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Alan Has No Credibility or Locus Standi for 2024 Presidential Election

Feature Article Alan Has No Credibility or Locus Standi for 2024 Presidential Election
MAR 27, 2023 LISTEN

If the New Patriotic Party (NPP) was looking for a tried-and-tested political opportunist to field as its Presidential Candidacy Nominee for the 2024 General Election, then one could absolutely have no doubt or reservation, whatsoever, that settling on the so-called People’s Choice, an abominable and morally insulting accolade that presupposes the most reliable and genuine members, supporters and sympathizers of the New Patriotic Party to be wholly and execrably composed of “Summer Soldiers,” in the memorable phrase of Patriot Thomas Paine, the British-born American Revolutionary War Hero, would be perfectly kosher.

Fortunately, the New Patriotic Party is not looking for a Summer Soldier or Summer Soldiers. Rather, we are looking for All-Purpose and All-Season Warriors and Nation-Builders to move Ghana up the ladder of socioeconomic development. And relative to these two most significant characteristics of the Ideal Candidate for the 2024 Presidential Election, Candidate Alan John Kwadwo Kyerematen has absolutely no worthwhile market value to speak of, much less think of discussing within a forum with a global reach like this one. We are here, of course, responding to a publicity stunt of a news article captioned, “To Break the 8, NPP Needs the Credibility of Alan Kyerematen – The People’s Choice Campaign” (Modernghana.com 3/26/23), that appeared on several major Ghanaian media portals.

To convince any critically thinking eligible Ghanaian voter that, indeed, Mr. Kyerematen is a “credible” and a “reliable” choice of Presidential Candidate of remarkable traction and formidability, heading into the 2024 General Election, the recently resigned Trade and Industry Minister of the Akufo-Addo Administration needs to explain precisely where he was vis-à-vis his membership status and standing within the New Patriotic Party between 2008 and 2016, especially regarding Mr. Kyerematen’s very public and widely publicized “Letter of Resignation from the New Patriotic Party,” shortly after he had been seismically defeated in a party presidential primary in the Great Hall of the country's flagship academy, to wit, the University of Ghana, Legon.

You see, Alan Cash, as the Asante-’Dweso (Edweso/Ejisu) and Kumasi-Patasi native is also popularly known and called, cannot cavalierly presume to boast about having logged some 30 years of heavy-lifting service to both party and country, when he was not even a registered member of the New Patriotic Party between 2008, when he very publicly and virulently resigned his membership status, and 2016, when a sheepish but shamelessly opportunistic Mr. Kyerematen was undeservedly but generously rewarded with the very sensitive major cabinet portfolio of Trade and Industry Minister, conspicuously devoid or bereft of the nepotistic John “Gentle Giant” Agyekum-Kufuor-created “additive” or the ministerial adjunct portfolio or sub-portfolio of Minister for Presidential Special Initiatives (PSI).

Indeed, even as a very longshot presidential-candidacy aspirant has been quick to point out time and time ad-nauseam, the New Patriotic Party’s presidential-nomination process is not about a “Kingship Coronation.” Rather, it is about proven leadership mettle or worth and unbroken diligent and visionary service to both party and country. And, unfortunately, on both fronts, Alan Cash is decidedly and unquestionably Absent-Without-Leave (AWOL). I mean, what kind of a “unifying” leader throws a hissy-fit or a tantrum like a toddler and renounces his membership of the very political party establishment whose ticket and staunch backing he needs to clinch his vaulting ambition for the Presidency, simply because he has woefully failed to be democratically elected to lead the party into an epic and watershed presidential-election battle?

That is the inescapably unattractive profile of a megalomaniacal and self-infatuated party divider, rather than the unifier that he and his hired and rented supporters and vacuous rag-tag cheering team would have the rest of us believe that he is. And this latter gimmickry ought to inform all of us, the Ghanaian people, about the unpardonably sinister motive of the membership of the so-called People’s Choice Campaign operatives, composed almost wholly of Kyerematen hirelings and hangers-on. You see, in 2008, when a convincingly defeated Alan Kyerematen relinquished his membership of the New Patriotic Party – he has since vehemently and characteristically denied the fact that he selfishly left the party – a pathologically cynical Alan Cash also scandalously, treacherously and unconscionably crossed party and ideological lines to cast his ballot for his “Fellow Fante Man.”

In sum, for Candidate Kyerematen, “Blood is much, much thicker than water.” The stark and unvarnished fact of the matter, however, is that Alan Cash fundamentally and seriously lacks the kind of razor-sharp principle that his People’s Choice Campaign hirelings and rented supporters claim to be their hero’s strongest suit. But, of course, those of us avid and staunch members, supporters and sympathizers of the New Patriotic Party are well aware of the fact that Alan Cash is a very Naked Man who has absolutely no “suit” at all to speak of, both in literal terms and figuratively. He is clinically a Naked Man who is incurably afflicted with acute dementia but who has, pathetically, managed to fool himself into believing that he is truly the original and the most authentic “Otumfuo Osei-Tutu” of Fourth Republican Ghanaian political culture. Except that he is a carrion-addicted vulture.

He is only a wishfully thinking beggar who would capriciously have his irrational desire for the Presidency turned into a horse or a derby steed, so that he could comfortably ride the same without having to break a drop of sweat, let alone shed a drop of blood. And, by the way, the “Fellow Fante Man” alluded to earlier on in this piece referred to none other personality than the late President John Evans

“Atta-Woyome” Mills, who had the present Dynastic Presidential Candidate of the country’s main opposition National Democratic Congress, Okogufuo Yagbonwura Kwame Gonja, as his presidential “Spare-Tire” or running-mate and, subsequently, Vice-President of the Sovereign Democratic Republic of Ghana. So, it would be quite fascinating, perhaps even amusing, to see a highly unlikely Candidate Kyerematen convince Ghanaian voters as to why these voters would not be making a grievous mistake voting for the same then second-banana Candidate Mahama that Alan Cash callously crossed party lines to vote for in the 2008 Presidential Election.

Visit my blog at: KwameOkoampaAhoofeJr

By Kwame Okoampa-Ahoofe, Jr., PhD
English Department, SUNY-Nassau
Garden City, New York
March 26, 2023
E-mail: [email protected]

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