NDC Must Forget 2004 - Okumukom

A FORMER Chief Executive of the National Democratic Congress (NDC) has advised functionaries of the party and its adherents to give up hopes of the likelihood of the NDC coming back to power in the 2004 presidential and parliamentary elections.

The former chief executive predicated his views on the current support that the Kufuor government commands, adding that ?the current goodwill of the New Patriotic Party (NPP) administration shows the level of confidence that people have in the government?.

The foregoing views were expressed by no other person than Nana Akwasi Agyeman, a former Metropolitan Chief Executive of Kumasi in an exclusive interview with an Accra bi-weekly.

Speaking from his Dichemso residence in Kumasi, Nana Agyeman, who?s also a successful building and roads contractor, and acclaimed for his civic responsibilities, including showing gracious kindness to the poor and afflicted outside his official schedules, described most of the former ministers and other government officials of the erstwhile NDC regime as ?stomach politicians? who were only interested in acquiring wealth to meet their selfish interests, rather than catering for the well-being of the citizens.

The former KMA chief executive is quoted to have stressed that in his opinion, the NDC is doomed for ever and prophesied that ?the party can never come to power once again since it has become amply clear that a majority of the Ghanaian electorate has lost confidence in the NDC. According to Nana Agyeman, otherwise known as Okumkom, ?no matter how intensive campaign strategies the NDC may adopt to persuade people to vote for them, it won?t work?.

Nana Agyeman explained that after critically observing the dire situation that the NDC finds itself, he decided to quit the party to help his brother (President Kufuor) to build the country and that ?any person who does not understand the move can go hang.

According to him, he would very much love to use his resources campaign for the NPP to retain power in the 2004 Presidential and Parliamentary elections.

He therefore, appealed to Ghanaians to exercise patience for the Kufuor government as it sets out sound policies to put the economy on an even keel, or get it back on track.

The former KMA boss once nicknamed the ?Terror of Kumasi?, in view of his high-handedness and tyramical rule of the Kumasi Metropolis, was also recently quoted as having said that he would campaign for President Kufuor in the next general elections since according to him, ?Kufuor is his brother?.

The former KMA boss is reported to have conceded that even though his departure from the NDC would be a big blow to former president Jerry John Rawlings, the NDC founder and other trusted friends in the party, yet he maintained we quote: ?I cannot continue to stay till the burial of the party?.

Assigning reasons for his decision to quit the NDC, Nana Agyeman cited deep-seated corruption that had engulfed some functionaries who served in high office in the NDC regime, particularly some ministers of state as some of the reasons why the electorate would not want the NDC back in power.

Okumkom, however, rejected suggestions in some quarters that he is joining the NPP to look for a position in government.

According to him, having worked for over 23 years as the mayor of Kumasi interminably under various governments, his achievements, will tell if he merits an appointment in the current government or he should be lobbying for a position.

He made it clear that the desire for more money is never the motivation for his turn-coat; he also dismissed any intention, on his part to look for any form of inducements whether financial or in kind from the NPP administration as is being peddled in certain quarters by his critics.

Snippets of information regarding the likely defection of the former KMA Chief to NPP came recently when he donated some monies to an NPP fund-raising programme in Kumasi ? it was here that speculations became rife that Nana Akwasi Agyeman had started having flirtations with the Kufuor government.

The man, who comes from the Manhyia royalty in Kumasi, is also reputed to have served every government beginning from the SMC, Limann (PNP), the Rawlings? oppressive PNDC and the pseudo-civilian NDC administration i.e.; from 1979 to 2001.

His tenure as chief executive of the KMA was a love-hate affair. The Okumkom was rejected on two occasions, as the proposed KMA boss after Lt. Col. Emmanuel Okyere was withdrawn from office in bizarre circumstances. Akwasi Agyeman was KMA boss before Col. Okyere came. After Okyere had left, the Rawlings regime decided to bring him back.

The KMA members therefore decided to vote out Nana Agyeman after accusing him of having allegedly engineered the unexpected recall of Col. Okyere as chief executive of the KMA.

Eventually, Okumkom managed to scrape through to become KMA boss for the umpteenth time since 1979, thus serving for almost the entire 19-year period of the (P) NDC, as KMA boss - in addition to the periods under the SMC and the PNP regimes.

Okumkom who gained notoriety as the ?butcher? of Kumasi, for his brutishness toward his sub-ordinates as well as the residents of Kumasi, sometime ago, pulled a gun on demonstrating taxi drivers in Kumasi.

The demonstrators would not take that lying low - they decided to give the Kumasi strongman, a hot chase - not knowing what to do, Nana Akwasi Agyeman, made a quick dash to a house nearby, and scaled a six-foot wall to seek refuge, and save his flesh and bone. It would also be recalled that moments before the Otumfuo Osei Tutu II, was nominated Asantehene by the Queen Mother of Manhyia Nana Afua Kobi in 1999, Nana Akwasi Agyeman had been touted as the next Asantehene ostensibly with government backing. Nemesis Many have however wondered what sort of a personality is Okumkom. This is because according to his admirers, he was once a victim of the excesses that characterised the short reign AFRC in 1979. According to this concerned friends, they remember that in the heat of the June 4, 1979 uprising, Okumkom who was then District Commissioner (DC) of Kumasi in the SMC II regime, was made to carry a ?toppoo? (a bucket of full of human excreta) and was made to parade the streets of Kumasi, with the unwholesome baggage.

These admirers of Okumkom therefore wonder as to how Nana Akwasi Agyeman after all the ill treatment meted out to him by soldiers acting on behalf of Rawlings?

AFRC he would come and accept an appointment from Rawlings in the wake of the 31st December Revolution in 1981, and also served in the Rawlings regimes of 1992 and 1996 (NDC civilian regimes to 2001).