The things we take for granted
So many things happened at the beginning of this new year which compel me today to take note of in my first epistle for the year 2016. I note them today primarily because they seem so ordinary, and matter of fact that we overlook them, which is a pity. because our studied ignorance of the past relevant in our lives should make us take a pause whether we are not taking too many things for granted.
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For example, and firstly, how many of us have stopped to thank the police and our security services for having a Christmas season not marked by gory accidents, inexplicable deaths and weird and macabre accidents which events, sad though they may be, are the staple of past celebrations this time of the year as we cross over to the next year? Of course, I am aware of the freak accident in the
Eastern Religion in which the musician Amakye Dede was involved, and in which his producer, Isaac Yeboah, unfortunately perished. We must thank the Almighty that we are the beneficiaries
I believe part of the reason for this peaceful, accident-free season is the prevalence of good road network which keep increasing in mileage and reach every day. The determined efforts of the government to make our road network safe, comfortable and pleasant routes to convey us safely to our various destinations in the cities, towns and villages have definitely paid off, looking at this season’s statistics, or lack thereof alone.
The other thing which struck me as unsurprising, but I know many will disagree with, is the admission by the acting General Secretary of the opposition New Patriotic Party (NPP) that he and other party executives attended an end-of-year party in the house of the brother of the President, Ibrahim Mahama. Much as I praise this on one hand as a normal act, others, and rightly so, would see this as an act of rank hypocrisy, seeing that Mr Boadu ascended into his current acting position following the suspension of the substantive holder for actions, part of which were hobnobbing with the ruling National Democratic Congress (NDC) led by Ibrahim’s brother, President John Mahama.
The NPP leadership had in the last few years converted the party into a cult, with rules interpreted solely by a narrow cabal within the leadership, that saying hello to somebody in a manner unapproved by that cabal is tantamount to treachery and betrayal which must attract the severest of sanctions, and it does not matter when that hello was said. That must explain why on the last day of the year, as
Ghanaians were satisfied that the violent disagreements in the party were not over by a long shot, that a leading member of the party, Dr Nyaho-Tamakloe, was mysteriously suspended for speeches delivered months earlier, and forgotten by Ghanaians.
Then the Electoral Commission (EC) responded at last to the claims by the NPP that it wants a new register compiled for the 2016 polls because of the presence of foreign names on the current register, among other charges of inadequacy. The EC response was so comprehensive meaning it took the NPP claims seriously, even though I had dismissed them earlier in this column, among others, as bereft of substance, and not worthy of the high intellectual credentials of Dr Mahamudu Bawumia of the NPP, who led the hoary charge for change. Of course, the NPP has rejected the EC response, setting the stage for another irrelevant excursion into needless violence and confrontation, even as we ready ourselves for the elections later this year, and taking the NPP farther away from their objective of contesting and winning elections in this country.
The NPP has mounted another campaign to compel the EC to accept the position of the party that we need a new register to have an election they will accept. This posture is plain and naked terrorism, nothing else. And it is accentuated by the similar refusal by leadership of the Let My Vote Count (LMVC), an NPP pressure group, to accept the EC response, and to threaten a new round of demonstrations and other violent acts to press home their point.
All of us seem to have forgotten that the LMVC was founded to pressurise the Supreme Court to accept the complainants’ point of view in the election petition of 2013. All this brouhaha only proves 2016 is really an election year and parties, groups and persons are staking out their seeming advantages as they deploy themselves for the election later in the year.
One would have expected those opposed to the EC’s decision to accept it, and prepare for the election properly, and not to bog themselves down with decided matters, and continue mindlessly the suspension spree in their ranks. In all this, has anyone understood the NPP criticism of the EC for failing to secure a copy of the foreign registers to substantiate the NPP claims? This at once settles the matter of the truthfulness of the NPP claim, because it means that claim is made up and completely false.
Yes, I have seen the rise in water and electricity tariffs and fuel increases, and the document going round putting all of them together as if percentages refer to same figures. No problem. How does a parliamentarian feel questioning an act which was unanimously passed by Parliament? I do not understand that one, because that posture is a direct attack on oneself as an honourable member.
No one forces anyone to vote in any particular way in our Parliament, and so the mark of the conscientious member is to first admit his mistake, before going on to decry a position he joined happily in taking with his colleagues. Now I hear some are even questioning that quantum of increase passed by the House and what reflects at the pump.
To maintain my intellectual and moral integrity, I await how this would pan out in the eye of preparations towards presidential and parliamentary elections this year.
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