Sunday,
September 15, 2013
Friends, the number of people
“trooping” to Akufo-Addo’s Nima residence to interact with him since the
Supreme Court sealed his sad fate is worthy of note.
Here is how the pro-NPP Daily
Guide newspaper captured it in today’s edition: “The 2012 presidential candidate of the New Patriotic Party
(NPP), Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo, his running mate Dr. Mahamudu Bawumia and
NPP National Chairman Jake Obetsebi Lamptey, were on Friday mobbed at the
Abbosey Okai Central Mosque in Accra when they turned up at the facility to
offer gratitude to God.
The
warm reception the trio received was given impetus by the Chief Imam Sheikh
Nuhu Sharubutu’s commendation for Nana Akufo-Addo who, he said, deserved
prayers.”
Good
for him.
And the man himself is basking in
the limelight, making all kinds of utterances to defeat his own purpose of
taking time out to rest, do introspection, and come out to tell Ghanaians his
future political direction.
He hasn’t taken time out to do so
but has already told Ghanaians something with which to predict his future
political direction: he won’t quit national politics. Obviously, he is still in
the game.
The more he avails himself of the
opportunity to receive the delegations calling on him, the more he opens the
window wider for the sneak peek that we continue to take into his future
political purposes and to know him all the more.
His popularity has soared in
defeat, which is easily understandable. As he continues to tell those calling
on him, he is still grieving at the electoral defeat and the Supreme Court’s
verdict, which is why he won’t stop commenting on it. He was reported to have told a NPP grouping which called on him
at his Nima residence on Tuesday that
although he accepted that
verdict for the sake of peace, he did not entirely agree with it. What will he
do next? Nothing but live with that painful fact!!
Then, he added that “he believes the party will come to power
if there is unity and the right structures are put in place”. Very good
observation to make.
Unity in the NPP cannot be
attained in the current circumstance when the house is on fire over him; not
because of his popularity but because of the miscalculations going on.
That popularity-in-defeat itself
is both a time-bomb and a double-edged sword with likely devastating
consequences for him and the NPP.
Being a time-bomb, it portends
internal wrangling for the NPP, at least, in the sense of either retaining him
as the party’s flagbearer for Election 2016 or replacing him and bracing up for
the consequences. A conundrum of sorts to deepen the party’s woes. Without any
further muddying of the waters, it is obvious already that the time-bomb has
been set off and it is ticking loudly, sounding the alarm bells.
Take the lobbying set in motion
by Kwadwo Owusu Afriyie and other bigwigs of the party rooting for the
retention of Akufo-Addo as a clear fault-line in the party. Then, view it
against the sharp criticism from others (some of whom had contested the
flagbearership with Akufo-Addo and still have a huge interest in testing the
waters for Election 2016). Certainly, one can see another fault-line here. So,
when these two forces clash, what will be the fate of the party?
Proponents for the retention of
Akufo-Addo have advanced arguments, all of which boil down to Akufo-Addo’s
popularity. The likely result will be that Akufo-Addo should go again in 2016.
There comes the double-edged sword to deepen the internal crisis.
Will the retention of Akufo-Addo
in and of itself be enough to win the elections? What have the party’s leaders
gathered from his successive defeat by the NDC to know what not to do or to do
for him to sail through at the third attempt?
Arguments dismissing the age
factor may sound pleasant in their own ears, especially when they claim that
even at 89, Zimbabwe’s Robert Mugabe is still agile enough to rule the country.
But there lies their miscalculation. Yes, Mugabe is 89 years and still retained
by the electorate, which suggests that an advanced age alone shouldn’t be a
liability.
Unfortunately, these NPP people
arguing this way have forgotten that Mugabe has been in power since 1980 and is
not contesting the elections as an opposition leader. Having been in power for
decades, gathering no moss and moving on to lead Zimbabwe again for the next
seven years, he is poles ahead of Akufo-Addo at the level of age and its merit
to the politician.
And now, Nii Ayikoi Otoo has
introduced a new factor into the equation, suggesting that age does matter
because t6he NDC’s fielding of a much younger candidate (President Mahama) did
the magic for the party. Thus, the NPP should advise itself. A dead-end for
Akufo-Addo?
In any case, retaining Akufo-Addo
without any further muddying of the waters could settle doubts, and fears
(after all, he is upheld as the most likely threat to the NDC’s future); but it
won’t remove suspicions (in many guises—the strangulating hold on the party by
the “Akyem mafia”, slighting of possible candidates not of Akan extraction, or
any other damning thing).
The fate of Dr. Mahamudu Bawumia,
especially, comes up here for mention. Will he be retained too as Akufo-Addo’s
running mate? For the third consecutive time in the shadows? Won’t the very
factors that worked against both in previous elections re-surface to doom them
again?
Or, will there be a reversal of
fates for Dr. Bawumia to become the flagbearer and Akufo-Addo his running mate,
given the fact that Dr. Bawumia played a huge role in advancing the party’s
interests at the petition hearing and was upheld as giving a good account of
his intellectual prowess (while Akufo-Addo was lurking behind in the shadows)?
We recall Kwadwo Owusu Afriyie’s elevation of him to the status of a “God” that
he claimed he would worship. Of course, not everything from any gas-bag is
worth accepting.
So, as Akufo-Addo’s popularity-in-defeat
soars in defeat, he poses a more serious problem to the NPP than it will be
prepared for. Even if it fails to give him a song, it at least will give him a
tongue, for making his presence felt. His is a by-product of a chequered
political process.
We can take this argument a stage
further to include other factors. The only reason why we won’t do so, though,
is that he is already the bone of contention within his own party, let alone
what any retention of him for Election will re-enact to determine his fate again.
We may derive some amusement from this portent in anticipation of how the
goings-on in the NPP pan out.
As
he continues to bask in his popularity-in-defeat amid the storm that is forming
around him and has become talkative like a weaverbird, we hope that whatever
final decision he makes regarding his political direction won’t take him toward
merely pursuing a dead end, which can only lead to political sterility,
uncreativity (recognizing the “book politics” going on in the NPP), and
frustration.
If he
can become popular this way, then, defeat rather than victory, might be his
best option. (Just for the laughs!!)
I shall return…
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E-mail:
mjbokor@yahoo.com
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