Several months ago, I told the editor-publisher of a major privately-owned Ghanaian newspaper that in the run-up to the 2008 presidential election, the New Patriotic Party (NPP) stood the considerable risk of becoming its own worst enemy. Back then I had also suggested moving up the NPP’s delegates’ congress in order to healthily ensure that there would be ample time for those whose epic egos sustained massive and merciless beatings, as was inevitable, would have adequate time to recover from their traumas, cut their losses and then maturely and unreservedly throw their weight behind anyone among their ranks who emerged with the congressional mandate to spearhead the NPP into the 2008 presidential election.
The preceding notwithstanding, none of us were that much pleased by Mr. “Gabby” Otchere-Darko’s column titled “Kufuor, Don’t Do It,” which appeared in the Ghanaian Statesman edition of July 9, 2007. And to be candid and frank, this writer personally made a few phone contacts with some quite influential figures on the ground, as it were, to express his utter displeasure. For, needless to say, in a democratic political culture such as Fourth Republican Ghana’s, it immitigably constitutes the very height of presumptuousness for anybody, irrespective of status or ideological creed, to dictate to the substantive and out-going president what he should or should not do vis-à-vis such purely personal and discretionary decision as whom to endorse for his party’s presidential nomination, should he so decide, however inexpediently perceived.
And so Mr. Kuuku Welsing-Jones’ rather presumptuous call for President Kufuor to declare his choice of NPP presidential candidate, forthwith, coming in the wake of Mr. Otchere-Darko’s equally imperious appeal for neutrality on the president’s part, is unpardonably nauseating. For whom do these two blokes think they are? Kingmakers sui generis of Ghana?
Well, since none of the candidates that both Messrs. Otchere-Darko and Welsing-Jones purport to represent seems to be promptly forthcoming vis-à-vis the urgent need to call their attack-dogs, or pit-bulls, to order, then yours truly, the proverbial “Ofie ’Nipa,” has to step in and do just that! And here, it goes without saying that it would be unpardonably tragic, indeed, if the top-brass of the New Patriotic Party allows these obstreperously exuberant propagandists to get away with their peculiar brand of “Seppuku” or “Hara-kiri,” the kind of ritual political suicide that, if successful, could well see the country relapse into the veritably troglodytic political culture once-upon-a-time visited on us by the still sulking and eerily skulking Provisional National Democratic Congress (P/NDC).
While his “Kufuor, Don’t Do It” article admirably exhibited the writer’s remarkable appreciation for contemporary global politics, ultimately, the article provoked a logical modicum of resentment by rather inexpediently and obliquely portraying Mr. Alan Kyerematen as one whose campaign for the presidency was strikingly akin to a proverbial toddler crying his heart out to be allowed to fit into his grandfather’s clothes. And it readily made the keen reader cringe and wonder whether any worse description could be more expediently tailored for the NPP’s “veritable political enemy” – as diplomatically distinguished from “political opponent” – Professor John Evans Atta-Mills of the, literally-speaking, arm-twisting National Democratic Congress. For yours truly, personally, such woefully misguided raking over old sub-ethnic wounds (both real and imagined), rivalry and abject mistrust could not have been easily lost on the keen reader. And it was this morally disturbing aspect of his tirade that prompted yours truly to make those few but significant contacts with some movers and shakers on the ground, as it were.
For his part, in presuming to speak for Mr. Alan Kyerematen, Mr. Kuuku Welsing-Jones could not have portrayed his abject lack of common sense in a dimmer light. For instance, what does this apparent political mercenary and prostitute mean by asserting that “President Kufuor is stronger than the Party”? (Ghanaweb.com 7/10/07). Indeed, it was this kind of sycophancy that apocalyptically brought down Mr. Kwame Nkrumah and his Convention People’s Party regime. And to be candid, if I were Mr. Kyerematen, I would promptly show Kuuku Welsing-Jones the exit-door out of my campaign headquarters. And for one notorious for hopping from the headquarters of one NPP presidential aspirant, or candidate, to another, for whatever capricious reasons, Mr. Welsing-Jones cannot be trusted. Indeed, the latter is the kind of party hack that good, old Thomas Paine would have mordantly and poignantly described as a “Summer Soldier.”
And then also, just what does Mr. Welsing-Jones mean when he remarks as follows: “‘Why wouldn’t the President even want somebody to take over from him? President Kufuor came into the presidency with a dream and maybe after two terms, he thinks it is Mr. X or Mr. Y who can actualize the dream”? Is the self-styled Kyerematen bulldog, here, claiming that President Kufuor has been an abysmal political failure? In sum, what yours truly is attempting to do here is send a constructive signal to both Mr. Kyerematen and those likely to become his victims in the near future that hip-shooting charlatans like Kuuku Welsing-Jones are a ticking political time-bomb that may yet suicide-bomb any serious statesman attempting to become a progressive party and national patriarch.
And, finally, just what makes Mr. Welsing-Jones vacuously arrive at the patently sophomoric conclusion that “The Statesman is pushing its relative, Nana Akufo-Addo, and behaving as if this country is about ‘royalty’”? Is “royalty,” indeed, all that Mr. Welsing-Jones sees about Nana Addo-Dankwa Akufo-Addo? Or does the latter’s royal familial background curiously and witheringly betray something unflattering about Mr. Welsing-Jones’ faux-English – or is it Scottish? – nominal background? And just who said that having a royal-family background, as even national figures like President Kufuor do, insufferably violates Ghana’s constitutional democracy? Perhaps Mr. Welsing-Jones needs to verify Mr. Kyerematen’s familial background before making of himself a simpering fool!
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