NDC: Kwesi Botchwey Committee report Brouhaha is Self Inflicted

The media is vigilante today, than it has ever been since we introduced multi-party democracy in 1992. Cabinet memos, are not longer secret in this country, the media, always intercept documents, regardless of how sensitive it is.

When the National Democratic Congress (NDC) set out to investigate why it lost the 2016 general elections, and made a funfair of it, it opened itself up for what we are hearing and reading today.

Every political party anywhere in the world, after losing election, will constitute a team to go into the reasons, why it lost, even winning parties, to help consolidate their gains, will also commission a fact finding committee to probe into their victory.

Whatever the party is going through today, it brought upon itself. Before the Kwesi Botwey committee set out to do its work, the party organized a media fanfare to announce to the whole world about what the committee was going out to do. The party did not stop there, the sittings of the committee, was done in public, and so anybody with mischievous mind and evil intent, could follow the committee around.

After criss-crossing the country to solicit for views, opinions and the concerns of party members, the work of the committee came to an end and the report was to be presented to the National Executive Committee (NEC), the party once again, organized the media, affording the chairman of the committee, Prof. Kwesi Botwey to read out, what he termed some of the recommendations made to the party, and contained in the report.

At every stage of the process, the party was creating a monster that has come to haunt them. It is said that, when it suits the devil, he quotes the bible. The report, will become a bible to the New Patriotic Party, and they will quote it with glee, come 2020 and beyond.

The New Patriotic Party and its hirelings will go to every length to pay whatever amount to either get a copy of the report or manufacture one. I, Abdul Razak Bawa, did not need any committee to tell me, the reasons, why the national Democratic Congress, lost the 2016 elections. The factors were not far-fetched, they were obvious to those who have eyes to see and ears to listen.

Some gullible members of the society will believe what is being read on radio and published in the papers, because those were the reasons apparent.

Who in this country did not know about the way perceived NDC media houses were treated. I have had the cause to write on countless occasions to complain about, the neglect in terms of our being starved of adverts.

Besides, the reasons, why any incumbent political party, losses elections in our part of the world is always the same, it is a vicious cycle, a movie that replays itself.

When the New Patriotic Party, lost the 2008 elections, it was the same reasons being quoted today. Apathy is the enemy of every incumbent party.

Ten months after the election that the NDC lost by an unimaginable margin, the party, instead of being out there, to engage the grassroots, start building bridges, mend broken fences, it is rather spending valuable time, defending a monster it created.

Last week, after a NEC meeting, a timetable was released announcing the dates for elections from constituency, regional to the national level. This should have been the focus of the party, instead valuable time, has to be spent disputing or denying not the existence of a report, but that, what is being churned out in the media, is not the true report.

The NDC, has now become a social media party, nothing is happening on the ground in the Constituencies, everyone is lazy now on social media. Never a day passes without one reading about ten articles from NDC, social media warriors. I don’t have the Kwesi Botwey report, but the report, will not be complete, it did not include, how NDC members waste valuable time on social media, instead of going to the ground to convince people and reassure its members.

It has become a profession for some people, because as lazy as the leaders are, the warriors have also found a way to get the leaders thinking they are working.

The NDC, is a grassroot party, it can never win the social media war, whiles they sit on social media and be defending the indefensible, the NPP is out there in the villages and towns, trying so hard to create a certain impression in the minds of the people, about what the NDC, has done and not done.

Even among children of same parents, there are often petty squabbles easily dismissed as sibling rivalry. Psychologists insist that if not well managed, it could lead to serious consequences.

Extending such rivalry to a political party that was not able to hold onto party, after all the transformation, is sure to impede the smooth running of the party.

Some people in the party, who thought that, the findings of the committee were a waterloo to someone’s political career, must have a rethink. The party can either sink or stay afloat for the benefit of all.

The party lost focus after the 2012 elections, even when some of us raised the red flags, reminding the party of the margin of votes between the NDC and NPP, we were ignored, because power not only blinds you, it makes you deaf as well.

The story of the party, must change in opposition, so far the treachery, backbiting, even before the whistle is blown for the elections of various positions, culminating into the election of the flagbearer.

The party must get its act together; Ghanaians cannot wait for them to finish cutting each other down, before they settle to respond and rescue them from the throes of the clueless government of the day.