A leading member of the cadres of the National Democratic Congress (NDC) in the Volta Region, Clement Kporgbe, has called on foot soldiers of the party to re-assert their roles in order to re-capture their rightful place in the country's development. According to him, in view of the experiences they had gone through since the NDC lost power to the NPP, including the loss of jobs and the disintegration of the progressive voluntary organisation, coupled with continued attempts to break up the NDC itself, "it is important for us as cadres to wake up, pick up the pieces, put them together. “This would help ensure that our organisation is revived to enable us recapture our rightful places in the development of our dear nation, for which we have already made enormous sacrifices,” Mr Kporgbe stated. He said it was the responsibility of the cadres to complete their “unfinished business", and safeguard the gains of their efforts. He was delivering an address at a sensitisation and strategic planning forum for Volta Regional cadres of the NDC towards the success of the party in the 2008 elections. "If we can learn the lessons of history and correct our past mistakes, then we can move ahead with confidence, otherwise the same fate of losing elections and remaining in opposition will continue to be with us," he urged. The first lesson they had learnt, he said, was that two wrongs did not make a right, explaining that although the leadership of the party had become adamant to the feelings of the rank and file, breaking away from the party or withdrawal of their traditional foot soldiering role was not the a reasonable decision to take. "It was rather an unfortunate, emotional decision which cost us dearly, because it broke the organisational front. We must, therefore, use reasoning rather than emotions to work," he advised. He said ever since the NDC lost the elections, most of them had lost their jobs, and that they did not have any hope in a system that had come to discredit them for all the sacrifices they had made. "While the NPP is enjoying all the good works that the NDC handed over to them, they continue to paint a negative picture about our achievements to Ghanaians. At the same time, they are feeding fat on the things that the NDC created," he lamented. The NPP, he observed, had an elaborate agenda to discredit the inputs made by the NDC to distort the history of the country, a situation that he said must not be allowed. “We must set the records straight, otherwise the spirits of our comrades who laid down their lives for you and I to reach this far, as well as posterity, will not forgive us," he reminded them. “There is now a lot of apathy, passiveness and worst of all wanton scramble to enrich oneself at the expense of the nation. Things have turned the other way round, unlike the days when cadres rather enriched the state at our own expense," he emphasised. He called on all true and well-meaning cadres to rise up and act to salvage the future of the country. Source: Daily Graphic