NPP, To Win Or Not To Win?

NPP, To Win Or Not To Win? That Is The Question!


We have known for a long time that the race is clearly one of the Akuffo Addo boys versus Alan Kyeremanteng boys! The rest are simply part of the "passengers" who had come to "see off" the contestants, as Kwesi Pratt, Jnr. puts it.

One amazing thing about this congress is that too much victory by either party may lead to the destruction of the NPP's chances of winning the 2012 elections. As Kwesi puts it, if one side becomes completely alienated, the party risks a very lack-lustre performance in the national campaign for its successful candidate, in much the same way as we saw in the Ashanti Region during the last general elections.

To avoid such a situation, I have already put forward a plan. My plan which was outdoored week has the name of "The Odikro Plan". In my last feature article which bore the title: "The NPP Leadership Quagmire: Is 'The Odikro Plan' A Way Out?" I argued:

"The "Odikro Plan" is that Alan Cash must be smart enough to enter into a pact with Akufo Addo that for the sake of party unity, he would not stand against him in 2012, but if Akufo Addo loses in 2012, he must be honourable enough to pass on the mantle to the younger and taller contender for a change in 2016. If Alan Cash is not prepared to wait for eight years, all he has to do afterwards is to do everything in his power to sabotage the Akufo Addo campaign on the quiet. This is very important because an Atta-Mills victory is in the greater interest of Alan Cash than an Akufo Addo one. Should Akufo Addo win, there is no way Alan Cash can contest and win in 2016 at the party's primaries. That means Akuffo Addo may do a complete eight year tenure until 2020. The risk here is that Ghanaians are, statistically speaking, more likely to vote for the opposition than for continuity after an eight year stint in office. Thus even if Alan Cash is prepared to wait until 2020 to stand on the NPP ticket, his chances are far better in 2016, towards the end of an NDC-led (Atta-Mills) Administration, than in 2020, towards the end of another NPP-led (Afuffo Addo) Administration."

Conversely, Akuffo Addo can also make the first move! He must strive to strike a deal with Alan Cash not to contest this time around for the 2012 presidential race, but wait for the 2016 to do so. In return, Nana would promise Alan Cash his full support for the 2016 and would not contest against Alan if Nana does not make it once more at the 2012!

I have already mentioned that I really do not give a damn which of the two wins! "My number one problem is that they are both willing stooges of imperialism. They both support the Kufour secretive deal revealed by Asare Ochere-Darko, Executive Director of the "strictly Danquah" Institute, to establish USAfriCom Headquarters and military bases in Ghana. Very simple calculations: Alan Cash is a Kufour man to the hilt, so on the question of Africom Akufo Addo seems the outsider until one realises that Gabby Asare Okyere-Darko is more an Akufo Addo spokesman than a Kufour one.

Apart from hearing that Alan Cash is taller, Ashanti, younger and much more handsome, I have not seen, heard, or read a single policy difference between the two. And for me, if they want to convince me that they are not just bundles of meat to be valued according to weight they had better let us know their policies on important national issues, and what differences, if any, exists. This is exactly what matters most. We want to know their policy differences. After all the presidential race is not a beauty contest, and short people also have their place in it! Being short myself, I must know what I am talking about! Both candidates share the same neocolonialist ideology of the NPP and their slave-trader mentality which preceded that, which still makes them think every Ghanaian who is not one of their own must be their slave!

Furthermore, as we know from the Enquirer, and subsequently confirmed by the culprits themselves, both Akufo Addo and Alan Kyeremanteng were party to the secretive and illegal fund-raising luncheon that brought together in one room, a "group" which was "made up of people with substantial investments in Ghana and also of others who have an interest in investing in Ghana" at the Hotel Hyatt & Resorts, Washington DC,, USA. See for yourself, who went to dinner: "In downtown Washington DC, two luxurious black Cadillacs, belonging to the Ghana Embassy in Washington DC, pulled up in front of Hotel Hyatt & Resorts, located on 24 M Streets, Nw, Washington, DC 20037 on Wednesday, June 4, 2008. In the first car, three well-dressed men in suit, namely Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo, Flagbearer of the New Patriotic Party (NPP), Ghana's Ambassador to the USA and Alan Kyeremanten, an ex-Ghana's Ambassador to the USA, who was also an NPP Flagbearer-aspirant, popped out of the vehicles.

"Moments later, another Embassy car pulled up in-front of Hotel Hyatt. This time NPP General Secretary, Nana Ohene Ntow, Ex-Finance Minister and later Education Youth and Sports Minister, Mr. Yaw Osafo-Maafo, and Dr. Konadu Apraku arrived in tow. The occasion was a fund-raising luncheon hosted by The Whitaker Group, a company owned by Rosa Whitaker, the new wife of Bishop Duncan Williams of Action Chapel International, who was recently introduced to church members in Accra. Rosa Whitaker, who served as a Deputy Trade Secretary for Africa under both President Bill Clinton and Bush administrations respectively is a registered lobbyist for the Ghana government."

For me personally, what this tells me is that both men are not only guilty of breaking Ghana's electoral laws, but at the same time the US law on corporate financing of foreign political parties! The NPP is likely to give us a Presidential candidate who may very soon be answering criminal charges in the USA. They are viciously eligible to diplomatic blackmail and undue external influences in their stewardship of our country that it would be the height of folly for the NPP to even offer either of them as a serious contender. I am getting myself ready to oppose whichever of the two wins, anyway. For those NPP members who do not want outsiders to comment on what they wrongly see as "an internal party affair", I wish to remind them that every Ghanaian has a right to feel concerned about their strange "democratic practices" of using fisticuffs rather than the ballot box to elect their leaders. Our entire reputation as a nation is at stake."

Building The Party Structures

Apparently, these two protagonists do not even have a choice. The party is not just divided, they are literary beating each other up. How do you lead a group that is at ech others' throats to victory? This is going on in every constituency of the party where there are significant supporters of either candidate. This means in every party stronghold, including Ashanti and the Eastern Region. I am certain that it will take more than two years to heal these wounds, that is if any of them can be healed at all. This means the NPP would be going into campaign with foot 'soldiers' who cannot face each other 'armed'! It is a very clever way of dodging an inevitable defeat at the end, whilst preparing to go for it with a unified front having given yourself six years of a virtual coast-free national campaign! An elephant is a heavy animal and it needs strong feet to stand on four. Alan Cash can deserve his victory if he took a long-term view of the political landscape and positions himself strategically.

Thanks to NPP sympathisers like Justice Sarpong, Kwame Okoampa-Ahoofe, Jr., and many others especially on Ghanaweb, the incessant insults of Ewes shall ensure an even greater defeat of the NPP in the Volta Region come 2012, as they seem to redirect all issues in an Ewe-Ashanti dichotomy, spiced with unprintable epithets. It is as though someone has misled them into thinking that the best way to win votes from the Volta Region is to insult Ewes! Alan Cash can take advantage of this truce by working closely with prominent party members from the Volta Region to educate people like Sarpong that votes, even from the Volta Region counts, and begin to make an impact from the weakest chain in the NPP's bid for power from there. If Alan Cash can radically turn the tribal focus of the NPP around, particularly between the Ashantis and the Ewes, he would have the keys to open the doors throughout the country in the pocket!

In any case, from all indications, Nana Akufo Addo is going to win the NPP primaries hands down. If you need indices just take a quick look at whose candidates are winning the elections from constituency to regional levels. Akuffo Addo is a brutal fighter and is not going to give up even if he stands upon a thousand feet in the party in his pursuit for power. Trouble is he is going to count on these same feet to walk the talk. And when the talk is bitterness and complaints then the party gets weaker and weaker. Alan must openly work with Akufo Addo in order to prevent this bitterness and carefully build the party machine in time for the 2016 elections. The problem with this option is that it is highly time-sensitive. If Alan wants to build his party, it is now or never. Waiting until after the NPP Congress would clearly be too late. In the mean time each day that the rivalry continues within the party, some irreparable damage is done to the party's feet on the ground. The earlier this stopped the better. The earlier Alan Cash began his 2016 campaign, the better for both himself personally and also for his party.

Last but by no means the least, if Nana Akufo Addo realizes that he was deliberately sabotaged by Alan Cash, he can simply withdraw his support and plan his own sabotage or two. After all, who knows what else Alan Cash is going to do next if he can get away with such a wicked trick? And he would be perfectly understood by many supporters! Methinks under those circumstances, it would become a moral imperative for Nana Akufo Addo to teach Alan Cash a very good lesson for sabotaging him when it was his turn in 2012 to sabotage Alan Cash in turn come 2016! That would be the second time I would be working very closely with Nana Addo, with whom I joined hands in solidarity at the trial of the editor of the Christian Chronicle, George Naykene at the Cocoa Affairs Court in Accra. in 1991 or thereabouts. Even though we could not do much to help George as he was given a jail term at Nsawam, this time around, we shall get Alan, as he cannot win without the support from Akuffo Addo's own constituency in the party!

Conclusion

All this may sound very st***d to the internet-based NPP members, but for those directly receiving the beatings on the ground for these arrogant, greedy, corporate-dominated and systematically socially-exclusive elitist and inward-looking individuals, and for a party which is a loser in advance, "theOdikro Plan" makes a big difference. It can save a limb or two of the party's foot soldiers. This has been the objective right from the beginning: defending the NPP foot soldiers who are receiving these beatings at the hands of their own party members! The extra bonus of an in-built internal dynamics working against each of them on the basis of their greed, assures that none of them wins! Besides, a violence-free internal party democratic process does not harm our hard-won international reputation as a dependable and working democracy. I call on all of you to support this plan and give them the hell that they truly deserve!

They shall fail. We are not for sale! Kwesi Pratt is right! Atta-Mills is better than Kufour! There is victory for us! Forward Ever! Backwards Never! In the struggles of Africa! There is victory!!!

Cheers!

--
Nana Akyea Mensah, The Odikro.