It is tragic to have all the good points to your credit and still lose the debate because of miscommunication and the fact that your opponent took advantage of your own points to drive home their only point, convincingly.
That is the story of the Free SHS debate.
When it comes to the achievement of the NDC and its antecedents in education, their record is second to only the eleven years reign of Dr. Kwame Nkrumah.
Having supervised major educational reforms and infrastructure development in the country, the NDC promised in the 2012 elections to make basic education free, while putting in place relevant infrastructure to rollout free SHS in 2017 if they won the 2016 elections.
Unfortunately they lost the 2016 elections to the NPP, a party that has no good reputation in funding public education, except its decision to do so now by taking advantage of infrastructure made available by the NDC to implement free SHS, which the NDC intended to do if it won.
Instead of the NDC to celebrate the fact that the government of the day is only doing what the NDC intended doing and taking credit for it, including alluding to the fact that they made infrastructure available for this policy and even going a step further to promise more government funding not just for SHS but tertiary education when voted into office 2020, their public rhetorics and posturing has position them, the socialist oriented party , as anti-state funding of education.
In the process, they have made the NPP instant heroes in Ghana’s education, when in fact, the opposite is true.
The story of the NDC is sad. They won the eleven rounds of the boxing bout only to be defeated at the 12th round by their losing opponent with a knockout because they missed their step while throwing a punch.
Who is leading the NDC?
Haruna Iddrisu from Parliament or Kofi Portuphy from Adabraka? Is is it JJ from Ridge or John Dramani Mahama from Bole?
The public chaos is rather too glaring to ignore, it smacks of panic reaction, as if the 2016 election defeat has disintegrated the party, disengaging the organs from the body.
Whoever is in charge now may want to learn from the style and effectiveness of Dr Valerie Sawyer, who appear to communicate effectively in a manner which brings credit to the party instead of taking from it.