The NDC Must Distance Itself From All Its Members Who Allowed Mother Ghana To Be Ripped Off During The Mahama Era

It was not for nothing that the National Democratic Congress' (NDC) candidate for the presidency, President John Dramani Mahama, lost the 2016 presidential election by such a wide margin. And, as we all know, the party also lost its parliamentary majority on top of that loss in the presidential election - mainly because its leaders misjudged the mood of the nation.

Sadly, it appears that the NDC, which is now the nation's biggest opposition party, still continues to misjudge the national mood - which is really tragic for Ghanaian democracy and could prove fatal for the party in the 2020 elections: as it will only delay the much-needed reforms that have to be carried out by the next party executives who will be selected to lead it into the 2020 polls.

It is vital that all the leading members of the NDC understand clearly that their party lost power essentially because the vast majority of ordinary people in Ghana had become fed up with their party as a result of the many allegations of egregious cases of the blatant ripping off of Mother Ghana - which the then main opposition New Patriotic Party's (NPP) communicators cleverly blamed the NDC for: during the campaign for the December 2016 presidential and parliamentary elections.

Most voters therefore wanted to hasten the end of the era of impunity superintended over by the regime of President Mahama - and thus usher in the day of reckoning for the Mahama-era's many alleged thieves-in-high-places: whom the NPP's well-focused negative campaign narratives had convinced millions of voters were busy stealing hardpressed taxpayers' monies and getting away with it.

Today, many ordinary people in Ghana are glad that at long last the day of reckoning now beckons for those perceived thieves-in-high-places during the Mahama-era - as the government of President Akufo-Addo has now laid the bill for the establishment of the office of the independent public prosecutor before Parliament.

Instead of burying their heads in sand and threatening to disrupt the work of Parliament because they think that the former power minister, Dr. Kwabena Donkor, is being unfairly harassed by the authorities, the NDC's parliamentary caucus ought to ponder what message such daft parliamentary tactics designed to shield a colleague being investigated to ascertain the exact nature of his role in the controversial AMERI power agreement will convey to ordinary people across Ghana.

The question there is: Does the 1992 Constitution not enjoin Ghanaians to fight against corruption and help expose all acts of corruption that come their notice personally?

The NDC's parliamentary caucus must also understand clearly that parliamentary privilege is essentially to ensure that MPs can freely speak their minds in the House during debates without fear of being sued for slander. However, parliamentary privilege most certainly does not and cannot protect MPs from being investigated for allegedly causing financial loss to the Republic of Ghana. Obviously.

That is why so many fair-minded and independent-minded Ghanaians feel that it is outrageous for any group of MPs to threaten to make it next to impossible for Parliamentary business to go on - merely because a fellow caucus member is being investigated for allegedly allowing Mother Ghana to be ripped off by foreign crooks and their local collaborators in the AMERI power deal.

It is disappointing in the extreme that the NDC's leading lights still seem unable and unwilling to distance their party from 'wrongdoers' in their midst who allegedly shortchanged our homeland Ghana in sundry one-sided agreements that were inimical to our country and its hapless citizens, which were entered into during their party's eight long years in power. Pity.

Participating in the brutal gang-rape of Mother Ghana is a serious crime against that part of humanity that lives in Nkrumah's Ghana. If they want their party to remain relevant in our nation's affairs the leadeship of the NDC would be wise to distance their party from all those party members who allowed Mother Ghana to be ripped off during the Mahama-era.