The country is in the grip of temporary alliances.
Occasionally, elections “birth” this kind of coalitions even among ideologically opposed groups. That is why it is imperative for the ruling New Patriotic Party (NPP), especially Veep Mahamudu Bawumia’s Team to hold their fire and refrain from giving Reverend Owusu Bempah’s latest prophesy any rebuttals.
Can anybody “think far” about how Owusu Bempah can stand in the full glare of the world to prophesy that John Mahama will win the December 7 polls, someone he declared can never ascend the high office of President ever again. We know how these temporary alliances happen.
They happen on the back of monetary inducements that make wisdom to depart from those involved, because in these instances, principles are sacrificed for parochial gain.
Linked to these political alliances are the ongoing protests by various groups calling on President Akufo-Addo to take certain actions to end galamsey.
Here too all kinds of shadowy groups have emerged issuing ultimatums to the government about the galamsey menace. The latest is a group calling itself United Fetish Priests Association, also serving notice to hit the streets to end galamsey.
Trust our predictions; more of such groups with just two months to the polls will emerge like mushrooms under the guise of fighting galamsey, but with the objective of saving the flagging campaign of John Mahama and his National Democratic Congress (NDC).
We insist that the success of the galamsey fight rests with a concerted effort by chiefs, community members, politicians, civil society groups, journalists and indeed fetish priests but not within the executive powers of the NPP government.
We failed in the past because some people decided to sit on the fence while President Akufo-Addo pursued the galamseyers at the peril of his presidency. The NDC, which promised to release those jailed for their involvement in galamsey, is once again on the prowl. It is making a U-turn to be seen to be concerned about the effects of illegal mining on the future of the country.
As recently as about one week, two leading so-called members have made statements alluding to the fact that they are in bed with illegal miners, but there has not been a wink from so-called anti-galamsey campaigners.
Joana Gyan, the NDC parliamentary candidate for one of the Amenfi constituencies, is on record to have said she started illegal mining at the age of eight, while the NDC Member of Parliament (MP) for Prestea Huni Valley, Robert Wisdom Cudjoe, is reported to have said any ban on galamsey will affect his electoral fortunes, but here again the anti-galamsey groups “see nothing, and hear nothing.”
Obviously, this galamsey fight now has a political colour, and it is the colour of the NDC.
This too, like before, shall pass. Ghana will remain stable and peaceful after the people have renewed their faith in the ballot box on December 7, instead of the NDC’s alternative of using the bullet and lies to effect a change in the governance structure.
The NDC, has adopted some deceitful agenda to confuse the electorate with just about two months to the polls instead of hitting the campaign trail with cogent messages about how a future NDC administration under John Mahama intends to “reset” the country.
The first strategy was to cry wolf or shout fire in a crowded place about the provisional voters’ register, with the view to rally loud and critical voices against the Jean Mensa-led Electoral Commission (EC).
When the NDC realised that civil society groups were not properly aligned to their misplaced agitations, it called on its supporters to take to the streets nationwide, but with no effects. However, a few respectable voices appealed to the EC to make an attempt to be more transparent in its dealing with all the political parties, but not limited to the NDC.
And to demonstrate its commitment to free, fair, credible and transparent elections in December, the EC yielded to sound judgment, called an Inter-Party Advisory Committee (IPAC) meeting where it asked the stakeholders to present their grievances.