- GAKE Tells Nana Addo
The new pressure group, Get Alan Kyerematen Elected (GAKE) is constantly worried about the excuses being given by Akufo-Addo's loyalists to justify his failure in winning political power for the NPP. Listening to speeches and statements by Nana Addo and his supporters, one could observe that Nana Addo is yet to come to terms with the psychology of the Ghanaian voter. Nana claims to have 'won' Election 2008 and Election 2012, yet he has never set foot in the Flagstaff House as Ghana's president. Nana has always been a "winner" per Daddy Lumba's song, but the list of his cabinet members is yet to be made public.
For those of us in GAKE, the notion that Nana 'wins', but 'denied' victory acts as an affront to the intelligence of the Ghanaian electorate. It makes it appear that the Ghanaian voter gets it wrong when it comes to the choice of president at election period. One therefore wonders why Nana Akufo-Addo, the man who many NPP delegates think is tried, tested, marketed, and popular has not caught the eyes of these voters since 2008.
With the vast experience gathered from Election 1992, where a "Stolen Verdict" was out-doored by the party, it is mind-boggling to GAKE that the Nana Addo is still complaining about "rigging" or "electoral fraud" in this 21st Century. A careful observation of NPP's and Akufo-Addo's preparation towards the last two elections gives credence to GAKE's assertion that, Nana Addo is using the word "rigging" to perpetuate himself as the NPP's flag-bearer. For, as we are all aware, all the innovations in Ghana's electoral system - new voters' register, transparent ballot boxes, photographic identification cards, polling agents, and more importantly, biometric registration and voting could be credited to the NPP. Notwithstanding the flaws in Ghana's electoral system, different presidents have emerged from both NDC's and NPP's camp. The question then is, why should Akufo-Addo's rejection at the polls on three (3) occasions (including a run-off) be seen as "rigging", when he knows that "rigging" is part of the electoral game? If the 'thief' who stole for Rawlings, Kufuor, Mills, and Mahama has refused to do such favour for Akufo-Addo on three occasions (run-off included), why should the NPP stick out for only one individual as if the party is bereft with men/women with similar ideas?
GAKE is of the view that Akufo-Addo, no doubt, has been the luckiest NPP Flagbearer in Ghana due to the impressive economic record Kufuor left behind. With NPP in government in 2008, Nana had all the state apparatus at his disposal. It is thus difficult to fathom why Mills could beat Akufo-Addo by 40,000 votes. Again, having proposed the expansion of the NPP's Electoral College from 2,000 to over 140,000 delegates; having changed the entire NPP leadership in 2010; and having trained NPP Polling Agents to make correct entries on the pink sheets, why should Akufo-Addo turn around and say the last elections were rigged?.
GAKE notes that, whilst Candidate Kufuor declared; "Hw3 woasetena mu na to aba pa", to wit, examine your living condition and vote accordingly, Nana Addo preferred "All die be die" with the view to energizing the youth to protect the ballot boxes. To detect any form of rigging in the 2012 elections, special mobile phones worth a whopping two million dollars ($2m) were said to have been supplied to NPP Polling Agents in all the 26,002 Polling Stations. But, how effective was this strategy? GAKE has observed that, while a few Polling Agents had access to the phones, and some given theirs at the 11th hour, most of the party's agents did not even know how to operate the phones let alone send text messages to the appropriate quarters. Surprisingly, some of the beneficiaries had no choice than to give the phones to their girlfriends and wives, making the purpose of the NPP phone distribution useless. In some villages, the phone numbers were out of coverage, with faulty batteries. The end effect was that, the electoral results that were supposed to be sent to Hon. O.B. Amoah and Hon. Mathew Opoku Prempeh at the party headquarters before Afari Gyan announced the entire results did not come as expected. Who takes the blame?
GAKE further notes that, with the 26,002 pink sheets available to the NPP's Polling Agents, the party could have fallen on them for the collation of the electoral results, if even the phone collation could not materialize. However, for nearly two years, Jake, Sir John, and Hon. Mathew Opoku Prempeh had failed to let Ghanaians know the overall votes of Akufo-Addo as shown on the 26,002 pink sheets. How does one therefore determine the actual number of votes 'taken' from Akufo-Addo's and 'added' unto John Mahama's as initially alleged by Sir John? Again, GAKE throws a challenge to Nana Addo to come public on why 11,000 pink sheets, but not all the 26,002 pink sheets were sent to the Supreme Court to make our case. Similarly, GAKE wants to know whether Dr. Afari Gyan and his EC also 'rigged' all the thirty-eight (38) parliamentary seats that the NPP lost to the NDC as well. If it were found to be true that Afari Gyan actually 'rigged' the parliamentary seats for 38 unknown NDC candidates, then GAKE wants to question why the immediate NPP leadership abandoned its intention of challenging the 38 parliamentary seats at the court as initially planned.
GAKE recalls a certain remarkable statement made by Akufo-Addo in 1998 in Sunyani, where he challenged J.A. Kufuor to the flag-bearership slot. He stated; "Any candidate selected by NPP's delegates had already secured 30% of the valid votes. Failure to garner the remaining 20% plus 1 vote at the national elections could be attributed to the candidate's own fault, and therefore needs to be changed". GAKE wants to find out whether Nana Addo's statement in the 1998 NPP primaries is still relevant in the 2012 primaries. GAKE also wants to find out why Nana Addo is making a desperate attempt to lead the NPP for the third consecutive time, when his popular votes keep decreasing at a faster rate with one and a half regions - Ashanti and half Eastern? Based on the above, GAKE fears that, if Akufo-Addo is given another chance to lead the NPP, he would come back after 2016 to give another excuse that, he "won", but he was either 'robbed' by the EC or did not get support from Alan Cash and Kufuor.
GAKE therefore advises Nana Addo to take a rest from active politics and retire as a Statesman. Indeed, he has served the NPP and Ghana well, but the NPP needs a president not just flagbearer. If Nana truly loves the NPP as he claims, then he should give way to others, unless he wants to re-write history of Election 1979, where Nana and his direct uncle, Mr. William Ofori-Atta (Paa Willie) kept the PFP, now NPP, in opposition for more than two decades (1979 - 2000). GAKE therefore pleads with the NPP delegates to give Alan Kyerematen, the man who symbolizes humility, competence, gentility, unity, peace, beauty, and charisma, the nod in the upcoming primaries. Think Alan! Think Power!
Signed:
Katakyie Kwame Opoku Agyemang
(National Coordinator - 0202471070/0547851100)
Katakyie Kwame Opoku Agyemang, Asante Bekwai-Asakyiri. Email: katakyienpp@yahoo.co.uk
Mobile: 0547851100 : 0264931361 : 0202471070
"Vision, coupled with persistency, results in true success"
On 2014 E-K 24, at 06:55, Katakyie
GAKE: Stop the Mills - Nana Addo Comparison for once!
The new pressure group, Get Alan Kyerematen Elected (GAKE) has noted with deep concern the arguments being put forward by those rooting for Nana Akufo-Addo to contest the flag-bearership slot of the New Patriotic Party (NPP) for the third consecutive time. GAKE contends that, ever since Nana Akufo-Addo, the 2008 and 2012 Presidential Candidate of the NPP lost two successive elections, series of blame have been leveled against prominent people and institutions in the country without any justification. For, after blaming everybody - Afari Gyan, Mahama, Kufuor, Alan, Supreme Court, Polling Agents, except himself, Akufo-Addo and his supporters are now saying that Prof. Mills won the presidency on his third attempt - 2000, 2004, and 2008, so the NPP delegates should allow him a third time chance as NPP's flag-bearer.
GAKE therefore sees this argument as a very weak one, because of the political dichotomy of the NPP and NDC, as well as the personality differences of Nana Addo and Mills. Comparing yourself to a man who died mysteriously on the presidential throne, after he snubbed pieces of advice to abandon his presidential ambition makes Nana Addo not only over-ambitious, but also selfish individual. Since when did Akufo-Addo see something positive about Mills or the NDC? Was it not Akufo-Addo who labelled Atta Mills as "Prodessor-Do-Little" just because Mills had not performed to his satisfaction after four (4) months in office as president? Was it not Nana Addo's cousin, Gabby Asare Otchere Darko, who tagged Mills as a "Poodle", because of the Swedru Declaration? GAKE would be very grateful, if Nana Addo and his cohorts could furnish us with tangible answers.
In furtherance to the above, GAKE asserts that the assumption of an automatic victory for the NPP in Election 2016 all because NDC's Mills won on his third attempt due to 'sympathy votes' is a fallacy in conclusion. This is because the concept of individual differences teaches us that no two individuals are the same. As some people jokingly put it; "Elephant Mills; Elephant Nana", to wit, both Mills and Nana Addo are entirely two different personalities.
GAKE is of the view that the Mills-Nana comparison is one of the greatest mistakes any NPP member could make, as far as Ghanaian politics is concerned. To GAKE, it is like comparing apples with cars, but not even oranges. For, Mills unlike Nana Addo, was a professor cum sitting vice president. Mills also changed his running-mates three times - Muhammed Mumuni, Martin Amidu, and finally John Mahama. However, Nana Addo has maintained Dr. Bawumia since he became the leader of the NPP, and has neither become a Vice President nor professor in his lifetime.
GAKE also notes that Prof. Mills lost on two occasions to just one candidate, that is Mr. J.A. Kufuor, and though Mills was losing, his popular votes kept increasing from 44% to 48% and later 50.23%. On the other hand, Nana Addo, apart from losing to two different candidates - Mills and Mahama within a spate of five years, his votes have strangely been depreciating from 49.13% in 2008 first round, to 48% in the second round, and finally to 47.74% in Election 2012.
GAKE further asserts that, the NDC and NPP have different political ideologies, and looking at how Mills was 'uprooted' from obscurity to lead the NDC at the Swedru Congress, one wonders why the NPP, a party that fielded 17 presidential aspirants at one time, would copy blindly from its political opponent. GAKE thus wants Akufo-Addo's loyalists to come out and state that, yes, Mills won on his third attempt and died so Akufo-Addo would also win (though unlikely) on his third attempt, and "die" on the presidential throne.
In the light of the above, GAKE wants to take this opportunity to educate fellow NPP members, especially the delegates that our two electoral defeats were caused to a very large extent, by the Candidate we fielded. It is obvious from the last three presidential elections (run-off included) that, Nana Addo is not the voters' choice. Admittedly, Nana Addo is popular among the delegates because of the way the NPP polling station elections were conducted, but you would also agree with GAKE that, Nana's popularity or marketability has proven to be politically insignificant to the cause of NPP. To the average NPP member, all that the party needs at this crucial time is political power. Having contested the NPP flagbearership slot for three (3) times - 1998, 2007, and 2010 without giving the NPP what we want, GAKE does not see why Nana Akufo-Addo, who turns 72 years in 2016 is hellbent on becoming president. If all the people and institutions Nana Addo claims to have been the architect of his electoral defeats are still around by 2016, what is the guarantee that a similar thing won't happen in Election 2016? GAKE thus, entertains the fear that a defeat to Akufo-Addo in 2016 which is clearly written on the wall, will cause further disintegration in the NPP, a party he claims to have sacrificed his resources to build. We are therefore pleading with all delegates to think outside the box and see the imminent danger ahead of our beloved party with a 72 year Akufo-Addo as flagbearer. Let's give John Alan Kyerematen (JAK the second) a chance to show Nana Addo how to win political for our great party, for it very dangerous to put all our eggs in one basket. Let's try the Alan-Bawumia partnership. Think Alan! Think Power!
GAKE, one more change for power!
Singed...
Katakyie Kwame Opoku Agyemang
(National Coordinator - 0202471070/0547851100)
