We Need a Strategy for Massive Northern Voter Turnout for NPP in 2024

The recent suspension of Alhaji Ibrahim Kaleen, described by the media as Communications Team Member of the governing New Patriotic Party (NPP) in the Northern Region, indefinitely, may be perfectly in order, but it ought not to either bother or concern us, that is, the members, staunch supporters and sympathizers of the New Patriotic Party unduly (See “NPP Suspends Alan’s ‘Boy’ from Communications Team” Ghanaweb.com 1/6/22). It ought not to unduly bother or concern us because traditionally, the so-called Five Northern Regions are the near-hermetic stronghold of the main opposition National Democratic Congress (NDC). Even more significantly, it is highly unlikely that the culprit, namely, Alhaji Ibrahim Kaleen, can do any serious damage to the image, credibility and the hard-won reputation of the presumed frontrunner of the New Patriotic Party for the 2024 Presidential Election.

First of all, it is highly unlikely that any critical mass of staunch NPP supporters is willing to so facilely allow the prime once-in-a-lifetime opportunity of having one of their own at the helm of the nation’s affairs, and a very first one at that for the NPP, slip so easily by. Plus, even more importantly, the fact that Alhaji Ibrahim Kaleen, the alleged Alan Kyerematen shill, is himself, like Vice-President Mahamudu Bawumia, a bona fide Muslim, unless, of course, Mr. Kaleen is merely nominally sporting the significant devout Islamic title of “Alhaji” or a “Mecca-been-to,” unlike Alhaji Bawumia, lightly or for the vacuous sake of sobriquets or as a nickname. Going into Election 2024, the NPP is blessed with the bitter and disastrous but worthwhile experience of the late Vice-President Aliu Mahama to serve as a studious guide on how not to make it extremely easy for grossly incompetent populist regional chauvinists and tribalists like former President John “Akonfem-SADA” Dramani Mahama to scandalously and criminally reverse the unprecedented light years of socioeconomic gains made by the Akufo-Addo/Bawumia-led government of the New Patriotic Party.

Even more significantly, the highly likely Presidential Candidacy of the former Deputy-Governor of the nation’s Central Treasury, the Bank of Ghana, presents an inescapable noose for Candidate John “Akonfem-Kanazoe” Dramani Mahama to literally hang himself. You see, it was Kwame Gonja himself who rigged up his own political suicide noose in both 2012 and 2016, when he told his teeming crowd of supporters and sympathizers in Tamale, capital of both the old and new Northern Region, that the only condition under which it would be hunky-dory or perfectly in order for registered northern voters to cast their precious ballots for the Akufo-Addo-headed New Patriotic Party’s Presidential Ticket, would be if the relative positions of the NPP Presidential Candidates were reversed, with Alhaji Bawumia heading the very apex of the party’s ticket, with Nana Akufo-Addo serving as the running-mate of Alhaji Bawumia, a native of the Akufo-Addo-created North-East Region, which massively voted for their native son and the New Patriotic Party in the 2020 General Election.

We need to also underscore the fact that in the Akufo-Addo-created Savannah Region, where Kwame Gonja, as former President Mahama is also widely known, is the favorite son and easily the most famous or infamous indigene, depending on one’s political perch, the New Patriotic Party garnered approximately 40-percent of the votes. Now, with Dr. Bawumia at the very top of his party’s ticket, the NPP is highly likely to make an even more significant inroad in the Five Northern Regions. The landmark role played by “The Little Man from Kyebi” in the definitive resolution of the hitherto protracted internecine Yendi Chieftaincy Feud, should also see the New Patriotic Party doing exceptionally well as never before in the present-day Northern Region. The latter landmark Akufo-Addo achievement is indisputably the Achilles Heel of Mr. Mahama, who has strenuously and viciously attempted to make mischievous light of the definitive resolution of the hitherto Bloody Dagbon Chieftaincy Feud without any success.

To be certain, Kwame Gonja made matters worse for himself when he rather cynically and downright obtusely attempted to obliterate Nana Akufo-Addo’s indelible feat for bringing the Yendi Chieftaincy Crisis to a definitive halt. There is still quite a critical bit more to be done or achieved in Dagbon which Kwame Gonja, by his irredeemably scandalous and morally myopic cynicism, has more than amply demonstrated his woeful lack of capacity to engender or induce the same. In other words, it is only a Bawumia Presidency, in the post-Akufo-Addo era, that is apt to effectively maintain the very fragile peace in Dagbon. So far, the performance track record of Vice-President Bawumia, in terms of party loyalty, where and when it most mattered, is perfectly beyond contest. The Akan have a saying that was one of the favorites of my late father. It runs as follows: “When the future king was being given birth to, there were elders in the palace.”

In other words, when it comes to the worth of one’s leadership, what matters most is achievement, humility and competence, not the sheer longevity of one’s party membership, which is primarily what the fanatical supporters of Alan Cash, as Mr. Kyerematen is popularly known, have been zealously pushing without the necessary reference to the practical reality on the ground.

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By Kwame Okoampa-Ahoofe, Jr., PhD

English Department, SUNY-Nassau

Garden City, New York

January 7, 2022

E-mail: [email protected]