I couldn’t go make my preliminary remarks on TV3 Key Points today because of other Social engagements in my home town, Saltpond. I will therefore make the comments here.
“Thank you” in human tradition, is typically used to express gratitude when someone does something helpful or kind for you, or when someone gives you something. It’s a polite way to acknowledge their effort and show your appreciation. The word “sorry” is also generally used to apologize when you’ve done something wrong, hurt someone’s feelings, or caused a mistake. It’s a way to express remorse and take responsibility for your actions whether you did something wrong deliberately or inadvertently.
Within the above context, I find the NPP Thank You Tour problematic. It is either they don’t know when to say thank you or they are still taking Ghanaians for granted by still showing how arrogant they have congenitally been.
The NPP lowered the the baseline of Governance and demonstrated unprecedented incompetence in handling the fiduciary trust of the Ghanaian people with much impunity. They claimed governmental infallibility and gaslighted Ghanaians in a manner that made many question their own precocity to decipher truth and reality from propaganda and lies. We were hungry and they said we weren’t hungry. They stole our savings from the banks by giving us crude haircuts in an unprecedented manner and they insisted we should praise them for this. Their handling of our economy was as if they hadn’t been to school before and their show of greed in stealing was in the roof.
These and many more, brought about popular revulsion expressed in the closet of many homes. When we complained openly, they arrogantly responded that regardless of their mayhem on us, they will still break the eight, as if we are all very dumb and stupid. When we rubbished their insistence to break the eight, they responded by saying “it is possible”. The height of NPP arrogance!
These and other allied factors that time would not permit me to outline, angered Ghanaians to punish the NPP mercilessly in the 2024 General Elections. Unfortunately for them, the anger of Ghanaians haven’t subsided and there are at least five post election survey reports that I have read, that show that should elections be held today, the NPP would not be able to garner more than 25 percent of the votes of Ghanaians.
With this political predicament, what should be the attitude of a party that wants to win a very distant election in the unforeseen Ghanaian political future? The NPP must hold a National Repentance Conference that brings all of them together before God to plead for forgiveness for abusing the opportunity given them and for mocking at God in several respects, in spite of His sovereign nature. Afterwards, they must go on a National Sorry and Apology Tour where no one among them dissociates themselves from the harm done to Ghanaians; and where they all go on their knees at every platform to apologize and ask for forgiveness from Ghanaians. The surreptitious and sometimes open attempt at dissociating one’s self from the the shambolic performance of the NPP under Mr Akufo Addo is politically uninformed and childish. All must own up and all must fix.
Thank You Tour can only come in after Ghanaians have cautiously accepted the apology of the party and have demonstrated this by shoring up the NPP votes of less than 40 percent to about 40 to 44 percent. Subsequent Thank You Tours may then enhance the electoral fortunes of the party in the distant future.
This is not the time for them to be criticizing the new born government of John Mahama because, clearly things are being done well and differently. Again, though leadership has atrophied in the party and the current executives at all levels have technically antiquated mandate because of their overwhelming role in handing down the kind of defeat the party suffered in the last elections, this is not the time for leadership struggles in the party that has nearly collapsed and risks annihilation.
Rather this is the time for them to do a sober introspection about how they disrespected Ghanaians through the show of natural and deliberate incompetence in governance and how they can pacify Ghanaians. The pacification process, must start by a contrite-hearted National Repentance Conference where they make amends with God, followed by National Sorry and Apology Tours to plead with Ghanaians for forgiveness. Thank You Tour now is misplaced. It must come after forgiveness by Ghanaians in a very distant future.
This is free consultancy to the NPP. Let them take it in good faith or as usual, let them do the kinds of things they were taught by their immediate past leader, which the founding fathers of the party like the BJ da Rochas, the Agyenim Boatengs, the Ala Adjeteys, the Odoi Sykes etc abhorred.
Yaw Gyampo
A31, Prabiw
PAV Ansah Street
Saltpond
&
Suro Nipa House
Behind Old Post Office
Larteh-Akuapim
Source: Professor Ransford Gyampo
