Sunday,
July 5, 2015
Folks, the NPP’s third-time flagbearer, Akufo-Addo, is
reported to have said that the future of the NPP is in safe hands. His reason?
“The
emergence of young, intelligent men and women who have been elected in the
ongoing parliamentary primaries of the party”.
According
to him, the courage exhibited by delegates in the constituencies that have seen
young candidates being elected is a clear sign that delegates of the party have
faith in their abilities, and are confident that they can also deliver victory
for the party in the 2016 elections. (See http://www.ghanaweb.com/GhanaHomePage/NewsArchive/NPP-s-future-in-safe-hands-Akufo-Addo-365435)
My
reaction? A long yawn…..; then, questions to prove him wrong!!!
Is it the “young age” that now holds good for the NPP? If so,
why is Akufo-Addo not giving way to a younger and more intelligent candidate to
lead the NPP? We know how he twisted arms to become the third-time flagbearer.
Is Akufo-Addo so hollow as not to know the rancour, enmity,
and underhand means by which some of those “young and intelligent men and
women” were elected in most constituencies to deepen the party’s internal
crisis? Why are the defeated candidates so embittered at the malpractices that
shot them down? All because of Akufo-Addo’s own machinations in many of the
constituencies?
These defeated candidates (24 MPs among them, be they old or
young) have cited reasons other than age or intelligence quotient as the
negative factors that doomed them at the June 13 primaries. Monetization of the
process and Akufo-Addo’s own orchestrations rank high among the reasons. The
disgruntled losers know what to do (having already formed an association), which
scares Akufo-Addo for him to accuse the NDC of seeking to use such disaffected
people to dim his light. What a sorry claim to make!
Can the NPP’s future be in Akufo-Addo’s “safe hands” when he
has orchestrated the repudiation and overthrow of the party’s National Chair
(Paul Afoko) and General Secretary (Kwabena Agyepong)? Did Afoko and Agyepong
join the team to campaign in the Talensi by-election? Isn't it Freddie Blay
(First Vice Chair, an Akufo-Addo lackey) who is coordinating everything? Should
the NPP retain the seat, the obvious boasts will be that even without Afoko and
Agyepong, everything went well. Their future, then, becomes irrelevant. Get rid
of them!!
There are more questions than answers.
Truth
be told upfront, the NPP is even not in safe hands now nor will it be in the
future, especially with Akufo-Addo at its helm. He is a captain with no
leadership acumen to steer the NPP ship to a safe harbour. Happenings in the
party suggest that all is not well and the NPP faces a bleak future if those
happenings persist. There may be some misplaced optimism of victory at Election
2016, probably because of the challenges facing the Mahama administration; but
it is not certain that the government’s downside will become the NPP’s
political capital. Ghanaians know better and will resign themselves to fate,
guided by the fact that they have to endure the pain for the sake of the rose.
Akufo-Addo’s
negative influence on the NPP is easy to establish:
·
Since 1996 when he lost the bid to Kufuor, he has remained
divisive;
·
Winning the slot for the 2008 elections and the hostility
toward Alan Kyerematen camp (which has magnified into open confrontations and
established factionalism in the NPP) is negative;
·
Losing Election 2008 and its aftermath has proved him to be a
bad player (as Dr. Arthur Kennedy and Co. have criticized him of);
·
His persistent demand and manipulation of forces to lead the
NPP (even after losing Election 2012 and the subsequent useless petition
hearing) is negative;
·
Creeping in of personality cult, which is at variance with
the tenets of Danquah-Busia ideology— whatever that ideology is, especially as
militancy and intransigence dominate the party’s affairs under Akufo-Addo—is
negative;
·
With Akufo-Addo in place, the spirit of give-and-take in
determining the internal affairs of the party is virtually gone. The
threatening and sidelining of anybody considered to be anti-Akufo-Addo says it
all;
·
His manipulation of the “old” national executives (Jake
Obetsebi-Lamptey, etc.) to return to glory is obvious;
·
He considers Afoko and Agyepong as a threat to be fought
tooth-and-nail, which accounts for his mobilization of internal forces against both;
·
Faint-hearted and deceptive peace-making efforts by him
expose him as cunning.
The future of the NPP cannot be safe under such a cunning and
manipulative person, especially as he continues to turn the party into a tool
for achieving his personal childhood ambition of becoming Ghana’s President “at
all costs” without doing what will grow the party at the grassroots level. Its
structures weaken by the day.
For Akufo-Addo’s information, here are some highlights of
what his own political front looked like before he injected his unbridled personal
quests into it to destabilize it:
- Ex-President Kufuor led the NPP
to Election 2000 and won the support of the mushroom political parties to
clinch victory in the run-off. But for his being trusted and regarded as a
unifier, none would have supported him. Election 2004 went in his favour
despite the NDC’s claims of rigging. For Akufo-Addo at Elections 2008 and
2012, it wasn't so. Had those mushroom parties supported him, he would
have won. He alienated them instead and hasn't changed in any way for
Election 2016.
- Kufuor handed over a united NPP
to Akufo-Addo but he lost it and set the stage for the internal wrangling
that has torn the party apart—a clear reminder of the post-Progress Party
developments when the United Party (UP) front lost traction and fractured
into political camps representing petty personal political ambitions and narrow
ethnic interests (Paa Willie’s United National Convention to fly the Akyem
ethnic flag; Joe Appiah’s All People’s Republican Party and Victor Owusu’s
Popular Front Party to float the flag of Asante ethnic supremacy; and many
others).
To the Danquah-Busia ideological stance, personality cult is
anathema!! The fracturing of the UP front in those days is nothing near what is
happening now. What Akufo-Addo is re-enacting is solely aimed at turning the
NPP into a personal tool for use in achieving personal ambitions. What for, I
don’t know. But what I know is that at 72 years for Election 2016 and offering
no cogent programme of action to rule Ghana better than others have done so
far, he is setting the NPP up for woe.
The NPP has definitely been hijacked by Akufo-Addo and his
followers. Danger, not safety or security, looms for the party. In the hands of
Akufo-Addo, the NPP will totter. I am not in the least surprised that the
voices of reason in that political cabal are silent, not because they are
cowards but because they have the foresight to do better than shoot their
mouths and be attacked. Of course, all these voices of reason are old and not
young. They know what Akufo-Addo doesn’t; and when they pass on, they will take
along with them a better picture of the Danquah-Busia ideology, leaving behind
them the chaff that will immortalize Akufo-Addo’s agenda.
Then, when he loses Election 2016, he will leave the scene,
having succeeded in turning the NPP into a militant group and not an attractive,
united political force that will reach out to the electorate with better
campaign messages and win their hearts. Wherein, then, lies his justification
for the gaseous claim that with him in control of affairs, the NPP’s future is
in safe hands?
I shall return…
·
E-mail:
mjbokor@yahoo.com
·
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