Thursday,
May 10, 2012
The internal crisis facing the
NDC has now reached a ridiculously harmful level. Nana Konadu Agyemang-Rawlings
is claiming the ownership of the NDC’s logo and has written to warn the party’s
leaders not to use that logo for their political activities. She is all out to
behead the NDC!!
She hasn’t indicated what she
wants to use that logo for or how she intends to preserve it. Probably, as a
memento to remind her of the art classes that she took at the then University
of Science and Technology, Kumasi?
In any case, her demand is not
only weird but it is also mind-boggling for whatever dire consequences it may
have for the NDC and its place in our democratization process. One needs no
reminder that the NDC is a formidable political force whose contributions have
helped define our democratization, and anything that destroys it will have a
far-reaching effect on it. Let its opponents sing “Halleluia” but there is a
price to pay.
That is why it is important for
the political parties constituting the wheel on which our democracy runs to be
properly managed and taken beyond the deplorable point of personality cult and
stringent control by individual financiers or power brokers. If we allow our
political parties to be “possessed” by such characters, they will not be viable
enough to carry the burden that our democracy has imposed on them. Nana Konadu’s
destructive machinations are a clear pointer.
She may be embarking on a
vengeful and spiteful course, but her actions must teach us useful lessons. Our
political parties are the engine of growth of our democracy and must be managed
as serious corporate entities that no single individual member should be
allowed to tuck under his/her armpit.
Let me indulge in some
speculative work here to probe Nana Konadu’s reasoning for this latest twist to
her revenge against the very political party that has made her who she is—and
which she is undercutting for reasons best known to her and us too:
“Give me my logo and let me do
whatever I wish with it. Without this logo, the NDC couldn’t have stood the
test of time in the rough seas of Ghana politics. This logo is my brain-child; I
own it and don’t want you to use it for your purposes. If you reject me, why
should you accept my product and use it without recourse to my political
interests?”
Certainly, a party’s public image
is reflected by its logo and what it represents. The spirit behind the party is
housed in that logo and its praises sung in the slogans and party anthem to win
public trust and goodwill.
As a corporate entity, a
political party cannot be said to belong to any individual. That party’s image
and property (moveable or immoveable) must be deemed to belong to the corporate
entity that the party is as registered. Why will one person lay claim to vital
paraphernalia of the party?
Nana Konadu’s demand reinforces
the Rawlingses’ claim that the NDC is their brainchild to be possessed by them
and used to achieve their political objectives. Those who have thought
otherwise and succeeded in preventing them from tucking the NDC under their
armpits seem to have underrated the power of the Rawlingses to cause havoc at
will.
This demand for the party’s logo
is motivated by an implacable anger and irresistible urge to avenge the
humiliation to which the Rawlingses think they have been subjected. The time
seems to be ripe for them to strip the party of its paraphernalia, starting
with this imposing logo, which is the bulwark of the NDC’s public image and the
force behind the slogan “Eye Zu, Eye Za.”
If the umbrella is torn away from
the NDC, what will become of it? It seems Nana Konadu is on a war path to
dismember the NDC. What does she hope to gain, anyway?
I have said it several times
already, and will continue to do so, that that the Rawlingses pose a serious
danger to our democracy at several levels. What Nana Konadu has begun is
designed to torpedo the NDC just because she can’t any more use it to advance
her own political ambitions. Surely, she is the woman that one must feel
reluctant to deal with. So full of her own political ambitions—and taking an
implacable offence for being thwarted—she is now like a raging bull on the
rampage to gore anybody or anything in its path. And when a cow behaves like a
bull, there must be a lot wrong!!
Why is she claiming that logo now?
Again, what does she intend to do with that logo to further her political
ambitions? Can’t she promote her own political interests with any other logo than
what the NDC is using?
There are many more questions:
Does Nana Konadu really have any proprietary right (patented or copyrighted) for
that logo? If she does, then, her demand may have some weight even though it
will definitely lead to a legal tussle to dampen the spirit of the party’s
followers. If she hasn’t, then, her demand will not be met and she can choose
to do anything else she has up her sleeves.
In the end, what will the NDC
lose without that logo? Produce a new one, re-design and re-engineer itself to
be recognized as a new NDC by the electorate? Or will the party’s leaders
simply call Nana Konadu’s bluff and let her go and burn the sea in protest?
We can see many twists and turns
already. First, Nana Konadu’s demand may be the inkling we need to know that
she intends to use that logo for other purposes, probably, to form a political
party with which to pursue her ambitions. Time is of the essence for her in
this case. Second, it may help us know that she is on a course to destroy the
NDC at various levels, which will definitely not be strange because that is
what she has been doing ever since she decided to toe a different line. At
least, that is what she has given us to see for some time now.
The long and short of all that
she has embarked on is to actualize a morbid desire to worsen the internal
crisis of the party and, thereby, hold the government to ransom. Probably, she
is using this logo as her trump-card to force the party and the government to bend
to her deeper-level demands. This is one possibility that will further
aggravate the situation if heeded.
We are too familiar with
factionalism in the party and the forces behind it not to know at this stage
what the rationale behind this head-butting is. But the overarching question
is: Are these people destroying the NDC from within doing so to sink together?
If not, why are they bringing the roof down on themselves? Or have some found
an escape route to avoid being crushed by their destructive acts?
The problem worsens by the day
despite efforts by some outsiders to help solve the party’s internal crisis.
The recent manouevres by a group of chiefs from the Volta Region comes to mind.
Even before their peace-brokering initiative could gain momentum, unguarded
utterances from some who claimed to be privy to the discussion at that meeting
threw everything out of gear. I recall Michael Teye Nyaunu’s misguided
utterances that the Spokesman of the Rawlingses denied. But some harm had
already been done to deepen the gulf.
The NDC’s internal crisis is
definitely proving to be insurmountable for several reasons, the most important
of which is the inability of the main players to accept that they are the
problems to be solved. It is they who are the real problem in and for the
party. These individuals include the leaders of the party and their followers—as
individual politicians who are fixated on the pursuit of selfish, parochial but
vested personal interests, using their sphere of influence in the party for
that purpose.
Some can also be identified as
groups of people bound together by common interests that they can achieve only
under the aegis of the party; hence, their manouevres to have a stranglehold on
the party for that matter. Either collectively or in tandem with like-minded
people in the workings of the party, these elements have entrenched their
positions and engaged in acts detrimental to the general wellbeing of the party
and the government it has given birth to.
Names will be mentioned. First on
the list is former President Rawlings, the so-called father and founder of the
party whose persistent ranting has become the hallmark of the internal crisis. Rawlings’
trademark vilifying labels—“Greedy Bastards,” “Who Born Dog,” and “Atta
Mortuaryman”—give a glimpse into the problem that he is to the party and the
government.
Characteristically, Rawlings hasn’t
made any secret of why he is not in favour of the government. He is all too
embittered for several reasons, the most obvious of which is his claim that
President Mills has refused to heed his advice on how to deal severely with
members of the Kufuor government whom he has accused of committing atrocious
acts of corruption and deserve nothing but stiff punishment. President Mills
will have none of that, sending Rawlings on a nosedive into mudslinging and
accusing the Mills government of being equally corrupt.
Were the problem to end with
Rawlings alone, the story would have been different. It didn’t. Nana Konadu
Agyemang-Rawlings has turned out to be another headache. Thus, the two
Rawlingses have combined to present the NDC (as a party and the government in
power) a major conundrum that has so roughly rocked its boat as to threaten its
very survival.
Nana Konadu is a peculiar problem
because of her insatiable appetite for political office. We know her
behind-the-scene manouevres that culminated in the Sunyani Congress whose
outcome rent her into ugly ribbons of sharp disappointment, disillusionment,
embitterment, disaffection, and revenge. Having had her political ambitions to
bear the NDC’s flag at the December elections shredded, she is in no mood to be
on the same page with those in the party and government whom she fingers as her
“enemies.”
The combined forces that the
Rawlingses have arrayed against the NDC faction rooting for President Mills are
designed to cause havoc, and havoc they will cause, at least, as we can infer from
what has begun unfolding.
The list also includes President
Mills and his followers (both in the party and government), especially those
who have openly come out to condemn the Rawlingses. Lack of commitment, mutual
suspicion, and an unforgiving spirit seem to have taken the better part of
some. Internal problems can’t be solved when the main characters adopt hardline
positions.
The battle lines have been drawn
and crossed; the crisis point has been reached; and the actions continue to
unfold with varying degrees of excitement, incitement, and anxiety. Now, what
we have begun seeing is the near-climactic aspect of the drama (not a point of
resolution in the NDC’s case) before the denouement.
Very
intriguing moments are in the offing. Who else will come forward to demand his or
her pound of flesh from the NDC? Nana
Konadu has set the pace to dismember the party, and I won't be surprised
if her husband follows suit to demand that the very name of the party be given
to him as his coinage.
Property-owning has now been taken to a whole new sordid level by
the very people who claim to detest property-owning, the very people whose
reign of terror gave Ghanaians the most dreadful experience of ruthlessness
against property owning. Having turned full circle thereafter to hanker after
material gains themselves, it is now time for them to direct their venom at
their own party to strip it of its paraphernalia for possession. That is what
happens when people pretend to be more Catholic than the Pope.
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