Commotion Rocks Nana Addo’s Campaign

While the National Democratic Congress (NDC) has fired up its support base and gained a huge momentum, as a result of their good performance in the last election, there New Patriotic Party (NPP) rivals, who were expecting a 70% win, appear to be busy playing blame games.

Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo, the veteran NPP Presidential Candidate, under whose watch his party lost its hold on the legislative arm of government to their NDC rivals and failed to retain the executive arm of government, has dissolved his campaign team ahead of the Presidential Run-Off slated for December 28, this year.

In the first round of the just ended election, the NDC moved from Minority to Majority to Parliament.

By this victory, the Speaker of Parliament who, by law, is President of Ghana, in the absence of the Vice President, automatically goes to the NDC. Some party supporter say their Party Chairman, Peter Mac Manu, is incompetent and flat footed, while others say the party’s structures were not allowed to function as their role was hijacked by the “Akyem Mafia” led by Ken Ofori Atta, who turned his company, DataBank, into a party headquarters

Already, Nana Addo, who is said to be upset about the performance of some top members of his campaign, has taken steps to remove or diminish their role in the run-off, a move which is likely to deepen the nervousness which has crept into the party after its poor showing in the just ended elections.

At the moment, one of the closest aides to Nana Addo, has placed an order for a brand new Ford Expedition, with a V8 turbo engine, while others have bought brand new Land Cruisers and several expensive vehicles, the Enquirer learnt.

Similarly, some of the top men of the Campaign were steeped in several conflicts of interest situations, especially in the area of spending on advertising. Nana is expected to assume the role as his own campaign chairman, while deploying his closest rival in the flagbearership race, Alan Kyeremanten, to handle the Ashanti Region, which is growing skeptical about a nana Addo presidency, in respect of the level of prominence for Asantehene and Okyehene.

The NPP candidate, instead of scaling down the numbers of his team and getting rid of some big shots who milked the campaign and deposited significant amount of cash in two accounts in London, will rather be playing the ethnic card by placing people from certain regions to execute a purely ethnic campaign towards the run-off.

Political watchers say the move smacks of desperation because Alan Kyeremanten was already a key member of Nana Addo’s Campaign team. He was the one in charge of identifiable groups and traveled with Nana Addo to almost all his weekly fund raising activities outside Ghana.

Observers are now beginning to worry that Alan Kyeremanten, who tends to be very ambitious, might overshadow Nana Addo in the region and lend credence to unending murmurings from the party’s corridors that “Alan Cash,” who was incidentally President Kufuor’s choice, would have been a better candidate than Nana Addo.

But reports from three regions reaching The Enquirer by press time indicated that supporters of Alan Kyeremanten appeared worried that if he accepts a front row position in Nana Addo’s campaign and he loses the election, it might affect him in 2012 and diminish the aura of clout which he has earned for himself.

Similarly, Nana Addo is attempting to delegate the Eastern Region to Yaw Osafo-Maafo, a talented and competent ex-Minister, which is perhaps more vulnerable at this time than Nana Addo himself.

It appears that a gargantuan corruption scandal which contributed to his exit from government may soon bounce to the fore if Nana Akufo-Addo keeps Osafo-Maafo on the frontline of his campaign.

Observers say, “This is not the time for the campaign to be burdened with the responsibility of defending scandals of campaign team members. It is time to have some peace of mind and to focus on the task ahead in such a limited time.”

Jake Obetsebi Lamptey and Oboshie Sai-Cofie are expected to handle the Greater Accra Region, which has already fallen to the NDC.