Making Election 2024 Tough For NPP

It is seven months and two years to general elections and the incumbent New Patriotic Party (NPP) Government under the leadership of President Nana Akufo-Addo certainly has to revise its notes if it truly intends to contest and win especially when it is seeking an unprecedented third-term in a row and the pangs of hardship among Ghanaians have shifted from individual grumblings to mass wailing. 

The party has lost the spark and charm that injected Ghanaians with hope and excitement. The good-will has dwindled and it needs some creative strategy that would pacify a disillusioned electorate ahead of election 2024.

It is unfortunate but understandable that such truths-to-power are often hushed because irrespective of which political party is in power, Ghanaian Governments do not love to hear the truth especially when it is not a praise singing truth. It  has been so from Kwame Nkrumah’s Convention People’s Party (CPP)  and this current one, is no exception.

No matter how constructive and well-intended such criticisms  may be, they are most likely to be taken unkindly. As a newspaper, ours is to speak the truth without fear or favour; affection or ill-will.

Government and NPP spokespersons have often argued that  irrespective of the current hardships, the National Democratic Congress (NDC) was worse and would therefore not be considered as a credible alternative at the polls.

Our recent political history has taught us otherwise. How could the NPP have lost elections after the second term of President Kufuor? His Government did well and had the evidence to show. But the complaint was that the positive change was not being felt in the pocket.

The complaints this time are not fake or exaggerated. They are genuine  complaints that require solutions with a sense of urgency. Not PR-explanations but practical solutions that actually work.

The ever rising cost of fuel is affecting the cost of almost every other daily essential commodity, including food stuff. This affects every home in the country and verbal explanations do not solve such situations. In the midst of this, there are reports of food shortage and despite the official denials, the General Secretary of the Ghana Agricultural Workers Union (GAWU), Edward Kareweh, has warned publicly that Ghanaians should prepare for hunger this year if immediate steps are not taken by the Government to invest in the agriculture sector of the economy.

This week, public school pupils across the country could not enjoy their daily hot meal following a strike by caterers of the Ghana School Feeding Programme (GSFP) over unpaid arrears and inadequate feeding grants.

Just yesterday, the Coalition of Unemployed Nurses and Midwives Association hit the streets to register their displeasure over the government’s failure to give clearance to some of its members who completed school in 2019. That is just a small fraction of the unemployment situation in the country.

The Cedis-Dollar exchange-rate is making life unbearable. Cost of import duties at our ports is killing businesses. Then in the mist of this, utility providers are hinting of an increase in the cost of tariffs.

Ghanaians do not joke with their security and do not even play politics with it. There was a sigh of relief when the new Inspector General of Police, Dr. Dampare introduced some brilliant initiatives into the policing strategy and made everyone feel safer.

But in recent times, that safe feeling cannot be relied upon as there are growing reports of insecurity across the country. There is an apparent proliferation of small arms and gunrunning especially the northern parts of the country is on the ascendency and sometimes involves sophisticated weapons. How exactly such weapons enter the country despite our manned ports and borders remain a mystery.

Then there is the worrisome issue of the several cases of unresolved murders.

The list of lamentations is an endless one and it is the candidate of the incumbent government that would be punished for it at the polls.

Anyway… perhaps power has made some to lose touch with reality.