Snatching Defeat From The Jaws Of Victory – Part II

In the article “How to snatch victory form the jaws of victory” http://alaye.biz/ghana-how-to-snatch-defeat-from-the-jaws-of-victory/ we lamented the tendency of Ghana’s main opposition party, the New Patriotic Party, NPP, to self-implode and self-immolate.

Given the high caliber of personalities the party parade, it galls to see the party keep on putting its worst foot forward, and continue to treat us to its peculiar spectacle of shame.

While we honestly believe that the western-styled democracy system we adopted and pretend to practice is a bloody waste of time and resources, we also believe that those that joined a club should learn to abide by its rules. We find it intolerable that one will join an association and try to live outside the established order.

If you do not like it; don’t join it. Simple, really!

My own position, which I have maintained, very consistently, over the years, is that the two evil systems we adopted form our colonisers and historic oppressors shall still be our undoing.

I talk of Christianity and the so-called democracy.

It is quite simple. It is plain foolhardy to even begin to think that those that came to kill, enslave and colonise will also come along with our savior.

Anyone who has spent any length of time in Europe will know that were Jesus to be such a fantastic guy, Christianity to be such a good thing and paradise not some illusion, Europeans will guard them jealously and will never, never share them with anybody. Most especially, they will not share them with Africans.

How do we in Africa persuade ourselves that the same people that will not give us visa to travel to their countries, or tell us the time of the day when we live there, will suddenly develop some altruistic heart and be sending us off to a paradise where everything is bountiful and beautiful?

Get real, guts!

It is equally stupid for us in Africa to expect a semi-feudal political system like the so-called democracy to work for us. Given the low turn-out we see in elections in the West, it is obvious that the system that continue to make us giddy is failing in its home turf.

How did we Africans managed to forget that we built empires and kingdoms long before Europeans woke up from their Alpine caves? How did we manage to persuade ourselves that the system the upstarts from Europe employ is the best for us?

Kwame Nkrumah aptly describe the western-styled democracy as the competition between Oligarchs. He was right. Just think about it? Does it not require a desperate flight from reality to even begin to entertain the notion that a moneyed man/woman will spend fortunes – borrowed, earned or stolen, to fight for election into political office, and will go there to go and REPRESENT MY INTERESTS.

C’mon guys; thinking shouldn’t be that too difficult!

Anyway, let get back to the gist of our current story. For whatever reason(s), it looks like that some people/forces within the NPP cannot get over the fact that their sponsored candidates lost out in the battle for the party’s leadership. This people/forces appear so peeved that they are prepared to risk all to reverse the choices of their members. To this people/forces, if it meant doing a Masada, so be it. They will not allow even Falling Temples to hinder their desperate attempt to forcibly impose their will.

And for a party that makes so much noise about being a party of law and order, it bemuses greatly when one sees NPP stalwarts sing war song, threaten fire and brimstone and resort to plain thuggery and unalloyed vandalism, at the least provocation.

On a far more serious note, how do we explain the formation and the existence of such Hooligans Brigades like the Invincible Forces, Nasarawa Boys etc within the NPP, a party that shouts constitutionalism from its rooftop?

Which brings up the interesting question of what the police and security agencies are doing before they clamp down on these para-military outfits, as the law prescribed?

As an avowed and a committed Nkrumahist, I care less if the NPP smash itself into smithereens - the sooner the better. What baffles greatly is the apparent inability of the leaders and members of this part to learn from the wretched history of their party and allow its lessons to guide them.

I feel totally nauseated whenever I see NPP members throw tantrums like petulant children deprived of Lollipop. I feel disgusted when I see them march to ex-presidents houses, write letters to international bodies and drag their nation’s image in the mud, in the pursuit of narrow, and purely partisan politics objectives. I shall salute them if they come up with brilliant policy alternatives. I will dance to their headquarters if they can show me, for example, their detailed industrialization plan for the country. To be fair, the NPP is not the only guilty party here. Apart from the PPP, none of the parties is armed with anything more than hackneyed party manifestoes.

But to have a party that did its worst to truncate the country’s advancement behaving like it learnt no lesson galls, indeed.

Sad, sad.

Which brings us to the main topic for this piece. Yours truly was livid to read in the media that: “The US government says it is closely monitoring the brouhaha over Ghana’s electoral roll and will soon initiate work with parties to address the matter. The US government says it is concerned about developments in Ghana and is monitoring the situation closely.

Speaking to journalists at the ongoing Edward Murrow Journalists Program in Washington DC, US Ambassador designate to Ghana Robert Porter Jackson lauded the Electoral Commission for setting up a committee to look into allegations of a bloated register.

“We will work with the government, the parties and civil societies to reach an agreement on the way ahead and once I get on the ground I will meet the leaders of the political parties and the Electoral Commission,” Mr Jackson said.

…

Ambassador Jackson says the US government will monitor all the elections very closely.

“We are advocating a free, fair, transparent, credible and peaceful elections and elections that is on time. But elections alone do not make for stable democracies. Free and fair elections must be coupled with transparent, an accountable governance, respect for human rights and strong civil society,” said Mr Jackson.”

Really!

It is said that those that failed to learn from history are doomed to repeat it. Are we so bereft of historical knowledge that we no longer remember the dastardly role Imperialist US played in truncating our ambition to become a modern, industrialised nation? Have we forgotten how the Americans used their CIA to topple the elected government of Kwame Nkrumah and, together with internal reactionary forces, thoroughly de-industrialised Ghana, so much so that today that we produce little outside of plastic products?

Pray, given the shenanigans we witnessed in US elections, why can’t Mr. Ambassador go and preach to his fellow Yankees before he pontificates to us? More importantly, why can’t our journalists develop some courage to tell these long-nosed imperialists to go and mind their wretched business? What lessons can we learn from those that bankrupted themselves fighting insane wars across the world???

Tchaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaah!

Plug for Femi Akomolafe books

Femi Akomolafe is a Freelance writer, Author, Film & Video Documentary Producer, IT Consultant and Web-Designer.

His highly-acclaimed books (Africa: Destroyed by the gods,” and “Africa: It shall be well,” are now available for sales at the following bookshops/offices:

1. Freedom Bookshop, near Apollo Theatre, Accra.
2. The Daily Dispatch Office, Labone - Accra
3. WEB Dubois Pan-African Centre, Accra
4. Ghana Writers Association office, PAWA House, Roman Ridge, Accra.
5. Nana Kwaku Nketsia, +233-27-8599250

They are also available on the internet. Here are useful links:

1. Africa: it shall be well: http://alaye.biz/africa-it-shall-be-well-introduction-in-pdf/

Africa: it shall be well is available for sale on Kindle books at this link: https://www.createspace.com/4820404

A FREE Chapter of ‘Africa: It shall be well’ could be downloaded here: http://alaye.biz/africa-it-shall-be-well-a-free-chapter/

2. Africa: Destroyed by the gods (How religiosity destroyed Africa) http://alaye.biz/africa-destroyed-by-the-gods-introduction/

Africa: Destroyed by the gods is available for sale on Kindle books at this link: https://www.createspace.com/4811974

A FREE Chapter of ‘Africa: Destroyed by the gods’ could be downloaded here: http://alaye.biz/africa-destroyed-by-the-gods-free-chapter/

Read a review here

Femi maintains a blog @: www.alaye.biz/category/blog

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Email: [email protected] ; Website: www.alaye.biz