Live And Let’s Live!

By Otchere Darko

Reference: (1) “Akufo-Addo has failed twice, give Alan the chance – Aide” (Ghanaweb General News of Tuesday, 21 January 2014 {Sourced from peacefmonline.com});

(2) NPP regional polls split ranks between Akufo-Addo, Alan camps (Ghanaweb General News of Thursday, January 23 {Sourced from Graphic Online})

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In my opinion, politicians, more than humankind generally, are responsible for the spread of hatred and conflicts all over the world.

I always wonder why politicians, especially those in Africa, cannot create and adopt among themselves a congenial interactive partisan relationship that is based on the principle of “live and let’s live”, which vividly captures the importance of the need for human beings of all descriptions living anywhere in the world to learn to live harmoniously and symbiotically with one another for the common good of the human race generally. I spend hours and days thinking about the reason why, even, tiny animals like the industrious ant unite with their brothers and sisters to live communally and harmoniously to do things that they could not do individually, like ants working together to create, relatively, the most complex architectural structure (the ant hill) or busy bees that constantly work in groups of several bees to ‘manufacture’ the sweet honey that human beings with all their complex brains coupled with their education can only ‘steal’ from bees, but cannot on their own duplicate. The purpose of this article is to throw a spotlight on the negative political developments taking place within NPP, the biggest opposition party in Ghana.

Why has it become a recurrent occurrence for every “big man” in NPP to want to become a flagbearer for the largest opposition party whose tap-root is the UGCC, the oldest modern Ghanaian political party founded in the Nineteen-Forties by Dr J B Danquah and which received and absorbed political ‘tributaries’ and assumed different names through its tumultuous history but maintaining its core character and spirit and assuming a perpetual political identity that today has come be known as the “Danquah-Busia-Dombo tradition”,

Why has it now become a common practice for NPP presidential aspirants and their supporters to be constantly throwing ‘wanton punches’ and ‘foul balls of stinking bullshit’ at their rivals with the aim of undermining them? So common and so destructive has undermining become that this negative political practice has now been paraphrased and absorbed into Ghanaian political semantics as “pull-him-down (PHD) syndrome”. How will the “Doyen of Gold Coast politics” (Dr J B Danquah) feel from his grave while he watches from his grave his tradition being torn to pieces by an ‘overdose’ of selfish and irresponsible power-seeking Tom Dick and Harry vying to become the flagbearer of the party they are destroying through their selfishness?

This “pull-him-down” (PHD) problem within NPP has been on the increase in recent years, having assumed a proportion that is capable of damaging all future prospects of the biggest opposition party...... a damage that could have extensive negative ripple-effect nationally, through the weakening effective democracy in Ghana. This is because the [essentially] two-party system of democracy practised in Ghana since the days of self-government that preceded independence will remain for many years to come and will always follow the old two political traditions calved by Drs J B Danquah and Kwame Nkrumah. The fact that there will be constant democratic need to juxtapose Danquahists against Nkrumahists in all Ghanaian elections to create balanced political enthusiasm and enrich Ghana’s political landscape presupposes that, until a stronger pro-Danquah party emerges to displace the NPP, any negative ‘pull-him-down’ developments within NPP will not augur well for democracy in Ghana. This fact requires NPP politicians who seek political positions within their part to do so responsibly by eschewing all tendencies to pull their rivals down through negative campaigning techniques such as the one referred above in reference number (1) where an NPP declares: “Akufo-Addo has failed twice, give Alan the chance” Did NDC’s Professor Mills not fail twice before he won the presidential election the third time? Why drop the front-runner and the most popular presidential aspirant in NPP [and perhaps in the whole country today] from an NPP’s presidential primaries simply he has failed twice when political records show that failing twice is NOT a disadvantage in Ghana.

Writing from the point of view of an outsider seeking Ghana’s collective democratic wellbeing, I suggest to NPP members that the two leading presidential aspirants (Nana Akufo-Addo and Mr Alan Kyerematen) should be encouraged to smoke the ‘peace pipe’ by joining hands and adopting what I refer to as: “UNITED PLAN FOR PEACE AND VICTORY” (UPPV) for NPP in 2016.

UPPV is based on the fact that currently the three most popular, though arguably the most divisive presidential aspirants within NPP are Nana Akufo-Addo, Mr Alan Kyerematen, and the two-time running mate of Nana Akufo-Addo (Dr Mahamudu Bawumia. The UPPV plan which suggests that Nana Akufo-Addo who always teams up with Dr Bawumia should be the leader of the ‘trio members’ recognises the fact that he (Nana Akufo-Addo) is UNDOUBTEDLY the most popular presidential aspirant in the NPP in 2016, and probably in the entire country. The UPPV plan which is being recommended to NPP to end the self destruction going on in the oldest political tradition in post-war Gold Coast, now Ghana is must guarantee the following features:

(1) As a necessary prerequisite for the implementation of the UPPV plan, all presidential aspirants in NPP, beside the top three, that is Nana Akufo Addo, Dr Bawumia and Mr Alan Kyerematen, must suspend their presidential ambitions for three terms to allow unity and harmony to prevail in NPP.

(2) Similarly, for the UPPV plan to have and follow a laid down order of sequence and succeed, Mr Kyerematen should suspend his presidential ambition for some years, starting from 2016, and allow Nana to contest for the third time in 2016, followed by his running mate, Dr Bawumia, in 2020. Following such sequence, will erase the usually denied but real perception held within the entire country that says there exists a cancerous feud between Nana and Alan, which has created what is popularly known in Ghana as “Ashanti and Akyem political factions” within the NPP. It will also destroy the tendency for running mates and Veeps who perform to be overstepped by richer ‘back benchers’ who decide to challenge former Veeps after the latter gain the vice presidential experience that prepares them for ascendance to the top-most political office.

(3) As a necessary part of the UPPV plan, Nana Akufo-Addo should not take part in the 2020 presidential elections, whether he wins the 2016 presidential slot and emerges as President of Ghana on 7th January 2017 or fails to win it. This means that, should he win the 2016 presidential election, he (Nana Akufo-Addo) should behave like Mr Nelson Mandela by completing only his first term. He would then be using that first term of office to ‘cut the path’ for Dr Bawumia and Mr Kyerematen to follow after he (Nana) quits office.

(4) Thus, following the sequence outlined in(2) above, Dr Bawumia, who during both the 2008 and 2012 campaigns acted as Nana’s running mate, should continue to be his running mate in 2016. He (Dr Bawumia) should also be allowed to take over from Nana in 2020 the NPP presidential flagbearership, with Mr Alan Kyerematen being his running mate. By preventing any challenge to Dr Bawumia’s presidential bid in 2020 by Mr Alan Kyerematen or any other presidential aspirant in NPP, the perception that Akans in particular and Southerners in general use Northerners as “political tools” needed by them (Southerners) to get “Northern votes” will be killed. *This perception which is long held was concretised by NPP when that party failed to allow President Kufuor’s two-term running mate and Vice President (Mr Mahama) to lead the party after his boss (President Kufuor) completed his two terms.

(5) Under the UPPV plan, on winning the 2016 presidential elections, Nana Akufo-Addo should offer Mr Alan Kyerematen one of the most important cabinet positions, such as Minister of Foreign Affairs, Minister of Finance and Economic Planning, or Minister of Trade and Industry so as to market him locally and internationally as a future “presidential material” and a ‘President of Ghana’ in the making.

(6) If the UPPV plan’s ‘trio members’ strategy of Nana, Mahamudu and Alan works successfully in 2016 and after up to 2020, Ghanaian voters are very likely to give the Mahamudu-Alan ticket the “thumbs up” during the 2020 presidential campaign. If Mahamudu and Alan win the 2020 presidential ticket, Dr Bawumia should also do only one term of four years and quit office after 2024, to give the last ‘trio member’ (Mr Alan Kyerematen) the chance to do his one term under the “UPPV” plan, UNLESS Dr Bawumia’s health tells him that he can still do another term of four years without allowing party members of power to trap him and get him to slide down the “Mills doom-path”. Should Dr Bawumia be willing to do a second term, his decision should be conditional to getting his 2020 running mate and his Vice President during his first term in office (Mr Alan Kyerematen) to support and endorse his (Dr Bawumia’s) second-term bid.

It is about time all members of NPP worked assiduously to counter, through conviction, all the nasty perceptions that they (the NPP themselves), through wilful actions and omissions, have allowed their party and their tradition to be associated with. It is important that all presidential aspirants in NPP, as well as those in all other parties in Ghana, should always examine themselves before they bid for their party’s flagbearer’s mantle during their primaries. They should recognise that the position of president demands ‘dignity’, ‘vision’ and ‘purposefulness’, ability to ‘inspire’ and ‘motivate’ followers; and above all, the position demands the spirit of ‘selflessness’. It is time personal ‘ambitions’ in Ghanaian politics gave way to ‘progressive politics’ for collective national wellbeing. The principle and philosophy of “live and let’s live” is an effective antidote to all negative political behaviours and developments that give birth to “dirty politics”.