If you have ever been a sprinter like me, you will have known that the moment you are on the track for the race to start, you strike your mental delete button in order to be and concentrate on the race. And when the gun is fired for the race to start, you see yourself as a super human being who is out there to conquer the world. It is when you win the race that you become a normal human being.
December 7 is beckoning and as such the NPP should strike the mental delete button like I did when I was a sprinter during my school days. The NDC has an agenda to distract the NPP so that the party will not concentrate on the elections. To start with, they commissioned Salifu Maase, a half-baked journalist to heap insults upon insults on Nana Akufo Addo and key persons in the NPP so that these ladies and gentlemen will divide their might into two; one to fight Salifu Maase and the other half for the issue related campaign messages. That enterprise failed woefully with Salifu Masse now languishing in jail and soon to become an ex-convict. I now understand why the NPP chose “Still the fight is the Lord’s” as their slogan for election 2016. When this crook started his invectives and tagged people as ex-convicts, little did he know that one day he too will become an ex-convict extraordinaire.
The NDC saw Alhaji Dr. Bawumia as a thorn in their flesh so they charged Koku Anyidoho, Felix Ofosu Kwakye, and co, to attack the economics whiz-kid. To these people who cannot match the fine gentlemen in anyway, whatever Dr. Bawumia churns out should be challenged. When Dr. Bawumia predicted that soon the NDC government will go to the IMF for a bailout, they insulted and vilified the man with some calling him an ignorant person who calls himself an expert in economics. To put the man to shame, the Finance Minister and the president himself told Ghanaians that the government will not go for any bailout.
Then the cat came out of the bag. At the end of the day, the NDC government went to the IMF for a bailout with its accompanying harsh conditionality. One of the conditionalities of the IMF, such as putting a ceiling on employment has sent the unemployment rate hitting the rooftop as graduates roam the streets aimlessly. The IMF again asked the government to remove all subsidies and the government complied. When the reality dawn on Ghanaians and the economic hardship started biting, demonstrations by various workers started. Yet another conditionality given by the IMF was for the government to increase utility tariffs and again the government complied.
When businesses and the workers started to complain, the president said he has released three hundred million Ghana Cedis to the VRA so that workers and businesses will get some relief. The IMF heard of the release of the money and they started to kick against it by refusing to release funds to the government. Then the president told the world that what he did was not a subsidy but a “re-alignment”. Whatever that means is for the man to tell us but as for me, whether re-alignment or subsidy, it is a subsidy. There was this history teacher who told his students that the King of Mushosho was called Lesotho. When a student reminded the teacher that it is rather the King of Lesotho who was called Mushosho, the teacher retorted: “Whether the King of Lesotho was Mushosho or the King of Mushosho was Lesotho, he was a King”.
Anytime the NPP raises issues, with the EC, the NDC meets such issues with insults in order to distract Ghanaians. Mr. Mark Manu, the NPP Campaign Manager raised very important issues on the E-Transmission of results on December 7. The man said indeed, the proposal was made at an IPAC meeting but what is mind-boggling is that the EC did not make it clear as to (i) Who are the IT Companies involved? (ii)What safeguards have the EC made so that data is not intercepted on its way to the EC office in Accra? (iii)What type of encrypted dimension have been put in place? Mr. Manu wanted to know if the E-Transmission issue is included in the CI 94 which is currently before parliament. These are legitimate questions which when answered, will go a long way to make sure every decision is backed by law to avoid unnecessary litigation and chaos as we prepare for December 7.
Then Mr. Big Stuff, Koku Anyidoho jumped on the neck of the man and the NPP as a political party who are stakeholders in the electoral process. Listen to the man with protruding stomach: “NPP is pampered and now behaving like a spoilt child. We will crack the whip”. Habba! Has it reach this far? Ghanaians have contained this guy for a very long time and so he thinks he can say anything. The other day when lights went off during a football match at the Baba Yara Sports Stadium at Kumasi, the same Koku Anyidoho opened his big mouth to threaten that “heads will roll” because he suspected sabotage and today he is telling the NPP that he will “crack the whip.” When people start talking like this we need to haul the person before a Psychiatrist to see if all is right with him. The utterances of people like Koku Anyidoho is the reason why I am asking the NPP to strike the mental delete button and concentrate on issues concerning the credibility of the December 7 elections. Was it not the same Koku Anyidoho who insulted the Supreme Court of Ghana by saying the SC should rather go and do the work of the EC?
“Crack the whip” is an idiom referring to the disciplining of one’s subordinates or to use your authority to make someone else behave better. In fact, it also means behave in domineering and demanding way towards one’s subordinates. If we are to go by the above mentioned definition, one may ask: Who are Koku Anyidoho’s subordinates in the NPP? What authority has Anyidoho got to discipline the NPP? And above all, who can Anyidoho discipline in the NPP? You see, the guy is just talking ‘by heart’ and so the NPP should treat him with ordinary contempt anytime he speaks because he is rather a spoilt child. Other than that, how can he speak the way he did if he was not pampered by his paymasters?
This Koku man should know that every dog has got its day and time changes. When he was junketing the globe with the late Atta Mills and throwing his weight about, did he ever know that a day will come when he will be seeking recognition on the corridors of power? This boy should sit down and look down memory lane and see those who started the journey with Rawlings in the revolutionary days. They were the men and women who did put their noses on the grindstone but today they are missing in action. Today, Koku Anyidoho has the guts to tell the NPP that he will crack the whip. Tomorrow he will find himself lying on a table and the whip which he intends to use to crack, will be used on him
NDC AGENT PROVOCATEURS
An agent provocateur (French for “inciting agent”) is a person who commits, or acts to entice another person to commit an illegal or rash act. An agent provocateur may be acting out of his own sense of duty or hired to discredit people. A political organization or government may use agent provocateur against political opponents. The agent provocateur will try to incite the opponent to do counterproductive or ineffective acts to foster public disdain or provide pretext for aggression against the opponent. From the definition given above, no one can convince me that Koku Anyidoho and the NDC communicators are not agent provocateurs. Defeat is staring them in the face so all that they can do is to provoke the leadership and the rank and file of the NPP to go down the gutter with them.
You see, these people meet and plan what to do to distract the NPP and lure them to commit themselves so that they will seize the opportunity to use filthy words against them. Thank God the leadership of the NPP has decided to stay clean while they rather go down the gutter through their unguarded utterances. Nana Addo and Dr. Bawumia in particular, have earned my respect more than before. Since the insults and vilification started, one was expecting the duo to at least return fire to prove to these starters in life that if they thought the duo could not bite, they should look at their teeth. No wonder the sages say silent is golden but speech is silvery.
These NDC agents provocateur should have known by now that Nana Addo and Dr. Bawumia have thick skins like that of a crocodile. It started in the run-up to the 2012 general elections. The same guys used unprintable words on Nana Addo but much as they tried to provoke him it did not wash because the person they wanted to provoke was “unprovokable”. Mr. John Mahama was never heard reining in these guys and so they had the open cheque to insult and walk with shoulders high. That is why many Ghanaians are saying the president has directed his hounds to vilify the NPP leadership. The Akans say if you are an elder in the house and you sit unconcerned for the children to eat python meat, when the time comes for the roll call of those who eat python meat, your name will be included. But the sad thing is that it has not dawn on these guys that even when the president leaves office, he is covered by the Indemnity Clause which is enshrined in the Constitution. Tempus fugit!!!
Eric Bawah