NPP flag
The New Patriotic Party, like any other party and political organisation fighting a crucial electoral battle, may be aware that this is time to mop up and consolidate the gains it has made over the last three years and the COVID-19 pandemic period.
If the party’s researchers have done a tidy job, they would have noticed that peace and unity are eluding certain constituencies, and this could affect the party’s desire of winning emphatically across the country. Having overcome most of the nagging internal squabbles, it is still strategic that no room is left for complacency in dousing flames in constituencies where competing interests are dousing enthusiasm in the tempo of the campaign.
Justice and fairness
We at the Daily Statesman believe in the capacity of the relevant NPP structures in charge of ‘firefighting’ to deliver, just as we also believe efforts to defuse tension in all of the affected places ought to be prompt and decisive.
Additionally, in attaining goals, there is the need for those directly in charge to be sincere over the issues since every vote and every constituency counts in winning the presidential and parliamentary slots.
Up till this time, the good news is that average party people agree that sacrifices need to be made in ensuring victory. That is why a good number of aggrieved contestants have given up fighting the national leadership over slots, in the larger interests of the NPP.
That good faith needs to be complemented by the leadership of the party, particularly in areas where there are concerns that urgently need looking into, so that decisions are fairly taken in righting wrongs. This is because sacrifices must be made from both sides in any situation of conflict.
Logistics
Apart from the issues of conflict resolution, the party also has logistical needs that must be met in ensuring that a COVID-19 political warfare rolls out strategically – with the lessons in food distribution during the pandemic guiding frontline actors in the ground warfare.
Again, that demands research in which constituencies must show courage and competence so that both political and logistical waste are avoided. It means that for a party that has remarkably delivered, the first consideration is consolidation of basic promising constituencies before invasion of less promising turfs.
In pursuing that agenda, the NPP therefore needs to look at the Zongos, favourable settler farmer communities like Ejura, the northern regions, exploding indigenous Accra and floating Oti constituencies in sealing the deal.
It must also look at associations like the Tamale Youth Association, ‘almighty’ Konkomba Youth Association, traditional, opinion and religious leaders whose voices matter. Going into elections without listening to the grounds and developing relevant relations is like going fishing and dropping one’s nets on rocks, instead of letting it into the deep.
Desperate NDC
Already, the evidence that the Free SHS programme alone has done wonders should be sufficient encouragement that the party has a message that needs to echo and re-echo, while putting out maximum logistical support to back that effort at consolidation.
That the NDC is desperate is showing in the level of below-the-belt punches they are throwing, including boycotting engagements with lead media organisations like Peace FM. That is aside of personal attacks on the President, Vice-President and EC top officials as well as peddling of falsehoods over the achievement records between the two main parties.
Yesterday is gone…
Twice in the history of the NPP, the party made unpardonable mistakes and ceded victory to an incompetent breed of politicians. The NPP offered governance, gratis, to the erstwhile People’s National Party of Dr Hilla Limann and did same in 2008 to a barking ragtag army of democratic infidels and gangsters.
The NPP cannot ever afford to initiate remarkable governance structures and achievements, only to hand it over to reckless politicians who are accustomed only to creating strategies for looting and sharing the fruits of their labours and national resources.
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