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l followed Dr. Bawumia's tour of educational institutions in the country keenly and came to one conclusion: Dr. Bawumia is making some impact. We cant admit this outside but among ourselves, we can look at what has the potency to weaken our support bases and ultimately, our political fortunes.

Dr. Bawumia's tour is targeted mainly at the youth of the country, especially in areas where the NPP doesn't do well. If the reports that Constituency Executives of a given community organized gari for students to prevent them from attending a function organized by Dr. Bawumia is true, then it brings to mind the helplessness of our strategies for wooing the youth. We are gradually losing our youth to NPP. I am saying this as a grassroot person with almost 30 years experience in community organization. We have to evolve the best strategy to deal with this nagging question.

l have identified few of the causes:

1. The NPP has developed the best strategy for giving NDC all manner of tags and thus succeeded in killing the confidence in our people. On the campuses of our various educational institutions, NDC supporters and even activists have been cowed into submission. Our sisters and brothers are not bold enough to identify themselves with the NDC. Whilst it is uncommon to see NDC supporters wearing party T-shirts and other party paraphinelia, NPP members wear these things and boast about their association with the party. This is gradually killing the faith of the faint-hearted in NDC.

2. The NPP, despite the odds,.seems to have a strategy for dealing with the youth and which is so far doing better than that of NDC. There is no doubt that the NDC has captured the social media and our young men and women are doing wonders. In terms of actual field work,.we are lagging behind. The NPP is doing less but they are getting the results. If they decide to up their game a notch higher, we will be in trouble.

Our National Youth Organizers and their lieutenants are doing very well but there is some level of haphazardness about the youth wing's operations. Whilst the emphasis of the NDC youth is on the ordinary youth in our communities, the NPP seems to target the youth in the various educational institutions. On campuses, they have access to an organized group to address. They therefore meet more people than our organizers do, if one takes into consideration the effect of the law of average - a hawker who meets a thousand people a day will make more money than one who meets only a hundred.

3. The young intellectuals seem to be juicy preys for the NPP and that is a good strategy. Every young intellectual in the family seems to have what it takes to enrol others into their vision than those who are less endowed with the needed education. Therefore, if you capture a student, you seem to have captured a household. They can bring peer pressure to bear on their friends and ultimately bring them onboard.

4. NDC doesn't seem to be attractive to certain categories of students anymore. Students in the various teacher training colleges for instance, have been told about the reasons for the cancelation of their allowances and the opportunity it offers for several other young people to get admitted to these institutions. . The explanations are good on paper but not on the ears of the students. Human beings are inherently selfish and so these students don't care a hoot about the opportunity this policy offers for more people to be admitted. In fact, some of them are ignorant of the fact that but for the policy, they could not have been admitted in the first place.

The NPPs message of restoring the allowances is attracting these students to the party like flowers attract bees. The message is easy to spread like harmattan fire on a savanna land. Our own NDC youth in these tertiary institutions openly complain about these allowances because ultimately, they are the beneficiaries.

5. Another factor that is swaying NDC youth to other parties is the utterances of parents who belong to the NDC. My little research in Fanteakwa on this subject has revealed that New voters in Fanteakwa mainly vote for the NPP. This could be attributed to the utterances of NDC adults who kept on saying they haven't benefitted from their support for the NDC. These utterances ultimately push their children to try parties other than the NDC. Our votes in a number of polling stations in 2012 were the same as those of 2004 and 2008, suggesting that newly registered voters whose parents are NDC people do not vote the NDC.

Dr. Bawumia's efforts in our strongholds and its effect on our young supporters shouldn't be discounted. We should not be complacent. If a madman decides to challenge you in a contest, treat him like somebody who possess the wisdom of King Solomon and slug it out with him accordingly.

Among other strategies, I believe Dr. Edward Omane Boama and his team has what it takes to thwart the efforts of Dr. Bawumia. The team could divide itself into several groups and each led by a good political communicators such as Hon. Ablakwa, Hon. Felix and James Agyanim Boateng. This can help reduce the political menace posed by Dr. Bawumia.

We underrate Dr. Bawumia to our own political peril.