Paradox of our politics

When Ghanaians woke up one day and a certain unfortunate message, that former President John Dramani was a drunkard, had gone viral, there was justifiable anger, that such a statement must not be tolerated in our politics. In essence, the majority of our people condemned the message.

Of course, loyalists of the National Democratic Congress (NDC) cried the loudest and they were right to do so and got support from the majority of Ghanaians. The only people who might have been deflated were those who went underground to create the mischievous rumour which did not find favour with our people.

That happened at a time that the Electoral Commission had not announced an electoral period nor invited nomination of candidates. It was the days of presumptuous unilateral declaration of candidature unsupported by law. Even then, people of conscience and open minds condemned the development as unacceptable.

However, as the December 7 general election draws near, the NDC, has in a very diffused way, paid for a particular advertisement on a number of radio and television stations, creating a riddle as to which Presidential candidate ravishes pork with whisky, and shamefully and sickeningly, the answer is Dr Mahamadu Bawumia. This is a “sickening madness” because Dr Bawumia as a Moslem neither drinks whisky nor eats pork.

Why?

Why would the NDC officially associate with and pay for something, which they and other well meaning Ghanaians justiably condemned as baseless and must not be introduced or encouraged in our political discourse.

Is it because the NDC can no longer rely on the refrain that the New Patriotic Party (NPP) merely uses people from the northern parts of the country for votes but will never select a person from that part of the country to lead the party as its presidential candidate, meaning ethnicity is no longer a tenable message to sell for votes that they want to inelegantly use religion to prosecute the campaign.

Come to think of it, how can any faithful Moslem, an Alhaji at that, be said to eat pork with whisky, a double taboo that necessitates a fatwa as such.

And these others, when John Mahama addressed supporters in the Western Region he asked police recruits now under training to ignore rumours that when the NDC comes to power they would be dismissed and that it was the NPP which dismissed such recruits when it came to power in 2017.

After this, he boldly proclaimed that if the NDC wins on December 7, 2024, and assumes the reigns of power, the party will recruit its members into the Ghana Police Service, sour grapes.

Complex

Sometimes politicians are difficult to understand but may be different. The NDC latched onto comments by Dr Mahamudu Bawumia about economic fundamentals and foreign exchange rates exposure, as well as Kennedy Agyapong’s criticism of the competence of Dr Bawumia’s economic management skills during the NPP’s presidential primary. The NDC concludes that Dr Bawumia is a liar and cannot be trusted to lead the country as our President.

On the other hand, the NPP has been playing the voices of former President John Dramani Mahama and Johnson Asiedu Nketiah, disparaging the Free SHS policy and promising to abolish it if the NDC ever comes to power again.

John Mahama is heard stating that if he had two billion cedis, he would not waste it on Free SHS but use the money for better things whilst the party chairman said that whenever the NDC regained power, the Free SHS programme would be cancelled, in his own words ” nananom, se NDC san ba power a Free SHS no, yebe twam eri se se NPP fuo ka se Free SHS a, wode wia sika” to wit, nananom, if the NDC regains power we will abolish the Free SHS policy because when the NPP says Free SHS, they use that to steal money.

On these, the two parties are acting the same. The difference, however, is that whereas neither Dr Bawumia nor Kennedy Agyapong has denied the statements attributed to them, the NDC as a party, its presidential candidate and chairman insist that it is a lie for anybody to say that a future NDC Administration would abolish or scrap the Fee Senior High School policy, which they admit has come to stay. Yet, none has denied ever making those comments in previous campaigns.