Of ‘Akambalisation’ And Mustache Politics

The Fourth Republican Democratic experiment, which was put in place some twenty-six years ago, is seeing one of its darkest moments ever.

A despicable video making the rounds on social media, showing Joshua Hamidu Akamba, Deputy National Organiser of the opposition National Democratic Congress (NDC), inciting students of the Tempane Senior High School in the Upper East Region to hoot at the president tells, a chilling story.

Akamba, who is seeking to be elected the substantive national organizer of the party, as part of his campaign tour of the northern sector, could be seen inciting the students, many of who are not more than sixteen years old, against the government, following accommodation challenges in the school.

In fact, in another video, ex-president Mahama could also be seen doing the very things Akamba was captured doing.

THE PUBLISHER, having watched the videos, is inclined to say the nation could be heading towards the brink of calamity, if this crude form of politicking is not stopped.

We are persuaded to agree with those who describe the new political strategy of the NDC as irresponsible, repulsive, reckless and unpatriotic.

More repulsive is Akamba’s explanation as to how he ended up doing the video, in which he claimed he was driving past the school campus when the students stopped his car and started begging him for money because they were hungry. He added that he also saw some of them standing while eating in the rain, and insisted he had no regrets for what he did because some New Patriotic Party (NPP) supporters had  insulted Mahama in the past.

He said: “I don’t feel sorry for what I did. My reaction in the school came from what I saw and I’m sure that every other person with such emotion would have done worse than what I did.. … Some of the students were chasing me and crying; asking for just GH¢1 to buy food. I don’t see anything wrong with urging the students to shame the President. What did the NPP not say and do to ex-President Mahama, calling him all sorts of names?”

In our view, asking student to shame the president is not the issue. Our difficulty lies with the explanation, which makes very little sense. Were the so-called hungry students chasing his car for money as he drove past the school, or they begged him for money after he had incited them? Again, the video showed Akamba talking to the students in front of their dormitories, and not by the side of the road as he claimed.

We also think that, having been at the presidency for eight long years, John Mahama should have known that his action, and that of Akamba, clearly flies in the face of the Ghana Education Service (GES) regulations that forbid active partisan politics on the campuses of Pre-Tertiary Education Schools.

THE PUBLISHER fully supports the initial action taken by the GES in asking the headmaster of Tempane Senior High School, Dominic Ndegu Amolale, to step aside for the matter to be investigated. The paper also thinks the Mahama video must be investigated too.

The two videos, apart from portraying the desperation of the Mahama campaign team and the uneasiness of the NDC with the Free Senior High School (SHS) policy, are crude, primitive, shameful and repugnant; and must be condemned by all.

This ‘mustache politics’ will not help anybody. It is Ghana’s Most Primitive Political Path.