The NDC Does not yet fully understand the Gold Mine – Vormawor

I want to tell you a story about ORAL. But before ORAL, there was something else—something the NDC is yet to fully grasp, a gold mine it has stumbled upon but does not understand.

Two years ago, FixTheCountry organized the Tamale demonstrations. To this day, it remains the largest protest Northern Ghana has seen since independence. For three months, many of us—including myself—relocated to Tamale, living there full time, moving from community to community every single day, from dawn until 2 AM, mobilizing for the protest.

One day, I met with a large gathering of people. They told me they were NDC through and through. Some of them even held top regional leadership positions in the party. I spoke to them about the movement, about what we were fighting for, about why we could not wait for the next election cycle to demand justice, accountability, and real change.

When I finished, one of them stood up. He spoke for the group. He told me they had listened to everything I had said, and while they resonated deeply with my words, they were unsure whether they could join the protest. More importantly, they certainly could not openly support it.

His reasoning?

If they backed me in my campaign against the government, I would invariably become an important voice in Ghana’s political landscape. And if I became an important voice, could I promise them that I would not turn that voice against the NDC when they returned to power? Could I promise that I would not hold them to the same brutal scrutiny?

He was worried that my criticisms would not acknowledge the mess the NPP would leave behind. That after years of wreckage, it would be unfair to expect the NDC to fix everything overnight, and he feared that I would not give them the benefit of time.

I stood up to respond.

I told him plainly: I cannot and will not promise that if the NDC fails the people, I will keep quiet. That is not who I am. But I will be fair, as I have always strived to be.

However—if there was one thing I would never forgive the NDC for—it would be if they came to power and did not pursue these nation-wreckers with aggression. If they failed to bring justice to those who had looted and destroyed this country, I would come after them with everything I had. And I would not stop. Not until my last breath.

The room erupted into a standing ovation.

In that moment I got the biggest endorsement for telling NDC faithfuls that I will unleash venom on the NDC if they failed at ORAL.

Also, in that moment, I knew something important: ORAL belongs to the NDC’s base.

And It belongs to the ordinary people of Ghana.

Because ORAL is not just about holding the powerful accountable—it is about something even deeper, something more visceral.

It was ORAL that brought Jerry Rawlings to power. ORAL is what made the NDC what it is today. It is the fire in the belly of the people who believed, once upon a time, that justice could be real, that power could belong to the people, that corruption and greed could be chased into the shadows.

Lose ORAL, and you lose the country.

The NDC must decide now whether it will reclaim the soul that made it a movement or whether it will drift into irrelevance, indistinguishable from those it once opposed.

By Mawuse Oliver Barker-Vormawor