There is a saying that when a taxi driver is telling his passengers the latest gossip about town, they should watch his face. If he wears any form of smile they better dismiss the story as mere "toli." However, if the eyes dart about in panic like those of a man who had escaped from a miraculous accident, he must be taken seriously. A friend in Kumasi told me the story of a taxi driver who had picked a lady of substance who had sent her car to a garage for fixing. Along the way he picked three other passengers, including my friend. The driver's phone rang and he slowed down to take the message. With eyes opened as if he was in fright, he turned swiftly to the passengers and dropped the name of Nana Akufo-Addo's chosen running mate. This was three clear days before the meeting that endorsed this name and there was a lot of hope in this part of the country that a Kumasi son was going to be the man. "Bawukomini?" The woman passenger was stunned and she shrieked. "Where from that one? We don't know him." She went on to recount the tribulations the people of the "demo" tradition had to endure for over 30 years before they wrestled power for themselves in 2000. "We were beaten up. Our businesses collapsed. We were excluded from national economic life. We were starved." She fell silent whilst other passengers disputed the name. They remembered the man's father very well. To put it mildly, the old man did not carry any whiplash marks to the grave. He made sure he always sat where the whip would not touch him. Suddenly, the aggrieved woman threw her arms in the air and shouted to no one in particular, "Why? I say why?" She fell silent again and was so lost in thought that she forgot to alight at her house and was over-carried by some 50 metres. The woman is a known foot soldier's soldier. She eat, drinks and dreams the Elephant. She is a wealthy woman and it is not difficult to guess how she got her money. Recently, there was a report in the media about a press conference held at Ho by a group of people to pour out an earful of grievances against the National Democratic Congress (NDC). They said they were the cadres that formed the bedrock of the revolution that shored up the Provisional National Defence Council (PNDC) that transformed itself into the NDC and ruled this country for eight years. Somewhere along the way, they were asked to step aside from the party's scheme of things. They claimed that since that exclusion order they had been ignored and the party taken over by moneybags whose commitment to the party was questionable. The NDC has since seen a progressive demise of fortune and might lose the next election. What they failed to say, which they said so eloquently in 1999, was that they were hungry. It is true that the cadres or foot soldiers of parties do suffer exclusion. It is equally true that this can happen to some even when their party is in power with all their access to the known goodies of contracts and well-oiled appointments. What those in the ruling party do not accept is an infiltration by those who had not sweated. They claim that the presence of such people dilutes their share of the dividend for loyalty and dedication. As for the cadres in opposition, the alienation in the economic milieu of the nation is a harrowing experience. It is contended that it is a strategy normally contrived by the ruling party functionaries in government to cause defection into their party. Such defections are accepted with open arms, provided the turncoats are not joining from the top. It has to be from the bottom. Thus, daily when we hear of defections, people wink and say, "It is for the sake of the stomach." With oil money in the horizon defections are going to be a daily occurrence. The welcome message will be, "Whoever is not ashamed to join at the tail of the queue, .please come over; there will be room at the top in due course." Every party needs the foot soldiers or cadres. They abound everywhere even in the advanced countries. They are usually volunteers. Sadly, in our part of the world every party supporter thinks he or she is a full lifetime employee of the party. The situation in certain deprived areas of this country is disconcerting. The "party" pays the hospital bills, the school bills, ploughs the fields and gives out the chop money. They are so indebted to the party that they would do anything to defend the party to make sure it stays in power whilst their opponents would move heaven and its opposite to wrest power from them. It is these people who would cause fights, burn houses and cause scenes with ballot boxes at polling stations. What education are the parties and NCCE giving the foot soldiers and the cadres? Credit: Joe Frazier, Daily Graphic