Saturday,
June 7, 2014
My good friends, all is set for us
to know how the jockeying for the flagbearership of the NPP will intensify
between now and Dec. 6, 2014, and how the aspirants will continue to tear at
each other instead of offering Ghanaians (or their party members) tangible
reasons why they should be elected as Ghana's President at Election 2016.
The news is that the National
Council of the NPP on Friday endorsed the steering committee's proposals on the
presidential primaries. Those so far interested in the flagbearership are:
Akufo-Addo, Alan Kyerematen, Dr. Kofi Konadu Apraku, and Francis Adai Munukum
(Who is this one too? I haven't heard anything about him hitherto.). The
National Council will reconvene on June 19, 2014, to deliberate on other
matters regarding the presidential primaries.
An aspirant for the flagbearer
position will pay a total of Gh¢85,000 to process his documentation ahead of
the December 6 primaries. A nomination form will cost Gh¢10,000 while the
filing of nominations is pegged at Gh¢75,000.
(Source: http://www.myjoyonline.com/politics/2014/June-7th/npp-to-elect-presidential-candidate-on-dec-6.php)
There is every indication that
factionalism is currently the NPP's main problem; and the rate at which the
Akufo-Addo and Kyerematen camps are tearing at each other does bother the
party's followers. The house is divided, and it will take more than mere
appeals to conscience to rebuild.
The other day, I had a lengthy
chat with a staunch NPP follower who candidly told me that both Akufo-Addo and
Kyerematen are gradually becoming the albatross around necks and that some
in-house moves are being mulled to tackle them.
He openly told me that both have
become serious liabilities and that one major move to be considered is to drop
them for a more "genial" and "untainted" candidate. This
move, he said, will be in the party's best interest.
And who could that house-builder
be? Paapa Owusu Ankomah, MP for Sekondi. In my friend's assessment, Owusu
Ankomah is a dynamic and youthful politician whose performance under Kufuor
marked him out as a strong asset for the NPP to use in lieu of Akufo-Addo and
Kyerematen.
In my friend's opinion, pairing
Owusu Ankomah with Dr. Mahamudu Bawumiah will be the NPP's best bet at Election
2016. I agreed with him. Curiously, we know that the forces behind Akufo-Addo
and Kyerematen will not easily yield for both to be side-stepped for a
compromise candidate such as Owusu Ankomah. That is where the NPP's internal
crisis will thicken!
A legitimate question that
everybody outside the "Yen Akanfuo" cabal would ask is Why not
privilege Dr. Bawumiah as the Presidential candidate? I did same but got a
quick answer when I realized that the power brokers controlling and bankrolling
the NPP will NEVER EVER allow a non-Asante/Akyem party member to be the party's
leader. It hasn't happened before and won't happen.
Giving Paul Afoko the position of
National Chairman is only a cosmetic move to deceive the gullible people. The
NPP is for those who formed it and they won't sit down for
"outsiders" to take it away from them.
Remember that the ideological
foundation of the NPP (tracing its root to the United Party of the immediate
post-independence era) is Danquah-Busia. The triumvirate version of “Danquah-Busia-Dombo”
that is bandied about today is only for "book" politics, with the
addition of the "Dombo" name to it to attract unwitting Northern
Ghana elements. As an afterthought, the appendage ("Dombo") is not an
integral part of the politics framed around Danquah-Busia (re-echoed by
Akufo-Addo as "Yen Akanfuo"). No kidding!!
That is the more reason why the
NPP remains narrow in scope despite the loud noise that its followers make to
suggest that it has a national berth as the NDC has. Tweeeeeeeeeeeeeea.
As for me, I still maintain that
the NPP isn't doing well in opposition to assure Ghanaians that it can handle
the country's affairs better than what the Mahama-led administration is doing—which
they are complaining about but won't necessarily see the NPP as a redeemer.
Hindsight!!
How can a responsible opposition
seeking to outdo the incumbent at elections choose BOYCOTT of important
national issues and events as its main tool for politicking and hope to be
endorsed? Why will such a party not abandon the "rogue" politics that
has doomed it all these years if, indeed, it seeks to carve a better public
image for itself?
More importantly, apart from the
hackneyed trash-talk about free senior high school education, what again has
come from the NPP to prove that it has better policy initiatives for tackling
the country's problems? No alternative measures have come forth from its
quarters to prove to its critics and skeptics like me that it is a better
choice. It remains doomed no matter how it feeds the public with lies about the
current government. No matter how much publicity its lackeys in the media give
it!!
I shall return…
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E-mail:
mjbokor@yahoo.com
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the conversation.
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