How the Rawlings camp were defeated in Ghana's elections

My eyes were transfixed on the television, watching the events unfold at the National Democratic Congress (NDC) election on 9 July in Sunyani. From time to time, my attention was distracted by the loud music from a Nigerian ‘old school’ party two houses away. The music was good: Sunny Ade, Ebenezer Obe, Prince Nico Mbarga and Fela Kuti. Just as the results of the Sunyani elections were about to be announced, one of Fela’s first songs was playing. It went like this: ‘Ekpanu de ooo, eshishi ngbon…hen!, ho! Ekpanu de ooo, enonyi wuu…hen! Hey! Oni who are you? Who are you reh?’. It was so loud that I felt like going to ask them to turn down the music because I had to strain to hear the results.

Then it dawned on me. The music was very apt. ‘Oni who are you? Who are you reh?’ The Rawlings family had dared to put their personal popularity to the test among their own party; a party that they say they personally own. They got less than 4 per cent of the vote. Smashing! Just imagine if they had staked out this ‘popularity’ before the whole nation. I dread to hazard the results.

For 30 good years, Flight Lieutenant Jerry Rawlings and his wife have been bestriding the country as if they were a colossus. On two occasions in his political life, even those who had helped to bring him to power were either murdered or, if they were lucky, driven into exile. The Rawlings family are the only ones who can insult a president and get away with it. Jerry Rawlings has described President Mills as unintelligent, irresponsible and un-groomed. His ministers are corrupt, while his friends are ‘greedy bastards’. At the same time, Mills’ female ministers are ‘money-grabbing whores’. Who can beat that?

All the time, Rawlings carried the false belief that he is the most popular person in the country. He did not expect to be criticised. When he was head of state, anyone who dared to criticise him would be threatened with ‘you have the pen, but I have the gun’. However, if the critic persisted, he would be made to pay the ultimate price if he did not run fast enough across the border. And even out of power, he considers the mildest criticism as an ‘insult’.

Now we all know that even within his own party, his personal popularity rating, together with that of his wife, is a miserable 3.15 per cent. Is that all that they could do? Is it because of all this that they have been wasting our ears? What a charade! This is similar to the case of the caterpillar who went into a burrow. Out of sight, and taking advantage of the booming echo of his voice, he managed to frighten all the other animals that he was capable of breaking the bones of a bear, until one day a frog challenged him to come out.

The Rawlings family and their motley supporters thought the battle of Sunyani was going to be like the battle between David and Goliath. At the launch of Nana Konadu’s campaign, Rawlings boasted that his wife would win the contest by 76 per cent.

Nana Konadu was the Goliath, while the meek and humble President Mills was the David. Even on the eve of the elections, Nana Konadu’s camp was claiming that they had the majority support in most regions. To their shock, they could only muster a pathetic 90 votes out of 2,861. The self-deception of their boasting was therefore futile.

It must be remembered that on 4 June 2011, Jerry Rawlings loudly declared that the Sunyani election would be the ‘moment of truth’. Well, now the truth is that he and his wife have a personal popularity rating of 3.15 per cent within the NDC. Will they accept that? Then he said another thing: ‘It is time to take over the party, the government and the country, clean them up and hand them over to a more responsible leader.’ How can you take over a democratic party with less than 4 per cent of the members behind you?

The tragedy of the Rawlings family is that they have failed to learn the basics of organisational development. To have a successful social or political organisation, you need credible people in various parts of the country to do the legwork. It is not a one-man show. Throughout their political careers, it is others who have organised for them to go and address the crowds. They themselves do not know the grinding rudiments of house-to-house mobilisation. However, having dismissed those who used to do these for him as ‘greedy bastards’, he and his wife were left hanging.

Not only that! Their rag-tag Friends of Nana Konadu Agyeman-Rawlings (FONKAR) campaign team might have kept inventing fibs for them that they were winning. And they believed it. Like Macbeth, they could not accept that Birnam Wood could ever move towards Dunsinane Castle. Yet it did.

After the declaration, and as they moved out with their tales between their legs, I could not help singing along to the music of the Nigerian revelers: ‘Oni who are you, who are you reh! Egbaa de ooo, oogbo…heh…Egbaa de ooo ooluu, heh…Owo mi kitikiti owo owo ola nuo solo, heh. Olika nimo dze. Oni who are you! Who are you reh!’

If you cast out the ‘little minds’ who get you out of the pit and threaten to kill them, then, if you in future fall into the pit, they will leave you to your fate.

When in May I wrote about the lion who, after being helped out of the trap-pit by the rat, decided to kill the rat to keep his scandal secret, I did not complete the story.

As the rat wept and begged the lion to save him, Kwaku Ananse (the spider god) appeared on the scene. On hearing the story, he claimed that he would not believe the story. He asked the lion to demonstrate how the rescue took place. As soon as the lion descended into the pit, Kwaku Ananse removed the twine, and asked the rat to get away. He turned to the lion and said: ‘San koda wo amena mu. Osebo ee, san koda w’amena mu.’ The lion was left to his fate.

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