Pressure dey!
Pressure dey! – A common expression used by some friends of mine whenever they find themselves in “hot waters”. And I can imagine the hierarchy of the ruling party might just be saying that to each other.
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If this election were likened to a football match, then we may say that the government has given a goal away at a dire moment; or more aptly, has conceded a goal at a crucial moment of the game.
With under a week more to go, the New Patriotic Party (NPP) would be hoping that the discovery of some underhand dealings by the ruling party would get it some more votes.
The “give-away” as the NPP would wish it to be, came to light when the NPP held a press conference under the title “You can’t buy us”.
To cut a long story short, it turns out that the ruling government has for sometime now been pursuing Mr Daniel Bugri Nabu, the Northern Regional Chairman of the NPP, to get him to bow out of politics; and also to say not too pleasant things about the opposition leader, Nana Addo Danquah Akufo-Addo.
The NPP further alleged that there were discussions between the President, his brother and other top aides just to get this supposed agenda going.
And what was up for grabs? A brand new V8 Toyota Land Cruiser, brand new V6 Mitsubishi Pajero, Brand new Nissan Pickup, a road contract and GH¢ 3.3 million.
If these allegations are proven to be true, then they will certainly not reflect well on the ruling government; especially when these allegations are coming at a time that the government is struggling to deal with the numerous tentacles associated with the Woyome scandal.
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The latest twist to the never-ending Woyome tale is that government (through the Ministry of Transport) had intended to award him a new contract at a time when efforts were being made to recover monies the state wrongly paid him.
How then can government effectively convince the electorate that times are hard and the need for everyone to contribute to make things better by shouldering more tax obligations when it abuses its incumbency to this extent?
How is the government going to explain away the fact that the taxpayers’ money is being used to court political opponents?
It is a truism of politics that no government is immune from scandals. So long as a government is first and foremost a political party with the desire to gain power, maintain power and expand its grip on power, there would be so many of the things that we hear the NPP allege.
And it would be inaccurate to think that this is something that can be attributable to the ruling government only.
That said, allegations of corruption, unless effectively displaced, are bad news for any government or individual. The only exception may be where you have a Trump-like political capital to the extent that your support base cares little about all the ills that can be said of you.
Unfortunately for the government, it may not be lucky as Trump was. If there is an Achilles heels attributable to the government, it would be that it has not done so much by way of fighting corruption.
There is a tall list that it has to speak to: the Smarty’s bus branding fall out involving GH¢3.6 million, the Ford Expedition gift from a Burkinabé road contractor, the famous GYEEDA and SADA scandals which saw initiatives at job creation and improving the economic profile of the northern part of the country being blown into dust and so many others.
Be it perception or reality, not many people frankly believe the government is truly committed to the fight against corruption.
These cynicisms effectively take away the trust and believe that people would want to have in the governance system.
In specific reference to this particular matter, nothing convincing has been heard from the government side apart from a flat denial and the characterisation of the accusations as something usual that the NPP does every election period.
Kofi Adams, a coordinator of the President’s campaign, in an interview with an Accra-based radio station Citi fm noted, “We [the NDC] will not have to waste our time as a country on NPP. There are so many things to do in this country that we cannot waste our time on NPP and sit on that fallacious statements that they are making. This is the business they do when we are approaching elections. How are you going to investigate these allegations? Clearly they are lying…they are lying and just making allegations.”
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So, the important question is whether these allegations are going to be election spoilers? May be yes. May be no. But in a highly polarised society such as ours, it is more likely to be the case that the allegations would make little, if any difference at all.