Daniel Osei
Former Consul to Dubai, Daniel Osei, has observed that the National Democratic Congress (NDC) does not appear to have learnt any lessons from their disastrous performance at the polls last year, which truncated then President John Mahama’s second term bid.
He said the leadership of the party is repeating the same mistakes that led to its massive defeat by trying to impose the former president on the party for the 2020 polls, when the fundamentals that led to the humiliating defeat are still unresolved.
He said Mr. Mahama cannot be the NDC’s ‘surest bet’ for 2020, once the party’s leadership has still not ensured that there is re-organization at the grassroots.
Mr. Osei said a member of the party, on a social media platform called APN, wanted to know if the NDC had learnt any lessons from the humiliating defeat and whether the Prof Kwesi Botchwey 13-member Committee that investigated why the party lost had done any good or harm to it, adding that the question had kept him thinking.
“We have not learnt any lessons. The hijacking of the party by the ‘Onaapo’ crew (in reference to the Mahama camp), with their same feel good ‘Onaapo’ antics and deceptive explanations have kept the party hostage and also bankrupt of ideas,” he fired, adding, “The deliberate insistence on repeating the mistakes of the past with the calculated lies we tell ourselves is very sad and the end result is also very predictable.”
Corruption Tag
“On the issue of corruption, it was bad enough that we had funny situations like the Ford saga and its resultant fallout; today we have glaring images of the former president’s brother Ibrahim, being hauled before EOCO to make good on a debt of GH¢12 million+ (120 billion old cedis) for nonpayment of duties on his goods for over two years when we know traders get their goods auctioned off for far less,” Mr Osei stressed.
The Consul added, “How I wished it was all a lie when the story first broke, but alas….. After he finally paid, for whatever reason, they decided to put copies of the checks for payment online for all to see. How redemptive was that? It only confirmed he actually duped the government as charged and made our communicators work even harder.
“On the back of all this, and worse; we embrace the nonsense theory of ‘our surest bet’ as we boldly replace ‘no abaabase’ with ‘sankofa’ as if we are entitled.”
Mr Osei insisted, “No! We haven’t learnt anything folks, and we better sit up.”
KB Report
He said that the Prof Kwesi Botchwey Committee Report has the potential to solve the NDC problems but the leadership of the party had thrown it into the dustbin because if the recommendations were fully implemented, there is no way the former president is going to be accepted by NDC delegates to lead them again.
By William Yaw Owusu