Toying With The Truth

President John Atta Mills

If President John Evans Atta Mills stunned many who listened to him making a specially-arranged intervention on a radio station, as he did on Wednesday, it was because of the novelty in the action.

With allegations of a whopping amount of GH¢90 million being earmarked for the President's 'beat Nana Konadu by all means' operation and the spirited fight from that side, such an unusual radio intervention offered a lifeline to a distressed Commander-In-Chief.

Already perspiring under the heat generated by the Nana Konadu crusade, the rare intervention was understandable in as much as it was a desperate response to a dangerous allegation about profligacy of the highest order.

The intervention is a pointer at the dynamics of the realities on the media and political turfs today.

An elating development as it was, it offered an opportunity to Ghanaians to critique the two sides of the coin to isolate the truth from the falsehood.

In spite of the foregone though, many nagging questions are begging for answers under the circumstances and we wish to tackle these in this commentary.

The truth about the allegation might not be known anytime soon but suffice it to admit that the quantum of money involved is huge and thus worthy of dissection in the public domain.

We can also vouch that a lot of money was committed to the President's nomination papers picking procession to cater for the bussing and payment of persons engaged for the assignment.

We are pleased that the issue of the funding of political parties when they are beset with pending elections, be they internal or national, have returned to the public domain.

We have over the years downplayed the importance of money in politics, a pretention rich in insincerity and hypocrisy.

Money is required for such simple but important expenditures such as influencing delegates and others as mentioned in an earlier paragraph.

Allegations of unemployed Azorka given a billion cedis to organize Tamale boys to hit the streets was but a snippet of the things which happen to have happened in the NDC since they assumed the reins of governance.

If attempts at downplaying such realities are hypocritical, pretending that there is no such thing as budgets for party congress campaign by an incumbent president is being economical with the truth.

We must be real about how political parties are funded against the backdrop of playing angels on the turf.

Where such funds are sourced from is anybody's guess but we can vouch that there are clouds over them. Producing wrist-watches to enhance the electoral fortunes of the President or even building classroom blocks at inflated costs for the same effect are issues worth probing.

Politics, especially when it involves the beating of Nana Konadu Agyeman Rawlings at the forthcoming NDC presidential primary, calls for a special budget. Politics is capital-intensive and, the President must be real about it and shun the ostrich game.