As I see this sort of defection

On a busy news day, this story would not have made the headlines at all…. A former campaign coordinator of the main opposition New Patriotic Party (NPP) from the Bole-Bamboi Constituency, Northern Region, is reported to have defected to the National Democratic Congress (NDC) – (See “NPP Communicators Attacking Me for Joining NDC – Fmr. NPP Campaigner” Ultimatefmonline.com / Ghanaweb.com 9/11/16).

I would bet my proverbial bottom-dollar that this is not the very first time that any party operative of one of the two major political parties in the country has defected to the other party for any number of reasons, ranging from bribery to simple disillusionment. I would be more worried if the alleged defector had turned out to be the New Patriotic Party’s parliamentary candidate for Election 2016.

Then also, the alleged defector, Mr. Braa Prex-doe, is only described as the former Campaign Coordinator of the New Patriotic Party for the Bole-Bamboi Constituency. Here again, I would be more worried if Braa Prex-doe had been described in the news report as the incumbent NPP Campaign Coordinator for the aforementioned constituency.

Indeed, it is almost certain that cross-party defections are going to continue up to the eve of the 2016 general election. Then also must be promptly pointed out the fact that Bole-Bamboi, in the Gonja-West district of the Northern Region, is the birthplace and the hermetic stronghold of President John Dramani Mahama; and Mr. Prex-doe could well have staged his own defection in a strategic attempt to courting and capturing the attention of the movers-and-shakers of the much-maligned robber-barons of the ruling party.

Indeed, rather than worry themselves silly about the defection of their former NPP colleague to the National Democratic Congress, it is rather the defector who ought to be worried.

For starters, Mr. Braa Prex-doe, by his eleventh-hour defection, as it were, has proven himself to be unworthy of the trust of both his former NPP colleagues and associates, as well as his new-found friends and associates of the National Democratic Congress.

It is also very certain that the Bole-Bamboi NDC operatives would not hand over the job of the party’s Constituency Campaign Coordinator to this NPP renegade. In sum, Braa Prex-doe has quite a way to go in order to prove himself to be worthy of the trust of his new political associates. And such trust is highly unlikely to come with ease.

Right now, the defector is still on the watch list of suspicious NDC apparatchiks; he may even be understandably envisaged as an NPP mole strategically fronting as a defector. And so, really, it cannot be authoritatively and confidently claimed that this apparent loss for the NPP is in any way a political gain or an asset for the NDC. At best, it is a tossup. Braa Prex-doe, as stated in the afore-referenced news source, is the sort of tribal chauvinist and political bigot whom the NPP is better off ridding the party of.

In the same news report, the Gonja native is quoted as having written and published on his Facebook Wall that among his most ardent detractors and those NPP operatives harassing him is one whom the alleged defector smugly describes as “a stupid Dagomba.” Now, what kind of Constituency Coordinator could this Braa Prax-doe be to the benefit of the multi-ethnic and multicultural big tent that is the entire membership of the New Patriotic Party?

On the other hand, like his fellow Gonja tribesman, the President, Braa Prex-doe appears to primarily thrive on the politics of tribalism. And so in a practical sense, the NPP defector is a perfect fit for membership among the ranks of the Mahama-led National Democratic Congress. His voluntary departure to the NDC may very well be a great blessing in disguise, as it were.

Rather than pointlessly rail against the inalienable right of their former party stalwart to switch political affiliation and loyalties, the Bole-Bamboi executives of the New Patriotic Party need to haunch down and so some political heavy-lifting, if they are to handily regain access to the so-called Jubilee-Flagstaff House. Indeed, as Nigeria’s Prof. Chinua Achebe once titled his classic anthology of essays, “It Is Yet Morning on Creation Day.”

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By Kwame Okoampa-Ahoofe, Jr., Ph.D.
English Department, SUNY-Nassau
Garden City, New York
September 11, 2016
E-mail: [email protected]