The Bible in Ecclesiastes 3:1 notes that “For everything there is a season, a time for every activity under heaven”. For one Ghanaian politician, this passage from the holy book takes on gargantuan significance albeit pejorative, as we approach election 2012.
Nana Addo-Dankwah Akufo-Ado, the flag bearer of the opposition New Patriotic Party, the druggie of Ghanaian politics, according to the American Embassy in Ghana, has started his campaign; seeking the advantage of the early bird but clearly also out of desperation. A benign emotion, metamorphosed into an inherent incessant fear gnawing at his being. Largely, the man goes about his listening campaign, delivering speeches and doing his utmost to sell himself to the electorate as a confident, sombre, intelligent and unintentionally arrogant alternative to Prof. John Evans Atta Mills.
However, at his core, he is fearful of an impending crushing defeat which will send him to his abyss; overseen by the machinations of his own ilk and party men. In his subconscious mind, Nana Addo recognises that election 2012 presents his last opportunity to stake his claim and live his boyhood dream of becoming the president of Ghana not by merit but by entitlement. It is his inalienable right to be the president of Ghana, a duty his family has primed him for since his childhood and for which he is owed the right by our good country Ghana.
Nana recognises that loosing election 2012 will give credence to the view that he is damaged goods, comes with a lot of baggage, a serial womaniser and as the Americans will have it; a druggie who cannot win an election for the NPP. Nana accepts that Nietzsche couldn’t have put it better when he said that it was easier to cope with a bad conscience than with a bad reputation. Only now has he realized that the evil that men do lives after them, he is reaping the fruits of his youthful penchant for and over indulgence in ganjamalitis. Consequently, Nana is faced with a quandary, to jump or be pushed and whether to jump now or wait till after the election. He knows that another loss to the Asomdwe Professor will force President Kufuor and his henchman Alan Kyeremanteng to bring out the guillotine seeking his head ‘all die be die’ style.
To overcome his fears, Nana Akufo has accepted his fate and resolved to fight, he will not go down like a chicken, and neither would he go down alone. In ancient times his ancestors were accompanied to their graves with their servants and foot soldiers, to lead them and cater for their needs in the spirit world. Therefore, to continue this rich but obsolete tradition, Nana has engineered a beautiful contraption for his party machinery by declaring election 2012 ‘all die be die’. He and his kinsmen and their surrogates will shed innocent blood come November/December 2012, to ensure he becomes President of Ghana at all cost; ‘all die be die’.
A befitting swansong for a man who has struggled to cope with being passed over by President Kufuor as NPP flag bearer and subsequently president of Ghana; for which he has never forgiven his party and its foot soldiers. A man who has struggled to shed a bad reputation, throwing money at it and engineering a systematically oiled media machinery. All of which have inadvertently made him even more out of touch with the electorate. To buttress his ambitions, Nana sent out a clarion call to his supporters and so called young patriot as well as giving notice to his political opponents that “all die be die”; he was prepared to go on the rampage, charging them to ready themselves for “battle Desperado”. Undoubtedly, we have already seen manifestations that the NPP and its entire party machinery is indeed preparing itself for ‘all die be die’. The NPP goes into overdrive when the law enforcement agencies undertake steps and actions to ensure the rule of law when party activist such as the mindless John Kumah make inflammatory and prosecutable pronouncements. The NPP cries foul, they mass up, bus their preposterous young patriots and foot soldiers to the offices of our law enforcement agencies prepared for confrontation, looking for an opportunity to trigger their own ‘arab spring uprising’ to destabilise the motherland thereby allowing Nana Addo to claim his so called entitlement. I beg, Nana e no go happen!! Unbeknown to the NPP, Ghana’s security apparatus has ‘sourced them out’ and will never give them the opportunity to execute their desperate agenda.
In furtherance of Nana Addo’s grand ‘all die be die’ master plan, the NPP has resorted to gutter politics of insults in all media - print, broadcast and new social media. Recently Ghanaians have been treated to very colourful choice words and language by NPP activist who like their flag bearer have become increasingly and impatiently desperate for power. This foulmouthed brigade is led in chief by Nana Akomeah who has been charged with overseeing a hard hitting campaign unlike that reportedly run by Kennedy Agyepong in his book ‘chasing the elephant to bush’. In this regard, Nana Akomeah has gone on record by declaring that their campaign will be executed ‘an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth’. He goes on to say we will insult if we are insulted and attack if we are attacked. These are words of a desperate bunch of people, who claim to be responsible and accomplished people in their private lives and yet adopt a public persona which incites violence. The NPP and its activists have internalised the teachings of their ham-fisted flag bearer – they believe no Ghanaian outside the NPP can lead our nation to the promise land of greater prosperity and economic independence. The NPP is the only political party which has the manpower, the political will, philosophy and the tribal stock to lead Ghana; all others are minions and must be sacrificed on the NPP alter presided over by the ambitious chief priest Nana Addo-Druggie Akufo Addo. Tofiakwa! I beg to differ!
The NPP as part of Nana Addo’s grand ‘all die be die’ master plan, has ingeniously started the instigation of tribal and religious sentiment in our body politics in the lead up to the 2012 election. Nana Addo himself started arousing tribal sentiments when he said that they the Akan people will not sit idle and let things go out of hand during the election; they will fight to take their country back. Notice he did not use the singular term Ashanti or Akyem but chose instead the plural term which refers to the single largest ethnic/tribal formation in Ghana, namely, the twi speaking people. Undoubtedly, these are pronouncements of a dangerous, murderous man out of touch with the wishes and aspirations of the people of Ghana. Similarly, after the 2000 election, NPP activist in their euphoria at winning the election are on record to have made pronouncements to the effect that they were claiming their country back – ‘ye gye nye oman’. Therefore, Nana Addo is only bringing out tools the NPP under Kufuor have used previously without success and lend credence to the fact the NPP is the only political party in Ghana based on tribal lines and which advocates the dominances of the Akan especially the Ashanti/Akyem coalition over all others. Our parliament must take steps to safeguard Ghana from the Ashanti/Ayem hegemony.
In addition, the NPP is threading the cataclysmic path of religious politics and inciting religious tensions. In advance of and in the wake of the recent wikileaks cables, the NPP declared that Nana Addo will certainly choose a Muslim as his running mate. The NPP and their media partners have also blown out of proportion the analysis and private opinions of Fiifi Qaurtey as reported by wikileaks that hypothetically, it was practically difficult for a Muslim flag bearer to win elections in the country. The NPP and its young patriots have also embarked on a coordinated and systematic campaign using new social media such as facebook to vilify Fifii and to cast the NDC as an anti Muslim party thereby calling on Muslims to vote massively against it. These are the machinations of a dangerous flag bearer and a dangerous political party bent on a blood bath just to wrestle back power. You ‘believe in Ghana’ indeed!
In a further indication of what Nana Addo and the NPP have in store for Ghana, the flag bearer believed so much in Ghana he omitted Ghana’s security, crime, justice, the rule of law and conspicuously the fight against the narcotics trade in a major policy speech. Nana Addo’s liberty lecture speech was hailed a major and comprehensive policy statement to bring about freedom, opportunities and economic prosperity. How on earth can we achieve freedom, opportunities and economic prosperity without the rule of law, without an effective law enforcement apparatus, without an effective, independent judiciary, without effective anti narcotic laws and policies? People! There is no excuse that such a major speech leaves out such key issues unless it was intended so, to ensure that Nana as president, if he ever gets near it; oversees a porously flawed state as far as security is concerned, to enable his financiers recoup their investment in his campaign through the narcotic trade and other nefarious activities at the detriment of mother Ghana.
I call on the NPP, Nana Addo and his brain washed young patriots, to give mother Ghana a chance to thrive and grow as a middle income economy, with single digit inflation which ensures that commodity price increases are slowed and manageable. I call on all well meaning Ghanaians to appeal to the better, humane side of Nana Addo, that through his desperate actions, inactions, and speeches he doesn’t jeopardise the peace we currently enjoy which many of Ghana’s neighbours don’t have. If Nana truly believes in Ghana first, then he should tone down the rhetoric, cut the religious and ethnic incitement and the political insults. I urge Nana to run a free, honest campaign like Professor Mills has done time and time again. Failure to do so will bring about more disappointment, more depression, more crushing defeats as he will continue to endear himself as a desperate, out of touch politicians who will stop at nothing to achieve his selfish ambitions. We want a grand all life be life, all be peace be peace master plan from the Nana Addo and the NPP for Ghana election 2012.
Yes, election 2012 will be the last time Nana gets the nod over the relatively younger generation within the NPP. He knows and Ghana knows that like Julius Caesar there are several Brutus’s waiting in the wings, ready to pounce. However, what will really endear him to Ghanaians and his party will be a clean, intellectual campaign so that when the crushing, depression triggering defeat comes, he will be more gracious and he will know within him that it wasn’t for lack of trying but that the discerning Ghanaian electorate choose a more credible, more qualified and a better man for a better Ghana with less skeletons in his cupboard. That will be a befitting swansong for a Ghanaian gentleman, if he truly is one.
Gameli Hoedoafia Croydon, UK
