NPP will come back to mainstream politics - JIAPS

It was contained in a statement signed by Mr Colin Essamuah, Emmanuel Wiafe Akenteng and Mr Ekow Nkrumah, all functional members of JIAPs.

“The holding of a news conference last Wednesday in order to present a so-called True Sate of the Nation Address read by the Minority Leader, Mr  Kyei Mensah-Bonsu, represents the first tentative steps of the minority to rescind the highly unpopular and unproductive boycott of certain functions of Parliament,” a statement issued by the institute said.

“These events are a necessary precursors for the return of the NPP MPs to their duties. Such a development, we in the institute believe, can only be good for our constitutional dispensation,” it said.

Ever since the NPP went to court to challenge the results of the 2012 elections, the party has boycotted all parliamentary activities involving the President, John Dramani Mahama.

While many civil society organisations including the Ghana Bar Association (GBA), the Alliance for Accountable Governance (AFAG) and the Concerned Clergy Association of Ghana had all urged the NPP to rescind its decision not to participate in the vetting of President Mahama’s ministerial nominees,  leading party functionaries such  as  Dr Charles Wereko-Brobbey and the Assin Central MP, Mr Kennedy Agyepong,  have also condemned the minority’s decision to boycott the vetting process.

To further show that it meant business, the minority walked out of Parliament minutes before President Mahama entered Parliament to deliver the State of the Nation address last week.

That action tickled the nerve of many people who believed that the NPP was taking its boycott too far. Interestingly, a few days later, the party  presented its unconventional  “True Sate of the Nation Address.”

The institute said the fact that it was the Minority leader  and not the NPP’s 2012 Presidential candidate, Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo, who read the statement was “indicative of a healthy rift in the ranks of the largest opposition and that will definitely redound to the benefit of democratic, constitutional rule in this country.”

“The address, prefaced in the media as the view of the NPP regarding the state of affairs in the country, should be seen as the contribution to the debate in the House on the State of the Nation address delivered by President John Dramani Mahama, albeit from outside the chambers of the House,” the statement added.

Punching holes in the NPP’s “True State of the Nation Address, the JIAPS said, “the NPP’s view and critique of the economy and society of Ghana was full of figures which were speculative in nature, and erroneous in fact, because they neither emanated from official sources, nor stamped with objective truth.”

“Once the provenance of the figures and facts is suspect, anything that flows from there can only be untrustworthy and unhelpful to a real debate. National discussion of serious issues of this nature must be grounded in fact, not speculation.”

“Figures were pulled from the air and they then proceeded to analyse those figures from an extremely partisan standpoint. Not a single suggestion as to the NPP answer to any of the identified problems was proffered or discussed. The address was a long, boring litany of condemnation of government policies,” it added.

According to the institute,  the unending complaints against the performance of a president and a government considered illegitimate implied  some leeway to the NPP  recovering its role in the country as the loyal opposition.

It said the “assertion by the Electoral Commission that none  voted without biometrical verification in the elections should push the NPP further to their legitimate duty of providing loyal service to citizens with their presence and participation in Parliament and elsewhere where their presence is required by law and convention. There definitely is light at the end of the tunnel for Ghanaians who are justifiably worried by the abandonment of duty by the NPP,” the statement said.