"Nana Addo, Cheat Them All And Come Back Alone!"

I perfectly understand the kind of political arithmetic that inform your current tactics and stratagems. Whilst an early congress was sought to deprive the other contestants the time for gaining ground before the primaries, from all indications, this has not been enough to ensure a clear 50+1 win for you. A run-off is exactly the kind of situation you hate to see, and yet that is what is starring at you in the face. The run-off is simply put, an Allan Cash veto to the hasty congress and to buy the time he needs to give you the necessary punches once and for all. Thus your electoral engineers have been very busy, with a team on board to scrutinise the electoral list, voter by voter, in order not to verify the authenticity but to disqualify all known and incorrigible supporters of  Alan Cash twenty four hour before the congress!

It is only fair play that can create the healing conditions of sincere concessions of defeat, reconciliation, mutual trust, respect, friendship and solidarity, the basic ingredients of party unity. No doubt the Akufo Addo camp have been busy throwing dust into our eyes that all is well within the great elephant family, but reading between the lines, the troubles keep piling up and the carefully sealed secrets and dirty linens are once, more bound to burst through the seams in media explosions after explosion, as the party implodes under the weight of its own voluptuous contradictions. The like to gravitate towards money. And once Alan Cash begins to pay more, the delegates would begin to be very confused. Any additional amount of money from Alan after initially "confusing" them become very "convincing".

As for the NPP delegates, they seem not in any mood to exchange their status as delegates even for a cocoa plantation. It involves too much work, and even though it is seasonal so are the elections. All you need to do is to "harvest" your "empowerment" and then vote "wisely"! You have no cocoa beans to dry. No pods to break. Cool money. Sometimes they come with rice and cooking oil, party T shirts, a lot of free drinks, girls, and occassional fighting. Like dogs, the elephant is a very territorial mammal. It pays to put people in their place in this unwieldy family otherwise your own position would be up in the air in no time at all! The property owning democracy cannot be built on hungry stomachs, and foreign multinationals in whose interest the party seeks to promote are there to put their wallets where their mouths are. The money is there in this party. If you don't take your share, someone is always willing to short-change you with unrestrained pleasure! It seems the delegates are aware of this and owing to the seasonal nature of their new profession, they are going to squeeze the hell out of both of them should there be a run-off.

Thus a run-off is definately what most professional delegates want. They have their own arithmetics. And on this point, the desires of the individual aspirants for a one-touch sound very naive in their ears. They know they are going to eat again during the campaign, but the professional eats step-by-step. Why hurry when a run-off even pays desperately more money than a simple primaries campaign? This Akufo Addo understands and has been foresighted enough to do something about the appetites of these greedy bastards. The election is going to be rigged. There shall be no run-off. In any case, he is not going to commit a single pesewa above what he is officially supposed to pay to the party until he is elected a flag-bearer. The reason is simple: the money is not there yet. He needs to secure the post before he can formally open the conduit from his neocolonialist owners. The NPP is broke. The chairman had to take a bank loan with his house as a guarantee in order to get the money to organize tis congress. The heaquarters is facing threat of a public auction due to court order over default in very outstanding debts.

A run-off is going to be a financial nightmare as each candidate would prefer to directly "empower" the delegates than to foot the very bill of the second congress. Ghana is going to be auctioned on a very competitive tender between the two top dogs of the NPP. It is clear the winner is going to be the one who pays the most. There are very extremely deep pockets behind Alan Cash. I do not think that Kufour is just reading the news about what is going on as a passive spectator. and that already means a lot, unless Kufour is telling me he has no contacts and imperialist fat cows to milk of his own! It is also extremely bad for the healing process after the vote, since the contradictions sharpen and battle lines get their fresh drawings!

But I would prefer a free, fair albeit vigorous and keenly contested run-off, to a fraudulent one-touch victory on Saturday, August 7, 2010. It is by far easier to get people back on track on the democracy train when they feel to be part of the system rather than cheated by it. This is why it is not wise to cheat. As Akufo Addo himself admitted recently, without unity there can be no victory. I want to add that without cheating, there can be unity. If you cheat you are going to lose the main race. so the choice is yours. Win honestly and try to go to the castle, or cheat them all and come back home alone!

Forward Ever! Backwards Never!!!

Cheers!
–
Nana Akyea Mensah, The Odikro

Twitter: /twitter.com/TheOdikro,
Blogs: Feature Articles: nanaakyeamensah.blogspot.com,
Comments: theodikro.blogspot.com)