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Will Samia Follow Paa Kwesi Nduom’s ‘Doomed Path’?

Sun, 16 Dec 2012 Source: Otchere Darko

Will Samia follow Paa Kwesi Nduom’s path that spelt the doom of his political career? This question flashed through my wondering mind when I read the headline under reference below.

By Otchere Darko

Reference: “Samia, Adams to join cabinet” [Ghanaweb General News of Friday, 14 December 2012; Source: The Chronicle Newspaper]

Vision originates from long-sightedness, and both lead to victory. Short-sightedness is a twin-lane of lack of vision and both merge into a ‘doomed lane’ that leads its followers into a ‘political ditch’. Dr Kwame Nkrumah, the father of Samia, was blessed with vision; and this fact explains the relative success of his political career. Has Samia got the vision of her father? *I leave readers, time, and posterity to help answer this ‘billion-cedi question’, because I am myself not sure of the answer.

What I can say with surety is that Dr Paa Kwesi Nduom committed a political blunder some twelve years ago by falling into what I call a political ‘doom’s trap’, by agreeing to be part of former President Kufuor’s cabinet. By so doing, Dr Paa Kwesi Nduom set himself on a ‘doom’s path’ that led him to his perpetual political destruction. By joining the cabinet of Kufuor’s NPP administration, Dr Paa Kwesi Nduom put a sword in his own chest and pressed it hard to commit a political suicide. What he, Dr Nduom, did was akin to adding a teaspoonful of sugar to a bag of salt. The sugar immediately loses its identity forever and ever. The loss of the political identity of Dr Paa Kwesi Nduom ever since he joined Kufuor’s cabinet and after explains his political failures in both the 2008 and 2012 elections, despite the immense personal finance he invested in the two abortive campaigns of the two parties (CPP and PPP) he led consecutively.

My advice to Samia is that she should reject the ‘clever attempt’ of President John Mahama to politically destroy her and the CPP forever. The NDC led by Mr John Mahama has won the 2012 elections, but that party has failed to measure up to Dr Kwame Nkrumah’s CPP that won on a ‘clean sheet’ all post-self governing and post-independent Ghanaian elections of 1951, 1954, 1956 and 1960. Dr Nkrumah used his ‘charm’ and his vision, and not ‘electoral malpractices’ to defeat his ‘colossal opponents’ led firstly by the astute lawyer and “doyen of Gold Coast politics”, Dr Joseph Boakye Danquah, and secondly by the Oxford-educated sociologist and shrewd politician, Professor Kofi Abrefa Busia. Dr Kwame Nkrumah did not need to win elections “by all means”, as the NDC chose to do in the just-concluded Presidential and Parliamentary elections.

Samia must honour the name of her father by staying ‘pure Nkrumahist’, even if doing that would mean she cannot be an MP anywhere in Ghana, or a Minister in a Ghanaian Government formed by CPP, or the President of Ghana. She should take consolation in the fact that an ounce of ‘good name’ is better than a ton of ‘bad name’.

Source: Otchere Darko

Columnist: Otchere Darko