NPP may repeat 2007 presidential primaries

18 presidential aspirants declared their intention to contest the New Patriotic Party 2007 Presidential Primaries.

One aspirant, Capt. Rtd. Nkrabeah Effah-Dartey was disqualified by the Vetting Committee leaving 17 aspirants including then Vice President, H.E. Aliu Mahama and other six cabinet ministers who resigned their positions to contest.

Former Attorney General and Foreign Affairs Minister, Mr William Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo and President John Agyekum Kufuor's favourite, the initiator of the Presidential Special Initiatives (PSI), Mr John Alan Kwadwo Kyeremanten were the leading aspirants.

The aspirants pumped a lot of money into their campaigns. It's obvious they're all financially prepared for the 2007 primaries.

But, Mr Kyeremanten was named Alan Cash because he had a lot of money to splash around like President Akufo-Addo and his family's favourite, Dr Muhammadu Bawumia is doing today ahead of their November primaries.

Unlike Bawumia, however, Alan didn't make Members of Parliament, Ministers and Metropolitan Municipal and District Assembly Chief Executives his campaign leads. Instead of the top down approach, he used grassroots-up campaigns.

But, his relationship with John Kufuor did him some harm electorally as many NPP members felt Akufo-Addo wasn't being treated fairly by John Kufuor. They use "yenim no fri titi" to campaign.

That's why Alan may have argued that the leadership of the NPP isn't a queue; it's about competence, integrity and one's commitment to the party and country's development.

But, did the NPP agree with Alan? No! He was forced to conform to the extent that when he had the opportunity to do a second round with Akufo-Addo, he declined and allowed the party's leadership tradition and convention to prevail against his presidential aspiration. He chose unity and peaceful coexistence seeing the acute acrimony the contest had created at the time. That's one of the most acrimonious presidential primaries the NPP have had.

Nana Akufo-Addo, in the spur of the moment, singled out Alan for gratitude and shared how John Kufuor told him he had to go before him promising that Alan shall go after him.

Today, the very people who said "yenim no fri titi" are now saying that it's no longer "yenim no fri titi". It's now about whether NPP love Northerners or hate them. It's now about the place of Simon D. Dombo in the construction of the United Party (UP) tradition. It's now about who helped Akufo-Addo and the NPP most to win the 2016 elections. It's now about who offered to be the witness of the petitioners in the 2013 Presidential Election case.

What has changed? Nothing has changed except Akufo-Addo and John Kufuor are two different characters, and Akufo-Addo isn't unlike Bawumia in integrity and character. But, would the NPP delegates change the party's electoral tradition and convention to please Akufo-Addo?

I doubt, because, recently, the delegates went against Akufo-Addo and Bawumia's choice, incumbent John Boadu and voted Justin Kodua as their General Secretary. John Boadu, like Muhammadu Bawumia had the support of not only the Jubilee House but MPs, Ministers, MMDCEs, party Chairmen and other functionaries, but, he lost miserably, and hasn't recovered ever since.

It's obvious that NPP may repeat 2007. The President's candidate may lose to yenim no fri titi and eduro me so. Not only because Alan Kwadwo Kyeremanten has been in the party longer than Muhammadu Bawumia but because he's more trustworthy, more credible, more practically competent than him.

Bawumia has failed as Head of Akufo-Addo's Economic Management Team to the extent that some of his campaigners are now saying that same Akufo-Addo who is supporting him sidelined him and didn't take his economic management inputs.

Many NPP members and sympathisers agree that the economy is worse than what they endured in 2016 when Bawumia did his "Ghanaians are suffering" song during the campaigns. They can't see how Bawumia has helped to transform the economy and turn things around beyond his digitalisation campaign which, they believe the Minister and Ministry of Communication and Digitalisation could handle.