Thursday,
November 1, 2012
It is refreshing that three out
of the Presidential Candidates to contest the December 7 elections are of
Northern Ghana extraction. This is the first time in Ghana’s history that we
have such an array of contestants from that part of the country for national
elections.
The
incumbent, John Dramani Mahama of the NDC, the People’s National Convention’s Hassan
Ayariga, and the CPP’s Dr. Abu Sakara are lined up against others. Good
job, folks!
That they are not put on the
back-burner as Running Mates is commendable—and a challenge to those parties
(especially the NPP) that consider such compatriots as good only when playing
second fiddle to those in the “Yen Akanfuo” fraternity with a warped agenda of
superiority complex.
I may be accused of doing tribal
politics in this opinion piece, but that’s not my lookout. I’m just being
pragmatic and straight-to-the-point on an issue that shouldn’t be lost sight of
in our national politics. If former Vice President Aliu Mahama wasn’t good to
lead them to the 2012 elections, where is the evidence that Mahamudu Bawumia—now
being overworked as a beast of political labour—will ever be considered good to
do so one day?
Obviously, our Northern Ghana
compatriots have every right to be given this envious responsibility of leading
their parties to the polls, having established themselves as forces to reckon
with in every department of national life.
It gives me the occasion to
celebrate the huge contributions of our Northern Ghana compatriots to Ghana’s
development. They are not worthy of being perceived and used only as appendages
to others—as is likely to be noticed in the addition of “Dombo” to the
mainstream “Danquah-Busia” ideology as an afterthought for manipulation of
unwitting folks.
From
all indications, Mahama, Ayariga, and Sakara are leading political
parties that endear themselves to Ghanaians in diverse ways and have the NPP as
their main obstacle. And it is the NPP that is making the loudest noise about
using a Northerner and a Muslim to give some presence to those segments of the
citizenry. Chicanery at its best, you might call it.
All
things being equal, though, the upcoming elections seem to be a direct “battle”
between the incumbent (John Mahama) and the NPP (Akufo-Addo, the Al-Houdini
promise-maker, alias Mr. FREEMAN).
In its current fractious state,
the pro-Nkrumahist political camp can’t go it alone to win the elections. None
of the splinter parties stands any chance either. Losing the elections will
further undercut their support base; and they lack the substance to attract any
large following in the near future. The only possibility is that they will continue
to wane as their supporters drift away.
As the situation stands now—and
particularly because of their inability to sink their narrow selfish interests
to merge into one political party to uphold the Nkrumahist front—none of these
parties will be worth supporting on its own merit.
That
is why it is important to consider why it will be beneficial for these
peripheral political parties to decide early enough how to position themselves.
In all certainty, they stand to profit from the dynamics if they join forces
with the NDC. They have more to gain from aligning with the NDC than remaining
on their own, wasting resources yet going nowhere, or taking any politically
suicidal action to align with their nemesis (the NPP). I will explain why.
There seems to be no compelling
reason for the pro-Nkrumahist parties to turn against the NDC. Whatever factors
existed in the past, mostly attributable to the Rawlings element, is no more at
play. With its new ideology of Social Democracy, the NDC has a lot in common
with the pro-Nkrumahist front.
The CPP is already well
represented in the NDC, a factor that fuelled anger in the Rawlings faction which
had accused the late President Mills of political engineering and incubating a
CPP embryo within the ranks of the NDC at the seat of government, preparatory
to defecting to the CPP to bloat its ranks.
The irony is that Rawlings himself
had long lured CPP elements to his fold, using them for political activities
that boosted the NDC’s own fortunes instead. We have a good number of those CPP
adherents still functioning as NDC members. After all, apart from the
underlying ideology of “Nkrumahism” that portrays the CPP in its own peculiar
political light as a left-leaning party, there is no marked difference between
it and the NDC.
Of course, the NDC also has its
peculiar militaristic background, having resulted from the June 4 and PNDC military
forays into national politics. The vibrancy that facilitated Nkrumah’s CPP is
the same that propels Rawlings’ NDC. Both camps are bound by the common
interest of development projects and uplifting a national character as the
banner.
I don’t see any drastic
difference between both; thus, it will not be strange for the weaker party (the
CPP) to collapse into the stronger one (the NDC) to present a common front. So
also should it be for the other pro-Nkrumahist splinter parties like the PNC,
GCPP, or any other.
There is speculation that the PNC
is friends with the NDC. The party has already indicated its support for the
NDC Parliamentary Candidate in a part of Northern Ghana where it is not
fielding its own candidate.
At a larger level, followers of these
parties need not fear anything sinister by shifting toward the NDC whose
flagbearer is one of their kind. Indeed, I will be more comfortable with a John
Mahama presidency than an Akufo-Addo one. I have said it several times already
that Ghana deserves better than an Akufo-Addo Presidency. No regrets or
apologies for saying so.
That is why it is important for
all these forces to come together to neutralize anything that might work in
favour of the NPP and its Akufo-Addo. They can do so with a common front,
guided by a common urge to have one of them as the formidable candidate. It is
not as if without them the NDC will wobble or hobble at the elections. It can
still stand on its own to rob Akufo-Addo of victory; but joining forces will
make that victory sweeter, especially when indications are clear that neither the
PNC nor the CPP can win the elections.
I reck very little of Paa Kwesi
Nduom and his PPP’s chances and won’t bother my head where they go. Obviously,
they can’t turn elsewhere but toward the NPP. Nduom threw away his Nkrumahist
calling and worked with the CPP’s arch political rivals (the “Ma te me ho”)
government of Kufuor.
Then again, ever since he broke
away from the CPP, he has lost every mark of Nkrumahism. His true political
coloration is amorphous and he commands little support for me to imagine that
he can hold sway at the elections. He may be out there, deceiving himself that
he is in the reckoning. I care less.
We can tell from proceedings at
the Tuesday Presidential Debate organized by the Institute of Economic Affairs
(IEA) that the pro-Nkrumahist camp is virtually on the same with the NDC. What
remains to consign the NPP to the political wilderness is a concerted effort to
hit hard at it.
Thank Goodness, Akufo-Addo has
already begun the downhill movement, exposing his underbelly to be punctured as
he concentrates on hoodwinking the electorate with unremitting promises here
and there.
My stance doesn’t in any way
suggest that without these Nkrumahist parties teaming up with the NDC it can’t
win the elections. The possibility exists for the NDC to win; but roping in
these pro-Nkrumahist forces will completely unsettle the NPP out of this year’s
elections and send the strong signal that a similar fate awaits it in 2016 and
beyond. The elephant belongs to the bush, not the Osu Castle.
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E-mail:
mjbokor@yahoo.com
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