Whilst we are faced with hardships, you are here fighting nepotism – Koku damns NDC

The founder and Chief Executive of the Atta Mills Institute, Mr Koku Anyidoho has damned his colleagues in the opposition National Democratic Congress (NDC) for wasting time to fight nepotism, whilst there are hardship issues confronting citizens.

To him, to be able to fight the issue of nepotism very well, political appointees should be subjected to DNA tests to ensure they are not biologically related to the appointing authorities.

Speaking in a radio interview on Accra based Asempa FM,  Mr Anyidoho advised that there is the need to move away from petty politicking and bickering.

He insisted that politicians ought to stop “insulting the intelligence of the public,” when it comes to the issue of nepotism.

“Let us not stretch this nepotism thing too much. As a Christian, I [Koku] ask myself, Jesus Christ had 12 disciples, James and John were they not the sons of Zebedee. So when we are being confronted with hardships, no jobs, bad roads, bad infrastructure, and we want to swim in seas of nepotism? I don’t buy into it.”

The former deputy general secretary of the NDC said he was not talking about only the NDC but the NPP has also chosen that path before.

He said as a civic education proponent and a public policy advocate, there was the need to move away from the pettiness and move to solid grounds.

“If politicians want to convince us that nepotism and friendship” will not be worked with again, then 2020 is down the road, so all political parties should put in their manifesto, that if they win the election, family and friends will not be appointed, then this matter is put to rest, but even with that one, when you are in opposition and family and friends are supporting you, and you win and you ignore them, and you bring strangers, you will lose an election.”

“So let’s move away from the mundane, the periphery and the petty and go unto solid ground.”

Mr Anyidoho said this is what he has been preaching and has resulted in him being described as a “traitor”. “I have not changed”, he said.

He said he was still stuck to the better Ghana agenda former President Mills preached in the 2008 elections in the form of “job creation, a solid economy, infrastructure expansion and then governing in an open, honest and transparent manner. I have not moved away from those principles, I won’t change. If people have changed, that is their business, but I have not changed. I still want a better Ghana.”

He said the better Ghana he wants was a move away from “deep political, parochial consideration and look at the bigger picture.”

Mr Anyidoho insisted that “nepotism, stretched beyond its elastic levels, creates problems,” and so if the Akufo-Addo government has done that, “let’s go after the individuals and expose them for their wrongdoing, I agree with that principle.”

But, he said if it should become everyday political bickering, “are we sure that in the next NDC government, there will be no friends and relatives? Then maybe the Parliamentary Appointment Committee will have to demand DNA tests for appointees because some people could be related by blood without the public knowing.”

He said that could lead to an extent of exhibiting the “realms of absurdity. Lets focus, build the roads, create the jobs, be transparent, lets cut out corruption, lets stop the ethnic bias.

Background

Addressing a press conference on Tuesday (November 5, 2019), the Communications Officer of the NDC, Mr Sammy Gyamfi accused President Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo of leading the “most nepotist government Ghana has ever seen.”

Mr Gyamfi enumerated what he said were classical examples of nepotism in the current administration.

But in a reaction, the New Patriotic Party (NPP) insisted that it cannot appoint enemies to run its government and that the assertion by the opposition NDC that the Akufo-Addo-led administration was running a family and friends government was baseless.

The National Youth Organiser of NPP, Mr Henry Nana Boakye said the government was not about to appoint enemies and that the people appointed to serve under the Akufo-Addo-led administration are qualified and competent people who deserve where they had been put to serve.