A Message to NPP Delegates

Dear Honourable NPP Delegates,

Come December 22, 2007, you will go to congress to elect a flagbearer who will most likely take over from President John Agyekum Kufuor as President of Ghana. In doing this I ask honourable delegates of our great party to be guided by some indices in order to make the best choice.

One quality that some of our aspirants have been claiming they have is popularity. This is in fact true of some. But wait a minute. Popularity in what sense? We will come to that later.

It really has been very interesting the way some of our aspirants have been going about their campaign. Dear delegates, have you noticed that the mode of campaigning by some of these aspirants smack of disrespect? I mean, it is not as if these aspirants don’t have time on their hands. Yet they have the guts to send a delegation to go and interact with honourable delegates on their behalf. Ei! If right now they don’t have the time, then what will become of delegates and foot soldiers of the party when they win the flagberership of the party and subsequently become president? Even when they have the time, they prefer to summon honourable delegates to the regional capitals to address them. What! This is gross disrespect at its apex. If now that they are just mere aspirants they do not have the time even though they have the resources to visit you at the constituency level, then dear Honourable delegates, ‘close your mind’, you will never see the faces of such people again if they become president.

Again by their mode of campaigning, it is clear that some of the aspirants are in a hurry to become flagbearer, and subsequently, president. They have their posters in nooks and crannies of the country asking Ghanaians to vote them as the next president. Some have mounted gargantuan posters all over the country, have composed songs announcing the results of the elections at congress even before it takes place, have outlined their autocratic economic, health, foreign, etc. policies even before they are elected and then the big wigs of our party will come out with the way forward. They don’t have time to wait for your decision. Instead of constantly taking the time to consult and interact with you in person, they prefer to interact with you via radio, television, and newspapers, issuing warnings ultimatums and other treats that if they are not elected as the party’s flagbearer, then we are in trouble. Urging you, advising you, pleading with you, dear delegates, are marks of humility and respect for the party and its members. Threats and ultimatums are signs of arrogance and disrespect towards the party. Dear delegates, put such people in their right places.

Dear honourable NPP delegates, please take note of how some aspirants are making noise about being a part of the NPP since its birth. Please take note of how some of our aspirants are making so much noise about contributing so much monetary and material resources to the party to this day. Please take note of how some of these aspirants are making so much noise about putting their lives on the line for the party, about being the front liners of serious demonstrations which during the NDC era often led to loss of life. Please take note of how some these former ministers-turned-aspirants are quick to attribute successes chalked by their ministries during their stewardship, to their sterling managerial abilities.

On the flipside, honourable delegates, please take note of how some of these aspirants have been silent on the benefits their ministerial positions have offered them. Please take note of how they are silent on how their sacrifices have been rewarded since the NPP came to power. Please take note of how they are silent about being better off than before the NPP came to power. Please take note of how some of these aspirants used to snub potential delegates and party foot soldiers when we come to their office, when they were ministers, how they flatly refused to help us get jobs or something small for ‘koko’, how they ‘saved’ their cash then, to bribe us today, to sell the flagbearership of the NPP to them. Please take note of how some of these former ministers-turned-aspirants are quick to attribute failures in their ministries during their stewardship to collective government responsibility.

Dear NPP delegates, vote for a core NPP member, one who will never abandon us when the going gets tough and when things are rosy, a leader with extensive political experience and knowledge of our dear party, and country, a result-oriented leader who can garner the support of our disillusioned foot soldiers to lead the party to victory, a leader who is popular among the rank and file of the party, can be successfully marketed to the whole country in less than a year, a leader who has no skeletons in his cupboard, a leader who has the can-do spirit, who rejects failure in its entirety, can lead the great NPP to victory, and our great Ghana to a higher level. Thank you.

Yours sincerely, Kofi Bekoe

Views expressed by the author(s) do not necessarily reflect those of GhanaHomePage.