Unto Us Is Come Again The Season Of Self-Infliction

When Pharaoh had a dream and wanted somebody to explain the weird dream to him, he was lucky to have Joseph who was recommended to him by one of his servants who benefitted from Joseph's dream interpretation.

Even though Joseph was able to explain to Pharaoh that there would be famine in the land of Egypt, Joseph the dream expert did not know when the famine will start. In fact, he did not know when there would be plenty of harvest in Egypt until the heavens opened the sky for rains to come in torrents. One day when a dry wind started blowing throughout the land of Egypt and the land became patched, Joseph knew the time had come for the famine to start. This time around he did not need any dream to tell Pharaoh that the time for famine had started. After all, the food that he advised Pharaoh to store had already been stored.

I must admit that I always keep you, my dear reader, in suspense in my opening paragraphs. I do not expect you to get worried because if the Lord Jesus Christ did speak in parables how do you expect the angel who predicted the conception and birth of the Messiah to go straight to the point. At times like this when even the rich and well to do in society are crying, the best contribution I can make to assuage your disturbed and worried soul is to tickle your mind.

Today, I want to take the NPP down memory lane and remind them that history can easily repeat itself. The New Patriotic Party members are not good historians and so they do not look back like historians do. I had the opportunity to write in this column that the reason why historians always look back is that they want to know what happened in the past to guard them as they move forward. The historian will study the pit that he fell into in the past and see his way through as he moves forward. People who do not look back like historians do easily fall into the pit.

Before the 2008 general elections, and during the NPP presidential primaries, as many as seventeen aspirants criss-crossed the country to canvass for votes from delegates. Some even flew in airplanes like Alan Kyeremanten to interact with delegates and paid huge sums of monies to these delegates who thought the time to reap had come.

In those wish-to-be-forgotten days, not a single lady joined the race as their male counterparts junketed across the length and breadth of Ghana like 'Colossuses' promising milk and honey and dolling out pieces of clothes, mobile phones, hard currencies and other goodies. So much was spent during the primaries that at the end of the day, there was little left in the war chest to be used for campaign. Those who lost in the primaries also refused to doll out the little that was left in their kitty because after all, 'man must chop'.

I must admit that I did not blame the seventeen aspirants because ex-president Kufour and his able ministers managed the economy so well that we all had the funny feeling that if even you choose a JHS student as a flagbearer of the NPP he or she will win easily. From the way the NPP ably managed the economy and the smiles that the party brought to the faces of Ghanaians through social interventions like the NHIS, School Feeding Programme, Kufour Buses, Zoomlion, Capitation Grant, Free Maternal Care, National Youth Employment, not to talk of the numerous road networks among others, no Jupiter ever thought the NPP will lose that election.

Members of the NPP became so swollen headed that they thought winning the election was a foregone conclusion. That was when complacency cropped in. Whereas NPP vans with their loud speakers went about in the big towns playing 'Nana is a winner', the NDC foot soldiers were in the villages doing what they knew to do best: Propaganda. There was this Fiifi Kwettey guy who was able to convince unsuspecting Ghanaians that President Kufour had sold all the national gold reserve. (Good Lord, and this pathological liar is now a cabinet minister!)

The major problem the NPP faced in the 2008 elections was apathy. Until the party held a delegates' conference at the Trade Fair Center to expand the electoral college, only ten constituency executive members were allowed to vote at the constituency level. Because aspirants of the presidential primaries paid monies to the only ten constituency executives, the rest of party supporters became angry and many failed to spend their precious time to go to the polling stations, queue and vote for any NPP candidate.

After the 2008 presidential primaries of the NPP, the self-infliction started as party members who wanted to become parliamentary candidates became divided between supporters of Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo Addo and Mr. Alan Kyeremanten. You are labeled as either 'Alan Boy' or 'Nana Nipa'. The parliamentary primaries became so dirty that at a point in time Mr. Alan Kyeremanteng resigned from the party, an action which gave the NDC powerful bullet to fire at the NPP, referring to the NPP as a party not united and so could not rule the country if Ghanaians gave them the power.

Even though Alan Kyeremanten later rescinded his decision and rejoined the party, the harm had already been done. That single and unfortunate decision of Mr. Alan Kyeremanten made the NPP to lose the election to the NDC in 2008. That is why Alan Kyeremanten has been a thorn in the flesh of delegates of the NPP even though the electoral college was later expanded. Because we had 'Alan Boy' and 'Nana Nipa' in those days, some parliamentary candidates who lost the primaries either registered as independent candidates or stayed apathetic to the efforts of the party to win power.

In the 2012 general elections, the issue of 'Akyem Mafia' and 'Ashanti Caucus' did not help matters at all. The apathy and indifference which reared their ugly heads in 2008 came storming again in 2012. Mr. Alan Kyeremanten and his team did little during the 2012 electioneering campaign. Alan in particular was rarely seen on campaign platforms and that did not help at all. I did not blame ex-president Kufour too much when he did not participate fully in the campaign because at his age, he could not have been able to face the rigors of the campaign. If all hands had been on deck, the NPP wound have won with such a wide margin that upon all the rigging the NDC would not have succeeded in whatever way.

I wish elders of the NPP will read this piece and advise aspirants who have filed to contest the parliamentary primaries. Consensus building is part of democracy and as such the NPP should learn and remember that the ultimate prize is POLITICAL POWER. Immediately after the parliamentary primaries, all the regional chairmen of the NPP should invite all contestants to their offices and impress upon them to join hands together and fight the battle to unseat the NDC. Aspirants should be made to remember that being a parliamentarian in the NPP is not the only position if the party comes to power. What happened in 2008 and 2012 should be thrown into the dustbin of history and a lesson should be learned. The truth is that Ghanaians will never forgive the NPP if they dilly-dally for the NDC to maintain power again to further mess up things.

Another serious issue which the party should look into very well is the role of polling agents. If you assign an illiterate and hungry man as your polling agent, you have in one way or the other bought a weapon for your enemy. Having stolen so much money from the state kitty, the NDC will pay any amount to buy NPP polling agents. People are hungry and such hungry persons, like Esau will sell their birth rights for pittance.

During the recent presidential primaries of the NPP, we went to a certain village to campaign for one of the candidates and when we had the opportunity to meet some of the delegates they told us in plain words that a day before the 2012 general elections, some big men from the NDC came to their village in the night and gave almost everybody, including some NPP supporters a box of matches which contained twenty Ghana cedis. They shamelessly told us that the following day they all trooped to the polling station to vote for the NDC.

The NPP should learn from the APC, General Buhari's party in Nigeria. Buhari knew the odds were against him because the Goodluck Jonathan party had amassed ill-gotten wealth which they intended to use to bribe the electorates and polling agents. To dilute that poison, the APC made sure well to do and well qualified ladies and gentlemen were chosen as polling agents. They even appointed supporting polling agents who stood watch over the polling agents who were sent to the polling stations. It was like a watchman watching over a watchman. That trick worked to perfection and Jonathan lost the election because there was no way his people could rig the elections. At this juncture, permit me to put in my application for employment as polling agent at the Finger of God Polling Station (sic!!!) Close your nostrils while I puff away my Havana Cigar!

By Eric Bawah