Of Course, Bawumia Is a Great Headache for NDC Presidential Aspirants!

I read a news story in which somebody loosely described as a leading member of Ghana’s main opposition National Democratic Congress (NDC), by the name of Nurudeen Hamidan, was reported to be earnestly pleading with or urging President Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo to make haste by openly and publicly declaring his unreserved support for Vice-President Alhaji-Dr. Mahamudu Bawumia in the runup to the 2024 Presidential Election, because that was what a then-President John Agyekum-Kufuor did for the extant Trade, Industry and Special Presidential Initiatives Minister, namely, Mr. Alan John Kwadwo Kyerematen, in the runup to the 2008 Presidential Election (See “Learn from Agyekum-Kufuor and Openly Declare Support for Bawumia – Akufo-Addo Told” MyNewsGH.com / Ghanaweb.com 4/8/21).

Mr. Nurudeen Hamidan, the unsolicited Akufo-Addo adviser, is also described as a former Municipal Chief Executive Officer (MCE) for Asokore-Mampong, in the Asante Region. Maybe somebody ought to tell Mr. Hamidan that “The Little Man from Kyebi,” actually from Akyem-Abomosu, going by the Akan matrilineal inheritance system, is no blind copycat of former President John Agyekum-Kufuor. You see, those of us in the camp of the dauphin of the legendary President Edward Akufo-Addo, of the K A Busia-led Progress Party (PP) era, came with our own tradition and time-proven agenda which we had had the excruciating chance to develop and hone for nearly a decade prior to Nana Akufo-Addo’s auspicious occupancy of Jubilee House. There are, of course, a legion other things that we may and can, all of us, learn from former President John Agyekum-Kufuor.

But, definitely, our choice of which political racehorse to back for the 2024 Presidential Election is not one of them. That would be downright asinine and an anathema which, we are pretty certain, even Comrade John “Akonfem-SADA” Dramani Mahama’s own Divine Providence would not abide or forgive. Even more significant to apprise Mr. Hamidan of is the fact that the call for the nomination of 2024 Presidential Candidates by the movers-and-shakers of the ruling New Patriotic Party has yet to begin. Now, couple the preceding with the well-established fact that we are disciplined sticklers for laws, rules and regulations, and it ought to have become crystal clear to Mr. Hamidan, by now, that there is absolutely no way for any of us bona fide operatives of the FONAA Group of Electors and Kingmakers to jump the gun by presuming to ride roughshod over our party’s schedule.

And, yes, Mr. Hamidan is right on target and perfectly accurate to observe that the greatest and most pressing challenge presently facing the National Democratic Congress is not the potential or likely Presidential Candidacy of Alhaji-Dr. Bawumia but, rather, the imperative need to clinch victory by hook or crook. Well, actually, the quondam Asokore-Mampong MCE is grossly mistaken, because it is very obvious that the greatest challenge facing the National Democratic Congress in the approach towards the 2024 General Election, is the horrendously abysmal governance-performance record of the Mahama-led National Democratic Congress and, before the latter, the equally lackluster governance-performance record of the late President John Evans Atta-Mills, which, by the way, was only slightly better than that of the latter’s successor and, some would say, his cold-calculating hatchet man.

Ultimately, however, the most formidable challenge facing the key operatives of the Jerry John Rawlings-fangled National Democratic Congress, venturing into the 2024 General Election is still, unmistakably, a Bawumia-Kyerematen Presidential Ticket. Because it is self-evident that the 2024 General Election will squarely rest on the comparative performance records of the New Patriotic Party and the National Democratic Congress, at least that is the opinion of a significant majority of the Ghanaian electorate. Contrary to what Mr. Nurudeen Hamidan would have the general Ghanaian public believe, the key operatives of the National Democratic Congress cannot cavalierly presume to be able to run away from their criminally abysmal performance track-record. Which also means that like a man and his shadow, the NDC apparatchiks cannot run away from themselves and their glaring mirror-image on Ghana’s political landscape.

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By Kwame Okoampa-Ahoofe, Jr., PhD

English Department, SUNY-Nassau

Garden City, New York

April 10, 2021

E-mail: [email protected]