The call to arms of the entire UP Tradition today is “Break the Eight.” Since the beginning of this Fourth Republic, none of the two leading political parties, the New Patriotic Party and the National Democratic Congress, which are the only parties that have been forming government, have been able to go beyond a two term of eight years in government.
Based upon this the New Patriotic Party is very determined to break this cycle and become the first party to go beyond eight years straight years in government, thus the clarion call, “Break the Eight.”
If this can be possible then many things must be made straight in both governance and Party, in fact more of Party, if I may say so.
The Party must stay very united and the laws and directives abide by all, with offenders punished no matter their status in the Party.
Unfortunately, this is not the case as things stand now in the New Patriotic Party. The era of “some live by the law and others die by the same law,” seem to have taking a commanding role in the operations of the Party’s affairs.
Some elements in the Party are taking decisions, which is not for the welfare of the entire family and before I come to this, one may ask, who are such persons?
Throughout the history of the UP Tradition’s Fourth Republican era, some party members have assigned to themselves powers that make them decide what is to happen and who should have what and who should be what.
These are the people who would be against an aspirant but as soon as that candidate wins, they would swoop down around him with the pretence to “protect” him from the very people who laid down their lives for him to win. They are people I will call, the Atiku Abubakars.
These party members only come to give directives and everyone must take instructions from them. Their modus operandi, however, may hurt the candidate and creates more enemies for him.
Today in the NPP, there is a growing fever on the presidential primaries ahead of the 2024 General Election and in my opinion most of the powers that be are more concern about their preferred candidate than how to unite the Party to break the eight in 2024.
There is an Executive Committee chaired by the Party’s national chairman, which came out with rules and regulations on all electoral primaries. Party members are forbidden to campaign ahead for any candidate of their choice or risk facing severe sanctions. As things are, some party gurus and other members decide to openly campaign for the Vice President, Dr. Bawumia, and nothing is done to them. However, whenever anyone campaigns for any other aspirant, he or she faces severe sanctions. Lately, some party executives, have been suspended for voicing it out for Alan Kyerematen.
One thing which the NEC must wake up from is that such conducts can breed hatred within the rank and file of the Party. Dr. Bawumia, to me, is a fine gentleman and should he win the presidential primaries, he will need the full backing of each and every member of the NPP, if the Party must break the eight.
From the way the party top executives and some gurus are behaving, Bawumia may face herculean task in convincing all the entire party membership that he is for everyone. This is so because after people have been victimised to pave way for him to win, how will such victims see or regard him. This fine gentleman will be seen to be treacherous and someone not to be trusted.
What surprises me is that all too soon, the NPP top men and women have forgotten Elections 2020. In fact, on the road to get candidates to represent the Party in the Parliamentary Elections, the first primaries were held in orphan constituencies. In Greater Accra regions, there were then thirteen orphan constituencies which were flooded withtop executives and associates from the National and Regional offices and some say even Jubilee House also descended to add its weight to promote persons of their choices. In the end however, nine constituencies rejected those promoted from outside and picked candidates they knew could win the seats.
Then came imposition of sixty-five sitting MPs on their constituents and unfortunately, fifteen lost their seats. Many say, those NPP MPs lost their re-election bid not because NDC outvoted them at the polls, but NPP members voted against their own. They rejected imposition and the result was the 137-137-1 membership of MPs in Parliament today.
This should have been a lesson to the Party’s National and Regional executives, who are the Atiku Abubakas and who still believe that they can control the grass roots of the Party and decide for them. Unfortunately, no lessons learnt and we hear of grand distortion of history to promote the course of Vice President Bawumia. People who should know the political history of the country, people who should be conversant with the UP Tradition and its history are about making up stories to push the Bawumia agenda. And top of this, people who cry out for Alan or any other candidate is disciplined as if he or she had committed a treasonable offence.
If I were those at the top, the ban on campaigning for presidential aspirants must be lifted immediately, not to say this ban was fully complied with, anyway. Then each party member must be allowed to propagate the good in their choice of candidate without destroying the other.
The Party must come together and see each and everyone as siblings who may decide against what should be cooked for supper. At the end of the day, when one’s choice is not cooked, everyone will sit around the table and eat peacefully and joyfully.
Without this the New Patriotic Party must forget about breaking the eight, since it is obvious it is rather breeding the hate.
