Is Kyerematen Too Old And Dimwitted?

By Kwame Okoampa-Ahoofe, Jr., Ph.D.

It is the universal law of the boomerang that may well come to haunt Mr. Kufuor's former Trade and Industry Minister, according to Mr. Paul Collins Appiah-Ofori, the recently retired New Patriotic Party (NPP) Member of Parliament for Asikuma-Odoben-Brakwa, in the Central Region (See "Time Bomb: 'Cassava Farmers Would Even Mock At [sic] Us If We Make Alan Our Flagbearer'" Modernghana.com 11/22/13). At sixty years old plus, the former Trade Minister is not exactly prime material for Chairman of the Youth Wing of the New Patriotic Party.

Anyway, to hear the man affectionately called "PC" tell it is rather fascinating. According to the crusading anti-corruption foot-soldier, Mr. Kufuor's widely alleged "favorite political nephew," going into the hectic and rancorous Election 2008 NPP presidential primary, was an epic failure. And his reason? Well, primarily because the former president's pointman to spearhead the so-called President's Special Initiatives (PSI) projects let his avuncular boss down big time!

As a striking case in point, PC mentions an agro-based cassava project whose aim was to produce "high-grade industrial starch from cassava for export to key markets in Europe, Africa and Asia." Not only did the Edweso/Ejisu native exhibit the grossest example of incompetence in this critical sphere of leadership enterprise, according to Mr. Appiah-Ofori, but even more significantly, Mr. Wannabe-President also woefully failed to create the over 10,000 jobs that the various phases of the project was expected to generate.

What this means, of course, is that between now and the next NPP presidential primary, Mr. Kufuor's favorite nephew ought to be vigorously about the quite onerous campaign of convincing the Ghanaian electorate that his massive and abject failures and all, he is still the most fetching presidential aspirant material in the lead-up to Election 2016. What is also equally significant to bear in mind here is that Mr. Appiah-Ofori does not, in any way, doubt the ability of the PSI pointman to clinch his party's nomination, just that the latter is weighted down too heavily by the leaden baggage of leadership misfortunes to make a successful journey into the Jubilee-Flagstaff House. Needless to say, the ultimate judges will be Ghanaian voters themselves.

One thing that is also likely to torpedo the presidential ambitions of Mr. Quit-Man, other than his much-remarked short temperamental fuse, as it were, is the fact that he seems to have relished every bit of his Campaign 2008 team's mordant and thoroughgoing assassination of the character of Nana Akufo-Addo, vis-a-vis the latter's widely alleged soft spot for narcotic drugs, an allegation that Mr. Appiah-Ofori roundly rejects.

Then also, PC alleges that Mr. PSI's supporters and sympathizers vigorously campaigned against Akufo-Addo in last year's presidential election. If this latest charge has teeth, as it were, then Nana Akufo-Addo's closest presidential candidacy rival in the New Patriotic Party has an uphill task ahead of him, in trying to convince party loyalists that contrary to widely held public opinion, Mr. Alan Kyerematen was, somehow, far less interested in his failed bid to be elected Secretary-General of the World Trade Organization (WTO) than the collective fortunes of the NPP.

Many of us party activists and observers have yet to either forget or forgive the fact that throughout the Election 2012 Presidential Petition at the Supreme Court, Mr. Kyerematen was hobnobbing with President John Dramani Mahama, the very first respondent in the landmark litigation case, in a bid to securing his failed WTO sinecure. In brief, the balance sheet of his leadership credentials, in the estimation of Mr. Appiah-Ofori, does not look promising. And rather unfortunately, when it comes to vying for the presidency, the benchmark is a sterling leadership caliber.

I sincerely wish that it were otherwise; for I really do like this strapping and formidable personality of remarkable presence, who also happens to be a distant relative of mine.

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*Kwame Okoampa-Ahoofe, Jr., Ph.D.
Department of English
Nassau Community College of SUNY
Garden City, New York
Nov. 22, 2013
E-mail: [email protected]
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