The NPP under Akufo-Addo is its own enemy
By Dr. Michael J.K. Bokor
Friday, August 26, 2016

Folks, if public utterances coming from the NPP stables should be believed, then, they can lead us to only one firm conclusion that the NPP is damn unstable, porous, paranoid, and useless because of its own inherent weaknesses, not because of any outsider’s negative influence to tear it apart. We raise some of those utterances from two angles to support our conclusion.

1. The NPP’s Acting General Secretary (John Boadu) is reported to have accused the NDC of infiltrating the ranks of the NPP to cause confusion. According to him, “…many of the chaos that happened in the party early last year were sponsored by the government.
 Speaking to the issue on Joy FM’s Top Story programme Thursday, Mr. Boadu warned of possible "bloodbath" if the government continuously uses the national security personnel to foment trouble within the NPP. Mr. Boadu said the glee with which the President talks about the NPP on his campaign trails is evident enough that he had a hand in what happened in the NPP. (See http://www.myjoyonline.com/politics/2016/August-25th/npp-blames-ndc-for-sponsoring-fueling-confusion-in-the-party.php).

2. The New Patriotic Party has blamed the regular wrangling within its ranks on "elements" in the National Security apparatus. According to the party, President John Mahama has deliberately increased funding to the state security agency in order to enable them sponsor confusion within the Danquah-Busia-Dombo tradition. (See http://www.ghanaweb.com/GhanaHomePage/NewsArchive/Mahama-funding-National-Security-to-divide-us-NPP-465133).

MY COMMENTS
National Security being resourced to cause confusion in the NPP? What kind of senseless accusation is that? How inconceivable? How do these NPP people think at all about what political power entails? Do they even know the political inclinations of members of National Security? If they care, they should do their own background checks to know that not everyone recruited into National Security sings the praises of the government of the day. Is it in the Ghana Police Service, Ghana National Fire Service, Ghana Prison Service, Ghana Immigration Service, Ghana Armed Forces, or the Bureau of National Investigation, or other analogous security-oriented institutions? Personnel in those institutions have their political inclinations and act the way they want to at election time. No one is a robot there to be manipulated. Those of us who know what we know will always caution the NPP people to stop their campaign of stupidity as far as National Security is concerned.

Do they really know what National Security stands for? If they do, they should be the last to make such a stupid allegation. Why should the government spend resources on upgrading National Security only to use it to cause security problems for it to solve? Do these NPP people not know how much goes into supporting National Security (even if the returns aren’t quantifiable as it would be in the case of miners raising revenue for the country?). For their information, National Security provides nothing but SERVICE, which isn’t money, even if that service provides the congenial atmosphere for those doing business to raise revenue for the country. A service is a service, but it must be respected as such.

I can read a deeper meaning into this mad accusation. I suppose that the NPP is pitting itself against the orthodox National Security apparatus in the mistaken hope that it could supplant it with its own band of operatives being mobilized under the auspices of the Invincible (or Invisible) Forces or Bolga Bulldogs and other ill-defined and impulsive blocs of misguided elements being trained to cause mayhem at Election 2016 and thereafter. In that sense, the security threat posed to the country by Akufo-Addo and his NPP can’t be under-estimated. It is a dangerous miscalculation to point out to Akufo-Addo and his gang.
I like what the Coordinator of NDC 2016 Campaign, Kofi Adams, said in reaction, dismissing the NPP claims as baseless and adding that the NPP has kept the police busier than armed robbers have done over the period. And the more the NPP puts pressure on the national security apparatus, the more it undercuts itself. Ghana will survive all their kind of mischief.
The truth must be told that Ghana is well-known for security operations and for being the oasis in the desert of anarchy in the West African sub-region or entire Africa. Ghana is respected for its political stability and open-door policy, not to talk about the far-reaching contributions of its leaders since the establishment of the Fourth republic to support peace-making efforts. Talk about Ghana’s role in ECOMOG in Liberia and Sierra Leone; in the peacekeeping campaign in La Cote D’Ivoire after the Laurent Gbagbo nonsense; in Mali after the al-Qaeda mayhem; and many others.
Within this context, it will be very much unbecoming for any politician seeking political power to abuse the system and introduce what will not work well for the country. If lazy politicians fail to accept their own inadequacies and quickly blame the incumbent for the internal woes of their own political front, especially by shifting that blame to National Security, they will be setting up time-bombs to blow everything apart. Ghana doesn’t need such time-bombs. It needs cool-headed leaders who will mobilize the citizens to take their destinies into their own hands, even as they use the country’s resources to improve living standards. National Security is above narrow political confines.
A paranoid NPP cannot see things as they are, which explains why it is accusing the incumbent for nothing. Let Akufo-Addo and the neophytes leading his campaign learn lessons that our country’s history offers so they don’t go where angels themselves fear to tread. Once they annoy National Security, they can’t have it easy-going. And why should they focus on National Security, anyway?
I must say that of all their accusations, allegations, and whining over the years, this one on the National Security is the weirdest. And to imagine that Boadu didn’t provide any shred of evidence to support his wild allegations? Let Akufo-Addo and his followers be advised. National Security remains National Security, no matter which political party wins the elections. No need to annoy anybody because no one knows the man behind the mask. I wish they will unpack this wise crack to tread cautiously.
Truly, the NPP is being led by narrow-minded people who don’t know what Ghanaian politics entails. Under the late Prof. Adu Boahen and former president Kufuor’s leadership, nothing of the froth coming from today’s NPP stable came to notice. When Adu Boahen lost the elections, he was quick to blame Rawlings for stealing the verdict; but an inner-house analysis of the situation proved to him that he wasn’t well-cut-out to outdo Rawlings. The flight into academic literature that produced the futile and unpatronized _Stolen Verdict_ ended his political career. A successful scholar he might be, but not anybody’s cup of tea in politics. He faded just like that.
Under Kufuor, the NPP entered Election 1996, carrying along with it the needless baggage that Akufo-Addo had wrought after bitterly undermining Kufuor when he lost the bid to lead the party. Rawlings whipped the NPP, and no one did anything in protest. The verdict of the voters was swallowed and the NPP thought it wise to give Kufuor a chance to attempt biting the cake at future elections.
At Election 2000, Kufuor campaign on the basis of whatever his vision was, wrapped around the urgent appeal to Ghanaians to take a critical look at their living standards under the NDC administration and to be informed well enough to cast their votes wisely. They did so, but it didn’t put him in office. Only after negotiating with the minority political parties did Kufuor succeed in the run-off. In all his stunting for votes, Kufuor never threatened any political opponent nor did he undermine the integrity of the orthodox state apparatuses. He presented himself as a trustworthy candidate. He did so at Election 2004 and prevailed. Never did he once condemn his political opponents as Akufo-Addo and his gang have been doing since Election 2008. Kufuor proved that he could win elections on merit, which was why he opposed the move by the Akufo-Addo team to challenge the outcome of Election 2008. He stood aside when the hard-headed Akufo-Addo proceeded to the Supreme Court with the useless petition against the outcome of Election 2012. And he has remained as such.
Isn’t there any useful lesson for Akufo-Addo to learn from precedent? Picking on National Security won’t open door; it will needlessly endanger national life. Meantime, the quest for political power shouldn’t go that way. History teaches us that dictators deploying the national security apparatus to reinforce and strengthen their grips on power end up being snuffed out by those very forces. Human beings have a limited capacity for nuisance. Let’s remember that members of National Security have families whose experiences can differ drastically from their own, especially at Election time. So, why count on them to perpetrate electoral fraud or to perpetuate one’s reign? And who has the skill to know the construction of the National Security operative’s mind on his face?

Akufo-Addo and his followers are really lost. Those like them who seek to win political power for the “Mate Me Ho” camp in contemporary times need to rise above the nuisance around which Akufo-Addo has wrapped his electioneering campaign stunts. Indeed, if there is any message of hope for Ghanaians, it should be given in the open and all orthodox state apparatuses allowed to do their work withou9t being threatened as is happening now.
Folks, there is a lot more to say, but6 I will end it here with a pin-pointed advice to Akufo-Addo and his gang that as human beings, we have only one life to live; and we can do so if we know how to secure that life. Shouting “Halleluia… Halleluia” all over the place won’t make us saints or secure our lives against anything untoward coming from the toes on which we have stepped in the attempt to realize our personal ambitions. A loaded message to be unpacked by those who can. National Security is National Security!!

An aspiring President who threatens National Security even before assuming office can’t be protected by that establishment. As a boil standing exposed on a man’s bald head, that figure is worse than the bull’s eye. Can these NPP people think right not to sow the wind so they don’t reap the whirlwind? They tried it to give Jerry Rawlings the impetus; when he struck, they bolted, tails between their legs. Is it now that they have adroitly tried to retrace their steps by swallowing back their own vomit that the situation will improve for them?

They have snuggled to Rawlings but they are not yet there. And Ghana has survived all the pressure because of what Rawlings put in place by way of National Security. If the NPP people doubt it, they should ask Capt. Koda what made him develop diarrhoea when he was picked up by the BNI in connection with the three South African mercenaries. And he has been very quiet ever since. In truth, man always passes man. Let Akufo-Addo and his gang of malfunctioning political novices be prepared for more. They should be prepared to dance to the tune that they call. No more, no less for now.

Let Akufo-Addo and his gang of malfunctioning political novices be prepared for more. They should be prepared to dance to the tune that they call. No more, no less for now. But the fundamental nettle is: If an outside force such as the NDC can penetrate the NPP camp now in the home turf in Ghanaian politics, what is the guarantee that a future NPP government cannot be penetrated by other outsiders who will definitely see the loopholes to use against Ghana's interests?

And is Akufo-Addo willing to tell Ghanaians how the Italian financiers of his campaign for Election 2008 who were arrested by the Ghana Police and paraded at the National Police Headquarters got out of the web because of what the late Jake Obetsebi Lamptey and Co. did by harping on mere sentiments instead of reasons related to National Security? Who is financing the NPP under Akufo-Addo to warrant the impudence that motivates their kind of campaign for Election 2016?

Folks, we have the facts to expose their mischief. Let them take us on, and we will match them boot-to-boot, mouth-to mouth.

I shall return…
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