[ 2012-05-04 ]

The NPP can’t win elections with an old tune!
The NPP’s strategy of exposing Bawumia is on
course to catapult him into the limelight. That’s
why he seems to be playing a frontline role these
days and receiving media attention for it. In
principle, that strategy is politically viable;
but in reality, it doesn’t seem to be the solution
the NPP needs to reap the benefits of a Bawumia
Running-Mate candidacy.

I say so with hindsight—Bawumia couldn’t get the
NPP the Northern votes that it had anticipated in
the 2008 elections. Thus, by retaining him for the
2012 elections, whatever might have contributed to
his inability to woo voters needs to be
neutralized. That’s why the publicity stunt is all
about him these days.

But he has joined the “Yen Akanfuo” choir to sing
himself hoarse with an old tune that will not help
the NPP win the elections. The cacophony grates on
the ears—and it hurts too!!

The reality of Bawumia’s non-starter effort is
clear already. He has also quickly fallen prey to
the worn-out politics of empty fault-finding with
the incumbent administration, repeating the stale
old tales of the Mills government’s inability to
fulfill its 2008 electioneering campaign promises
and destroying the economy.

There is nothing new in this approach to
politicking. Ghanaians already know what these
issues are. In fact, they have known these
problems since the first Republic when governance
took a turn for the worse after independence. They
won’t root for Bawumia and the NPP just because
this self-same story is being told and re-told by
the political neophyte that Bawumia is.

Ghanaians want to know what the NPP’s solutions
are. So far, nothing new has been told them. It’s
all about destructive criticism topped with empty
promises. As if that is not irritating enough,
Kennedy Agyapong’s hate speech has added a new
complexion to the matter.

Although Kufuor may claim that the
Akufo-Addo-Bawumia ticket is “heaven-sent” and the
best to have happened to the NPP in its bid to
recapture power, there is nothing really
substantial about the NPP’s politicking. In 2008,
was it not the same pair who fought and lost the
elections? Were they from hell, then?

As is already obvious, Bawumia himself doesn’t
seem to know the drift of Ghanaian politics and is
faltering already. His claim that the NPP will win
all the North (the Northern, Upper East, and Upper
West Regions) because of his “Northern roots” is
more ridiculous than Odoi Sykes’ promise to our
Northern Ghana compatriots that an NPP government
would extend the railway system to the North.

As someone rightly asked, is it now that Bawumia
has developed his “Northern roots” to cite as an
electoral asset? Were there no “Northern roots”
for him when he paired with Akufo-Addo for the
2008 elections and lost?

You see, when political neophytes are given the
limelight, they don’t take too long to expose
their immaturity.

I have said it several times already but will
repeat it for purposes of reinforcing my stance
that although Ghanaians are complaining about
living conditions and political opponents are
jumping on President Mills, criticizing him over
his leadership style, it doesn’t mean that they
see Akufo-Addo and his NPP as the automatic
replacement or as Ghana’s saviour. Many factors
are at play and the NPP should not deceive itself
that victory for it at the polls is a done deal.

Probably, having already conditioned their
followers for victory, the party’s leaders have no
other option but to turn to plan “B,” which is
encapsulated in the “Yen Akanfuo” and
“All-die-be-die” war cry by Akufo-Addo. Then
again, that is why Kennedy Agyapong has declared
war on the ethnic groups that he and those in the
NPP fostering the ”All-die-be-die” war machinery
perceive as the match spoilers.

Having thus exposed their inner selves, they will
not rest until the mayhem that they are hatching
is unleashed and pursued to serve their political
purposes. But they are deceived. From the barrage
of condemnation coming from the major segments of
the Ghanaian society—except the NPP itself—it must
be clear to those in the NPP banking hopes on
mayhem as a strategy to win power that the going
will be really tough for them.

The best option is not to intimidate or blackmail
the voters—or to attempt establishing any
paramilitary force to fight their cause. They have
every opportunity to present their ideas on
national development to Ghanaians for them to make
their electoral decisions on why they should
replace the incumbent with Akufo-Addo and his NPP.
But they are not doing so. Where are the ideas for
national development?

So far, there is nothing concrete to prove that an
Akufo-Addo government will be any different from
those we have had so far and complained bitterly
about. I am apprehensive because I don’t see
anything that the NPP has (apart from so-called
transient social interventionist programmes that
will further tighten the grips on the national
coffers) to drastically overhaul the system to
ensure that the democratization process will move
to a higher and better level to give Ghanaians the
benefits they deserve.

Not until anything emerges to prove that an
Akufo-Addo government will do other than what has
persistently kept our country on its knees, any
noise that Akufo-Addo and Bawumia make will come
across as mere self-righteous rhetoric. Ghanaians
won’t vote for self-righteous braggarts just
because of their high-sounding but empty political
rhetoric.

Now, back to Bawumia. From what he has given us to
know, there is nothing to enthuse over about his
resourcefulness and, therefore, ability to reverse
the country’s economic downturn. I laugh to scorn
the claim that having been the Deputy Governor of
the Bank of Ghana, Bawumia knows the root causes
of our economic problems and will team up with
Akufo-Addo to solve them.

What haven’t we had before him only to realize the
folly of relying on such hollow claims to our
disadvantage? For those who don’t know it,
previous governments had former Governors of the
Bank of Ghana and so-called renowned economists to
work for them but the economic recovery never
happened. Do you remember Dr. Robert Gardner, Mrs.
Gloria Nikoi, and Dr. G.K. Agama?

And now Dr. Kwabena Duffuor who is the Minister of
Finance but under whose watch the tide has refused
to flow?

The point must be made clear here that if the NPP
should win the elections, it will be because of
many factors other than this fawning over Bawumia,
who still has no constituency from which to draw
votes. Such a victory will likely result from
disenchantment with the incumbent government’s
performance just as Akufo-Addo’s own defeat in
2008 was contingent on Kufuor’s failure to satisfy
the electorate.

Such a cycle is already in motion and will
determine Akufo-Addo’s own fate at the end of a
first term of his being in office, assuming that
he ever wins the elections. It is a Ghanaian
thing!!

For Bawumia, the writing must be on the wall for
him to read and use to guide himself. Ghanaians
already know the forces at work in his choice as a
Running Mate—the irresistible tendency to play the
“Northern Ghana” and Muslim cards to help the “Yen
Akanfuo” return to power—which reduces our
politics to a predictable game of treachery and
chicanery. A mere game of musical chairs that
should alarm Ghanaians!

Bawumia shouldn’t go far to see the reality of his
being used as a pawn in the “Yen Akanfuo” game of
political chess. Will he not reflect on what
happened to Aliu Mahama for all the 8 years that
he served under Kufuor and got relegated to the
backwoods of the “Yen Akanfuo” politics? Or how he
was humiliated when he attempted becoming the
flagbearer of a “Yen Akanfuo” political cabal?

If he does, he should pause to think deeply before
shooting his mouth. Gradually, he is fitting into
the pattern and will be wise only after the fact.
Not until he and his handlers in the NPP give
Ghanaians anything new to suggest how they will
solve the country’s problems, they should hasten
slowly.

We are already aware of and fed up with all the
tired issues that they keep harping on. Isn’t that
enough of a needless bother already? We need
something new to engage us as we move toward
Election 2012.

Dr. Michael J.K. Bokor
Thursday, May 3, 2012
• E-mail: mjbokor@yahoo.com
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Source - Dr. Michael J.K. Bokor

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