of the perceived sleazes and corruption, many Ghanaians were unjustifiably murdered or tortured mercilessly for apparent infinitesimal offences.

Regrettably, however, some market women were stripped naked in the public and whipped for either hauling their products or selling on high prices. While their male counterparts were shaved with broken bottles and whipped for offences that would not even warrant a Police caution in a civilized society.

As if that was not enough, three eminent high court judges and a prominent army officer were barbarically murdered by PNDC apple-polishers on 30th June 1982 for carrying out their constitutionally mandated duties.

The PNDC apologists savagely murdered the three eminent high court judges because their judgement did not go in their favour.

Even though Rawlings supplanted power under the pretext of acting as a peripheral Panacea, he spent a little over eleven years before lifting the ban on political parties in 1992.

Rawlings succumbed to the internal and external political pressures for him to step down and allow multi-party democracy.

Subsequently, he lifted the ban on political parties in 1992 and resigned from the military simultaneously and put himself forward for election.

Upon his retirement from the military, Rawlings went ahead and formed a political party, which he named as the National Democratic Congress (NDC), a progeny of PNDC.

However the alleged sour relations between the founder and some members of NDC, the indefatigable Rawlings unconditional love for his brainchild (NDC) has not tapered off, not by any stretch of the imagination.

Given the circumstances, why must anybody blame Rawlings for relishing the opportunity to clean the party he autographed with his blood and cherishes so much?