Those who know me will tell you that these days, anytime they see me they see an old man hunched with emotion. I wake up every morning with pain in my heart and tears on my pillow. Set aside for the moment the various hilarious articles I have been writing, and focus instead on why I have pain in my heart.
In 1992 when Mr. Rawlings was literally forced by the World Bank and other civilised nations to allow democratic dispensation to operate in Ghana, few ever thought there will be any political party to challenge Rawlings and his newly formed National Democratic Congress.
The late Professor Adu Boahen who was always on the neck of Rawlings for introducing the Culture of Silence and a few hard nuts of the UP tradition, including Mr. Agyekum Kufuor, Nana Akufo-Addo, Osafo Maafo, JH Mensah and others took the bull by the horns and dared the bloody authoritarian Rawlings’ PNDC regime which metamorphosed into the National Democratic Congress.
The military in Ghana was clandestinely behind the NDC and the Commandos were in full control, threading, beating up and treating Ghanaians like sub-human beings. Life was hell. Yet, as things went tough, the tough kept moving. The younger generation was born too late to experience the pain and disgrace we went through under this wicked regime of drunk and drugged soldiers who treated us so bad. Even our revered chiefs and queenmothers were drilled and slapped in public.
During the 1992 electioneering campaign, few Ghanaians dared showed their faces as supporters of the New Patriotic Party (NPP), an offshoot of the UP tradition. It was during the 1992 electioneering campaign that Rawlings and his criminal hounds shown their true colors.
Rawlings, the master schemer criss-crossed the country to preach evil against the NPP and made the party look like the devil incarnate. Unsuspecting Ghanaians, especially those from the Northern, Upper and Volta regions did not want to hear the name NPP at all. To them, Rawlings was the Messiah with an unblemished character. After all, was he not nicknamed Junior Jesus?
When Professor Adu Boahen, the presidential candidate of the NPP, went to the Volta Region to campaign, he was pelted with stones and the NDC made children hoot at the fine Professor and his team as if they were common criminals. Professor Adu Boahen and his entourage had to run away from the region after two days of campaigning to return no more.
I am recounting all these cases to draw the attention of supporters of the NPP in power today to remember how far we have come. It was not easy. Many lost their precious lives. Some were maimed and others ran to exile for fear of dear life. Those of us who stayed behind sat on tenterhooks and feared for our lives. Fu Manchu was in town so everybody must avoid being arrogant.
When Mr. Kufuor held the baton as the flagbearer of the NPP in 1996, he worked beyond human endurance to make the NPP a little bit acceptable to those who hitherto would not like to hear anything about the party, not to talk of touching Mr. Kufuor with a long stick. The party won some few seats in Parliament, thereby rekindling hope for the future.
When Kufuor and his team went to the Volta Region to campaign, the people started to believe in his message even though they did not vote for a single parliamentary candidate of the NPP in that region, neither did they vote for candidate Kufuor nor pelted him with stones like they did to Prof. Adu Boahen.
Yours sincerely was at the Sunyani NPP Delegates Congress held at the Christ the King Hall. Six candidates, including Mr. Kufuor contested for the slot of the flagbearership position and at the end of the day Mr. Kufuor won. Mr. Kufuor went on to win the 2000 Presidential race. What was interesting was that after losing the primaries at Sunyani, all the other candidates rallied around Mr. Kufuor to campaign in the run-up to the 2000 General Election.
The NPP won the election hands down with majority in Parliament. Another interesting thing was that, all those who contested Mr. Kufuor at the Sunyani Congress were given ministerial positions. That is the beauty of the game. It was Mr. Kufuor who told the supporters of the NPP that a messenger in a ruling party is more important than a General Secretary in an opposition party so the NPP should try to stay united. Perfect and unchallengeable naked truth!
Today, what are we seeing in the NPP? Mr. Alan Kyeremateng, a man who has held different ministerial positions in the party from the days of President Kufuor to Nana Akufo-Addo has rebelled and in bed with the NDC. In fact, this is not his first time of resigning from the party. If there is anyone who has benefited from the party more than anyone else, it is Alan Kyeremateng.
When Mr. Kufuor established his presidential initiative, it was Alan who was put in charge of the Ayensu Starch Factory, a project which should have pushed Ghana in a quantum leap forward. He collapsed the initiative but nobody complained for the love of the party. He was later appointed as the Foreign Minister.
Even before Nana Addo held the reins of power, he told Ghanaians that he would appoint Alan as his Minister of Trade and Industry, and when he won the election he kept his promise by appointing him as substantive minister of Trade and Industry till he resigned to contest the Presidential Primaries this year. It was when he realised that the odds were against him that he once again resigned and formed his Butterfly Party. Who cares?
What is disturbing is that after resigning, he started talking as if he was not a Cabinet Minister in the Nana Addo – led administration. To him, the NPP has failed Ghanaians, forgetting that if indeed it is true that the NPP has failed Ghanaians, he was part of the government. As a person from the Ashanti Region, Delegates from his own region voted massively against him and threw their weight behind Dr. Bawumia, a Northerner. That might have peeved him to start kicking like a mad bull.
But should the NPP cry over spilled milk? Dr. Wereko Brobby resigned from the NPP to form his own party, the United Ghana Movement (UGM), but we never heard him castigating the NPP. So when Ghana was celebrating the Golden Jubilee, wise Mr. Kufuor put him in charge of the planning of the anniversary celebration. Tarzan, as he is affectionately called is basking with honour and no NPP member has ever used any unprintable word against him. Alan Kyeremateng should put his ears on the grounds and listen to how NPP supporters are taking him to the cleaners on daily basis.
Hopeson Adorye (The NDC call him HOPELESS Adorye) is another ungrateful person who should be treated with ordinary contempt. He thinks he is on a demolition exercise to drag the name of the NPP and the President into the mud but sadly he doesn’t know he is gradually becoming a laughing stock and a nuisance value. This guy was nowhere near the trenches when we were in battle with the revolutionaries but today he is talking as if he was the one pulling the trigger.
People like Hopeson Adorye are a vexation to the spirit so NPP supporters should let him swim in his folly. The Butterfly Party did not file a candidate during the recent Ejiso by-election but Hopeless Adorye was the representative of Mr. Owusu Aduomi, another rebel at the collation Centre. Do you now see how traitors work? My consolation is that when a butterfly tries to fly at dawn, the dew of dawn will sock it.
It is a matter of time. Mark my words. Question: Between Alan Kyeremateng and Hopeson Adorye, who is Brutus and who is Don Quixote? I pause for an answer while I pick up my hoe to my farm to prepare my land because the rain is falling!!!
By Eric Bawah