Oh, ye political party called New Patriotic Party (NPP), when will you learn to be guided by your past mistakes? Are you so obstinate to refuse honest advice and suggestions same as then NPP General Secretary Kwabena Agyapong, did, to almost completely culminate in the twilight of his political career? It is rumoured that a directive from a “power from above”, the usual nonsensical Ghanaian intimidatory ploy to deprive one of their fundamental human rights, has tasked all NPP members of parliament to back one and only one specified NPP flag bearer contestant, among the horde of contestants, or else, they lose their financial and logistics support to be offered them by the party in the impending NPP parliamentary primaries election. I shall be extremely saddened if the rumour turns out to be true.
The NPP leadership are noted for intransigently imposing people of their choice, rather than the preferred candidates by the electorate or constituents of the electoral area, on the people. Evidence has proven that in many such instances, the result has been unfavourable for NPP. I am not going to spend my precious time enumerating instances where NPP have suffered bloody nose and shamefaced when those candidates they slyly or openly impose on the constituencies, contrary to the preferences of the constituents, have lost the elections.
Why this obstinate attitude by the leadership of NPP knowing very well that it costs the party parliamentary seats as well as cause animosity towards the leaders and the party? Do the leaders by this stubborn attitude of theirs take the electorate or the constituents in such areas for imbeciles? As one of my former work colleagues, Alf Wright, a British-born Jamaican used to tell me, when he was a child growing up, whenever he refused to heed to her mum’s order to him to stop doing whatever silly thing he was doing, the mum would pinch his ear so hard, and saying, if you don’t listen, you will feel it. Once the mum pinched him that hard, poor Alf would start crying like a chicken baby, he said.
Will those “powers from above” within NPP and the government learn a bitter lesson from the incident that split up then Popular Front Party (PFP) led by late Victor Owusu to culminate in the defeat of the party in the 1979 general elections, only to usher in the PNP government led by late President Hilla Limman? Should those powers from above continue to disadvantage the other NPP flag bearer contestants by craftily cajoling the NPP MPs to ensemble support one specific candidate for whatever reason, I am afraid, the incident that birthed the United National Convention (UNC), a centrist political party in Ghana during the Third Republic (1979–1981) led by William Ofori Atta, may repeat itself. Give all the NPP flag bearer contestants a level playing field, thus, a situation in which everyone has a fair and equal chance of succeeding, for the NPP delegates to decide their individual fate in November 2023. Should there be any coercion of some sort as being rumoured, I am afraid, a schism may occur to take NPP into opposition to make it a failure their slogan, “breaking the 8”. I invite all ye NPP leaders right through to the last NPP foot soldier or sympathiser, to avail yourselves of the tangible advice and suggestions freely being dispensed by Rockson Adofo, the fearless and proud son of the Kumawu/Asiampa soil. A word to the wise is sufficient.
Source: Rockson Adofo
