The Grand Denouement, The Konadu Factor In The NDC

We all saw it coming. The indications had been there all along, but our friends in the NDC, true to form, acted the proverbial ostrich. Instead of looking inward to know what was festering in their party, they preferred to direct their ammunition to our noble NPP. When JJ started hurling insults at them, they said he was exercising his democratic rights, although they would have been delighted if he went through the appropriate party channels. When he told the whole world that there was massive corruption going on in the administration, they said he was exercising his legitimate right of freedom of speech, even though they would have been happy if he showed them the evidence; when he labelled a whole lot of our current leaders as a bunch of greedy bastards, he was credited with exercising his democratic right as a citizen of the country. And when Spio-Garbrah said the team that had been charged to execute the so-called Better Ghana stuff was of a mediocre caliber, hell was made to descend heavily on him, with the Castle buffalo leading the heavy charge. Now the die has been cast and JJ has threatened to blow the entire lid, on June 4, 2011. A whole country is anxiously waiting to have a clear insight into the operations of the mafia-like monster called the NDC, which is pretending to manage the affairs of our beloved country. In between, the contours of the two campaigns appear to have been clearly drawn. It is going to be tough and grueling but very entertaining, nobody should doubt it. As indicated, JJ has promised to do justice to what he sees as the sickening malfeasance that pervades the politics of the current predatory elite. We are all holding our breath until that doomsday. The veritable sycophants and big time ass lickers calling themselves friends of the President have started sharpening their acerbic tongues to outdo one another and the political game of insults is getting to a crescendo. Some who were hardly heard of during the hey days of Jerry�s stranglehold on our Republic, in the name of some phenomenon they called a revolution at the time, are now claiming a piece of the revolutionary action either for their own selves or their spouses. Mrs. Betty Mould-Iddrisu�s statement was a perfect lesson in political history and we should all scramble for copies of her statement. The passion and vigour with which she assumed the leadership of the crowd to teach the Rawlings family a lesson in history, by frontally and ferociously attacking them, was very significant and shocking; it was vulgar by any measure and if I were Mills, I would watch her closely. She lacks loyalty; she lacks principles, to put it gently. Can she and indeed has she so rapidly forgotten that John Mahama can never reconcile with the Rawlingses because they did everything they could to impose her on Mills as the latter�s running mate at the expense of John Mahama? Their reward is the open condemnation by Mrs. Iddrisu of the simple decision of Mrs. Rawlings to exercise her inalienable right to be a candidate to lead the NDC to �victory in 2012″. Her performance was particularly abhorrent because as a Minister responsible for education, she must be seen as someone of integrity and principles. She failed miserably and all who love her should bow down their heads in shame. She is a disaster. The pastor president, in his usual characteristic hypocrisy, has promised a clean campaign. But who believes him, given his very unenviable record? This is a man who goes to chapels and mosques to preach a message of civility in our political discourse exactly at the hour when one or two of his underlings is shouting himself/herself hoarse, saying all manner of nonsense against the potential president of the Republic of Ghana; it is the same man who goes to the Tema Port to bemoan that CEPS officials are all building mansions (inferring that all those chaps are corrupt), when his junior Ministers are reported to be building castles in two short years after being appointed as junior Ministers. That surely is a record that nobody can hope to break in the foreseeable future. But this is the Ghana of Mills and his praise singers. Their administration reminds me of a Malawian friend who would always shout at the top of his voice: �My friend we are in trouble!� any time he observed something unusual. Knowing the high cost building materials in this country at this material moment, anyone who can build any of those mansions in a record period of two years must be a wonderful person indeed. We are in trouble! to quote my Malawian friend. As the popular clich� goes in this country, God is indeed a Ghanaian. Just as some of us were getting ready to cope with the incompetence, the fatuous arrogance and the ugly display of wealth in the mist of the stinking poverty, JJ Rawlings pops up again like a champagne cork. He has promised to spill the beans, and we hope he will. We are particularly going to be attentive when JJ makes his widely anticipated speech on June 4. If he accuses some ministers and other Government officials as having stolen our resources to construct Hollywood type edifices in East Legon, Dzorwulu, Aburi, Roman Ridge, Techimantia, Oyirifa and the like, what will the pastor president say and do? If JJ comes out to tell the whole world that the STX Korea deal was vitiated with kickbacks and sleaze, what will the pastor president say and do? If JJ comes out boldly to tell the whole Republic that already our oil money is being stashed in the vaults of foreign banks, what will our papal president say and do? Let us not forget that the NDC was the first to set the ground rules. When the former Chairman of the NPP said that the Castle had been turned into a place of money sharing, they took it for the truth and constantly depicted President Kufour, our beloved president, as the most corrupt leader the whole universe had ever produced. The hypocrisy of the NDC (Mills� chapter) is incessantly on display. When Kufour repeated exactly what JJ has been saying for well over two years, respecting the rampant corruption that is running through the administration of our country, the Ablakwa Okudzetos and the Quashigahs and the buffaloes in the Castle jumped on him like wounded tigers. We shall see what will happen if their icon of years past repeats those same accusations on June 4, and knowing how high the stakes are in the politics of the NDC, we can all trust that the �Junior Jesus� will not mince words this time. In the period leading to their congress at Sunyani, are the John Jinapors of this Republic going to label Mrs. Rawlings as a prostitute for daring to exercise her right of a citizen of this country who qualifies to be president, by daring to challenge a sitting president that she deeply considers as incompetent and maladroit? Is Gbevlo Lartey going to unleash his commandos on JJ and his wife and their teeming supporters whenever they decide to exercise their constitutional right of assembly for purposes of disseminating their word? We shall be watching. How is the Mills crowd going to play the so-called tribal card? Are they going to tell the people of the Volta Region again that the Akans are out to throw them into the Volta River or the Keta lagoon? Let them say that and JJ will surely re-post swiftly and vigorously because that will be another layer of the politics of opportunism that the Mills faction of the NDC has practised since the coming into being of the Constitution of the Fourth Republic. They shamelessly played the tribal card in all the previous elections and played it especially in the Central Region in 2007/2008. During the day, Mills preaches national unity but at night, he preaches the most blatant kind of divisive politics and hatred. He will be haunted for the rest of his life for his outright politics of hypocrisy. The hour of visitation is nigh. We are watching. As a post script: Has it ever occurred to our learned professor of law that the Rawlings family literally created all those who are singing his praises now and demonising the Rawlingses? In Akan, we say that if you do not know death, look at sleep, to wit, death is like a slumber. The president should approach Rawlings for the definition of traitors. Many exist in his entourage. Yes! Kwasi Yeboah writes from the Airport Residential area,Accra