Spio and Ato are not NDC’s problems.

The National Democratic Congress, NDC came to power on a collapse of trust in the New Patriotic Party, NPP. The election of President Mills showed that people were fed up with corruption and bad governance.

Accomplishing the better Ghana agenda is a profoundly serious affair but some of our powerful members are ignoring the fact that majority of Ghanaians have an interest in the success of the NDC.

Some members of government and party elders are risking everything that we have fought for and achieved. They are pandering to petty personal egos and making clowns of themselves. The desires of our grassroots are for the party to do well and stay in power for at least sixteen years.

But with the recent outbursts of emotions and personal attacks on each other, it doesn't look like some members care much if we lost power.

The NDC is losing steam, and largely so because of “special interest groups” within government and party. It is a mistake to believe that our last electoral victory will guarantee successive victories if we do not work together to execute the better Ghana agenda.

We won the elections because we were cohesive. We worked closely to achieve what we got. This is not the time to throw it all away. Ghanaians do not have the time for a party that is not united.

Unlike our friends in the NPP who are delusional about their problems, the NDC is talking about its problems. The fracas between Spio-Garbrah and Ato Awhoi about how fast or slowly government is moving is neither the first nor the last time members of our party members would disagree with each other.

Spio-Garbrah's disagreement with government on how quickly the party should move is proof of the fact that opinion vary. We must encourage dissent. And we must encourage senior members like Ato and Spio to express their views, but the party must discourage any party member from personally attacking another. The issues are more than personal; the issues are about the best way forward for Ghanaians and our party.

People may have diverging interests, but that should not come above party interest or blow into rivalries that could jeopardise party unity.

J.E.A. Mills is the kind of president majority of Ghanaians badly wanted after the wasteful eight years of J.A. Kufour. Ghanaians did not want a candidate who panics in times of crisis. And they got one in Atta Mills.

But is the party taking full advantage of this measure of goodwill? Critics are accusing the party of all manner of things. I do believe we are still popular.

I am not about to take sides in who was right or wrong in the Spio/Ato exchanges. And party members from top to bottom must be cautioned against taking sides in issues that border on personal attacks.

The party's agenda is larger than any single individual and we do not want people's problems to get in the way of building a better Ghana for all Ghanaians. The challenges to our government are enormous.

Our problem as I indicated in my recent open letter to the president is a lack of a communication strategy. What did the communication team/s do to repudiate Spio Garbrah's criticism?

You cannot blame the NPP for taking advantage of rivalries between our members. And they would attempt to make huge capital of our shortcomings. The whole noise about the government moving slowly could have been solved or avoided if Anyidaho and his team at the Castle or Zita and her team at the information Ministry had commissioned a nation-wide survey to tell us about government's approval ratings.

Radio and Television interactive programmes could not be used as bases for judging how POPULAR or UNPOPULAR a government is as many of these phone-in sessions are filled with calls from party lackeys. If someone says “Ghanaians think government is moving slowly,” you do not repudiate that by saying - no I disagree. What would be your bases for disagreeing? That is why the NPP claims we are self-praising because the arguments we have forth are not based on any statistics.

The momentum of our election is in danger of grinding to a halt because there is no sign of a coherent communication policy much less a strategy to limit or bring to an end the deficiency and criticism of our government.

Ras Mubarak Mohammed &
Albert Adzyayi (Chairman NDC Switzerland)
[email protected]
Development / Ghana / Africa / Modernghana.com