Knowing right, but doing wrong

Members of the National Democratic Congress (NDC) are righteously and justifiably beyond joy and tickling themselves for decisively winning the 2024 general election.

It has not been an easy task and they must thus be commended. 

They are responsibly affirming that the Pink Sheet is the formal and only valid measurement of the results, which represent the true aspiration of the electorate.

Whilst the National Chairman, Johnson Asiedu Nketiah, expressed disappointment with the Electoral Commission (EC) for ignoring the Pink Sheet, by delaying the declaration of the results after Dr Mahamudu Bawumia had patriotically conceded defeat, he insisted that he could not appeal to supporters of the party to calm down and end some of their reckless acts in looting and blocking government offices, because the last time he did that to quieten them in 2020, they were cheated and their deserved win was taken away from them.

After the declaration of the results, Dr Omane Boamah, Director of Elections of the NDC, equally insisted that it was the collated results of the NDC, based on the Pink Sheets, that forced the EC to declare the results.

What it means, therefore, is that the NDC knows that it is based on the figures recorded on the Pink Sheets that winners are declared, yet the party motivated and encouraged its supporters to besiege the collation centres to protect the ballot, otherwise, the results could be changed.

If indeed the NDC believed sincerely that results recorded on the Pink Sheets are the genuine basis for the declaration of results, why are they encouraging their supporters to act violently and with impunity, besieging collation centres to stall the process and turn around to accuse the EC of delaying to announce the winner by ignoring the Pink Sheets?

It is the same approach that culminated in the needless deaths at the Techiman South Election Collation Centre in 2020.

Why has the NDC said nothing about the recklessness and dastardly acts of its supporters, including the murder of an electoral officer and arson at the EC office at Damongo?

Is it that the life of the electoral officer is any less than that of a supporter of the party? The party insists that anyone who murders in the name of an election must not be protected and must be dealt with. The party must walk the talk.

Lead

More importantly, while it is necessary for all the political parties to rein in their supporters from rowdyism, the NDC must take the lead in cautioning their supporters from assuming that their party has won and, therefore, political officeholders and public servants must be chased out and control is taken.

This is imperative since such deviants precede their violent and lawless acts with comments that since our party has won, we have come to take over.

Indeed, the NDC has won the elections, but their mandate will come into operation only after the President-elect has been sworn in on January 7, 2025. Until then, political officeholders are legitimate and must be allowed to perform their lawful duties.

The story that supporters of the NDC went to the Residency at the Central Regional Administration to direct the regional minister to leave the place is very unfortunate and underlines a lack of education from the NDC to its supporters to appreciate the difference between revolution and democracy.

That is where the police cannot sit idly and be passive. There is nothing political about hooligans attempting to take the law into their own hands in the name of their party having won an election.

There is no correlation between the puerile arguments, dastardly actions and recklessness.

In the instances of mass looting, especially in Tamale, the police could be excused since any confrontation could have led to bloodshed.

However, in situations where these devious deviants are locking public structures and looting offices of gadgets, including computers, such as what happened at Maamobi in Accra, the police cannot fail to take decisive action. 

However, that is where the credentials of a political party, if it is actually founded on democratic tenets, must be kindled to contain the impunity and excesses of the hooligans acting on the false, baseless and puerile arguments that a win for a political party means the snatching of public resources for private gain.

The other day, Joyce Bawah Mogtari was heard suggesting that the looting at the Tamale Metropolitan Assembly had foundations in the frustration of the youth.

Party youth are not the only ones who have heart. As it is, the items they looted are for Senior High Schools under the Free SHS Policy, which the President-elect, John Dramani Mahama, acknowledged has come to stay.

The Good Book says that those who know the right thing but choose to do what is wrong must see their acts as sinful. It is in this regard that the NDC must bell the cat to save us from the devilish and bestiary acts of its supporters, who have a warped appreciation of democracy and electoral victory.