After the unprecedented and never-expected loss of the New Patriotic Party (NPP) during the 2024 presidential and parliamentary elections, some gurus of the NPP have come out, not hypocritically though, advocating that members of the party should stop the “blame game.” I vehemently disagree with them all. Why do they want us to stop the blame game?
I personally believe that blame game is a potential and vibrant tool which allows the aggrieved in any democratic group to express their ill-feelings about how things were done in a dictatorial manner, when in several instances, the voice of the people, notably, the grassroots is neglected.
Going by the dynamics of the usual presidential and parliamentary elections of Ghana, particular since 1992, and for the first time, the results changed drastically, and surprisingly tilting toward the advantage of the National Democratic Congress (NDC) to win as many as two-thirds of the parliamentary seats. Never in the political history of Ghana has one particular party won with such a huge margin in the parliamentary seats; once again it is an unprecedented victory for the NDC. And with this, some gurus of the NPP are ordering members of the party to stop the blame game. “Tofiakwa.”
I decided to listen for a brief period of time to prove my humble sign of respect for my leaders. Please, my honorable NPP members, blame game could be an effective agent which makes hidden specks open and bare, and again reveals what went wrong in the latent. We would together accept our wrong-doings and then join in agreed areas of improvement.
Some Ghanaians believe strongly that the reasons for the abysmal defeat of the NPP by the NDC should not be attributed to the nation’s economic hardships; neither should it be attributed to a more effective campaign strategy of the NDC. Others are of the opinion that the Bawumia-led campaign operation was far better, different of its kind, loaded with validatable messages, and with catchy, achievable plans. His running-mate was politically more eloquent, younger and quite energetic with already some achieved political success. Then, why this disgraceful loss?
Let us call spade a spade and hit the hammer right on the head of the nail. We should not gloss over the big mistakes of our former President, H.E. Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo which probably caused the NPP’s major defeat. By the constitution of Ghana, our President is the number one citizen of the nation and must be accorded the highest respect with dignified treatment. However, that right does not negate him from being criticized constructively. It should be accepted that the collection of different critical ideas of intelligence makes a leader the “wisest personality” of the people he leads. Any leader who dwells in adamance creates the impression of being a “secular omniscient” and in the Twi version, you could be nick-named as “Tintintrinti.” How can H.E. Nana Addo decide to maintain his cousin as the finance minister against his rejection by the minority in parliament, and then later by a good section of the majority as well for more than two years when his performance was considered to be dwindling? And to make a mockery of the Ghanaian people, H.E. later assigned his beloved cousin to his office as his financial advisor. In fact, and in my own estimation, this “tintintrinti” adoption is a form of dictatorship; and I can rightly presume that Nana Addo was too rigid to accept the views of members of his cabinet, the council of state and in its entirety the executive arm of his government. With this in mind, some of the people who do vote vowed to punish him squarely.
In another vein, though it was the prerogative right of the President to maintain a set of the same people as his ministers for eight (8) years, his adamance, the “tintintrinti” was revealed again by refusing to embark on ministerial reshuffle. Political analysts and commentators discussed this problem on various media, but Nana did not listen. To be more precise, he thought he had nothing to loss, after all that was his last tenure of term. But, just look at how this adamance, being perceived as dictatorship caused the disgraceful defeat of the NPP!!! Ironically, certain vital and sensitive pronouncements were made by some people who held no ministerial appointment, and were not in the cabinet nor members of the council of state. They were close associates with the same tribal affiliation of Nana. These were some of the negative glues attached to our former president, and I think he should be blamed for those. These were some of the factors that stirred up public bitterness and triggered the heavy defeat of the party; drawing his attention to such should not be considered as blame game. This could be a red flag for aspiring leaders of the party to avoid future occurrences.
It is so glaring that the NPP government has done extraordinary better in all aspects of the nation’s development than any other government of the 1992 cohort; therefore, the party should not have lost in this manner – one-third minority seats in parliament? Unbelievable.
Significantly, the lukewarmness in attitude of some pivots of the party cannot be overlooked. “Let him (Bawumia) do it for us to see!!!” Absolute selfishness. And now we are all in the opposition. Many of us forgot what H.E. President Kuffour said some time ago: “It is better to be the messenger of the ruling party than to be the general secretary of the opposition party.” If the NDC is able to do better (for this, God forbid), those aspiring to lead the party in the future would have to wait for many years until the NDC does worst; and I wish to remind all of us that nobody knows the timetable of death. Today, it is Kofi, tomorrow it could be you, so if it becomes your turn to die today, your political career that has been delayed, partly because of your selfish interest, would be shattered.
Finally, let my digress a bit. I wish to humbly suggest to my National Executive Council (NEC) that our system of selecting our presidential as well as parliamentary candidates during our primaries needs to be revised. I have made this suggestion severally and almost in all my submissions to the party. My suggestion means that the constitution of the NPP should to amended to allow all card-bearing members in good standing to be part of the body that elect our presidential and parliamentary candidates during the primaries, instead of only those designated as “delegates.” I am inclined to believe that presidential and parliamentary candidates are greatly favored by the delegate system of election, because it is so easy to buy almost all the delegates who have been appointed to vote. It is a fact that the number of few party members designated as “delegates” who converge at an agreed point to elect our presidential and parliamentary candidates encourages monetization and buying of votes. Corollary, party officers are also in favor of the delegate system for the same reason – few delegates are easy to be influenced to vote with a small bait. In fact, the delegate system, which involves only few party members, promotes the election of the affluent, though he or she may not be popular, or highly qualified to be an effective candidate; the ultimate therefore is that he/she would be rejected by the electorate.
The greatest advantage of allowing all card-bearing members in good standing to vote during our party’s elections would promote and strengthen a solid financial base of the party at the district levels.
My general remarks after all the above is: Let us encourage ourselves as we weep continually for the next four years and learn intelligent lessons in this bitter opposition era.With proper planning, unity in love, the party can rise up again.
Long live, the NPP.
By Philip Akwasi Opoku.
