Stephen Atubiga seems to be stirring the bile of the leadership of the National Democratic Congress (NDC) into a boiling point.

He describes the national chairman of the NDC, Samuel Ofosu Ampofo, as ” the lousiest and most incompetent leader ever to lead the NDC.”

Stephen Atubiga also describes the Functional Executive Committee of the NDC as ” highly irresponsible.”

Readers may ask: Who is Stephen Atubiga? He is a staunch and vocal member of the NDC, who has resigned from the party, a few days ago.

During the 2012 election petition hearing, Stephen Atubiga was jailed for few weeks by the  Supreme Court, in his unsolicited defence of the NDC in the court of public opinion.

Indeed, his utterances were deemed to have crossed “the red line” , and that irked the Supreme Court to crack the whip on the back of Atubiga.

Lousy, incompetent and irresponsible, as used by Atubiga, must be properly understood by readers.

According to Wikipedia, lousy means, very poor or bad. The synonyms for lousy include; awful, terrible, appalling, abysmal, very bad, atrocious, desperate, unspeakable, miserable, inferior, rotten, useless, hopeless, pathetic and rubbish.

The definition of incompetent also means; not having or showing the necessary skills to do something successfully.

The synonyms for incompetent include; inept, clumsy, sub-standard , ineffective, deficient, incapable, unfit, unsuitable, unqualified and lacking ability.

Irresponsible; relates to a person’s attitude or action ; not showing a proper sense of responsibility.

The synonyms for irresponsible include ; reckless, rash, careless, ill-advised, foolhardy, wild, unwise, thoughtless, erratic, negligent, uncaring, hasty and unrealistic.

So, readers; I think the import of Atubiga’s description of the leadership of the NDC has now been grasped.

Apart from what is contained in his resignation letter to the NDC, Atubiga has spoken on a number of radio stations, castigating the leadership of his “beloved” former party.

But the bottom line in respect of his resignation is in sink with the views of other NDC members who are very critical of the current leadership of the party.

Some of Atubiga’s reasons culminating in his resignation had already been articulated by other party members like Dr Benjamin Kumbuor, Dela Coffie, Boateng Gyan, Anita de Souza and Kokou Anyidaho.

This is besides the well-organized demonstration that hit Accra on March 23rd,  2021. That mass demonstration was populated by an almagamated umbrella body of cadres, foot soldiers, activists, party loyalists and progressives of the erstwhile Provisional National Defence Council.

The group called itself Cadres for Accountable Leadership (CAL). Particularly, CAL was asking the leadership of the NDC to produce its collated figures and pink sheets in the December 7,  2020 general elections.

And in a recent interview with JoyNews, Dr Kumbuor also challenged the leadership of the NDC to validate its claim of having collated the figures of the 2020 elections, by publishing them.

Indeed, responses to the CAL demonstrators and Dr Kumbuor’s lucid  statements indicated that the NDC was highly intolerant to internal criticisms.

Kojo Adu-Asare, a former NDC Member of Parliament for the Adentan constituency in the Greater Accra Region , even questioned the reasoning abilities of Dr Kumbuor, wondering how a PhD holder could make such utterances on NDC’S collated results.

Speaking on Okay FM’s Morning Show, however, Atubiga said: “It is hypocritical for the likes of Ofosu Ampofo to counsel footsoldiers of the NDC against using politics to amass wealth, when national executives of the party are living in mansions and driving luxurious and expensive cars.

“We are in Opposition but they are driving V8 cars ; if you are driving a brand new V8 – 2021 model; what right do you have to say that the NDC is not for the rich but for the poor?”

He asked: “How much are their salaries  to be driving V8 cars in Opposition?”

Atubiga said: “NDC footsoldiers must know that they don’t have any future in the party because the party’s leaders claim that the party is for the poor , and yet the leaders are living like Arabian princes and driving V8 vehicles.”

Atubiga says, he is forming a political party to be called National Liberation Congress. He contends that his new party will be integration of agrieved groups in the NDC, including cadres, footsoldiers “and those who have been neglected by the NDC.”

Atubiga may have thrown verbal grenades at the leadership of the NDC.  And a grenade is a small bomb thrown by hand or launched mechanically.

But can the NDC leadership swallow Atubiga’s verbal grenades? And how will they respond to his explosive utterances?

By applying unprintable insults on his “wounds”, or by  physically beating him up as prescribed by some autocrats in that “beautiful” party?

Indeed, Atubiga’s verbal grenades, like similar ones in the party, must rather agitate the minds of the leadership of the party, to rethink and strategize to extinquish the “fire-bombs” engulfing the party.

By G.Frank Asmah