Overtaking the Elephant into the Bush - Arthur K's Communication of Complacency

Gabby Asare Otchere Darko

Excerpts of a Book Review of 'Chasing the Elephant into the Bush: The Politics of Complacency' Author: Dr. Arthur Kobina Kennedy.

By Asare "Gabby" Otchere-Darko
Below are excerpts from my review of a book written by a man I shared an office room with for the duration of the 2008 presidential campaign…

Arthur Kennedy's book, 'Chasing the Elephant into the Bush – the Politics of Complacency' has generated the kind of media furore that would make any author very proud. In reality, there is nothing controversial about the actual contents of the book. Rather than delivering the enlightening account and analysis one might have expected from an inner-circle notable such as Arthur K (as we call him), the book instead presents an interesting but not especially insightful account of the events of the NPP campaign in a readable and enjoyable manner, together with the now all-too-familiar analysis of the causes of the NPP defeat as have already been articulated by several observers and disappointed NPP sympathisers.

What has proved genuinely intriguing is how this rather standard account of the NPP's 2008 campaign has come to attract such controversy. The explanation for this lies not in its content, but rather the way in which it has emerged from the ether, with little forethought or forewarning given to the management of its launch.

Ironically for a book written by the communications head of a presidential candidate (in which he seeks to outline what went wrong in his boss' campaign), the author has spectacularly failed in successfully managing his book's promotional campaign – a rather glaring indictment on the author.

As a result of the ill-conceived strategy of releasing it to just a small, select group, the author has allowed its contents and message to become distorted and spun without any recompense to the full text for those who may seek to verify the context of the sensational twists and headlines generated in the media.

The author's frustrations with how the book has been treated by the Ghanaian media is clear in this paragraph of a rejoinder published on Joy FM's website: “A seasoned journalist interested in honest reporting and our political development would have found a lot of constructive headlines from the book or even from the body of your story. Amongst the significant issues raised by the book are: the over 205 thousand spoilt ballots that could have given the NPP a first round victory; the systematic attacks on the institutions of state by the NDC campaign that was documented by the EU Monitoring team; the Election-night shenanigans in places as far apart as Ablekuma, Asutifi and Ketu that distorted the will of the people.”

Shortly after Ben Ephson's Daily Dispatch started serialising the book, I called Arthur K and he complained to me that the mass media were focusing on only the passages in the book which give the NPP a bad name. I advised him, as a communications strategy, to direct his press interviews to reactions and spins on the book to the areas that he says he wants the media and public to rather focus on. His response was that he circulated widely copies of the book to the Chronicle, Peace FM, Joy FM and others, so they should also serialise it and bring about a balance.

A week later, this was his response to Chronicle's first 'excerpts' from the book as contained in his rejoinder:

“Media houses like Joy fm and Peace fm, who both have copies of the book and can verify claims like the one in this should stop their mediums from being used to peddle falsehoods. It is wrong. It is unethical and it harms their reputations… Finally, I urge Ghanaians to read the book for themselves and reach their own conclusions. I am prepared to be held to account for my conclusions anywhere, anytime but not for lies concocted by the likes of the CHRONICLE.”

Ben Ephson would tell the author that book/article serialisations have become the equivalent of a recreational drug for a section of the press. It helps boost up sales. Anybody familiar with the Ghanaian media could have easily predicted that sending copies of the book weeks in advance to newspaper editors and radio presenters when the Ghanaian launch of the book had not even been decided would result in chaos. Cue the publication of unbalanced excerpts fuelling unfounded speculation, accusations and allegations completely uncorroborated by a correct reading of the text in its full context. In fact the handling of the pre-launch publicity has been so farcical, and the resulting media storm so great, that if it weren't for the fact that the book is still unavailable to buy on the streets of Accra , one might think this was a deliberate strategy deployed to boost sales.

In short, this pre-launch strategy (or rather lack of) was, quite simply, a recipe for disaster. The author's rejoinders to the Egbert Faibilles, Kweku Baakos and Ben Ephsons of the Ghanaian media are labouring to tell the mass public that much of the media's reaction to the book is both misguided, mistaken and outright erroneous: the controversy has thus become less about what the book does say and more about Arthur K being forced to clarify that it doesn't say what some have tried to claim it does!

This shroud of mystery was perhaps to be expected given the rather secretive way in which the book suddenly materialized. On Citi FM's 'Eye Witness News' on Thursday, December 3, Dr Arthur Kobina Kennedy was on the other line when the host, Shamima Muslim, asked me: 'Gabby, were you ever aware that Dr Kennedy was writing a book?'; 'No', I said. 'Was Nana Akufo-Addo aware of the book?'; 'Like me, not until he received his copy,' I answered. This is all the more amazing as I had shared a single office with Arthur K for the entire eleven months of the 2008 New Patriotic Party presidential campaign, whilst he served as Chairman of the Communications Committee and I as, in effect, the technical Communications Director.

From this vantage point I can state categorically that whatever conclusions one may draw from the way in which the launch of Dr Kennedy's book has been handled, it is by no means a fair reflection of the professionalism of the campaign's communications department, led by a committee that boasted several experts and professionals.

In defending his decision to publish privileged information about the 2008 presidential campaign of the NPP, Arthur K has done what he does best, citing examples from America. He compares himself to the 2008 Vice Presidential Candidate of the Republican Party in the United States. But, the politician Sarah Palin has been described, incontestably, by respected Republican columnist, David Brooks as representing “a fatal cancer to the Republican party.” Going by, at least the sentiments expressed by majority of members of the National Council of the New Patriotic Party at their recent sitting, Arthur K represents a cancer to the NPP, arguably. But, why should this be so?

At the heart of the controversy over the book is the importance of confidentiality, what Professor Peter Hennessy has called the “governing marriage” between politicians and their staff. Politicians, understandably, dislike being embarrassed. And, this book deserves the Booker Prize for having a serious go at embarrassing the NPP - from the President, Presidential Candidate, Chairman, Campaign Director, through DCEs to footsoldiers. The NPP is offended by, what I can only describe as, Arthur K's bad manners. More importantly, is how offensive this book is to efforts to sidestep the rumours and learn useful lessons from what actually informed decisions of past campaigns.

Arthur K's memoirs of life on the Akufo-Addo campaign trail is certainly one of the most insightful political memoirs in Ghana. It is insightful for the mere reason that political memoirs are hardly written in Ghana. It is accepted as an insider's eye- and ear-witness account of an unprecedented historical event such as the 2008 general elections, which ended in a photo finish, nearly a month after the general elections of December 7. The question is this: has he done enough justice to the issues? Has he been fair to the issues, his party, his colleagues, himself and his readers? Would an informed insider have written this? My answer is no.

What comes out loud and clear throughout Arthur Kennedy's book is that prior to 2008 he had never had first-hand experience of a national campaign, and thus his commentary is automatically limited by his inability to provide a comparative analysis with previous election campaigns. This is a major deficiency of an otherwise interesting read. It regrettably leaves the reader's curiosity insatiated by failing, from the outset, to provide the context necessary in order for it to be worthy of becoming serious historical reference material in years to come.

This is particularly disappointing given the numerous innovations in the way the NPP campaign conducted its communications in 2008. For the first time the party had a fully equipped Communications Directorate, with an editing suite and virtually every necessary tool for the job. It controlled and maintained a network of communicators across the country. The committee met regularly, perhaps more so than any other and went some significant distance in implementing its programmes. TV and radio stations had strict directives that only adverts approved by the directorate would be paid for and that directive was adhered to.

These changes represented a significant break with the past and a step-change in the sophistication of the NPP's communications arsenal. Yet despite the author of this book being the man officially in charge of this new system, we are not presented with any analysis of the impact or effect of these changes because, quite simply, he had no knowledge of the previous system with which to make comparisons.

Nowhere is this lack of prior experience more apparent than the overemphasis of problems that beset any political campaign the world over. Tensions between party office and campaign office, coordination issues between the campaign schedules of different party notables, personality tensions and clashes, disagreements over how best to deploy and control campaign spending: these are familiar kitchen utensils in the household of campaigns – both winning and losing. Even Messrs Koku Anyidoho, Aseidu Nketia, John Mahama and John Atta Mills would be forced to admit that their campaign was not exempt from these universal issues: indeed similar problems have affected every campaign in Ghana since campaigning began and will undoubtedly continue until campaigning ends. Not even Obama was able to rise above such problems: in his book, Audacity to Win: The Inside Story and Lessons of Barack Obama's Historic Victory, the author, David Plouffe, failed to hide the tensions that were apparent in the campaign. But, he was clever enough to not over-emphasise those tensions.

Some erroneous recounting of events also adds fuel to the critics' flames, diminishing the work's validity as a document with the purpose of “setting the record straight.”

Few examples, Clifford Braimah is described as Northern Regional Organiser of the NPP. He is in fact the Regional Secretary; Alhaji Ahmed Ramadan, the National Chairman of the PNC is described as the Chairman of the CPP; Akufo-Addo is said to have taken over Victor Owusu's law chambers. The Communications Directorate of the campaign put together the candidate's biography which listed all the law firms the candidate worked with.

Dr Kennedy's lack of apparent insight or understanding of the situation in relation to Tain is a prime example. He writes: “Many questions will be asked for years about Tain. Here are a few of those questions: Why could the President not go to Tain? If it was not safe for him to go, why could the vote take place? Why did the NPP [Presidential] Candidate not go to Tain?” - questions that, quite rightly, readers would have expected to be answered rather than asked in a book written by an insider and head of the campaign's communications team.

The simple answer to these questions is that the party had moved to place a court injunction against voting taking place in Tain with the thinking that it would prejudice the challenge it had launched against several polling stations in at least nine constituencies in the Volta Region. Surely, this reasoning could not have been lost on Arthur Kennedy. Such gaps in knowledge, combined with factual errors, seriously undermine the credibility of the more specific accounts provided in the book. For example, on page 145, it is falsely stated that evidence of NPP complaints concerning “nearly 300,000 votes in the southern [and central] part of the Volta Region”, did not “get to the Chair that day and by the time it was ready, it had been changed from a protest addressed to the EC to a petition aimed at restraining the EC Chair from holding the Tain Election.” The reality was that the petition with evidence of the electoral malpractice was delivered to the EC chairman by Nana Ohene Ntow separately from the court process filed by Atta Akyea at the law courts and on separate days.

Regrettably, too much of the book is concerned with an unthinking and uncritical repetition of many of the unfounded rumours about the campaign that abounded in the heady days of the run-up to the election. A detailed and hard-hitting analysis of the foundation, source and spread of these may have proved insightful: sadly a bland reiteration of them provides little in the way of food for thought.

And while reporters and political analysts have long since hashed out the reasons for NPP losing in 2008, one would have expected an insider account to have contributed to this in a profound and significant way through a more considered and reflective analysis that properly utilised the privileged vantage point of its author.

Instead, we are presented with a considerable amount of – harsh as it may sound – useless venting about the inevitable frustrations that arise in any endeavour involving the sheer mass of people that the NPP Presidential Campaign did. In amongst this confused maelstrom of criticism and complaint we struggle to decipher the “lessons learnt” or the suggested roadmap for the future.

'Politics of Complacency' is not only an unnecessarily antagonistic by-line, open to abuse by critics, but I challenge Dr Kennedy as to whether he really believes this is the right description for the long hours put in by thousands of NPP supporters during the campaign.

Arthur Kennedy simply does not get it. In one of his numerous rejoinders he states: “Finally, to be the nation we aspire to be, we must in the words of the NPP's 2008 campaign 'move forward'. As I write, there are two books out on the 2008 US Campaign, one by Mr. Obama's Campaign Manager and the other by Mr. McCain's running mate. Both are being discussed seriously and will significantly affect the respective campaigns in 2012. That is what we must aspire to.”

If Arthur K wants to use those American books as justification then he should also know that Obama's campaign manager was so tactful on the kind of information he released that his book, though selling, has not been controversial. Sarah Palin, on the other hand, was forced to say on a radio show that “some on the left, that lamestream media, they're contradicting what I wrote in the book.”

She has been accused of showing her lack of insight on contemporary issues. President Obama's former campaign manager David Plouffe's book is not doing as good as Sarah Palin's because the former's book does not interest the public as much. That does not mean that Ms Palin's book is more in the public interest.

She confirms that there was substantial tension between her advisers and McCain's, criticising McCain staffers. But, that is understandable considering the strong words some of those staffers have used on her, calling her a “whack job”. “Wasilla hillbillies looting Neiman Marcus from coast to coast,” was how an angry McCain aide described Palin's controversial $150,000 shopping spree during the campaign. Another McCain adviser complained on CNN, “She is a diva. She takes no advice from anyone. She does not have any relationships of trust with any of us, her family or anyone else.

Also, she is playing for her own future and sees herself as the next leader of the party. Remember: Divas trust only unto themselves, as they see themselves as the beginning and end of all wisdom.”

The Senate President of her home state, Alaska, Lyda Green, a Republican said of her: “She's not prepared to be governor. How can she be prepared to be vice president or president? Look at what she's done to this state. What would she do to the nation?” She signed over a million dollar publishing contract because Harpercollins knew she would sell. The book, which has a first printing of 1.5 million copies, is a best seller on Amazon.com, where incidentally Arthur K is presumably making some wonderful sales. Her book, like Arthur K's, has serious issues with getting the facts right. AP reporters alone found 14 major factual errors in the 413 page book. For instance, she criticises US President Barack Obama for pushing through a bailout package that actually was achieved by his Republican predecessor George W. Bush — a package she seemed to support at the time.

Arthur K's book names names as if he is listing the squad of a football match. Yet, a deliberate, intelligent decision was made by the Campaign Committee to only make public the chairpersons of the various committees. Some Ghanaians like to volunteer during campaigns but they don't want to be publicly acknowledged. Even in America the closest Ms Palin comes to naming names occurs in the passages about chief McCain campaign strategist Steve Schmidt. Quoting another campaign official, she writes that Schmidt felt she wasn't prepared enough on policy matters and even wondered if she was suffering from postpartum depression following the April 2008 birth of her son Trig, who has Down syndrome. But, not Arthur K.

What you have now is a book that condemns NDC propaganda being itself used as canon fodder for NDC propaganda. It would also be used within the NPP against Akufo-Addo's future candidacy. Hopefully for the author, by the time the paperback hits the local market, the book would not have been shredded by critics, ignored by his party members and classified as an unnecessarily long political suicide note. As comedian David Letterman said of the best-selling book by John McCain's running mate, Going Rogue: An American Life, whch was released on November 17, “Sarah Palin's book is big, 400 pages. She wrote the book herself and agonised over every word, and so will you.”

His decision to sell for personal profit confidential information gleaned in the course of a sensitive job as the party's Communications Committee Chairman for the 2008 campaign may have merits. Nevertheless, Arthur K could have produced a more useful even if anodyne account of the 2008 campaign. He could have been cautious in preserving and possibly enhancing his own political reputation and that of others who, perhaps, may have a much more realistic political ambitions than himself. And, he still could have made his money.

In fact, he has brought to the fore the need to develop and encourage here in Ghana the culture of writing memoirs and diaries by our leaders. Ironically, the kind of condemnation his book is receiving may end up discouraging others. There is certainly value in contemporary diaries. But, there is actually more intellectual and historical value in more considered and researched recollections. I support the presumption that there is no reason why stuff should not be published unless it can be demonstrated that it will do more harm than good.

The public interest value of publishing memoirs must always be favourably considered. But, it is also in the public interest that the private space for frank discussions and the sharing of information should be respected and protected. The danger is not the seasonal damage that this single shocking book does to those affected, but its introduction of a new culture of fear which may steadily erode the confidence and trust crucial to the administration of politics.

The NPP has much reflecting and much learning to do in the wake of the 2008 election, and we have embarked upon this. It is not a task to be shied away from and we must live up to our elephant moniker instead of burying our hand in the sand like an ostrich.

So we should and we must welcome constructive criticism. But the key here is constructive. It is on this count that Dr Kennedy's book falls flat. And in this, we are all losers, for it is vital that we in Ghana foster a culture of memoirs and diaries through which we can increase a more sophisticated and detailed reflection upon our political condition. Biographies and autobiographies as well as diaries can help increase our understanding of the behind-the-doors functioning of our political parties and Government, help expose deficiencies, foster transparency and increase confidence and trust. Regrettably for us all, Dr Kennedy's contribution has done little to aid this process.

Credit: Gabby Asare Otchere Darko, qanawu.blogspot.com