The New Patriotic Party-led campaign for regime change has become very popular among majority of Ghanaians in the country and beyond.
The acceptance of the ‘call for change’ is evident in a growing anti-government attitude publicly shown simultaneously across the length and breadth of the country in the heat of the electioneering campaign for votes.
There are frequent reports of the electorate hooting at government officials and members of President John Mahama’s campaign team with his long convoy of luxurious vehicles.
Over the weekend, students of the University of Ghana reportedly started chanting, “We want change,” “We want change,” when a National Democratic Congress (NDC) campaign team stormed the university campus with a truck loaded with bags of sachet water to distribute for free.
While some of the students accepted the free bags of water, many others were heard booing at the distributors while shouting the ‘change’ mantra until eventually the truck was said to have moved away.
Apparently, the water – embossed with the pictures of President Mahama and the NDC parliamentary candidate for Ayawaso West Wuogon, Delali Brempong, who had earlier described the students who couldn’t get their names on the voter register during the limited registration exercise as underage and therefore are not eligible to vote – was sent by the party to woo the students. But it turned out to be fiasco, to the embarrassment of the candidate.
Same weekend, the Chief of Staff, Julius Debrah, was said to have visited the Accra College of Education (ATRACO) with NDC campaign team but their campaign message was obstructed by chants of “We want change,” “We want change,” by the students.
The incident went viral on social media and some of the students were seen and heard chanting for change while the Chief of Staff and his team were preaching the message of another (third) term mandate for the NDC in office.
Hardly a day passes without the social media going agog with a new video of a section of Ghanaian voters publicly jeering at the president’s campaign team, with some rejecting the incumbent National Democratic Congress campaign freebies which range from John Mahama-branded detergents, sachet water, mats, wax prints, coffins, basins, head gears and other items.
Last Thursday, there were reports that President Mahama was greeted with loud chants of ‘change’ by a crowd when he visited the Manhyia Palace for the one-week celebration of the demise of the queen mother of Asante, Nana Afia Kobi Serwaa Ampem II.
Recently, hundreds of traders and residents of Darkuman Kokompe in Accra did the same thing when they publicly waved the change sign when the president visited the area to campaign.
The president was given an unexpected welcome by a large number of artisans and spare parts dealers who met him on arrival, with some of them hooting at him and screaming “change, change, change.”
There are similar reports from several parts of the country and this is happening at a time former President Jerry John Rawlings (NDC founder) has said the “bad image” of the Mahama-led administration could prevent the party from winning the December 7 polls.
Citifmonline last week quoted Rawlings to have said: “It’s most unfortunate, but the image of both the government and the party [National Democratic Congress – NDC]…is as bad as what it was in the John Evans Atta Mills’ period before he died, and that’s not healthy at all.”
The report advised President Mahama to nurture people with vision to restore hope to the party and Ghanaians.
“These personalities will have to be bold and ready to think outside of the box. We have to have people who can raise the image of the party; hopefully extend it onto the Executive as well. Because quite frankly… if the NDC does not, she will be fighting on the same terms as the New Patriotic Party.”
“How many times hasn’t he [President Mahama] assured the public of dealing with corruption, and yet we are not seeing enough that will help to clear the image of the government,” former President Rawlings was quoted as saying.
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