I am utterly elated that, finally, a mature male-adult figure in the main opposition New Patriotic Party (NPP) has been bold enough to put the Wereko-Brobbey mischief-making scam-artistry in perspective. Speaking on Okay-Fm on June 10, 2013, or thereabouts, the former NPP general-secretary was reported to have stated that he is unreservedly in agreement with the decision of the party’s National Executive Committee to suspend Dr. Charles Wereko-Brobbey (See “NPP Must Punish Intolerant Members – Dan Botwe” Peacefmonline.com/Ghanaweb.com 6/10/13).
What piqued my interest more than any other dimension of the issue, is Mr. Dan Botwe’s reported observation that he would have been “swifter” in sanctioning Dr. Wereko-Brobbey for conduct unbecoming of an NPP member in good standing. But even more importantly, the current Member of Parliament for Okere Constituency poignantly observed that sheer membership of a political party is not what makes for a successful performance at the polls, but the progressive coupling of such membership with internal ideological discipline and a positive outlook on the collective agenda and affairs of the concerned party.
“Although politics is about numbers, people must bear in mind that the game is about ‘positive numbers.’ It is just like adding negative five (-5) to positive four (+4), you would be left with negative one. Negative five is a number, but in politics you don’t just add a negative number.”
In other words, in the well-measured opinion of Mr. Botwe, knavishly using one’s membership in the NPP to create gratuitous divisions and internal hostilities, is tantamount to gross intolerance of the practical rules of engagement that have been collectively and consensually endorsed and ratified by the rank-and-file membership of Fourth Republican Ghana’s largest political organization.
This clearly appears to be what NPP members like Messrs. Kwame Pianim, Wereko-Brobbey, Arthur Kennedy and Nyaho-Tamakloe need to learn, assimilate and practice, or find themselves either effectively sidelined or summarily expelled.
Indeed, I have often said that while the NPP may indisputably be the most progressive major political organization in the country, nevertheless, it is the virtual dictatorial infusion of military discipline into the ruling National Democratic Congress, by the former Chairman Jerry John Rawlings, that has made the NDC the curiously formidable political organization that it continues to be in Fourth Republican Ghanaian political culture, rather than its having any salutary and/or progressive agenda to move the country up the enviable ladder of economic development.
A word to the wise ought to be enough already!
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*Kwame Okoampa-Ahoofe, Jr., Ph.D.
Department of English
Nassau Community College of SUNY
Garden City, New York
June 22, 2013
E-mail: [email protected]
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