NPP Presses Alarm Button

Kwadwo Owusu Afriyie

The New Patriotic Party (NPP) has pressed the alarm button over what it describes as a leadership paralysis besetting the country under President John Evans Atta Mills.

According to the party, the situation is characterised by indecision, inaction and incompetence.

Screaming at the President 'act like a leader'! the party noted that all Ghanaians got when they approached President Mills, in the face of mounting challenges such as road carnage, economic hardship and the scary situation in neighbouring Ivory Coast, was either an urge for prayers or a swipe at the NPP for being responsible for the predicaments.

In a release signed by its General Secretary, Kwadwo Owusu Afriyie, the party stated bluntly that it joined 'The majority of Ghanaians in expressing our increasing worry over the country's leadership paralysis under President John Evans Atta Mills.'

The release appears to be the severest reproof yet of the Mills administration this year, covering subjects from the recent increase in road fatalities to what the party describes as 'dzi wo fie asem' foreign policy, as well as the banning of Ghana from the International Olympic Committee.

The President was cocooned and therefore cut off from the realities of the Ghanaian situation, the NPP stated, stressing, 'President Mills has chosen to live in 'la la' land, cut off from the realities on the ground and cocooned from the concerns of ordinary Ghanaians.'

While in agreement with the necessity of prayers, the NPP stated that it was turning to the medium so the president could begin to show real leadership, stressing, 'If God has empowered you to lead his people, you cannot choose to disappoint him by folding your arms behind your back, minding your own business.'

The party found it worrying that President Mills could only preach and lecture to drivers when asked about the increasing road carnage on the country's roads, questioning, 'Whatever happened to the responsibility of a president to introduce policies to solve problems?

The President showed that he has no clue about how to make our roads safer. He has no idea about how to lead a nation.'

President Mills, according to the NPP, considered his responsibility as president as preaching a sermon to road users.

According to the NPP, in the face of increasing road accidents in the country, the president, who admitted that there was indiscipline in the country, had not come out with a single policy to reverse the trend.

'Not even the law about the wearing of seatbelts, introduced by the NPP, has been enforced two years into the Mills-Mahama administration.

We are calling on the President to act with urgency to help bring some sanity on our roads and save Ghanaian lives. His leadership paralysis is killing people,' the party demanded.

On the recent banning of Ghana from the International Olympic Committee over governmental interference in the affairs of the organisation, the party noted that it was a clear manifestation of the string of hopelessness and incompetence of the Mills/Mahama administration.

The party said this, among other things, had led to the sinking of Ghana's international image.

'Some of the faux pas, like the moves to impose his own people at local committees of international organisations like IOC and FIFA, are driven by little more than the kind of political vindictiveness that has led to the sacking of the female head of the Ghana Immigration Service,' the NPP observed.

The party derided Mills' policy of considering those who were not appointed by him as belonging to the NPP as a breach of his much touted 'father of all' mantra.

The NPP was hard on President Mills regarding his policy on Ivory Coast, noting that his 'dzi wo fie asem' foreign policy towards that country was intended to serve the interest of his personal relationship with Laurent Gbagbo and not Ghana's.

'Within one week, the President of Ghana has been able to undermine a crucial ECOWAS decision to which he was a signatory, and redefined over fifty years of Ghana's foreign policy from one of proactive leadership on our continent to a new provincial foreign policy, which he has termed, Dzi Wo Fie Asem (Mind your own business),' the party stated.

His response to a question when he hosted the media was evidence of his lack of understanding of international politics, the party stated, adding that 'It also isolated Ghana from the international community with the potential consequence of putting at risk the lives of the many Ghanaians in la Cote d'Ivoire.'

The Ivorian people, the NPP told Mills, were not asking Ghana to choose a leader for them but to ensure that the man they voted for was installed as president.

The party stated, 'Our message to Professor Mills is that he should not use his one term in office to devalue decades of excellent international reputation that Ghana has built for herself in international peacekeeping.'

The NPP described as pathetic Mills' answer to a question as to why he appointed four Sports Ministers in two years: 'I send each of them there to execute a particular programme.'

The NPP demanded of President Mills to 'do something before you go', hinting that very soon, the result of a sampling of opinion about his tenure so far would be completed and publicised for public consumption.

By A.R. Gomda