Features
NDC: Swallowing Atubiga’s ‘grenades’?
Stephen Atubiga seems to be stirring the bile of the leadership of the National Democratic Congress (NDC) into a boiling point.
He describes the national chairman of the NDC, Samuel Ofosu Ampofo, as ” the lousiest and most incompetent leader ever to lead the NDC.”
Stephen Atubiga also describes the Functional Executive Committee of the NDC as ” highly irresponsible.”
Readers may ask: Who is Stephen Atubiga? He is a staunch and vocal member of the NDC, who has resigned from the party, a few days ago.
During the 2012 election petition hearing, Stephen Atubiga was jailed for few weeks by the Supreme Court, in his unsolicited defence of the NDC in the court of public opinion.
Indeed, his utterances were deemed to have crossed “the red line” , and that irked the Supreme Court to crack the whip on the back of Atubiga.
Lousy, incompetent and irresponsible, as used by Atubiga, must be properly understood by readers.
According to Wikipedia, lousy means, very poor or bad. The synonyms for lousy include; awful, terrible, appalling, abysmal, very bad, atrocious, desperate, unspeakable, miserable, inferior, rotten, useless, hopeless, pathetic and rubbish.
The definition of incompetent also means; not having or showing the necessary skills to do something successfully.
The synonyms for incompetent include; inept, clumsy, sub-standard , ineffective, deficient, incapable, unfit, unsuitable, unqualified and lacking ability.
Irresponsible; relates to a person’s attitude or action ; not showing a proper sense of responsibility.
The synonyms for irresponsible include ; reckless, rash, careless, ill-advised, foolhardy, wild, unwise, thoughtless, erratic, negligent, uncaring, hasty and unrealistic.
So, readers; I think the import of Atubiga’s description of the leadership of the NDC has now been grasped.
Apart from what is contained in his resignation letter to the NDC, Atubiga has spoken on a number of radio stations, castigating the leadership of his “beloved” former party.
But the bottom line in respect of his resignation is in sink with the views of other NDC members who are very critical of the current leadership of the party.
Some of Atubiga’s reasons culminating in his resignation had already been articulated by other party members like Dr Benjamin Kumbuor, Dela Coffie, Boateng Gyan, Anita de Souza and Kokou Anyidaho.
This is besides the well-organized demonstration that hit Accra on March 23rd, 2021. That mass demonstration was populated by an almagamated umbrella body of cadres, foot soldiers, activists, party loyalists and progressives of the erstwhile Provisional National Defence Council.
The group called itself Cadres for Accountable Leadership (CAL). Particularly, CAL was asking the leadership of the NDC to produce its collated figures and pink sheets in the December 7, 2020 general elections.
And in a recent interview with JoyNews, Dr Kumbuor also challenged the leadership of the NDC to validate its claim of having collated the figures of the 2020 elections, by publishing them.
Indeed, responses to the CAL demonstrators and Dr Kumbuor’s lucid statements indicated that the NDC was highly intolerant to internal criticisms.
Kojo Adu-Asare, a former NDC Member of Parliament for the Adentan constituency in the Greater Accra Region , even questioned the reasoning abilities of Dr Kumbuor, wondering how a PhD holder could make such utterances on NDC’S collated results.
Speaking on Okay FM’s Morning Show, however, Atubiga said: “It is hypocritical for the likes of Ofosu Ampofo to counsel footsoldiers of the NDC against using politics to amass wealth, when national executives of the party are living in mansions and driving luxurious and expensive cars.
“We are in Opposition but they are driving V8 cars ; if you are driving a brand new V8 – 2021 model; what right do you have to say that the NDC is not for the rich but for the poor?”
He asked: “How much are their salaries to be driving V8 cars in Opposition?”
Atubiga said: “NDC footsoldiers must know that they don’t have any future in the party because the party’s leaders claim that the party is for the poor , and yet the leaders are living like Arabian princes and driving V8 vehicles.”
Atubiga says, he is forming a political party to be called National Liberation Congress. He contends that his new party will be integration of agrieved groups in the NDC, including cadres, footsoldiers “and those who have been neglected by the NDC.”
Atubiga may have thrown verbal grenades at the leadership of the NDC. And a grenade is a small bomb thrown by hand or launched mechanically.
But can the NDC leadership swallow Atubiga’s verbal grenades? And how will they respond to his explosive utterances?
By applying unprintable insults on his “wounds”, or by physically beating him up as prescribed by some autocrats in that “beautiful” party?
Indeed, Atubiga’s verbal grenades, like similar ones in the party, must rather agitate the minds of the leadership of the party, to rethink and strategize to extinquish the “fire-bombs” engulfing the party.
By G.Frank Asmah
Someone said, if we cannot plan for an occurrence as predictable as the annual rains, then what else can we plan for as a country? God has caused nature to schedule rains for specific periods or months within the year and everybody knows this.
One need not be a meteorologist to tell that the rains will fall in May and June every year. Any serious person who has something that the rains can affect, would therefore plan taking into consideration the likelihood of the rains falling. Therefore to find out that a whole country like ours, had not planned effectively, is mind-boggling.
The report by the World Bank that fiscal policy measures by the Finance Minister has led to no money being released for the World Bank sponsored project to deal with the perennial flooding situation in Accra, is so disappointing. The fact that this contributed immensely to the flooding in Accra, is an understatement.
There have been fires in our markets, but who is checking the wiring on a regular basis as a system designed to prevent future outbreaks? The occurrence of fires in our markets is something that must engage the attention of government and all the stakeholders.
The causes may be several but if a system of proper fire prevention is in place, l believe the number of occurrences will be drastically minimised. Electrical wiring for instance has been found to be one of the causes of market fires. Fire as we know from the experts, can only happen if these three things are present, namely source of heat, combustible material and oxygen i.e. air.
lf any one of these is missing, there will be no fire. It has been realised that heat generated in wires have caused fires in the past and therefore, an effective system must be put in place to ensure that, only certain approved qualified electricians, can execute wiring jobs in our markets instead of the current situation where different electricians execute wiring with different types of wires, of different quality, dimensions etc.
Preventive inspections schedule must also be put in place to endure compliance with uniform wiring standard, as well as adherence to expiry dates of the wires.
What baffles me is why some MCEs and DCEs are still at post while things are deteriorating in their areas of influence and yet the President or the Minister for Local Government seems to be unwilling to relieve them of their positions. People have lost their lives, official count is about 37 lives, properties worth millions of Ghana Cedis have been destroyed, people’s livelihoods have been destroyed and they are at ground zero.
We can go on and on and on about the devastating impact of the recent floods. Suddenly, we have these local authority heads, all over the place, demolishing buildings after the flood. Is this not insanity? Where were the LUPSA Engineers who issue permits at the local assemblies?
If they were doing their jobs, for which they are paid every month, they would have seen people constructing structures at Ramseyer sites. They would have seen people putting up structures very close to the bank of streams or rivers and could have enforced the regulations, which could have averted the level of impact on lives and property.
One particular issue which drives me crazy is the Kasoa to Mallam Junction stretch of the N1. The traffic jam between West Hills Mall and Weija Junction is due to the flooding of a place called Ataala. Anytime it rains heavily, the area floods and vehicles moving from West Hills towards Weija cannot use their normal lane but are forced to switch to the inner lane of those headed towards West Hills Mall from Weija and it did not start yesterday. I am so, so disappointed. God Bless.
By Laud Kissi-Mensah
The romance between man and wife ends where chopmoney palaver begins. When the man is leaving for work and the woman’s face looks like a rainy day, anyone can guess that the chop money delivered is quite below sea level.
But when she smiles too broadly for comfort and waves her husband goodbye zealously, it means the man did not only perform well under the cover of darkness but also dished out the correct amount of chop money.
The typical matrimonial home is a complex one. Many factors contribute to fuelling or preventing occasional civil wars. When Pyram became a household word, some husbands and wives put heads together, went borrowing, sold their belongings and invested in the sham scheme.
When Pyram collapsed, many marriages got shattered beyond repair. Wives blamed their husbands and husbands complained about nagging wives. In a few instances, punches were traded. Crises could not be managed as debts soared and creditors wanted back their money.
Chop money grew slim. Only Mr Kofi Annan could negotiate a truce between warring partners as daggers were drawn. The Pyram palaver brought more woes to Sikaman than the joy it was supposed to bring.
Many women have died from distress and frustration. All their resources which were joyfully invested in the scheme cannot be retrieved.
“Today, the Government says it cannot use taxpayers’ money to pay those who lost various sums of money to the two money-doubling banks Pyram and Resource 5000 Ltd. “We told you not to take your monies there and you didn’t listen. Paddle your own canoe, or canoe your own paddle,’ says the Sikaman government.”
The chop money palaver in Sikaman is getting heady. People are citing chop money problems for their offences. The newspapers report of a man who allegedly injected his three-week-old daughter with DDT because the wife was disturbing him with chop money matters too much. He is being tried by the courts.
Some women claim they abandoned their babies because their fathers refused to offer chop money. So when they dump the babies in the latrine, they are relieved of any burden. Looks like maternal instincts are withering out of mothers. These are indeed times when mothers no longer love their children because of chop money palaver.
Stomach capacity
The amount of chop money a father gives out each day, week or month depends on the family size and the stomach capacity of each family stomach. Members of some families are very light eaters and little is spent on food. But for other families where some members have ‘double chambers’ the food budget requires additional funds.
Indeed, in some families, members have natural appetite for food whether or not they take peters (bitters). And when food isn’t enough, there can be an uprising against constituted domestic authority, the family equivalent of the Guinea Bissau rebellion.
Yes, where one person can eat four balls of kenkey and cry for more, but is given only two balls, he can get angry and start breaking louvres.
The chop money size also depends on the level of nutrition typical of each family. Some families believe in the third world theory that QUANTITY is better than QUALITY. The bigger the banku and the smaller the fish, all the better for Ghanaians. Yes quantity, not quality. Such families stock maize in bags.
Those who believe in quality spend much on vegetables, meat and fish and therefore spend more, but it is worth it because they are healthier and stronger. They also spend on fruits and are averse to the “quantity supremacy” theory.
The problem with chop money issues is that when the correct amount is not flowing, the women think the men are misapplying their salaries in overt pleasures. They accuse their husbands of drinking too much bitters and burukutu, and they can prove the accusation using a formula. They only have to smell the breath of their partners. The fuse can be great!
One woman told her neighbour when her husband comes back home drunk, he behaves like a walking distillery, swaggering like a drunken sailor. You’d think he has been baptised with raw akpeteshie or immersed in the stuff. Her only compliment was that in spite of his alcoholic status, the guy could perform. That is Viagra or no Viagra.
Women also accuse men of chasing other women in the same manner as a he-goat does. Half their salaries cannot be accounted for as a result, they claim. So when the chop money isn’t at least at sea-level, they must protest either noisily or stage a sit-down strike.
Domestic sit-down strikes by wives can cause problems. When a man takes full quarter and is expecting a wonderful dinner with soup and its accompaniments and comes to meet an empty table and a brooding woman, he can go berserk. The clash can be worse than a plane crash.
As it were, it all requires patience to make a marriage last, chop money or not.
This article was first published on Saturday, July 11, 1998
