Kyerematen Is More Sophisticated Than That

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

In the wake of his failure to clinch the Director-General's position of the World Trade Organization (WTO), it is being widely speculated that Ghana's former Trade Minister, Mr. Alan Kwadwo Kyerematen, may well be in the process of rekindling his presidential ambitions for 2016 (See "Alan Must Freeze His 2016 Presidential Ambition - Kofi Jumah" Ghanaweb.com 4/18/13).

Needless to say, such speculation may just be that: sheer speculation; nothing more. However, should it turn out that, indeed, Mr. Kyerematen is fervidly eyeing a shot at the 2016 presidential election, then he may well have put himself at quite a great disadvantage by seeming to have opportunistically abandoned the epic bettle of definitively stopping the "revolutionary" National Democratic Congress (NDC) from perpetually holding Ghanaian democracy hostage in dogged pursuit of his personal ambition of heading the World Trade Organization.

Even more complicated is the fact of Mr. Kyerematen's public solicitation of the assistance of the politically embattled President John Dramani Mahama. In a sense, the all-too-pro-forma solicitation of the official endorsement of President Mahama for the WTO job, contradicted the officially held position of the main opposition New Patriotic Party (NPP) that the declaration of Mr. Mahama as winner of Election 2012 by Dr. Kwadwo Afari-Gyan, Ghana's Electoral Commissioner, was flagrantly suspect and patently criminal.

If the foregoing observation has validity, then Mr. Kyerematen appears to have two options, that is, if, indeed, he hopes to rekindle his presidential ambitions in the near future. The first option is for him to rejoin the executive ranks of the New Patriotic Party and, in particular, the current groundswell of massive public support which the Akufo-Addo-led Election 2012 petition is receiving all over the African continent and within the international community at large.

This may be what the former Kumasi-Asokwa NPP-MP means, when he gushes rapturously over what Mr. Jumah terms as the "epic movement" that has just been started in the country. For my part, though, what ought to happen in order for Fourth Republican Ghanaian democracy to healthily advance, is for President Mahama to be summarily and promptly forced to resign and hand over to Nana Akufo-Addo, should the former be forensically found to have criminally colluded with Dr. Afari-Gyan to rig Election 2012 in favor of the so-called National Democratic Congress.

Calling for an electoral re-run, as some are suggesting, would be tantamount to rewarding a criminal. Then also, it would necessitate the right of Nana Akufo-Addo to govern the country for as long as it took Mr. Mahama to illegally rule the country since his fraudulent swearing in this past January. This is what democratic fair-play is incontrovertibly about.

Another alternative to the preceding is for the Supreme Court and/or Parliament to call for the immediate establishment of a Transitional Government (TG), possibly headed by former President John Agyekum-Kufuor, with members of both major parties fairly equally represented, until another general election can be called. This will probably take the better part of a year.

Needless to say, if it is forensically established that, indeed, President Mahama colluded with Dr. Afari-Gyan to railroad the sacred mandate of the Ghanaian electorate, then, of course, there is no other alternative than to expressly and forthwith prohibit Mr. Mahama from contesting the presidency for good.

Some critics, largely sympathizers of the National Democratic Congress, have questioned why Messrs. Adu A. Boahen and Agyekum-Kufuor had not vigorously challenged the political legitimacy of Mr. Rawlings in both 1992 and 1996, respectively, the way Nana Akufo-Addo is doing presently. My simple answer is that so debilitatingly had Strongman Rawlings both intimidated and traumatized his political and ideological opponents as to render them virtually impotent.

In sum, whether he is accurately perceived as such or not, Nana Akufo-Addo veritably represents a new democratically revolutionary era in post-colonial Ghanaian politics.

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*Kwame Okoampa-Ahoofe, Jr., Ph.D.
Department of English
Nassau Community College of SUNY
Garden City, New York
April 18, 2013
E-mail: [email protected]
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