The National Democratic Congress (NDC)’s recent successful Presidential and Parliamentary primaries were a crucial banana peel that the party skillfully maneuvered.
With the Congress out of the way, Stephen Ashietey Adjei, an executive member of the Tema East Constituency branch of the NDC, is asking his party to start wrapping its head around continuity in power beyond 2016.
“2016 is already in the bag for us, you don’t need a magician to tell you that. I’m not proposing complacency, but I think the NDC has every space to start working towards our victory in 2020,” Mr. Ashietey Adjei, who is nick-named Moshake, told Enquirer’s political desk over the weekend.
He refused to fall on the ever escalating chaos in Nana Akufo-Addo’s New Patriotic Party (NPP) as the trump card for the surety of the NDC’s victory in 2016, saying, President Mahama’s Midas’ touch is the winsome factor.
“With ‘dumsor’ gradually improving now, the NDC will enter the 2016 elections with everything to show, while Nana Akufo-Addo, who still does not have any message for the people, will be put on the defense for the broad day light corruption that is going on in his party,” Moshake said, adding that nothing would make the discerning Ghanaian citizenry vote against President Mahama.
With 2016 firmly in the bag for NDC this way, Moshake said the NDC would be sensible to start exploring continuity beyond 2016.
The luxury of time, he said, could afford the NDC the space to manipulate democracy to deepen its pluralistic credentials.
“Everybody knows that we are not ethnocentric like the NPP whose leader, Nana Akufo-Addo is on record to have declared ‘yen Akan fuor die’. Everybody knows we are the only party in the history of Ghana which has been able to produce three different flagbearers and Presidents from three different ethnic groups and regions.
“Jerry Rawlings from Ewe-land, John Evans Atta Mills from Fante-land and now Jon Mahama from Gonja-land; we can deepen this credential even more by electing flagbearers from other ethnic groups and other regions apart from the Volta, Central and Northern regions that we have in our bag already,” Moshake said.
The suggestion comes at a time when the NPP has ousted its first ever Chairman of Northern extraction in a palace coup.
It also comes a few months after a founding member of the NPP, Yaw Osafo-Maafo, declared at an NPP meeting that only Akans deserve to rule Ghana.
Moshake thinks an expansion of its pluralistic credentials by electing leaders from other regions would make the NDC dwarf the NPP in relevance.
In this view, he lists Eastern, Ashanti, Brong Ahafo, Upper East, Upper West, Western and Greater Accra as regions from which the NDC could deliberately guide democracy to elect its 2020 flagbearer from.
Within the NDC, he says there are many worthy candidates from these regions who are well-knit into the richly democratic and freely pluralistic tradition of the NDC.
Leading in his opinion are party thoroughbreds from the Eastern Region, including the NDC’s Director of Elections, Samuel Ofosu Ampofo, and Chief of Staff, Julius Debrah.
From the Greater Accra Region, Moshake names the Metropolitan Chief Executive of the Tema Metropolitan Assembly (TMA), Hon. Isaac Ashai Odamtten, as worthy Presidential material.
Moshake also named experienced legislator for Nadowli Kaleo, Hon. Albert Kingsford Sumana Bagbin, as a colossus of a Presidential material in the fold of the Akatamanso family.
Together with Dr. Benjamin Kumbuor, current Defense Minister, Moshake said the Upper West Region had good enough presidential material for the NDC to avail itself of in 2020.
For the Ashanti Region, Moshake named the Metropolitan Chief Executive of the Kumasi Metropolitan Assembly (KMA), Hon. Kojo Bonsu, as the prominent man from Ashanti that has Presidential qualities good enough for a winsome Presidential ticket for the NDC in 2020.
He however named Energy Minister, Emmanuel Armah-Kofi Buah, as being, “a good candidate with only a little dusting up to do,” from the Western Region.
For Brong Ahafo, Moshake named the NDC indefatigable General Secretary, Johnson Asiedu Nketia, as a prominent good Presidential material available for the NDC from that region.
“Do not get me wrong , this is not a list cast in block, there are many others who may not come up for mention here for want of space and time, but the point is our political tradition has good enough Presidential materials for 2020 available from other ethnic groups and other regions.
“I am not by any means also suggesting that the regions from where we have produced flagbearers and Presidents should be necessarily precluded in the election of a flagbearer either, no, democracy must decide of course,” Moshake said.
From the Northern Region, for instance, he named Employment and Labour Relations Minister, Haruna Idirssu, as a quintessential Presidential material that would equally be very winsome for the NDC as Flagbearer.
Moshake also listed Speaker of Parliament, Doe Adjaho, as flagbearer material from the Volta Region and Vice President Paa Kwesi Bekow Amissah-Arthur, Foreign Affairs Minister, Hannah Serwaa Tetteh, and Trade Minister, Dr. Ekwow Spio-Garbrah, as good Presidential materials available for the party from the Central Region.
The Tema East NDC Executive Member emphasized that he by no means aimed to suggest that the NDC manipulate democracy to elect its next leader for 2020, but said it would be very nice for the party’s pluralistic credentials if it could produce flagbearers from other regions apart from where it has already produced others.
He said such a feat would not only endear the NDC to Ghanaians the more, but would make the party a choice oasis against ethnocentrism which the NPP, its main rival and biggest opposition party, is known to personify with its Akan supremacist politicking.
The NPP recently ousted its National Chairman of Northern extraction. Paul Afoko was the first ever Northerner to be elected into Chairmanship position of the Akanist party.
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