Monday,
January 26, 2015
Folks, you must have read the
news report that the New Patriotic
Party (NPP) has inaugurated the DAZOTA youth group to protect all polling
stations in the Upper East region during the 2016 general elections.
DAZOTA
group secretary, Asukuga Adongo George, told Citi News that the group was
formed to avert the occurrence of the alleged widespread irregularities that
characterized the 2012 general elections.
He
said the group will form an effective and efficient communication force and
collaborate with existing youth groups in various constituencies in the region
and will also adopt available campaign strategies to help the NPP win the 2016
elections. (See: http://www.ghanaweb.com/GhanaHomePage/NewsArchive/artikel.php?ID=343957)
I
laughed out really loud when I read this news report. POLLING STATION GUARDS?
What for, when the party would already have had its polling station agents in
place? Complicating the situation for nothing? Surely, these NPP people have
too much time ( and resources too) and too little to do. The real route to the
presidency lies with the electorate. Go to them with good messages to win their
minds and hearts, not forming any kind of group at all to display MILITANCY to
scare the electorate instead.
Folks,
do you see how these NPP people and their “All-die-be-die” mentality works to
undercut them? Their inability to read deeper meanings into politically
motivated issues will continue to work against them. At a time that the
electorate need a different image of Akufo-Addo and those he is leading—at
least, to put them at ease and erase the negative implications of the infamous “All-die-be-die”
call to arms—no one needs a militant group (as implied by the word “GUARDS” in
the title) to scare anybody.
It
is not yet known which other constituency has such an organization or whether
the DAZOTA will be replicated throughout the country to do Akufo-Addo’s
bidding; but what I can stick my neck out to conjecture is that such a group is
being set up to pursue an agenda that only Akufo-Addo has in place as far as
his crave for political power is concerned.
Whether this initiative qualifies
as an introduction of militancy into election-monitoring or not isn’t difficult
to establish. The truth, though, is that general elections don’t call for
militancy; they call for VIGILANCE, which translates into the willingness of
those initiating such moves to fit their agenda into the overall national one
that the EC has in place.
Vigilance is positive while
militancy is negative, at least, if vigilance entails alertness and militancy,
a show of force. In a democracy, vigilance fetches political capital while
militancy fritters it away. I am amused by the NPP’s choice of means—turning to
militancy instead of vigilance. Both can’t co-exist.
Being vigilant means helping the
EC to superintend over the polls without confronting it with a separate
partisan political agenda or to intimidate it. Anything bordering on “show of
force”, which is what the militancy connoted by the NPP’s “Polling Station
Guards” entails, will not force "the there to be there" for
Akufo-Addo.
In essence, then, the NPP’s
initiative is unexpected, needless, and dangerous. Apparently, the militancy
connoted by this initiative suggests that the party’s “Polling Station Guards”
will operate parallel to whatever we already have for the accredited national security
network as far as security of the polls and the electorate is concerned.
How will these NPP’s “Polling
Station Guards” be located in the existing framework? Will these so-called “Polling
Station Guards” be the same polling station agents that each political party is
allowed to present for election-monitoring functions? Or will they be an
additional resource for only the NPP to use?
Folks, I have all along insisted
that the NPP people don’t know how to do politics to win power. They constantly
deceive themselves that arm-twisting and browbeating techniques will do the
magic for them. That is why in their public posturing and utterances, they
cannot be humble; they cannot tailor their campaign messages to suit the
aspirations of the electorate; and they find it difficult to accept defeat just
because in their premeditated manner of doing politics, they consider electoral
victory for them as a fait accompli, even before the elections are held.
They have no room for defeat and
do all they can to create the impression that any electoral defeat is the
calculated manipulation by the EC and their arch political rivals (the NDC). We
are aware of their shortcomings and will continue to point them out for
redress—but we know they won’t listen to us, having already positioned
themselves as the obvious choice of the electorate to be in power.
Unfortunately for them, the tide won’t flow the way they wish.
Creating petty pockets of
authority and layers of militancy within the party’s ranks will not solve their
credibility problems. The main causes of their constant electoral defeat lie
within their own make-up, shortsightedness, and character traits that don’t
bode well for them on Election Day.
I am glad that speakers at the function
acknowledged such internal faultlines: “Even though the party structures may have pockets of misunderstandings,
unity is key and all well-meaning party members’ must devise an approach of
managing all misunderstandings and organise resources and logistics for
effective campaign for victory in 2016,” according to the Upper East regional
chairman of the NPP, Mahama Adams.
Then,
the constituency chairperson for Bolgatanga Central, Mercy Alima Musah, “bemoaned
the sudden collapse of party youth and women groups in the region due to
gossips and misunderstanding and the need to revamp such groups”.
The
NPP is its own enemy, not the EC or the NDC, not to talk about the security
set-up. The party is still operating with an outmoded political apparatus and
its operatives/activists find it difficult to reach out successfully to the
electorate, especially floating voters. Their inability to woo the electorate
with cogent campaign messages will continue to be their bane. But they fail to
see the fault in themselves and are quick to harp on the obvious challenges
facing the incumbent administration, counting on CHANCE to prevail over the
electorate. It won’t work.
Added
to this politics of narrow-mindedness are the major problems that detract from
the worth of their Presidential and Parliamentary candidates. I will bet my
last Pesewa on a gamble to say that the problems that dimmed Akufo-Addo’s light
at the two previous polls are still there to hit him hard again. Those that
were interpreted beyond his personal negative streaks of character are still
ballooning. Not until he demonstrates anything new, the baggage that he has
been carrying all along will be too glaring to dissuade voters from lifting him
to the Presidency “at all costs” as his “birthright”.
The
NPP’s main problem is Akufo-Addo, not the EC or the NDC. If they can tackle him
(probably, by helping cleanse the slate for him), he might be seen in a new
light. But time is of the essence; and he hasn’t proved yet that he has
anything new up his sleeves with which to conjure electoral victory. He is
still his old self. No voter who knows him will follow him.
For
now, let the NPP go about wasting resources on such amorphous groups as this
DAZOTA in the mistaken belief that militancy will be the “Open Sesame” for it.
Electoral victory depends more on the ability to connect with voters than on an
eagle’s eye watch on Election Day.
The
truth is that Akufo-Addo lost Elections 2008 and 2012 because he wasn’t the
voters’ preferred choice. No one stuffed any ballot box with anything to his
disadvantage. If he really knows how to win electoral victory, he won’t
continue to repeat the very mistakes that have been the cause of his woes all
these years. Troublemakers full of unspeakable arrogance and mischief won't win
the minds and hearts of voters.
Let
the militancy continue. On Election Day, it will vaporize into gasps of
disappointment. To win the polls, the NPP needs voter support,
not the militancy of “Polling Station Guards”.
What
I can foresee is the setting up of such groups to confront the national
security network, which will be the catalyst for unrests in the post-election
period. Such a measure will have dire consequences for the brains behind such
quasi-security rag-tag groups and those unwitting idle-hands being manipulated
to expend their energy in pursuit of the mirage that Akufo-Addo has placed in
front of them.
I shall return…
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