Members of the NDC on Twitter are sharing videos of when Dr. Bawumia admitted that the then NDC government ended the chronic light off situation Ghana was saddled with for more than four (4) years.
It is legitimate for NDC activists and communicators to want their government to get the full credit for ending dumsor but it is more difficult because dumsor is much more of an emotional issue than a reasonable one.
What people were made to endure for so long came to an end a year to a crucial election and that will certainly make people wonder “if this was fixable, why did it have to take so long?”
The John Mahama-led NDC government deserves credit but people appreciate the efforts of the NPP government more because we all know the power problem was not a generation problem. It was and has always been a money problem and the NDC government decided it was better to put us through almost 5 years of load-shedding and use the money to do the things they now say are the reasons why John Mahama should come back—hospitals, some roads, a major interchange, brand new markets in Cape Coast and Kumasi, and a few other things.
That decision is something the NDC has to live with but there’s not a single person alive who will prefer to go through the discomfort of dumsor with its attendant problems no matter what else is on offer.
Dumsor does not win elections though (at least in the short term).
The NDC won the 2012 elections in spite of dumsor so let it not be the case that a battle over who takes credit for fixing dumsor scores any political points.
In any case, any such battle will still go in favor of the NPP government who were even in opposition at the time dumsor ended. Yes, voters will rather give that credit to the opposition—that’s how serious people took the hell we called dumsor.
Politicians tend to think voters decide on issues based on the mere facts of the issue. If it were about facts, John Mahama will still be president. Voters decide based on how you make them feel about the issues. How your actions made them look and the moment it seems like you could have done this but you chose to do it because you wanted the vote, it doesn’t matter the hoops you had to jump through, no one cares.
Watch the video here:
