Quislings On The Prowl

Nana Akufo Addo's good counsel to his colleagues in the New Patriotic Party (NPP) to steer away from the temptation to engage in airwave polemics is auspicious.

We wish same could be extended to the other political parties so we can maintain some decency in our politics, which for now is anything but appealing and decorous.

It is such cacophonous engagements on the airwaves which put off many a fine gentleman from offering themselves to serve the country in the political realm.

The daily regimen of verbal war of attrition gives a semblance of political chaos in the country. Strangers listening to our airwaves on their first morning would swear there is a looming war and could be arranging for their departure with the next available flight.

When there is this picture of disharmony among us as people belonging to the same country ideally seeking the progress of the motherland, we are constrained to describe ourselves as far from understanding what politics is all about.

Unfortunately, even within the same political parties people tend to disagree with each other in the vilest fashion. In the event of venting their frustrations, some of them choosing the airwaves end up washing their dirty linen in the public and casting their parties in bad light.

When the rank and file engages in such destructive acts they can be pardoned. Not so when the defaulters are those elected to manage their parties to serve as vehicles through which alternative programmes can be fashioned out and presented so the people can make informed decisions as to which to choose from.

At a time when the two main political parties are preparing themselves for the next presidential and parliamentary elections, what the electorate want to know is how each of them seeks to change their lot.

Governance should be good and not the contrary. Unfortunately, we have been enmeshed in a dose of bad governance – a situation which end can only come when the people make a choice that can usher a better alternative to the status quo.

The political laws of the country are intended to ensure that such groupings share same ideals and nurse the ultimate goal of assuming political power.

What these laws cannot prevent is the unleashing on the political parties dangerous and devious persons who hide their true selves and motives when they go seeking the offices they eventually get through deception.

The New Patriotic Party (NPP) is currently enmeshed in such ado and being a major vehicle for the formation of a future government, the need to clear it of such mischievous characters should not be overlooked.

It is not for nothing that political laws of every country worth their mettle are fashioned out to stop charlatans with devious agenda from ascending critical positions in parties – these groupings being the sources of presidents and their ministers alongside other appointees whose stewardship would define the quality of governance.

Those who can sell their political parties for a pittance after swearing oaths of allegiance are political misfits, indeed quislings, and therefore unworthy of deference and acceptability in the comity of the decent.