Nana Akufo-Addo is not what the NDC thinks he is.
December 22, 2008
I wish to be permitted to use your medium to react to an NDC propaganda ad currently running on TV and radio, which I find unfair and unwarranted. The ad itself insinuates, in very derogatory terms, that someone ‘is typically arrogant, thinks he was born to be president and thinks he knows it all’ – an obvious allusion to the NPP presidential candidate, Hon Nana Akufo-Addo. Preceding this statement in the ad is an agonistic effort by the NDC to extricate its presidential candidate, Prof. Atta Mills from the public perception that the good prof will not be his ‘own man’ if elected president. This perception itself was generated by the view that the prof was unfairly handpicked to be the NDC’s leader and later fuelled by Prof. Mills’ own pronouncement at his official endorsement in year 2000 that he would consult the former president, his political progenitor 24 hours a day. Rightly or wrongly, political opponents including from within the NDC have used this point against the prof time and again, and I respect the NDC’s right to correct this perception through the said ad. My beefs however is the unnecessary and untenable bringing in of Nana Addo as though the ‘Swedru declaration’ and the ’24 hours consultation’ was his workmanship.
Particularly, I am flabbergasted at the NDC’s label of Nana as they have done. First, I am no lawyer but I am not so sure if what someone thinks – what the person has in mind but has not expressed – can be proved in a court of law. The popular maxim that there is no art that can reveal the mind’s construction in the face is very instructive here, and one, at least in the corporeal, would wonder how the NDC can claim that they know what is in other people’s mind. They should then not have contested in the last three elections since they should have known the minds of the electorate, and that they would lose.
On the charge of arrogance, I rather find the NDC’S position contradictory, in that they have reduced Nana Addo’s run-off campaign to only of begging, pleading and apologizing, and are making mockery of it. Does it sound logical, even to the NDC that one who is arrogant and thinks he is everything would go begging and apologizing? To me apologizing to people for possible wrongs is rather a mark of humility. In any case, the days of political arrogance were when the NDC was ruling Ghana, when the people’s complaints were greeted with ‘mo ka koraa na me ye no more’ (I do not care two hoots; I will do worse), a regime in which Prof Mills was vice president.
Again, I am unable to tell if Nana Akufo-Addo thinks he was born to be president but I can vouch that this charge is flawed because the records do not point to that effect. Nana became involved in political activism at the age of 31 and if it only at a later age of 64 that he is running for president for the first time, how then can any objective analyst conclude that he thinks he was born to be president? If indeed Nana thinks so he would not wait to be 64 years before working to be one. Rather he believes in divine providence and would not illegally force his way through to the top as the NDC’s owner has done. Nana, by virtue of his courage and political dynamism, he could have formed a ‘liberation movement’ or a ‘patriotic front for the restoration of democracy’ during the so-called revolution if it has been his belief that he was born to be president, and plunge Ghana into chaos. He rather used legal and peaceful means to help reverse the illegalities of the time to the present shape. Even when party politics started again, he was in no hurry to lead his party to become president, but served in building the party. He must be commended rather than condemned.
In any case, if the somebody thought and thinks he was born to be president, it is no other person than the NDC owner, Mr Rawlings. Motivated by esurience for power and wealth, three months of ‘house cleaning’ was not enough so he needed to have 11 years of ‘provisional’ rule. That again was still not enough and so, by arm-twisting, went ‘constitutional’ for another 8 years, but he still wants more. Pure absolutist! And the NDC says they are unaware of this very phenomenon, for which they exist as a political entity? They must remove the beam from their eyes before trying to se a non-existent speck in someone else’s eyes.
As for the charge of Nana thinking he knows it all, the less I say about it the better, because all Ghanaians are thieves, corrupt and bribable, except Mr Rawlings, with perhaps the wife.
The NDC should stop this kind of propaganda and tell Ghanaians what they can do differently, and not merely to say that they will improve what the NPP is doing, such as the National Health Insurance Scheme, which the NDC rejected and walk out on in parliament.
Korbla KUDA (korblakud@yahoo.co.uk)
Adidome, Central Tongu Constituency.
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2 Responses to “Nana Akufo-Addo is not what the NDC thinks he is.”
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kojo we r tired of npp ,they r liars,arrogance,they only want to dem self.not thinking about tey masses,so dis time they will go by tey grace of god.
I hope the gentleman who wrote this article is still in Ghana and enjoying the presidency of Prof.Mills. I cannot begrudge for holding such an opinion about NDC but we will survive the journey and prove to you people that the elections was about Mr. Rawlings but the interest of Ghana and its people. GOD BLESS GHANA AND ITS CITIZENS EVERYWHERE THEY ARE. ….. AMEN!