Flagstaff House Must Address Grievances Of The Invincible Forces

I have written previously on the subject of the notoriety of the leadership of the ruling New Patriotic Party (NPP), vis-à-vis the question of taking the grassroots operatives of the party for granted. And here, the particular reference is to such vigilante groups as the so-called Kandahar Boys and the Invincible Forces, as well as the Delta Forces, of course, who literally put their lives on the line when the then-ruling Mahama-led regime of the National Democratic Congress (NDC) routinely used the coercive apparatus of the State to make competing for elections on a level playing field, at best, extremely difficult for the operatives of the Akufo-Addo-led New Patriotic Party.

A couple of months, or so, later the Invincible Forces are back in the news with the same grievances, namely, that after clinching the democratic reins of governance, an increasingly complacent government seems to have quickly forgotten the harrowing process by which these vigilante operatives ensured the Flagstaff House comeback of the New Patriotic Party.

In the main, the complaints of the leadership of these vigilante groups is that cabinet appointees of the various sectors of our national economy, whom they zealously protected and helped to secure their cushy portfolios, have now turned their backs on them. They are not picking up the phone calls or replying the text messages of these grassroots operatives.

Well, truth must be said about the fact that the leaders of these vigilante groups have not generally conducted themselves in ways that would make the Akufo-Addo Flagstaff House comfortably desire to work with them in expeditiously finding a constructive solution to the myriad labor problems facing the membership of these vigilante groups and the country at large. Indeed, as I hinted in a previous column, as the ruling party, the Akufo-Addo-led New Patriotic Party has a bounden obligation to catering to the basic needs of all Ghanaian citizens and residents, not just the needs and aspirations of party stalwarts and staunch grassroots supporters and operatives. The primitive era of the “Winner-Takes-All” policy is fast becoming a relic of the past, if not already.

In reality, the leaders of these vigilante groups ought to be directing their grievances to the various regional and local headquarters of the New Patriotic Party, where they are more likely to get a quick response and a fair hearing, rather than either the Flagstaff House or the National Headquarters of the New Patriotic Party. It is also very important for the leaders of these party vigilante groups to fully appreciate the factual reality that jobs do not mushroom just out of nowhere.

Rather, they have to be consciously and deliberately created and fiscally resourced sustainably for the long haul. But even more importantly, prospective employees ought to be qualified, by way of skills training and schooling, for these jobs. Party grassroots operatives could be given employment preferences, but they cannot be facilely or recklessly boondoggled into these jobs.

In other words, they cannot become a veritable drain on the economy or labor parasites. This is what the leadership and the membership of these vigilante groups ought to be discussing, and not the mere acquisition of boondoggles, as these young men and women seem to be thinking. The exercise of patience is also a fetching virtue here. The Akufo-Addo government is still young and needs at least another year, or so, to make good on the most salient of its promises.

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