NPP Flagbearership: My Choice for Election 2012

It is rather refreshing, finally, to hear former President John Agyekum-Kufuor exhort the newly-elected National Executive Committee (NEC) members of the New Patriotic Party (NPP) to “employ truthfulness and love for the party [in order] to provide a level-playing field and conduct free, transparent and fair elections during the flagbearership contest.”

The two-term Ghanaian premier reportedly made the foregoing comment on Adom-Fm radio's popular program called “Edwaso Nsem” (“Marketplace of Ideas”) – (See MyJoyOnline.com 3/1/10).

Ironically, Mr. Agyekum-Kufuor is not quite well-known in NPP circles as one who, afforded the rare privilege of the presidency of Ghana, pursued the kind of electoral objectivity geared towards healthily inducing the sort of “level-playing field” that he is now exhorting. And what is more, matters are not helped by the fact that the ex-President was widely reported in the media to have almost immediately vacated the NPP delegates' conference arena – of Kumasi's Baba Yara Stadium – the moment that the results of the executive membership election were announced.

Of course, the obviously muted implication here is that Atwima Kofi appears not to have been allowed to have his way. In other words, in Mr. Agyekum-Kufuor's unspoken opinion, it stunningly appears that all the unlikely candidates were victorious. And so in essence, and broadly speaking, the latest delegates' confabulation was almost certainly the fairest and most productive in the approximately 20-year history of the New Patriotic Party.

Anyway, in uncannily scurrying out of the Baba Yara Stadium, almost stealthily, some media accounts indicated, another presidential contender whom the ex-premier is widely known to have brazenly and overtly supported for Election 2008 was also reported to have conspicuously gone missing from the festive atmosphere which largely characterized the post-electoral moment. And here, also, must be hurriedly recalled the fact that the same “much beloved” candidate had seriously threatened to exit from the NPP shortly after the 2008 flagbearer's election and during the heated run-up to the 2008 presidential election, on the rather curious grounds that the concerned candidate's supporters were not being accorded the kind of respect and fellow-feeling, or sensitivity, necessary for healing the egoistically contused. The interesting and equally valid counter-narrative here, as wistfully and soberly told by a staunch supporter of the 2008 NPP presidential candidate, is that in the wake of their choice for flagbearer having miserably lost to Atwima Kofi, the latter's supporters had also created a snickering atmosphere of misery for the loser's supporters.

Nonetheless, observed the delegate who pleaded anonymity, the far more imperative agenda of putting the NPP in the seat of governance and, thereby, guaranteeing the salutary realization of the lofty ideals of Drs. Danquah and Busia necessitated that bruised egos and hurt pride ceded precedence to the inviolable and creative principle entailed in the auspicious reign of a property-owning democracy, devoid of envy and “revolutionary depredation.”

Predictably, however, in exemplarily recalling his infamous run against Prof. Albert A. Adu-Boahen, of blessed memory, Mr. Agyekum-Kufuor conveniently forgot to detail how the now-ex-President both colluded and collaborated with his otherwise quite admirable brother-in-law, Mr. J. H. Mensah, to abortively finesse the legendary Ghanaian historian and firebrand critic of Mr. Rawlings' reign-of-terror. And having failed in their attempt, Mr. Mensah would sheepishly assay to explain off such shenanigan by rather flippantly remarking that: “For those of you who might not know this, John Agyekum-Kufuor is my brother-in-law,” almost as if the mere establishment of conjugal kinship legitimized such tactical villainy.

In any case while, indeed, one cannot help but register one's most candid admiration for the retired premier, still the need for Ghanaians, in general, and members of the New Patriotic Party, in particular, to be alert and creatively mindful of the requisite caliber of a worthwhile presidential candidate cannot be gainsaid.

In my most humble opinion, a “Presidential Material” is one who has proven, beyond the proverbial shadow of a doubt, his/her electability by running and winning elections at the local level – i.e. Assembly and Constituency levels – thereby having effectively established a credible rapport with the electorate at the grassroots level. For as the globally familiar dictum goes: “All Politics Is Local.”

You see, this is not the colonial era when experience with local politics was virtually synonymous with being a traitorous collaborator. To be certain, in our time, it is only the very height of arrogance that would make any “virgin” or electively untested citizen facilely presume her-/himself to be the ideal presidential candidate. Needless to say, such contemptible “corner-cutting” approach to our national political culture rarely happens in most genuine or model democracies. And it would have accorded further boost and credibility to his exhortation if Mr. Agyekum-Kufuor had also registered the preceding observation.

Still, knowing what we have come to know of the man these last couple of years makes the keen observer of Fourth-Republican Ghanaian politics admire Mr. Kufuor for even such glaringly belated exhibition of statesmanship. Of course, we are apt to learn more from and about Atwima Kofi in the weeks and months leading up to the election of the NPP's Presidential Candidate for Election 2012.

*Kwame Okoampa-Ahoofe, Jr., Ph.D., is Associate Professor of English, Journalism and Creative Writing at Nassau Community College of the State University of New York, Garden City. He has also served as a volunteer Proposal Editor for both the J. A. Kufuor and Aliu Mahama Foundations. The author of 21 books, including “Dr. J. B. Danquah: Architect of Modern Ghana” (iUniverse.com, 2005), Okoampa-Ahoofe is a Governing Board Member of the Accra-based Danquah Institute (DI), the pro-democracy think tank. E-mail: [email protected].