As we are trying to nurse the pain of losing the 2024 elections, whispers and debates fill every corner about why the NPP lost. Whereas the grassroots who have suffered for several years with no benefit to show are still struggling to understand how our party came to such an all time low, National party officers and diaspora executives who all have benefited most are seen disgustingly trying to ran away from their own failures.
A committee has been tasked with unearthing the truth by investigating what led to the fall of the party. Yet, to every sane party fellow, the answers are as clear as the bright sun at noon, leaving one to wonder why we search so deeply for what lies in plain sight. Perhaps it is not the reasons themselves that elude us, but hypocrital attempts to ran away from the fact that Akufo-Addo’s despotic and nepotistic governance style is what has led us to this state.
Akufo-Addo who Ghanaians knew to be arrogant and dangerous and were never prepared to make him President of this country was given the nod in 2016 after Ghanaians saw the kind of hardwork, sacrifice and dedication put in by the likes or Dr. Bawumia and several other party members. Our party was given an overwhelming endorsement in the 2016 elections but what happened just 4 years later?
The party nearly lost the parliamentary majority we had leading to a hung parliament. This was the beginning of our woes as a government and party. But instead of Akufo-Addo taking a cue and acting right, he rather became more arrogant. In a despotic and intransigent manner, he insisted on maintaining Prof Mike Ocquaye as speaker despite clear opposition from our own members of parliament. His intransigence led to us losing the speaker position resulting in all the conflicts witnessed between the 3 arms of government thereby slowing the smooth administration of the country.
Then came Covid with its severe economic hardships. When most countries were implementing austere measures to contain the shock, Akufo-Addo in an oligarchic fashion (to borrow the words of Ablakwa) was flying expensive private jets. Despite the several expose’s showing how burdensome his flights were to the public purse, he was still intransigent on this matter and got his eight years Defence Minister to defend him by saying the private flights gave him the opportunity to bath in the air. Very shameful.
Then was the National Cathedral that was made to stand on accommodation flats of the Court of Appeal Judges (not on a dirty patch). A cathedral that was supposedly his private pledge to his God for granting him victory and was not supposed to cost the state even a pesewa became a tool for milking the meagre resources of the state. The flats for the judges that was built from a loan acquired by the Government of Ghana were demolished for the construction of the cathedral even though the loan acquired for the construction of the flats had not been fully paid.
These above brief issues which represent a tip of the iceberg of Akufo-Addo’s gaffes, were so critical and central in causing so much disaffection for the party from the middle class of our country. These acts of oligarchy, despotism and intransigence made it a Herculean task to convince the middle class of our country to appreciate any good thing done by the NPP government.In fact, a simple fact that Covid and the Ukrainian war were significant factors to the decline of our economy became a taboo subject. The masses were so pissed to the extent that all they wanted was a change of government irrespective of the solid policies that the Dr. Bawumia and the NPP had proposed.
Then came his disrespect to chiefs. He was seen ordering and commanding chiefs to stand up and salute him thereby setting up his Presidential candidate who is used to kneeling to greet chiefs as “hypocritical”. Talk also of how he disrespected the people of Ashanti (NPP’s stronghold) when he told them bluntly that they could choose to vote for the NDC if they wished.
Everything in Akufo-Addo’s behavior did not show that he knew we were going to an election. The question that everyone is asking is that, would he have behaved same way if his face and name were going to be on the ballot? He did everything to put the party and the presidential candidate in bad light. He did not care because he had gotten his 8 years of being President.
Fellow patriots, there may be several other reasons which we will revisit soon but no single person has damaged the fortunes of our party like Akufo-Addo. We need to come to this reality for the future of our party.
I shall return.
Kofi Yaro
26/12/2024
Accra
yarokofi123@gmail.com