Let Us Mirror Nana Addo’s Character

In recent times, some members of our party and acclaimed Nana Addo loyalists have been complaining to me behind the scenes that they find it difficult to understand why I am an ardent Nana Addo supporter but still criticize certain public pronouncements by some followers of Nana Addo.

Some of them have even gone to the extent of actually doubting my loyalty to Nana Addo's course just on the account that I have had the boldness to openly criticize some self-appointed aides of the man, whose public pronouncements have always been in sharp contrast to his ideals and character traits.

Nana Addo has been in front-line politics of Ghana, long before some us were even born and his track-record is very much well-chronicled.the man has never been associated with violence and reckless talk. His pre-occupation in politics, over the years, has always centered on striving for the rights of ordinary man, with an expressed purpose of upholding both civil and human rights of all. It is for this reason that over-whelming numbers of our party currently see the good qualities in him and massively throwing their support behind him, just as they did in both 2008 and 2012, to lead our great party into the battle of 2016.

And for the information of all, I have been receiving a lot of complains from our grass-root supporters who are genuinely worried about current happenings in our party. Most of these supporters know me to be an ardent Nana Addo loyalist so they call me to complain about people close to Nana Addo, engaging in needless media warfare on behalf of the man; and their reason is very simple, Nana Addo is extremely popular and he will win any internal contest with cheeky ease, so why the fanatically fanatical fanatic fanaticism?

There are others who also accuse me of not lambasting loyalists of Alan who engage in similar “reckless” talk. And here my point is simple; I spearheaded the social media aspect of Kwabena Agyepong's campaign for the party's General Secretary position, and as you are all aware, I made it a policy never to respond to negative attacks mounted against him in the social media. I rather focused my attention and expended my energies on projecting the qualities and capabilities of Kwabena, with intensively intensive intensity, and in the process, was able to win many hearts of even those who were his fiercest critics.

In much the same vein, I expect those of us who support Nana Addo's candidature to adopt this decent,tried,tested,workable,productive and successful strategy, since our party delegates have always been shrewd in differentiating the wheat from the chaff, whenever they have been called upon to make choices to enhance electoral fortunes of our great party.

Indeed, this emerging tendencies of SCARY INTOLERANCE, REPREHENSIBLE VITRIOL, GROUNDLESS SUSPICION AND BASELESS MISTRUST are totally alien to our tradition and it is incumbent on all those who seek the welfare of our party, cohesiveness of its members and enhancement of our electoral fortunes in 2016 and beyond, to rise up and nip such a deadly EBOLA-like virus in the bud.

For example, on the day of super delegates' congress to prune-down the number of prospective flag-bearers to the party's constitutionally mandated number of five, Nana Addo who is potentially the ultimate beneficiary of the process, went to cast his vote at the party's headquarters and quietly went away, disappointing prowling paparazzi seeking to elicit comments from him. But rather strangely, you had people claiming to be his loyalists, actually displaying their thumb-printed ballot papers to live television cameras, while others granted interviews and openly campaigning for the man, right besides the ballot box.

Now, such behavior is clearly in total contravention of both our national constitution and internal party rules/regulations governing the process. So, who can fault me when I choose to condemn such acts by people claiming to be Nana Addo's loyalists, when their very behavior is in sharp contrast to what the man actually stands for?

I hear this displaying of thumb-printed ballot papers also took place in Ashanti and Northern regions; and I condemn this too, unreservedly. Again, the Special Delegates' congress was not to elect a substantive flagbearer, but, to select five prospective contestants to be voted on at the main delegates' congress. So, those of us who believe in Nana Addo and therefore supporting his candidature, have absolutely no business calling on any of these five selected personalities to back-out of the contest.

The appropriate and politically acceptable thing for us to do, is rather go down to the polling stations and sell our preferred candidate since they are the ones that will be making the choice, instead of trying to paint a picture of seeking to impress upon any of the contestants to abandon his dream in mid-stream. In anycase,are we going to impress upon President John Dramani Mahama to step-down from the race, should the 2016 presidential election go into a second round,or,we will rather go back to the electorates, sell Nana Addo and convince them to vote for him?

Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo, unquestionably, is a decent statesman and a potential president, asuch, those of us supporting his candidature must endeavor to exemplify his good character characteristics, since such act of vitriolically vitriolic vitriol in the media against members of our own elephant family, just because we don't agree with them on certain issues, is woefully unproductive and frighteningly divisive. Let us therefore learn to zip-up on matters which can easily be resolved internally, since GAPING SYCOPHANTICALLY SYCOPHANTIC SYCOPHANCY IS DEFINITELY NOT CONTERMINOUS WITH UNFLINCHING LOYALLY LOYAL LOYALTY.

Consequently, if we really are loyalists of Nana Addo and therefore sincerely desirous to seeing him sworn-in as the legitimately and democratically elected president of our dear beloved nation, Ghana, on 7th January, 2017, then, let us make a vow to project his sterling qualities in the areas of HUMILITY, SELFLESSNESS AND INCORRUPTIBILITY, and rather leave the others to keep keeping engaging in shadow-boxing since it is the end that will always justify the means, and always remember to “BUY THE TRUTH, AND SELL IT NOT” – John 8:32. NPP WILL BE BACK!!!

Newton-Offei Justice Abeeku
E-mail: [email protected]