A Coup After All We’ve Been Through? Hell No! – Kankam Boadu

An aspiring national chairman of the New Patriotic Party, David Kankam Boadu is livid that the leadership of the opposition National Democratic Congress will on the one hand condemn Koku Anyidoho’s incendiary call for an overthrow of government and still find reason to protest his arrest.

The police on Tuesday arrested Koku Anyidoho, deputy general secretary of the NDC, following his radio comments that the Nana Akufo-Addo led government risk being toppled by a civil revolt for performing poorly in its governance responsibilities.

Hundreds of angry supporters of the NDC, led by several party executives, besieged the Police CID Headquarters where he was initially held and took over the busy Ring Road to protest the arrest. They demanded his immediate release and held traffic for a considerable time until the police forcibly removed them.

Commenting on the development in an interview with Graphic Online, the 54-year-old chairman aspirant said it is now too clear why the NDC’s current crop of leaders is always bashed by their party founder. “They’ve lost the democracy plot and are opposing anything because they are no longer in power to do what they want. They are not happy but bitter because they are not the ones in government, that is all there is. If you say he was wrong, let him defend himself in court.”

David Kankam Boadu said the very protest by the NDC betrays their agenda in opposing the Ghana/US military cooperation pact as their desire to forcefully overthrow the Nana Addo government will not see the light of day.

“Koku Anyidoho spoke their mind. They truly want to topple this government and some of them have been quoted as saying that Koku spoke too early and therefore let the cat out of the bag. The Americans will be here to buffer our security and their plans for a coup will perish,” he emphasized, saying having come this far in Ghana’s quest for democratic rule, there can be no turning back for any partisan desires.

Kankam Boadu said partisanship has eaten so deep into the current NDC leadership that they hardly offer constructive criticism. “They can’t even hear Rawlings’ voice when he criticizes them because they deride his criticisms, meanwhile he is telling them the truth. As we speak the nation is virtually on its knees financially as a result of their own misrule and corruption. And when Nana Addo and Dr. Bawumia and others are fixing the mess, you think they deserve no chance, why?”

He questioned the whereabouts of the NDC leadership, including general secretary Johnson Asiedu Nketiah, when during his reign former President Jerry Rawlings was negotiating similar projects with the American government then led by Bill Clinton.

“I think we have had enough of the political hooliganism in Ghana. Koku Anyidoho, I believe is well travelled, and he goes out to good examples of democracies where proper democratic structures are allowed to function and he does not want the same here? He would leave the poor, board planes and jet out and when he returns he wants to come and meet the same poor constituents all the time? He does not want them to live improved lives? Come on, what kind of thinking is that?”

“It is totally unacceptable, and this message goes to Koku Anyidoho and the current leadership of the NDC, that I pray, that at your next elections you all will be elected out to bring in the youth in NDC who understand democracy, where we are together, you criticize constructively so the nation can move on, not just holding press conferences on every issue.”