Where Were The Elders in the NPP?
On some pro-NPP forums and platforms, members have started blasting Nana Addo for what they say was his gross misrule over affairs of the state. Some of these forums and platforms were so powerful during the NPP opposition days, advising and supporting the party. Nana Addo really benefited from them and largely rewarded a very few of the members with juicy positions when he formed government.
Nana Addo went on to embark on marvellous developmental projects, unprecedented in the country. However, one project he embarked upon but never completed was the national cathedral. Even as the Gong-Gong, supported the idea, based on the fact that we are over 71% Christians in this country, he felt the location was all wrong.
Apart from the location being in an already packed area with massive state buildings, it meant the demolishing of beautiful state mansions for judges, a passport office and the regional minister’s residenceto make way for a massive cathedral whose construction run into hundreds of millions of dollars.
Gong-Gong and many others thought it was a wrong decision, but who should have advised the president to find a different location? It should have been the elders of his party and the presidential advisors, but it seems they all went mute.
The project was put under the management of top clergy men.But what the construction rather showed for all the work done was a large crater with hundreds of millions of dollars not accounted for.
What was even worse was that the very clergy men we run to, to confess our sins and beg them to plead with God to ignore our senseless misconducts, forgive us and reconcile with us, are today being found out to have done what corrupt people always do; stealing money. Christianity was been crucified in Ghana and yet the NPP elders just watched on.
Gong-Gong considered the next issue and that was the Agyapadie document which intends to put all of state businesses under the Okyen state of Akyem Abuakwa, so as to elevate it over Asanteman. The document was scandalous and yet no elder in NPP drew the president’s attention to it. When Gong-Gong raised this issue up in an NPP platform, those who could help unravel the truth about this document, went silent and the heated discussion died an untimely death.
Then there was the Agyapa Deal, which was to assign all the gold under the earth in Ghana to a “state” company to be run by a privately selected board of managers. It was rumoured that the then Attorney-General, Hon. Gloria Akuffo, rejected this in cabinet in 2020. When Nana Addo won re-election and was to form government again in 2021, Gloria’s name was missing in his ministerial list. And the elders of the NPP just went mute.
It was Nana Addo who would decide who should be parliamentary candidate for the NPP in every constituency. This brought divisions in the local level and the party started becoming unpopular and losing sympathisers. So, in 2020 General Elections, the party went from 169 to 137 seats in Parliament. The elders failed to advised Nana Addo.
In 2024, things went worse and the NPP went from 137 seats in the 276 member Parliament to less than 90 seats. Very unprecedented in recent times.
While Gong-Gong is graciously thanking God for humbling the NPP which seems to be full of proud and arrogant leaders, he as well congratulates John Mahama for offering himself to be used by God, as a tool to transform politics in this country. To govern people, one must be humble and affable, make people feel that they have their own.
Today, no one can deny that God has blessed H.E. John Dramani Mahama. May the bold and the wise surround him and advise him to always do the right things, so that he does not move on the same path of his predecessor. Amen.
To have power means to become a servant leader but not a dictator, as Christ said (Matthew 20: 26-28). If the people feel rejected, they will silently wait for a December 7 of voting and show leadership that the power in their thumb is mightier than the one welded by those in high office.
The way NPP recorded low votes across the country including its stronghold regions, is a strong message to all political leaders that one should not take voters for granted. The political leaders can use 1,460 days to make the life of the electorates miserable, but the electorates would use only a single day, to crush the political leadership.
When no one could tell the arrogant emperor that he had no cloths on, it took a small insignificant young boy to tell him the truth as it is.
The Gong-Gong asks, why was it that those elders around the president could not tell him that his was charting a path that would create problems for himself, his government and his party? Was it out of fear or were they protecting whatever goodies they were acquiring? So, now that they have been reduced to the level of the rank and file of the party, while they be able to carry that air of pride and arrogance around them?
Hon Daniel Dugan.
Editor’s note: Views expressed in this article do not represent that of The Chronicle
