A. R. Harruna Attah writes...Please pass on

This article was published as an ADM editorial last week with the title “An Aliu Endorsement”. I am repeating it in this column of mine. Please pass it on...

The Accra Daily Mail's (ADM) support for the New Patriotic Party (NPP) in opposition and in government is well known. In fact one of the reasons for setting up the ADM was to advance the liberal democratic values of the party.

The managing editor is a card carrying dues paying member of the party. Before establishing ADM, he edited The Statesman, at a time when it was acknowledged as the sole mouthpiece of the NPP. It was during his tenure there that he joined the ranks of media prison graduates.

His loyalty to party and country have been principled and unwavering and can be verified from the compendium of editorials, articles and columns he has penned over the years – they are now part of our nation's media records. He needs no other qualification therefore to feel entitled to express opinions about how the NPP should conduct its business. Indeed, if there is any such qualification, he is better qualified than most!

The NPP goes to congress in a couple of weeks time to elect a successor to President Kufuor. A number of worthy citizens are competing, including the sitting Vice President, Alhaji Aliu Mahama. ADM has taken a position over the past months to support the sitting Vice President in this venture and today ADM is formalizing the support into this public endorsement.

This, the ADM is doing, with the best of intensions and in good conscience. This does not mean that ADM likes the others less or hates them; this does not mean that ADM doubts their abilities and capabilities; this does not mean that ADM is calling into question their contribution to party and country; this does not mean that ADM does not respect them, but because the vacancy is for one person only and the ADM must decide which one would best serve the interests of the NPP and Ghana filling that vacancy.

It has been a soul-searching finger-wringing decision on our part because of the obvious hostility of the other aspirants we would be attracting to our newspaper – our fears have been borne out on a number of occasions. ADM believes that an Aliu candidacy would be the most winnable decision to be taken by the NPP in this next stage of its political journey and the best chance for the Danquah-Busia tradition to diversify its leadership gene pool and strengthen the stock to ensure the survival of liberal democracy in Ghana.

It is our view that Vice President Alhaji Aliu Mahama should have even been selected by acclamation at a special congress to lead the NPP into the next elections. It would have been the neatest arrangement at this transitional stage of the NPP's resurgence. Democracy does not preclude such practices especially when performed in good faith.

But Ghana's first two term Vice President is being treated with what amounts almost to contempt. It is a precedence which those who are helping to establish must know would come to haunt personally and the party sooner or later. This is neither a wish nor a curse but we are told that “what we sow, we reap”. Perhaps it is also good that the Vice President is slogging it out with so many other aspirants because the position would have been fought for and won and not acquired through the proverbial silver platter!

Aliu himself did not lobby to be the running mate to candidate Kufuor. In fact recognizing the role he had been playing quietly to advance the interest of the NPP in Northern Ghana, and recognizing his immense contribution to the candidate's campaign in the north, Candidate Kufuor asked him – and others – to help in the search of a running mate! It was during the search that the candidate turned the spotlight on the searcher! What would history be without such turns of events?!

Over the past few months, many fine articles have been written on the subject of why the NPP should make Aliu the party's presidential candidate. We believe they are compelling and convincing enough. We are reproducing some of them in this edition and invite our readers to read them carefully and pass on the message of hope to others.

We endorse the candidacy of Alhaji Aliu Mahama, Vice President of the Republic of Ghana and call on all the delegates who would convene on December 22 2007 to do likewise. He has subsumed his talents, abilities and instincts these past seven years in loyalty to his boss and service to country. The time has come for him to bring a new sheen and style to the presidency. Denying him the nomination would dim many lights across the land and put some off forever. Let us not kill the hope.

It is all about magnanimity, solidarity and positive affirmation which the NPP would be enriched by and Ghana would benefit from. An Aliu candidacy would make things so much easier for the NPP in '08...

Long live the NPP, Long live Ghana.

God bless our Homeland Ghana

Abdul-Rahman Harruna Attah (Alhaji), Managing Editor