Kidnapping which is the abduction of a person for ransom would not be described as being an NPP induced phenomenon. In this writeup, I intend to state the problem and propose a solution.
The NPP under the 4th republic is known as the political party that entertains profligacy ie the public show of wealth, one of the identity card of young men involved in fraud and money laundering. Under the P/NDC, it was a ‘crime’ to publicly display wealth (as frowned by indigenous Ghanaian culture).
One of the reasons for the June 4th and 31st December was the display of ill-gotten wealth that resulted in public anger. President Hilla Liman did not learn from the AFRC uprising but was known to be living large alongside his ministers and a few elite, when the nation at large had to import, salt, the most important and common basic necessity.
Fast forward to 2001, when the NPP took over power. They engaged in money showmanship. First, it was a government of family and friends. The President appoints his siblings, cousins, closed friends into lucrative political portfolios and those appointees replicate the sharing of the national cake by giving lucrative contracts to their cronies.
What they did was to engage in a political scam of expanding an already existing ‘mutual health insurance schemes’ to other districts in the country, but ended up trumpeting a nonexisting ‘national’ health insurance scheme (this subject will be addressed further in a different discussion). In the name of ‘social intervention’, they ripped the state of millions of dollars.
Their party apparatchiks were sent abroad to study how to expand the thievery.
It is globally known that some of the causes or lubricants for kidnapping include unemployment, poverty, illiteracy, religion, greed, politics, corruption.
The high unemployment rate is the creation of the NPP. Do you remember the proceed on leave of President JA Kuffuor? If you do, then you will admit that the NPP is the sole architect, inventor and creator of Ghana’s unemployment rate. They even nicodemously hid behind an organized Unemployed Graduate Association just to score a cheap political point. Unemployment leads to poverty. One strategy of the political elite to which the NPP is a master tactician is to impoverish the youth in order to be bootlicked. (This subject will be dealt with in a different discussion). Why would the NPP tamper with our educational system if they want an enlightened youth? Do you recollect the impact of the change of JSS/SSS to JHS/SHS? And now a traffic light rotational scheme in the name of Free SHS? As for the politics of corruption, there will be time to discuss it wholly.
Edem Koku Edem,
Youth Activist,
Ahafo.