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02.10.2022 Feature Article

NDC Propaganda Kaput

NDC Propaganda Kaput
02.10.2022 LISTEN

The adamant refusal to take responsibility for their grossly habitual leadership incompetence and irresponsibility is what the political machine operatives of the country’s main opposition National Democratic Congress (NDC) do much, much better than their main political opponents of the ruling New Patriotic Party (NPP). In this instance, the spotlight is on the recent controversy swirling around the question of whether, indeed, the globally infamous Galamsey – or small-scale illegal mining – “Queenpin,” Ms. Aisha Huang, had been issued a non-citizen identity card by the National Identification Authority (NIA) as recently as February 2022, instead of February 2014, when what may be presumed to be one of her dozens of aliases first appeared in the NIA’s database or system (See “Huan En’s Ghana Card Was Issued in 2014 and Not February 2022 – NIA Clarifies” Ghanaweb.com 9/7/22).

The most stentorian of these NDC apparatchiks have been attempting to have a field day on this matter. We note that they have been “attempting” to have a field day on this most embarrassing of our national policy snafu because, so far, the likes of Mr. Samuel Okudzeto-Ablakwa and Johnson Asiedu-Nketia have not succeeded in faulting the Akufo-Addo-led government of the New Patriotic Party for either midwifing or nihilistically courting the Chinese Factor in the patently genocidal Galamsey Menace. And the NDC apparatchiks are highly unlikely to succeed because there exists an indelible record pointing to the fact of the late Chairman Jeremiah “Jerry” John Rawlings’ regime of the National Democratic Congress’ having officially introduced both the presently illegal small-scale Chinese miners and the Chinese-made mining excavators called Changfang or Chanfang Machine into the country.

The actual date of this suicidal policy initiative is not known but widely presumed to have occurred sometime around 1997, that is, just about the same time that the Beijing authorities “gifted” Ghana with the admittedly magnificent (Efua Sutherland) National Theater. In retrospect, it was a veritable modern-day Trojan Horse that ought to have been resisted out of hand by the Rawlings-led government of the National Democratic Congress. But it is also perfectly understandable that the Rawlings Cabal would eagerly accept such an environmentally and economically deadly bait, in retrospect, because by the late 1990s, having already unwisely colluded with the procrustean principals of the twin Bretton-Woods establishments of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and The World Bank – the International Bank for Reconstruction and Development (IBRD) – to criminally deindustrialize the country and irreparably wreck the country’s hitherto fragile but, nonetheless, fledgling and remarkably promising economy, the Rawlings Posse had decidedly and effectively become incurable mendicants and political prostitutes who had completely lost control of the managerial well-being and the progressive socioeconomic destiny of the country.

But what is really interesting and significant to note here, and it is inescapably pathetic as well, is the apparent lack of recognition on the part of our leaders that what is direly needed or required presently is a seismic paradigmatic shift in our national policy agenda front vis-à-vis the urgent necessity of promptly implementing progressive and constructive measures for the country’s long-term ecological self-preservation. Which may very well explain the fact that having almost effectively and successfully imposed a complete ban on all small-scale mining in the country, a salutary policy initiative that witnessed the remarkable “greening” or recovery process and rejuvenation of our landed, waterbodies and forestry resources, President Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo, the pontifically self-proclaimed Chief Warrior of the Anti-Galamsey Battle, would also suddenly throw all caution to the wind and curiously announce to the global Ghanaian community the immediate lifting of the ban on Galamsey, for the most part, because, as he smugly asserted, small-scale mining was a universally recognized normative enterprise, even when all the indications were incontrovertibly that the practice of small-scale mining in Ghana was virtually synonymous with the genocidal destruction of our natural and ecological resources.

You see, in most of the technologically advanced economies around the world where the small-scale mining industry is permitted, such as right here in the United States of America, Canada and most of Western Europe, strict environmentally protective measures have also been implemented to ensure the long-term sustainability of such potentially destructive use of the land. In Ghana and most of the so-called Third World, for the most part, Instant Gratification and Pathological Consumerism appear to be the overriding political philosophy. Ultimately, the real and most significant question to ponder here is not the fact of whether Aisha Huang or Huan En had registered for or been issued a Non-Citizen’s Ghana Card in 2014 and not in 2022, but the fact of whether it makes any politically good sense for the mere presence of foreigners in our country, in this particular instance Chinese and Asian nationals, to determine the nature and the direction of our national policy agenda, instead of the other way around.

*Visit my blog at: KwameOkoampaAhoofeJr

By Kwame Okoampa-Ahoofe, Jr., PhD

English Department, SUNY-Nassau

Garden City, New York

October 1, 2022

E-mail: [email protected]

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