NPP: Stop This Politics Of Nepotism!

By Kwame Okoampa-Ahoofe, Jr., Ph.D.
Garden City, New York
July 28, 2015
E-mail: [email protected]

It hasn't worked to any remarkable effect, but many of the key operatives of the New Patriotic Party (NPP) appear to be so badly set in their ways that they continue to play this regressive game of cronyism. It did not work at Nkawkaw in 2008, when some party bigwigs injudiciously decided to go against the popular candidacy of my old PERSCO classmate and pal, Mr. Seth Adjei-Baah (aka "Shaba"). Then also, a lame-duck President John Agyekum-Kufuor tried it with the man popularly known as Alan Cash, real name, Mr. Alan John Kwadwo Kyerematen, and literally broke his ankle. And then just this past week, the likes of Messrs. Samuel Atta-Akyea, Henry Quartey, Daniel Titus-Glover and Kwadwo Owusu-Afriyie were reported to have tried it with the Tema-West incumbent, Ms. Irene Naa Torshie Addo and failed miserably (See "I Did Not Make Those Allusions - Dan Botwe" Graphic.com.gh 7/23/15). Are these people capable of learning any worthwhile lessons?

If, indeed, Mr. Atta-Akyea actually campaigned for Ms. Torshie-Addo along the rather insufferably presumptuous and puerile lines that he is alleged to have done, then he promptly needs to be called to order by the 2016 Presidential Candidate of the New Patriotic Party, Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo. It does not serve any constructive purpose. Corruption is about more than merely not having been caught stealing from the public till as an individual politician. It is also about studiously guarding against being publicly envisaged to be nepotistic. That is what the NPP-Member of Parliament for Akyem-Abuakwa-South is widely alleged to have done in favor of the condign loser of the Tema-West parliamentary primary.

Mr. Atta-Akyea stands accused of prejudicially telling primary delegates that they had a bounden obligation to vote for Ms. Irene Naa Torshie Addo because not only had the Tema-West incumbent worked in the legal practice of Nana Akufo-Addo, together with Mr. Atta-Akyea, but that an Akufo-Addo government was apt to feature Ms. Torshie Addo in a significant or major way. Translate the latter to rudely and arrogantly imply that the election of any candidate other than the Tema-West incumbent would not be acceptable to the former Attorney-General and Minister of Justice under President John Agyekum-Kufuor. It was quite predictable that the Tema-West delegates would not allow themselves to be bullied by a patently undemocratic monarchist-MP like Mr. Atta-Akyea, who literally inherited his putatively safe Akyem-Abuakwa-South parliamentary seat.

What I want to point out here is that no single individual, including Nana Akufo-Addo, is more important than the collective democratic needs and aspirations of the Ghanaian people. And so if Mr. Atta-Akyea is not prepared to play by the laid-down rules of the game, he had better ship out or be prepared to be rudely pushed out. Indeed, after the epic, albeit clearly avoidable, electoral failures of 2008 and 2012, Atta-Akyea ought to have learned something far more meaningful than regularly pocketing a comfortable sinecre by now. Democracy is about equity and fair play.

Equally significanty, it needs to be also pointedly observed that if Mr. Daniel Kwaku Botwe, the former Information Minister under President Kufuor, had absolutely no intention of participating in the sort of unsavory electoral cronyism that he has accused Mr. Atta-Akyea of having indulged, then the Okre Constituency MP had no business to have joined Mr. Atta-Akyea to campaign for Ms. Torshie Addo, only to turn round and angrily accuse the media of tarnishing his hard-earned reputation and integrity. This is sheer hypocrisy; it also inexcusably insults the intelligence of the Ghanaian electorate.

I am also glad that balance and fairness prevailed to ensure that conscientious primary delegates would throw their weight behind the evidently formidable challenger of Ms. Torshie Addo, Mr. Carlos Kingsley Ahenkorah, the bona fide and staunch party man whom Mr. Botwe faults for attempting to tarnish his image and reputation. The logical question to ask here is this: What was Mr. Ahenkorah (aka Carlos) expected to do? Passively lie on his back and beg for mercy from those who, apparently, were more interested in protecting the fat paycheck of one of their own, almost as if Mr. Ahenkorah had absolutely no right to democratically mount a challenge against the purported Akufo-Addo favorite?

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