President Akufo-Addo
Though the New Patriotic Party had been gaining grounds in traditional strongholds of the National Democratic Congress since 1992, particularly under John Dramani Mahama, the NDC has performed most abysmally.
So many reasons account for this, and they include the Savannah Accelerated Development Authority (SADA) scam. The project, designed to cover communities in over 240 districts across the Northern regions, former Brong-Ahafo and Volta regions, was intended as a political programme to win all constituencies within that project area.
However, because it was only a political project and therefore lacking in ingredients of viability and vibrancy, it remained only a project in name – delivering nothing in improving lives and livelihoods.
At the end of the day, funds sunk into project went to families and friends, as government put in little efforts to recover all stolen loot from the slush funds.
Volta Region
Surge in ‘opposition’ political activity in Volta Region, which previously was considered a ‘No Go’ area for the NPP, however began to be recorded in the 2020 campaign. That was when it became clear that NDC and John Dramani Mahama had been using ethnicity propaganda as a weapon to fool the masses and keep them voting perpetually for the NDC, even though they delivered nothing in these regions.
The worst aspect of the propaganda was that the southern part of Volta Region, without any basis, sought to play god in the circumstances of the entire region by creating the impression that it was the capital and fountain of knowledge and hope for the rest – though its elite as well failed in forcing the party to put its hands where its mouth was in terms of development.
Yes, the south was endowed with an array of quality human resource, except that it didn’t reflect in individual business initiative and development that would impact on the quality of social life among residents.
Painful divorce
Even in the matter of the referendum to give communities in Northern Volta a regional status, some forces in the south, who had believed that the north owed them a natural loyalty, resisted, using all sorts of dubious arguments.
It appeared that in the political lingo of the NDC, politics was all about annexation of territories just for political profit.
Thankfully, communities in the north bought the referendum and the vision entailed in it, and chose to move forward under the unfolding transformational agenda.
Northern regions
Like Volta Region, communities in the northern regions were traditionally NDC. Averagely, the NDC took 70 per cent of the votes, leaving the NPP with a paltry 30 per cent. It had to take only four years of NPP rule, under President Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo, to alert them to the deceit and fraud sold them by the NDC under John Dramani Mahama.
It is therefore not surprising that the youth of Bole would part ways with the NDC which they loved without it mutually loving them back in terms of development.
The defectors may be only some 200 ‘boys’. But, as every politician in this part of the world knows, that defection may change the permutations in drastic terms because these are the messengers of propaganda and change in society. Additionally, they are also the foot soldiers that turn the wheels of the political campaign machine.
Larger picture
Translated into a national picture, 2020 is about a lie and a truth; development and stagnation, and better still competence and incompetence.
At least, that is the verdict from the ground – traditional rulers and their communities, religious leaders and their congregations and cross section of the business community – both formal and informal – as well as academia.
This is no time for Mahama to confuse anybody with programmes that he never understood but continue miming; this is crucial decision related to the destiny of a nation and people.
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