Controversy Unlimited: The Spirit of 2000 (I)

Calus Von Brazi

Recent events in this Land of Our Death are sending very clear signals about what the next general elections is likely to result in. Those with a trained political eye, cannot fail to see the non-accidental sequence of events within which all political activists, entities and blocs are operating and which point suggestively to an outcome that though welcome to the opposition New Patriotic Party in particular, nonetheless requires of it to exorcise and confront the ghosts of its past in order to provide a clean slate, acceptable to the generality of Ghanaians which in turn would result in a landslide victory in the general elections of December 2012. In seeking to clarify the basis of this position, it is important for the reader to come with me on an ox-goring, history reviewing and ego-bruising spree borne not out of malice, but induced by the quest to establish the basis upon which the next and all important contest for political power by the NPP would be premised.

Firstly, let me establish that I am grateful to my party for giving me the opportunity to be one of three people who have mastered the art of predicting the outcomes of NPP congresses based on a formula crafted in 1998 and perfected since then. This is the reason why I have always been able to publicly state the outcome of internal contests of the NPP with such unreserved confidence. It is this formula, that made me say Mac Manu would become National Chairman after Haruna Esseku, or that Akufo-Addo would be the NPP flag bearer in 2007 and more recently, that the opponents of an expanded party electorate would go back from Trade Fair Center with crocodile egg yolks cascading down their sweaty chins. Free prediction? Akufo-addo shall once again sweep the votes for the flag bearer position so resoundingly that it would take another generation to beat the record he is about to set. I shall not discuss or proffer my reasons, lest some ambitious sidekick screams “Eureka” and with that, provide the NPP’s political opponents with the presence of mind to undermine the pivot around which the increasingly unavoidable victory of 2012 shall be recorded in the annals of this country’s history.

The reality accompanying the above however is also that, the National Democratic Congress, despite all its good intentioned intentions is basking in the sorry glow of a swan dance calculated at petrifying itself and guaranteeing a quick recess into the pits of political opposition. No political entity in Ghana, since the days of Kofi Nwiah the schemer to the crafty self-declared apostle of peace has ever recorded such a rapid depreciation of political goodwill than the current wielders of political power in this country: the NPP for example, dissipated its goodwill fully in the aftermath of its flag bearer contest when some “miscalculations” sent the wrong signals to the electorate that although a good candidate had been chosen, those with whom he was to wage battle against the NDC in opposition as it then was, were indeed disunited in their resolve. The Ghanaian electorate is a very complex one and yet, nothing puts it off than bickering siblings. The NDC less than a year after being handed the reins of power is radiating dissonance, copious amounts of it from within its ranks with sprees of calculated pissing ins and outs without let or hindrance, almost as if elders are finished in their party and maybe, indirectly daring the founder to “go to hell”. The concomitant result of all that is to lose such hope, cautious optimism and promise of a new day in less than 10 lunar months, itself frightfully pathetic, especially when those tenets of expectation have been thoroughly replaced by uncertainty, despondency, gloom and despair within its rank and file. I sincerely think the NDC does not deserve what is happening to it, but the question remains: what role is the NDC as a party and its agents, assigns and collaborators playing in the sounding of its own death knell? Perhaps those who hitherto doubled as their think-tanks but who now for fear of the unknown want to have access to the spoils of victory in case of rainy days may do well to spend some of their time coming out with quick solutions to the increasing hopelessness instead of discussing ways to halt Mrs, Rawlings’ ambitions for truly she would win a slot on the Vice Chairmanship position even if all the Sehwi Ninjas join hands with the Dzelukope in-laws to attempt thwarting her ambitions. As for Madam, me I like her waaa and I know she would be the “chuuby checker” that ‘fronting men’ like Bature are so shitless scared of. That is their own self-created “nightmare scenario” that I think the NDC must start learning to live with.

So what about the NPP? For the first time in my one score and so many years, I am unable to predict the outcome of the National Executive contest. I am unable to do so not because I have lost the ability to ascertain, but because there is going to be very major disappointments. Many of the “big names” that have come up would be so painfully disappointed in ways that would test their commitment to the Danquah-Busia tradition. I guess what I have just done is a prediction, not so? While at it let me put it on record, that the outcome of the national executive contest would require dexterous handling of egos and camaraderie in order for the “mixed slates” that shall emerge to work harmoniously. No single bloc, faction or slate would attain a hundred percent success for sure, neither would people with unproven track records of loyal and dedicated service to the party find themselves in the boardroom as national executives. If a contestant happened to have had a track record in the past which is deemed by the amazingly smart expanded electorate to be irrelevant to the contest of political wills in 2012, that contestant better start selling a more convincing message, other than the recycled old widow’s fables that are no longer welcome even in fringe flights of nostalgic fantasy.

The new polling station executives are displaying an awesome understanding of what it would take to make the ordinary Ghanaian swing the votes in favour of the NPP in 2012. Titles are no longer relevant in their mind, the same way as a closeness or affinity to this or that person is moribund in their calculation. Which brings me to the issue of the invocation of names: sometimes, some people think voters and by that the NPP’s electorate lacks wisdom. When I wrote my “death piece” in May of 2007 in Danquah’s name, I stated that the NPP delegate is the most sophisticated political animal I have encountered in my life. The NPP delegate is the only living being who can look 17 people in the eye and tell them all that they will win without batting an eyelid. Now, we have over 100,000 delegates of even higher standards so your guess is as good as mine. Those who are going round claiming that “I am Akufo-Addo’s man/woman” better watch out, for the delegates are not fools. They know those who for want of a position claim to be Akufo-Addo’s man/woman, so also do they know those who are trying to pull a fast one on them. Those who are going around claiming “I secretly supported Alan but didn’t want the others to know” must also think delegates are idiots: why would you, for want of a position create the impression that there is a rift between Alan Kyerematen and Nana Akufo-Addo, if not to further a parochially myopic miniscule ambition?

I have always maintained that to the best of my knowledge, the so-called rift between Akufo-Addo and Alan Kyerematen is the figment of the imagination of those who do not understand modern day politics. There are indeed people who feed fat on rifts, blocs and rivalries real or imagined, the same way that there are those who would quickly checkmate any machinations emanating from the camps of parochial thinking when the interests of the collective are at stake. This is why it would be inadequate to go invoking the names of either of the NPP’s immediate past flag bearer contestants. I think it is a self-defeating exercise for in all truth, the dynamics of each constituency and their expectations of leadership at the national level is such that a resurrection of those illusionary differences would not work. In anycase, the two most popular persons in the NPP today and for a very long time to come would be former president John Kufuor, Primus Inter Pares and Nana Akufo-Addo; after all, are they not the only people who have tasted both victory and defeat at any level of intra and inter party elections in Ghana as far as the Danquah-Busia tradition is concerned?

When John Kufuor and Akufo-Addo locked horns in Sunyani in 1998, candidate Kufuor as he then was, emerged victorious with 64.8% while Akufo-Addo came second with 31.6%, clearly demonstrating their control of a whooping 96.4% of the party. Conversely, Akufo-Addo emerged from Legon with 47.97% with Alan Kyerematen scoring 32.30%, a combination of which gives them 80.27% of the party. As is common knowledge, Kyerematen gained that level largely because of a perceived support of Kufuor so that his real level of popularity has not really been tested yet. My personal position, based on our party perception index is that Alan Kyerematen would have garnered 258 votes on his own at Legon, had it not been for some “external aid” from above. Akufo-Addo on the other hand hit the 49% mark in the national elections so that even on the basis of common-sensical analysis, invocation of his name for a contest is more likely to bear positive results for some. Yet, there are also people who may not be known supporters of Akufo-Addo but who have what it takes to get the job done. It is for this reason that delegates would make loyalty subservient to ability to deliver, thereby reinforcing the notion and process of stronger unity at all levels in the reorganization of the NPP.

The spirit of 2000 has started stirring, in ways that are reminiscent of what happened at Pearl Harbour on December 7, 1941. From all indications, nothing can stop it, unless someone exercises a “Sampson Option” in the NPP in ways that would decimate the hope that the good people of Ghana have started reposing in the NPP in opposition even as they see the ruling party behaving like a freshly beheaded chicken, spluttering and sputtering all over the place in amazing sequences of classic faux pas that anyone would have thought 8 years in opposition would have extinguished from their outlook. As it has turned out, even the so-called persona of the president that my brother Pratt claims is the only lifeline sustaining the NDC has become questionable for if a self-award of a ‘modest’ 80% is what he conferred on himself in just a 100 days, I humbly ask what the rate is 10 months down the line, now that the whole nation is operating under the influence of some twinkle twinkle major flicks of the national electricity switchboard.

We are indeed back to the year 2000, faster than anyone imagined and now that we know for a fact that no oil is coming before 2012, now that the real owners of the NDC are taking back their party to make it what they want it to be, now that the NPP electorate is ready to say “go way you” to those NPP aspirants who want all others to be their public ego masseurs, now that John Kufuor is clearly on a charming offensive to rally his forces in support of the party he has served, the country he led and a people he adored, I say let the games begin, let good sense prevail and let us ask the good people of Ghana what sort of future they honestly desire: social democracy without anything social or property-ownership with an abundance of social interventions. Till we meet again next week to delve into the intricacies of the NPP and institutionalized (mis)conceptions about aspirants, the 1979 imbroglio and my very own December 2009 “casualty list”, Jehovah Ori keep you with his light in these days of electrically darkened cluelessness .