Political Seduction: Akufo Addo’s Way

'All Die Be Die' may sound alarmist but whosoever advised Nana Akufo Addo to pull this stunt did a great job. Eventually, he got a free ride in the media without paying a pesewa, and like the 'BOOM' speeches of Jerry John Rawlings, every statement of his from now on will be captioned 'All Die Be Die'. He managed finally to create news for the media to pick up and spread his name in in an uncalculated fashion. And like typical Kumasiano terminology every argument in a street corner, every debate, and every speech will contain an anecdote that ends in the latest phrase 'All Die Be Die'. It reminds me of the essays of the Common Entrance Examination English that will usually quote the beginning of a story in a phrase or an ending of it in another phrase, where you are asked to fill in with your own narrative given the concluding phrase '…All Die Be Die'. And if this is not enough let's try to fill in some blanks in the Verbal section of the Verbal & Quantitative paper:

Boom is to Jerry John Rawlings as All Die Be Die is to Nana Akufo Addo;

All Die Be Die is to Nana Akufo Addo as …[God is the President of Ghana] is to John Attah Mills.

Did Mills really mean that he was God by implication? Is that the reason he was branded as a Better man for a Better Ghana? He would be stoned by the Jews for blasphemy!

In a hierarchy of best political brands at this stage it is obvious what the rankings will be. Nana Akufo Addo may not be an orator and may have messed up in the last elections, when his opponents blew his appearance and character out of proportion as an epitome of arrogance. He may have composed a losing communications team that was made up of advertisers and marketers but lacked quick-witted strategists that knew how to swiftly ride on the wings of the opposition as the National Democratic Congress (NDC) stole the Convention People's Party's (CPP) 'wind of CHANGE' and captured Nana Akufo Addo's 'MONKEY DANCE' and used it as a sign of pursuing the New Patriotic Party (NPP) out of political office. His achievement-laden and statistical speeches did him in as he got on the nerve of Ghanaians, made himself look sophisticated, snobby and superior to the electorate while the Mills' team adopted a charlatan approach to selling dubious herbal panaceas of the Divine Clinic on the Inter-City Buses by first getting everyone on board to shout 'Amen' to their 'safe-journey prayers and then preach the Old Testament gospel that ends in God's instruction to use herbs, by which time the passengers would be seduced into buying what they do not need: a Magic Chalk for Ghana. Once you forget to draw the magic circle around you in the beginning, your soul gets forever enslaved by a demon for making the wrong choice and forgetting the instructions.

A good modern languages student and a lawyer can both argue on end as to the respective etymological and contextual meaning of the word 'DIE', if it does not connote or denote the voting of the NDC out of power…ultimately. With the winds of revolution blowing from the North of Africa the last thing any Ghanaian wanted to hear was a call to arms as if 'BOOM' was a pleasant alternative. Nana Akufo Addo's statement came in handy for the opposition to brand him a revolutionary that wants to disturb the peace, but whose peace? In 'All Die Be Die' could also be tweaked 'whether you resign from office or you are voted out or booted out or you are handed your ***, it is all about kicking someone out of office'.

The NDC may have seduced Ghanaian Political Consumers by playing on their emotions but the scales fell of the eyes of these nose-dragged consumers when President Mills relinquished control of the nation and its economy as he declared that God was the President of Ghana-- the people cannot always be fooled all the time. If he cannot stand the heat, there's definitely a fire exit in the kitchen. The photos of the morose outlook of President Mills have outlived their usefulness come Elections 2012 and the Rawlings' have been quick to spot this.