A senior lecturer at the Political Science Department of the University of Ghana, Dr Seidu Alidu, has observed that the back and forth press conferences between the two major political parties, the New Patriotic Party (NPP) and the National Democratic Congress (NDC) breeds transparency and accountability but diverts the government’s attention from projects.
“I think this favours the NDC more than it favours the NPP in the sense that the NDC seems to be setting the policy agenda for the government to react to which also gives prominence to the opposition leader because whatever he says is quickly reacted to.
“It shows that there is importance in whatever he is saying and that he is still relevant to our political policymaking processes,” Dr Alidu postulated.
According to him, it casts doubt on the effectiveness and efficiency of strategy adopted by the government to defuse allegations raised by NDC and knee-jerk responses presented by NPP through counter press conferences which only gave NDC upper hand and cornered NPP into defensive position.
“When the former President Mahama makes specific statement, the NPP organises press conferences to react to what he has said setting the policy agenda which gives him the upper hand because each time former President Mahama has spoken on an issue, the NPP reacts immediately with a counter-press conference,” Dr Alidu proffered.
Amidst the ongoing altercations, he pointed out that the NPP was only giving importance to NDC and the former president through their frequent press conferences.
Less than 12 hours after the former president has made a statement, Nana Obiri Boahen, the Deputy General Secretary of the NPP, said the party would not be intimidated by his ‘do or die affair’ comment and not only did he find his comment unfortunate but NDC could not bully NPP to win elections at the polling stations in 2024.
Earlier, John Boadu, the General Secretary of the NPP, held a press conference to address the former president’s assertion that President Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo was hiding behind the COVID-19 pandemic to overspend and asked him to stop lying to citizens about his record while in power, because facts showed otherwise.–myjoyonline.com
