Goosie Tanoh in a handshake with Jerry John Rawlings
Augustus Goosie O. Tanoh, onetime aide to former President, Flt. Lt. Jerry John Rawlings, has paid a courtesy call on the NDC founder to get support for his purported plans to become the opposition National Democratic Congress (NDC) flagbearer in 2020.
Mr. Tanoh who abandoned the NDC ahead of the crucial 2000 general election which the NDC lost to then opposition NPP, to form his own NRP for which many ardent NDC members have never forgiven him since they claimed his breakaway made the NDC lose that election which brought President J.A. Kufuor and Alhaji Aliu Mahama to power, is hiding behind a group calling itself Organising for Ghana (OfG) to re-launch his political career.
It is obvious that he wants to become NDC flagbearer for 2020, a position about 10 of the party’s gurus including former President John Mahama are fighting for.
Mr. Tanoh reportedly called on the former President last Wednesday, to discuss socio-economic and political issues affecting the country and the NDC.
Ethical Collapse
He is reported to have said that there is an ‘ethical collapse’ of state institutions and ‘the grinding poverty and insecurity of Ghanaians’ were similar to the situation that pertained in the country in the late1970s and early 1980s and said an ‘urgent course-correction’ was required for Ghana to avoid the kind of ‘social collapse’ it faced in 1981.
He said it will “require a massive and sacrificial national mobilisation that not only solves the country’s material problems but that challenges the selfish and elitist values and leadership practices that underpin them”.
He said that “political parties, the central political institutions that the 31st December Revolution bequeathed to the Fourth Republic, are simply not delivering value for society and that the political establishment must be overhauled to bring the masses back to the forefront of national development struggles.”
OfG Agenda
Mr. Tanoh said “the OfG agenda is first to reorganise the NDC to restore voluntarism, participatory decision-making, integrity, and transparency; second to regain public trust in the NDC and reposition it in national life; and third to help it recapture power to resume the national democratic transformation of our country.”
“These experiences have profoundly shaped my own political outlook and methods. They underlie what I believe I can offer the party and the Ghanaian people. Today, the NDC needs leadership that understands mass mobilisation and participatory democracy. My greatest pride remains my work as Head of Projects and Programmes in the National Development Committee where we worked with PDCs, WDCs, the Student & Youth Task Force and other mass organisations in achieving this mobilisation. If I have any claim to leadership now, it is based on this experience.”
Display of Opulence
President Rawlings in his response reiterated the need for a free and fair electoral process during the NDC contest to select its leaders and urged that the campaigns be conducted without the open display of opulence as had happened in the past.
He would leave the decision as to who leads the NDC into the 2020 election to the collective judgement of the delegates and promised not to be an obstacle to any of the aspirants.
Rawlings Factor
Ahead of the December 7, 2018 NDC election of who becomes the flagbearer, former President Rawlings has re-established his control of the party since all the aspirants are dashing to his Ridge office in Accra to pay homage to him.
The NDC tried to go into the 2016 general election without their founder and in the end they were ‘cut to size’ by then opposition New Patriotic Party (NPP) on December 7.
Even former President Mahama whose ‘babies with sharp teeth’ have undermined Mr. Rawlings, has seen the need to pay homage to the founder as he seeks a second chance to lead the NDC.
By William Yaw Owusu