My Brother, It Is About Caliber, Not Sheer Numbers

I have already discussed why I firmly believe that his decision to gun for the 2028 Presidential Election would be an extremely tough sell and an absolute waste of time and money. So, in this conversation, I will not unnecessarily bother to belabor the same details, once again, except to remind Mr. Dear Brother Kwabena Agyei Agyepong about the patently unarguable fact that while, indeed, the number of cabinet appointees that any substantive President fields in his/her administration clearly matters, what is even far more important is the caliber of the appointees so fielded or culled into his/her government, rather than the sheer numerical strength of the members of his/her ministerial cabinet appointees (See “NPP Flagbearer Race: I’ll Appoint Only 19 Ministers If Elected President - Kwabena Agyepong” Modernghana.com 8/28/25).

Indeed, if sheer numbers were the most significant factor in running an efficient government, then it would go without saying that the twice nonconsecutively elected President John “I Have No Classmates in Ghana” Dramani Mahama would definitely top the relatively modest pack of our Five, so far, Fourth-Republican Presidents. But what did Ghanaians really get, by way of socioeconomic development under the maiden tenure of the Mahama 1.0 regime but rank corruption and the total collapse of such critical quality-of-life enhancement of institutional establishments such as the John “The Gentle Giant” Agyekum-Kufuor-established Low-Premium National Health Insurance Scheme (NHIS)?

How about the much-ballyhooed copycat Mahama-fangled Savannah Accelerated Development Authority (SADA), a strategic cudgel that a pathologically ethnic-baiting Kwame Gonja had used to “guilt-trip” the country’s Akan Ethnic Majority in a patently farcical “Blame Game” that made the relatively most peaceful and industrious Ethnic Polities in the country seem like the most parasitic and exploitative civic components of the entire country? We are here, of course, referencing the globally celebrated core members and operatives of the Asante Federation.

For those among us who may have so scandalously and pathetically forgotten the same, that was the fundamental motive and the singular objective of the late Chairman Jeremiah “Jerry” John Rawlings-led extortionate junta of the globally infamous Armed Forces Revolutionary Council (AFRC) and, subsequently, the Rawlings-led junta of the so-called Provisional National Defense Council (PNDC). But what really did SADA, which purportedly aimed at evening up the national economic development landscape achieve? Absolutely nothing, except an opportunity for a handful of Northern-Descended Ghanaian Politicians and State-Capturing Entrepreneurial Fraudsters to filthily fill their wallets and bank accounts at the expense of the overwhelming majority of Ghanaian citizens and taxpayers.

In the end, only a couple of these State-Capturing Robber-Barons ended up in the slammer, as Americans are wont to say, with the Pontiff of this Ali Baba Gang literally getting away with murder. So, clearly, what well-intentioned aspirants for the Presidency like My Brother Nana Kwabena Agyei Agyepong ought to be talking about and/or seriously discussing is whatever National Development Agenda, including a State-of-Emergency Battle Against Galamsey, that these aspirants have for the country. So far, Candidate Kwabena Agyepong has yet to roll out any comprehensive National Development Agenda (NDA) for the country.

Now, My Dear Brother’s one great handicap, which Yours Truly has already fairly extensively discussed with this otherwise decent man, is the fact that while, indeed, he has been a government insider, at least as a Press Secretary for former President Agyekum-Kufuor, nevertheless, for most of his career in politics - he much better prefers to call himself “An Engineer” - Candidate Agyepong has virtually and practically been a “Spectator” of government events and activities. For example, unlike Dr. Yaw Osei-Adutwum, the former Minister of Education and the Member of Parliament for Bosomtwe Constituency, in the Asante Region, Candidate Agyepong has never held any major cabinet portfolio.

Which also means that as a “government insider,” My Dear Brother has never had to manage a budget as a public administrator, a critical managerial experience that would have enabled this politically ambitious man to have a hands-on familiarity with the indispensable art of budgeting and other practically related aspects of fiscal management. Plus, him never having served as a Parliamentarian or a National Assembly Representative (NAR), means that, at best, his familiarity with Parliamentary or Legislative Protocol is decidedly tenuous which, in a Parliamentary Governance System (PGS) like Ghana’s Fourth Republic, would not make it easy for Candidate Kwabena Agyei Agyepong to negotiate his way about and around the kind of daily grind and horse-trading that routinely transpires between the Legislative and the Executive branches of our governance system.

As well, the bitter memories of an overwhelming majority of both registered and dues-paying mature-adult members of the New Patriotic Party (NPP) do not evoke substantially much that verges on a strategically conciliatory approach to the kind of factional crisis that rocked the party while the now-Candidate Agyepong served as General-Secretary of the NPP, with an equally brash and brazen Mr. Paul Awentami Afoko as the party’s National Chairman. Which, by the way, is not necessarily to imply that Candidate Kwabena Agyei Agyepong could not rise above the kinks and the rough edges of his admittedly daunting and relatively dismal political track record.

Rather, the preceding is simply to remind the Mfantsipim and the Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology (KNUST) alumnus that his work, in informal American phraseology, is cut out for him. Good luck all the same, My Dear Brother!

By Kwame Okoampa-Ahoofe, Jr., PhD
Professor Emeritus, Department of English
SUNY-Nassau Community College
Garden City, New York
E-mail: [email protected]