Are political elections courts of justices or tests of nerves?

Jose Mourinho was asked by Piers Morgan to share his views on the just ended 2025 AFCON final match between Senegal and Morocco. Part of his comments on how best to handle chaos was like this: “finals don’t reward structures alone; they test your response to disorder” adding that “…finals are not courts of justice but tests of nerves.”

In dissecting through this profound comment, I juxtaposed it within the context of political elections to ask the question above; and to find out which of the five fine gentlemen in the ongoing NPP flagbearership contest have developed the appropriate response to disorder and the nerves to stand the test of time.

No doubt about the level of tension, chaos, and disorder floating around the campaign landscape, especially around three of them namely Ken, Bryan and Bawumia. The heat is more pronounced between Ken and Bawumia though we see and hear traces of Bryan’s too. The good thing is that so far, the heat is merely in words and not in any show of muscles and weapons for spilling of blood.

Some character assassinations, credibility context, show of power, defamation, and unprintable words against persons that used to share bread and butter before and that will in some few months to come will continue to share wine and call each other for whatsapp, etc. Such words of character assassination will eventually blow into thin air, though it will continue to be referenced to till thy kingdom comes.

But in all this, the critical point is that the average voters and supporters see themselves as Ghanaians first, NPP second, and Team Ken, Team Bryan, Team Bawumia, Team Adutwum or Team Agyapong last in the perking order. They see that this is simply a contest and not a conquest, and that there is life after the context where everyone comes back to the default setting of NPP mode.

It is important to note that in the heat of serious competitive political campaigns one thing is for sure, and that is espousing ideas to motivate voters and get them convinced for electoral and political gains stops momentarily, the political environment becomes chaotic and highly polarized tilting to blow up.

This creates the impression that competitors are now becoming enemies publicly causing all sort of fears among the masses. At such tilting point, psychological warfare takes over, and the candidate with the best arsenal grounded on thought provoking psychology to control the campaign atmosphere (the political field) will surely win the race.

The question is how do you defend your political ideas and deliveries embedded with deeper and effective emotional intelligence so that you do not drain your energies and resources to make you to be seen as politically unintelligent candidate in your discourse? This defines how effective management of chaotic political situation becomes a good tool for victory.

In electoral campaign chaos where insults, blame game, finger pointing, show of power and wealth, disingenuity and lies become the floating currency, restraint and not tactics defines the best among the lot. Avoid imploding (so you do not cave in mentally) and exploding, desisting from open attacks and confrontations with electoral managers (referees), chasing referees with minor mistakes, and desisting from complaining at every stage of the process, are the basic and simple building blocks to renew your energy to stay alive for survival and become relevant.

After all, there is no point to galvanize around a dead lion, for a living sheep is worth stronger and powerful than a dead lion. No matter the level of odds against you, what is more important is to survive first. That was the psychological strategy the Senegalese adopted and adapted to minimize their exposure to the risk of losing the match at the 11th hour and turned the table around to their honour at last.

Focusing and believing in the strength and energy of possibility mindset in you even in the midst of a far greater opportunity for your competitors will eventually ignite a last gasp breath in you to survive and still believe you are in the ‘comfortable lead’ ahead of the rest. This strength of survival creates a strong conviction that, it is matter of one single spark or kick either from you or your opponent to change a seeming certain conclusion to make destiny defines outcome in your favour.

This helps to “shift power” to you and gives you the oxygen to believe whilst creating a considerable doubt in both the technical expertise and luck of your competitor and increasing his [competitor’s] regret of why he did not act in other way. (For years to come, Diaz and his teammates will question the Panenka techniques he used to kick his penalty).

With the strong mindset of possibility in a calm, humble, hard work, team spirit, and a dedication to the leadership cause of action in motion, a disbelief is created in the opposite side which scales up, and the lack of strength to protect the dream of winning drains down their will power and ability as strength is geared towards protecting the regret and continue to wonder if there will be another chance to turn the tide of time.

With these qualities, the best candidate does not win with brilliance of political and electoral strategy and ideas alone, but with the strategy of conviction leveraged on quicker recovery of emotional intelligence and resilience at the highest level.

From where I sit, and weighing the strengths and weaknesses of all the five candidates contesting the January 31, 2026 presidential primaries of the NPP, and submerging them on the water tight wise principles of the great Jose Mourinho that football finals don’t reward structures but they test your response to disorder and finals are not courts of justice but tests of nerves, I can convincingly conclude that aside the political structure and clout built over the years, Bawumia is NPP’s best candidate and stands tall as the one with the tools to respond to disorder, have the nerves and emotional intelligence to stand the test of chaos, and have the resilience for all the character assassination towards 2028 Victory.

Bawumia’s courage and demeanour to accept defeat in the name of preventing what may have destroyed and ‘killed’ the beautiful Ghana we have; kill the lioness in him in future; drive away the energies of his supporters and silently sentence his beloved NPP into perpetual oblivion in the minds of many Ghanaians; his conviction to drive change and rewrite the political narratives of Ghana; his foresight on what matters most – victory in 2028; his reflexes in pulling relevant leadership pointers out of the chaos; and above all his mental discipline for humanity first before material gains, etc.; come first in every setting. These are the classical and fundamental attributes that a true fighter for political success, like him, in a democratic dispensation, needs to lead a country into prosperity.

I see in Bawumia a ‘spirit’ that fate is giving him another chance, and for which he is firmed and decisive on the direction to go, and for which he gladly takes it in good faith. This is against the posture of some of his competitors who sound like there is nothing left to lose, so they end up doing things that in their normal commonsense setting will never do.

They end up buying regret instead of resilience to fight on. This is because to them money is the driver of human destiny and so long as they have money and continue to build individual wealth from public procurement far above public wealth, they can control human destinies. This is the parody of their political life!

Once political discourse is reduced to ‘money currency with character assassination and defamation’, the value of public wealth comes to naught. Voting Bawumia is a mark of political maturity, placing Ghana in line with international best practices in developing public policy for jobs and economic development, and deepening the global political diplomacy for the best of Ghana’s long-term interests.

Many of us think that recent comments and official statements by Okudzeto Ablakwa in the diplomatic landscape are premature, infantile, unintelligent and above all counter-productive to the gains Ghana has sustainably achieved over the years which will ultimately affect our relationship and fraternity abroad.

NPP delegates should reflect on this to technically assess the credibility of the one that stands tall in emotional control and have the nerve to resist blowing hot air out of emotions and sentiments like ORAL that eventually becomes a cud de sac (dead end) without fact and substance to pursue life along with.

A word to the delegates is BAWUMIA!!!