Calls for unanimous declaration of John Mahama as NDC 2024 candidate: A ridiculous call by attention seeking bootlickers

It is barely a week after the NDC ended its 10th national delegate’s congress and elected a national executive committee after months of rancorous campaigns within a highly democratized environment.

Many observers hailed the process leading to the congress as open, transparent, participatory and healthy for internal democracy.

The party has emerged more united now than before and during the campaigns because nobody was denied the opportunity to participate. Even those who had zero chance were also candidates.

The just ended campaigns also presented the opportunity for creativity in campaign messaging among various candidates and their supporters who were energized from the branches to constituencies through to the regional party structures.

Social media clicktivism as well as grassroots activism improved. The G4C and the C4C campaigns for national chairman were the most rancorous of them all but in the end the party has united behind the winners.

Before the national delegates’ congress, there were some undemocratic elements including some regional chairmen behind Samuel Ofosu Ampofo, who, out of fear of competition and in their effort to gain his attention, called for him to go uncontested. Those unfounded calls were rounded rejected by the rank and file of the party before and during the congress.

At the end of the democratic congress, the former national chairman, whose supporters called for him to run uncontested, was replaced by the former general secretary Johnson Asiedu Nketiah, the true choice of the people, rather than some selected executives.

The voice of the people was allowed to prevail.

It is against this backdrop that some of us expected people to have learnt lessons from this recent past internal contests as we move forward to the election of a Presidential candidate for the 2024 Presidential elections.

Those elements calling for a unilateral declaration of John Mahama as NDC 2024 Presidential candidate are not only incapable of learning from history, they are also ignorant bootlickers incapable of appreciating the essence of the internal democratic process.

Interestingly, most of these sycophantic elements have just emerged from internal contests themselves. A former deputy minister and a failed national chairman contestant, Samuel Adusei recently proclaimed himself a champion of the school of thought that believes John Mahama must go unopposed.

This attention-seeking and frustrated former deputy minister does not see the need for contest in the Presidential primaries but he thought it was his democratic right to contest for the position of national chairman, a contest in which he emerged second but last.

In his desperate and failed attempt to catch the eye of John Mahama, the former deputy minister also a former failed parliamentary candidate for Bantama constituency completely and conveniently buried the thoughts of all the past internal contests in which he participated as a candidate.

He would never have had the benefit of democratic participation if unilateral declarations were done in all the instances that he participated in internal elections. Samuel Adusei and his ilk must know that what is good for the goose is good for the gander. And they must and should do away with this hypocrisy and double-standards.

It is also reported that some constituency secretaries are leading the undemocratic crusade for the unilateral declaration of John Mahama as 2024 presidential candidate. Their argument is that the NDC party could better put its resources to better use in the general elections rather than ‘’wasting’’ it in an internal contest.

Interestingly, these people were in this country when John Mahama launched crowd funding initiative to raise funding for the 10th national delegates congress. That was a clear indicator that the NDC party is broke. Even that fund raiser was a flop as John Mahama only managed to use his name and image to convince a few Ghanaians to achieve a mere 20% of the target. And yet the congress went on successfully.

Going by their logic, we would never have had the 10th national delegates’ conference.

This is a clear indicator that money is not an essential factor in the organization of internal democratic process. The enthusiasm that will be whipped out of the party grassroots during these internal contests is worth more than the value of money in the larger context of the general elections ahead of us.

In any case, those constituency secretaries contested in their various constituencies where the party ‘’wasted’’ money for their elections. Why did they not also advocate for unilateral declaration for the grassroots elections where more money was spent for reorganization?

Is it the case that they were democrats when it came to their own elections and they’ve suddenly lost their democratic credential now that they’ve won their constituency elections? The double standards and their hypocrisy is nauseating.

The bigger picture here is that these anti-democratic and sycophantic elements suddenly seeking unilateral declarations instead of internal contests are seeking an agenda to disunite the NDC party ahead of 2024 even as they desperately seek relevance through their futile efforts.

True Meaning NDC members must all encourage the participation of others in the flag bearer contest ahead of the 2024 elections especially those who have already declared their intentions to compete ahead of the contest such as former finance minister Dr. Kwabena Duffuor and former Kumasi Mayor Kojo Bonsu.

The Presidential primary contest will not only help to mobilize and energize the party base, it will also be a test of candidate’s ability to raise funds for the general elections campaign in 2024. It will also lead to unified front as no disgruntled factions will emerge as a result of being disallowed from participating democratically in the primary.

For what it is worth, these advocates of unilateral declaration must be reminded that John Dramani Mahama is yet to declare his intentions to run a candidate in 2014. And while we’re waiting to know his attentions for 2024, we must be spared of these bogus suggestions from self-seeking individuals within the party’s executive structures.

The party’s history suggests that whenever party executives impose candidates on the party, including a Presidential candidate, cracks emerge, disunity takes effect and ultimate electoral defeat is the outcome.

In 2024, the NDC must go into the campaign as a united front. This can only happen when the internal democratic process is allowed to run a natural course without any attempts at subverting the general will of the party delegates.