Some civil society groups are pushing NDC agenda – Razak Opoku

Founder and President of the Concerned Voters Movement (CVM), Razak Kojo Opoku, has said a number of supposedly politically-neutral Civil Society groups in Ghana are camouflaged annexes of the National Democratic Congress (NDC) and ought to declare their political stance.

He said the groups in question hide behind the cloak of being neutral but consistently sing the same chorus with the NDC from the same hymnal and the same page.

He said because the particular groups in question have portrayed themselves as being neutral, they win the hearts and minds of floating voters and persons who are not politically aligned to vote against the New Patriotic Party (NPP).

Mr. Opoku explained: “Such groups should gather the courage to declare their political stance because now that the wind is blowing we are seeing the backside of the fowl. There is nothing wrong in forming a group and saying you have sympathies for this party or for that party. Indeed there are many groups that have openly declared their stance for the NPP.

“What is wrong, immoral, unethical and hypocritical is when such groups pretend to be neutral, when they pretend they are not in bed with any political party but they consistently see nothing good about the NPP and continue to attack the party any time the party is in power.

“Anytime the NPP goes into opposition then you see their assigns occupying juicy positions in the NDC government. Then the group goes silent or turns from a watchdog to a lapdog. Such a group cannot say it is not in bed with the NDC and there are many of them around today, they have found their voices and screaming corruption, corruption, corruption everywhere without adding single evidence”, he added.

The CVM President accused the NDC of adopting a smart approach of hiding behind all manner of NGOs to score political points against the NPP.

“When that happens, the average Ghanaian would think civil society is against the NPP not knowing some of such civil society groups are NDC inspired. There was one of them always advocating for women and children when John Kufuor was in power. The slightest thing, you hear her agency accusing the NPP government of being insensitive to women and children. Many of her claims were baseless accusations with no evidence or even justification.

“The moment the NDC came into power, she got a Ministerial job and her husband one of the advisors to John Mahama.

“There is another one who said she was neutral and she had this NGO supporting women in Arts or whatever; they were always lambasting the NPP, when the NDC came to power, she stopped shouting for women in Arts and was made a deputy Minister. Next thing we heard, she was contesting for MP on the ticket of the NDC. And she won. Her group has gone silent since then.

“Meanwhile when she was using her NGO to attack the NPP government, the electorate saw her as neutral”, Razak noted.

“We are seeing many of them today. They behave like scare mongers. They only see the negative side of everything this government does. They know the cost of every loan agreement but they never see the value of what the loans are used for. They have selective forgetfulness. That is hypocrisy. That is trickery”, Razak Opoku noted.