The treachery started in the run-up to the 2020 general election. The hierarchy of the party at the national level did not look at that angle as the campaign went on. Like what happened to the party in 2008, the party thought because of the sterling performance of Nana Akufo-Addo and his administration, winning the 2020 elections was a done deal. And so they went to bed.
At the mining areas, the NDC pitched their camp and desperately tried and was successful to convince the galamseyers to vote for the NDC. Their reasons were that when the NDC comes to power, they will open the floodgates for everybody to get involve in galamsey because the youth in those areas were not provided jobs by the Akufo-Addo-led administration so the only way they could survive as young men and women was to illegally dig gold for survival.
They also promised them that, a Mahama-led government will allow them to form groups so that the government will import excavators for each group on Hire Purchase agreement. Meanwhile President Akufo-Addo said he will never supervise a regime which will allow people to destroy the river bodies and the environment as a whole for future generation to suffer. He then put his presidency on the line to fight galamsey.
Whereas majority of Ghanaians supported the President in his effort to salvage the polluted waters in the galamsey areas, NPP supporters who were also involved in galamsey betrayed the President and campaigned for the NDC to come to power so that they could also enjoy the phantom booty. Call them the descendants of Brutus and you will not be far from right. During the peak of the electioneering campaign, I went to a funeral at Asikam near Kyebi and decided to interview a few youth in the town who were undoubtedly NPP supporters. Asikam is a agalamsey operation area and NPP stronghold. All of them told me that even though they were all supporters of the NPP, they will vote against the party because of the ban on galamsey. I asked one guy whether he understood why the people of Akyem call themselves “Akyemkwaa a onom bremu”. He said indeed, he understood but with the production of sachet water, they were no more ‘Akyemkwaaa a onom biremu’ but rather they were now ‘Akyemkwaa a onom Pure Water’ because river Birim, the pride of Akyem is polluted with dangerous chemicals. We all laughed over it and parted ways. Because of money, NPP galamseyers betrayed their own man from Kyebi. Sad indeed.
When the constituency results of the 2020 general election started coming I realized that the NPP was losing almost all the Galamsey operation areas. There was nothing the NPP constituency executive members could do because some of them were also involved in galamsey. The party was therefore slaughtered in the unholy shrine of galamsey. That is why the government should not rest on her oars until glalamsey is uprooted in this country. After all, what will the government lose if they fight the menace? It is simply because the government has only two choices to make. Either we fight with tooth and nail to uproot galamsey or open the floodgates for them to operate and spoil the environment for political expediency. The latter is what I believe the President will do over his dead body. So the only choice for survival is to ruthlessly fight these criminals. Even when these criminals worked tirelessly against the NPP, the party went on to win the elections convincingly. It tells you that majority of Ghanaians supported the President when he did put his presidency on the line.
Another group of traitors are those who campaigned for “skirt and blouse” like the Nkoranza North NPP constituency Chairman, Mr. Amofa and some of his executive members. This group of equally criminal minds are the worse traitors. Some of them are constituency chairmen and their executives who are again campaigning to be voted to same positions. These people should be rejected straight away by the polling station executive members. In their cases they were given monies by the NDC Parliamentary Candidates to campaign for ‘skirt and blouse’ so that the path would be smoothened for them to scale through. These people are worse than arm robbers. What is the guarantee that they will not repeat what they did which led to many NPP Parliamentary Candidates to lose their seats? Look at what is happening in Parliament. But for the wicked behaviors of these criminals, government would not have been in the present quagmire in parliament where even budget which should be approved to pave the way for developmental projects to take place and government machinery to run smoothly was tossed up and down.
In the olden days, we used to have some immigrants from Niger who were called Kaya Kaya. All what they came to Ghana to do was to act as head potters like the Kayayie you see in Accra and Kumasi. Anytime a lorry came to the stations, they will rush to the place and solicit to carry your load to wherever place you wanted them to carry the load to. They will negotiate with you as to how much they will receive before they carry the load. If you refuse to pay the amount they charge, they will stand by your load and refuse to go anywhere. If another Kaya Kaya man comes along and accepts the amount you agree to pay him to carry the load, the first Kaya man will not allow the second Kaya man to carry the load simply because he started the negotiation.
These group of head potters were prominent in Konongo. That is how come the Akans say: Konongo Kaya, if you think you won’t carry the load, stay aside. (Konongo Kaya, se wonso a twe woho).
The NDC can be likened to Konongo Kaya. They won’t carry the load and they will not also allow another Kaya to carry it. That is what I term as insidious farce. The Asantehene Otumfuo Opemsuo has admonished the Parliamentarians not to block the efforts of the ruling party in their quest to look for other means to develop the country and that is good. But do you think, a political party which is infatuated with power will listen? They will not because as the former president who is staging another comeback said: It is a matter of do or die.
The problem I have with the NDC is that they do not want the current government to succeed so that come 2024 they will use the failure of the government to campaign. They did same to ex-president Kufuor but Ghanaians read between the lines and maintained the man in power to move the country forward. When the National Health Insurance Scheme Bill went to parliament they staged a walkout. Mr. Mahama who later became the president of Ghana led that walkout when he was a Parliamentarian, representing the people of Bole/Bamboi. Today, the people of Bole/Bamboi are benefiting from the NHIS. Just look at what they are doing with the e-levy. They know if it becomes a reality, more money will be raked in through taxation which will be used to build roads, school blocks, clinics etc. for the people. And they know if the government succeeds in this way, the government will not go back to the IMF which will be a credit to the Akufo-Addo-led administration. That is their fear. But why is a party seeking for power fear development? When the government decided to use our bauxite as a batter to get development projects, they shouted from the rooftop that it was a loan. Have Haruna Iddrisu and Murtala Mohammed seen the overpass at Tamale? The Chinese are building it as a result of the batter system. Call them enemies of progress. I am gradually losing my patience and you know what I can do when I lose my patience. You better get a standby dictionary when the time comes.
Excuse me whiles I puff my Havana.
By Eric Bawah