An activist of the ruling New Patriotic Party (NPP), Dennis Amfo-Sefa alias Nana Boakye, says the opposition National Democratic Congress (NDC)’s ideological school is “a dangerous joke that went too far.”
According to Nana Boakye, the Ghana Institute of Social Democracy (GISD) would rather plunge the party into an ideological muddle and not the sound foundation the NDC seeks to build.
In an interview, he said, “The first question we should ask the NDC, as politics is about numbers is: how exactly is this school going to pull crowds to your party when what people need are jobs and opportunities, and not some school that will require them to pay money before they get lessons.
Secondly, what is special about the lessons that they are going to teach in that school? Are these lessons different from the socialism and democracy that we learn in Government at the Secondary School level and Political Science at the University level?”
According to him, the school was a fanciful project that will collapse just like the Kwame Nkrumah ideological institute collapsed.
The opposition National Democratic Congress (NDC) recently, launched its ideological school known as the Ghana Institute of Social Democracy to inculcate its principles, ideologies, and values to members.
It is designed as an institution of higher learning and research to train party faithful and other interested stakeholders in the fundamental principles and philosophy of the party.
It would also serve as a centre for research in the changing global ideological perspectives of the social democratic tradition and realigns itself with the emerging global trends in order to strengthen the social democratic philosophy in Ghana and Africa.
But Nana Boakye questioned the usefulness of the school at a time that there are many universities which teach in a more professional manner exactly what it purports to inculcate in prospective students.
The NPP activist also pointed out that the school was a potentially dangerous tool that the NDC could use to brainwash people in an era of democratic freedom.
“I also see it as an attempt by the NDC to institute a party monolith in future which will brainwash members of the party and make them zombies.”
According to him, his fear stemmed from the fact that the NDC is a party which culturally, has been built around personality cults after it was founded out of a violent revolution.
“What I fear is that this school can end up raising figures who posed will as messiahs and would be literally worshipped by people. That is dangerous and undemocratic, “he said.
