The Republic newspaper has picked up reliable information that there would soon be an explosion of mass protests and civil unrest in the country as the opposition New Patriotic Party (NPP) fine-tunes a systematic agenda to whip up serious public sentiments in a bid to destabilize John Dramani Mahama's administration.
The plan includes mobilising civil society groups into what is termed a movement for change, the Republic newspaper can confirm.
Lawyer Akoto Ampaw- one of the leading lawyers of the NPP, gave an insight into this plan on April 13, 2015 when he made a presentation to STAR-Ghana, the local representatives of multinational donor agencies.
The plan, which was experimented with Occupy Ghana recently, includes mass gatherings, demonstrations, public meetings, petitions and mass campaigns and the use of selected media and social media houses “to propagate its visions, ideals and goals.”
Mr. Ampaw, a staunch NPP strategist and a former partner in the law firm of the current NPP flagbearer, Nana Akufo-Addo, who described the new strategy as a new form of “social movement” in Ghana, said it will be similar to what the country experienced during past military regimes and pre-independence civil unrests
“….as we look forward against the backdrop of our experiences of the past five years, is the forms of action and expression that social movements bring to the policy and social space table: They include mass gatherings, demonstrations, public meetings, petitions and mass campaigns and today the effective employment of the traditional mass media and social media to propagate its visions, ideals and goals,” he told representatives of STAR-Ghana.
He continued: “…what I am speaking about is not unknown to our history as a people. We can refer to the highly successful and effective Nii Kobina Bonne (Osu Alata Mantse) - led boycott movement of Gold coasters of the late 30’s against the Association of West African Merchant (AWAM), European Merchants and their collusion in fixing prices of commodities distorting the market; then again there was the militant trade union movement of the mid- 40’s and 50’s that partially dovetailed into the anti-colonial movement of the 40’s and 50’s.”
This paper has gathered that this plan is NPP’s ace run-up to the 2016 presidential election which it hopes its twice-defeated candidate- Akufo Addo-, would win.
Indeed, the NPP has reportedly advanced in the process of creating puppets similar to Occupy Ghana and IMANI-Ghana who have been the main instigators of several civil protests in the past months.
The NPP Member of Parliament for Okere Constituency, Daniel Kweku Botwe, recently confirmed suspicions that the NPP had a hand in many of the civil protests experienced in the recent past. He categorically stated that the main opposition party was supporting pressure groups to stage an unprecedented number of street protests and demonstrations against the NDC government, and this has been ongoing since 2009 when the party assumed power.
Dan Botwe recently told Oman FM that: “…any gimmicks, demonstrations, we have been doing them; there is no demonstration in town that the major input is not coming from the Minority MPs- ask those who organize those demonstrations”.
So far, groups such as IMANI Ghana, Occupy Ghana and Alliance for Accountable Governance (AFAG) among others, have been linked to the NPP.
Mr. Akoto Ampaw, in his elaboration of the NPP’s intent, stated that it was time to take the ‘social movement’ to the next level: “…building a social movement of effective protest for change is therefore historically doable. As a people, we have done it again and again, when faced with life and socially threatening situations and events. And we can do it today! Are the social conditions ripe for nurturing the emergence of a social movement for significant change in Ghana today? I am optimistically of the view that in Ghana today, there are two, interrelated pervasive social ills that confront Ghanaians of all walks of life in respect of which there is widespread, overwhelming discontent and which people strongly feel ought to be arrested,” he said.
He cited corruption and the culture of impunity as the basis that will make this social movement successful. According to him, corruption and impunity “have engulfed our society and that mock and dares us as a people to act to overcome them. I believe civil society organisations can play an important role in contributing to the development of a social movement to protest against and bring to an end this twin debilitating social practices.”
The NPP is currently seeking to unite civil society organizations under one umbrella to serve it’s planned agenda, “To achieve these ends, however, requires courage and daring, it requires our putting aside our petty organizational rivalries and working together to build broad coalitions and alliances of social forces that have the capacity to act to bring about social change – the workers’ movement, the professional bodies and middle classes, the student and youth movement and the women’s movement. The culture of corruption and impunity has become increasingly intolerable and our society can no longer afford to live with and in it. Let us come together, unite and with others overcome this twin social ill,” Akoto Ampaw explained.
Some critics have reasoned that full-scale civil unrest anticipated by the NPP may not necessarily work, given past failure of subtle attempts by NPP top guns to inspire such unrests.
This was captured in both subtle call-to-action and tribal sentiments expressed by Akufo-Addo in his infamous ‘Yen Akanfuo’ and ‘All die be die” mantra. Also other party members such as former Finance Minister Yaw Osafo Marfo and the Member of Parliament for Assin North, Kennedy Agyapong have played the tribal card, but have mostly failed given the massive backlash they received.
<<Print>>