NDC Boycott Backfires

Asiedu Nketiah, General Secretary of the National Democratic Congress

They had hoped that their scabrous decision to boycott the IEA-sponsored presidential debates would have caused the entire program to be scuttled. But once again, predictably, the National Democratic Congress’ Abongo Boys only ended up embarrassing themselves and their members, supporters and sympathizers. By now, the likes of Mr. Johnson Asiedu-Nketia ought to fully appreciate the fact that Ghana is much, much bigger than the Rawlings-minted National Democratic Congress.

That the IEA-sponsored program went ahead on schedule without any glitch ought to be a lesson well-learned by the Mosquito Mafia (See “IEA Debates: PNC Has Betrayed Us – NDC” Citifmonline.com / Ghanaweb.com 6/22/16). I couldn’t help laughing myself hoarse and silly until I literally fell off my chair, to hear the Mosquito Mafia capo bitterly gripe about the Edward Mahama-led People’s National Convention’s having betrayed the NDC movers and shakers.

We must heartily both commend and congratulate the Executive Director of the Institute of Economic Affairs, Mrs. Jean Mensa, for boldly standing up to the NDC bullies and cutting them down to size, that is, to the level of the pathologically failed nation-wreckers that they have indisputably shown themselves to be.

Now the Mosquito Mafia rascals and scam-artists claim that they backed out of the presidential debates because the IEA sponsors had attempted to sideline the presidential candidates of the minor parties. Actually, as I pointed out in a previous article on this issue, the last time around, the NDC Abongo Boys used then-PNC presidential candidate Mr. Hassan Ayariga to crudely, albeit tactically successfully, to muff up the presentation of Nana Akufo-Addo, the three-time presidential candidate of the main opposition New Patriotic Party (NPP). Mr. Ayariga, whose younger brother, Mr. Mahama Ayariga, serves as the Science, Technology and Environment Minister, or in some such capacity, for President John Dramani Mahama, may well have been bribed to fake the contraction of a whooping cough with which he would annoyingly, albeit deftly, punctuate the otherwise inimitably eloquent presentation of Nana Akufo-Addo, thus making a virtual nonsense of the entire program.

The preceding may well have informed the IEA’s decision to slightly modify its program by having only the two most formidable presidential nominees debate each other in a separate forum, instead of inartistically reprising the nuisance formula of having the presidential candidates of the four most significant political parties debate in the same forum.

Well, the inescapable fact of the matter is that there are no four major political parties in the country but only two, namely, the ruling National Democratic Congress and the main opposition New Patriotic Party. This has been the main feature of Ghana’s political relief map since 1992, the inception of the country’s Fourth Republic, and it is likely to remain so in the foreseeable future.

It is also rather farcical for Mr. Asiedu-Nketia to cynically claim that in deciding to back out of the 2016 IEA-sponsored presidential debates, the key NDC operatives were only fighting for the democratic inclusion of the presidential candidates of the smaller parties. Maybe somebody ought to remind Mr. Asiedu-Nketia that he was the same person who prevented Mr. George Boateng from contesting President Mahama in last year’s NDC presidential primary.

The former National Democratic Congress’ constituency youth organizer for Ofankor, in the Greater-Accra Region, would also be literally run out of the party. And so Mr. Asiedu-Nketia ought to count himself smack-dab among the least qualified Ghanaian politicians to presume to lecture the rest of us about democratic inclusivity or inclusiveness.

The NDC General-Secretary also says that he and his associates have been taught a very good lesson, the hard way, by Dr. Edward Mahama and his People’s National Convention presidential campaign team’s decision to have the renowned physician participate in the IEA-sponsored 2016 presidential debates, against the wishes of the NDC Abongo Boys. We hope this is a hard lesson well learned.

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