Could Dr Kwesi Botchwey be Partly Responsible for the Threats to Unleash Attacks on the EC and the Nation by the NDC?

I have been cogitating for months about the likelihood of Dr Kwesi Botchwey being partly responsible for the ongoing shameless bravado by some members of the NDC threatening the Electoral Commission (EC) and the nation with chaos and civil war should there be any compilation of a new voter register for election 2020. Dr Kwesi Botchwey is a former Finance Minister in the Provisional National Defence Council (PNDC) and National Democratic Congress (NDC) governments under former President Jerry John Rawlings. He held the position from 1982 to 1995.

Why am I suspicious of Dr Kwesi Botchwey somehow being partly responsible for, if not the architect of, the audacity by the NDC to go all out to threaten to unleash chaos and civil war on the nation should the Electoral Commission mandated by the national constitution to ensure free and fair elections for the country does exercise her mandate? The answer is not far fetched, and it will be disclosed in the ensuing analysis.

When a Committee is formed to investigate why a crime or something unexpected has happened, it is at the same time tasked to come out with written suggestions, policies or solutions to avoiding the reoccurrence of the problem or a similar problem. This has always been the normal practice. Will the public readers agree with me on this point?

The public will recall that as soon as the NDC lost election 2016 so decisively and to their utter shock that allegedly sent then President cum Presidential-candidate John Dramani Mahama weeping his eyes out, scratching his head for answers as to why his assembled machines and calculations of winning the election one-touch as he happily touted on campaign platforms while doing Usain Bolt, has overwhelmingly failed him and the NDC, they quickly formed a Committee to investigate why and how?

Was it a one-member committee of Dr Kwesi Botchwey or a few member-committee headed by Dr Kwesi Botchwey? Whatever it was, Dr Kwesi Botchwey was in charge of the investigations and prescriptions of solutions to help the NDC avoid the repeat of their disastrous defeat. Mysteriously, when the investigations were completed with the committee's report written into a book form and presented to the NDC National Executive Council (NEC), the report was never disclosed to even most of the leaders of NDC except a few those that had the opportunity to see and read it.

The handful of the NEC members that saw it are tight-lip about the contents until today. However, the findings from the investigations were to be made public to at least most of the members in leadership role, if not to all members, of the NDC. People like say Koku Anyidoho, Allotey Jacobs, Alan Bagbin and Ekwo Spio Garbrah might not have had the opportunity to see the report.

Therefore, what did Dr Kwesi Botchwey establish as the causes for NDC losing election 2016 and what are his prescribed solutions or policies to pursue to avoid losing any future election by the NDC? The report was supposed to be a public document for at least the members of the NDC, if not for the Ghanaian general public. Nevertheless, it never be.

What is contained in the Dr Kwesi Botchwey's report on NDC's defeat at election 2016 that is so secret or criminal that the NDC do not want the nation to know? What policies did he suggest to the NDC to adopt to prevent the party from losing any future elections?

We see most of the NDC leaders from their flagbearer, John Dramani Mahama, through to Johnson Asiedu Nketiah (NDC National Secretary), Samuel Ofosu Ampofo (NDC National Chairman), Sammy Gyamfi, Brogya Gyamfi et al, threatening to cause chaos in the nation should the Electoral Commission prepare any new credible voter register for election 2020. The propensity to issue such threats and in unison, by the NDC faithful, does suggest that it is an effective policy weapon for them to use to wrestle power from the NPP in the December 2020 scheduled general election. If it were not so, how come that every Tom, Dick and Harry from the NDC faithful is singing the same song with the same tone and vim?

I am not accusing Dr Kwesi Botchwey of inciting the NDC to devise criminal intents to wrestling political power from the NPP but all that I want the nation to know as asking of him is what suggestions he wrote in his report for the NDC to gain political power in any future elections? All that we currently see is the NDC's resort to purely nonsense and criminal acts as their preferred modus operandi for winning election 2020.

In Ghana, there is a popular joke by people saying, "He who stole my kenkey is the same person that stole my fried fish". Subsequently, he who investigated why and how the NDC lost election 2016 must be the same person to suggest how best they could win future elections. Am I making any sense here? And, are what we see the NDC people doing, from Presidential-candidate John Dramani Mahama, Samuel Ofosu Ampofo, Asiedu Nketiah, Sammy Gyamfi and others, something that was written in the report? If not so, why are they doing that? Or, they don't value any suggestions put forward by Dr Kwesi Botchwey? Do Dr Kwesi Botchwey's suggestions have no bearing on the criminal activities planned, and as are being executed by the NDC in the hope of winning election 2020?

Dr Kwesi Botchwey must come clean on what is in his investigation report on why and how the NDC lost election 2016 and how they can avoid the repeat of such mistakes or else, he may stand culpable of the deplorable acts in display by the NDC at the moment.

Rockson Adofo

Tuesday, 2 June 2020