The Otokunor’s campaign; the Atuahene and journey of the youth revolution

Anyone who by chance comes across Kwesi Atuahene will recognize his sense of selflessness, dedication and sacrifice. That’s who we are, the men of the traditional order of GIJ.

We met in GIJ by accident of our political differences, he was one of the gifted creative writers at our sophomore days in uni. He was so gifted in the act of political satire writing that, he has such a very skillful act of describing anyone who he intended to “assassinate” by way of writing, one day, he wrote an article about one of our colleagues, who is no-more with us, the whole student political class at the time was so furious about the crafted disrespect that it led to unpleasant historical events I will talk about someday in the future.

Fast forward to Dr. Peter Boamah Otokunor campaign. One morning, I wrote my observations about how the general Secretary campaign will shape up in the just ended elections, and expressed my views, largely on Elvis and Peter and how both could have some enormous impact on the party’s, based on their historical political antecedents. I posted this piece in our political groupings on WhatsApp platforms and sent same to Peter and Elvis in their private inboxes, they both read it, yet, Peter responded and called for a meeting.

That meeting didn’t happen immediately, because I was hesitant, my lessons in this crocodile business of politics, where it doesn’t matter whether you share the River with them, when it becomes necessary, you must be feasted on for the survival of others. Yes, sometimes, we all get scared based on our past experiences, and genuinely I was on this occasion.

Subsequently however, we met, but before the meeting, Peter asked that, I suggest some other young people he can trust to work with, because to him, his campaign was about how to bridge the gap between the next generation of the NDC activities and grow the party organically. This ideal, I believe defined the campaign outlook and how young people became the face and owners of his general secretary bid.

In my mind, Atuahene was the first individual even if I was resurrected from grave to mention a name, because, there a couple of people have traveled this journey with, none of them was really available due to their personal engagements within and outside of the country, but my able lieutenant (Sweety, Richard Kwesi, Sekyere Atuahene) was in and around. When I called him and informed him that, I have sent his contact to Dr, and couple of others within the “Tradition” ( that’s the internal identity of our core forces). He readily showed up and signed on.

We eventually had that decision-making and assignments of roles meeting, and I can say that, at the meeting, beyond Dr and some other 2 constituencies executives, every other person was either in their mid-thirties or late-twenties. Yes, it was a youth revolution. The man was true to his words.

The details of that event is a matter of political strategy and will forever remain with me, but certainly, Dr assigned roles, and asked that I head his operations for the campaign. But in my head, I know this’s was a call on Atuahene. Because I had been on other campaign before this and was willing to give room to him, and only come in when it becomes necessary, because everything I will do political, he will, we come from the same stock, the Steve Kubate Salifu, Raymond Bayor, Noel and the co political tradition of GIJ.

Since that meeting, which Dr indicated was certainly going to be our first but last meeting before the end-days of the campaign, he stood in for my absence, he traveled every constituency, all 275 with Dr, he took responsibility that would have ordinarily fall on me! The Atuahene I know, admire and will put everything on the line for, came to duty and acted fully his responsibilities.

Every day in the evening when I’m not directly traveling with them, I will call, sometimes after 1am to find out how things were going, I randomly check up on Dr himself, and to admiration, the energy and spirit around the campaign was always active and flammable.

Tonight’s I write to say a big thank you to Atuahene the real MVP and to Dr Peter Otokunor for his confidence in us and all the young people who showed up and braved their bravest chest for this campaign.

One day, I will talk about, a certain Emmanuel, Herlen, Wahab, Julie, Julius, Etornam, Verdict, Hakim, Dauda, Mohammed, Mark, Eric, Montana, Sefa, Joshua and the many other young people who kept our hope alive to the very last count of our votes.

We came through this because of you and will achieve a lot more with this same level of zeal.

From your friend Madugu, I say Merry Christmas and Prosperous 2023.