I�m Not In Race To Become Campaign Manager � Botwe

Mr Daniel Kwaku Botwe, a leading member of the New Patriotic Party (NPP), has said he is not in any race to become the campaign manager for Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo, the party’s flag bearer for the 2016 elections.
 
Mr Botwe, who is  the Member of Parliament for Okere in the Eastern Region, told the Daily Graphic, “I am not in any race to become a campaign manager; I find it very offensive for the impression to be created in the public domain that I am in a race for such a position.”

He was reacting to a news report carried in last Monday’s edition of the Daily Graphic, headlined, “Who becomes NPP Campaign Manager? Four names pop up”, in which his name was mentioned as one of the four.

Background
According to the story, the choice for who becomes the Campaign Manager of the party and Nana Akufo-Addo ahead of the December 2016 elections is likely to come out of four names.

They were Dan Kwaku Botwe, the Member of Parliament (MP) for Okere, Minority Chief Whip in Parliament and a two-term General Secretary of the NPP; Boakye Agyarko, the 2012 NPP Campaign Manager; Stephen Ntim,  a former National Vice Chairman of the NPP, and John Boadu (JB), current National Organiser of the NPP and former National Youth Organiser of the party. 

Surprise
 Mr Botwe, in a telephone interview, said  even if the campaign manager position was necessary at all, it should not be a matter of debate in the media and was surprised that such a matter had been subjected to unnecessary debate in the media and public domain.

“My fear is that serious-minded people will not take the party seriously if such trends continue in the party,” he stated.

“I simply want to put an end to the speculation around party corridors, the media and the public domain, that I am lobbying for or being considered for a Campaign Manager position,” he pointed out to the Daily Graphic.

He added that there existed in the party’s constitution a position of a Director of Campaign Strategy and wondered why other positions such as Director of Communication, Director of International Affairs, Director of Finance and Administration, and such other positions, had been filled and yet that of the Director of Campaign Strategy had not been filled by the National  Executive Committee (NEC) of the party.

He argued that “the campaign for the next elections begins a day after the previous one,” and emphasised that it is the party which runs the campaign and not the other way round.

NPP has good structures
“I expect the party machinery to be working and not for anybody to be obsessed with a campaign manager position,” he asserted.

In his view, the NPP had good structures from the polling station, through to the constituency, regional and national levels and what the party needed to do now was to oil the party’s structures for victory in 2016.

He repeated that the party’s machinery must be working towards victory in 2016, and that he did not believe that they must wait for a new campaign structure before doing what was expected of them as a serious political party.

“I have been two-term general secretary of the party and I understand and feel the pulse of NPP issues very well; it will be very wrong for anybody to speculate that I am lobbying to become a campaign manager for our party’s flag bearer,” he declared.

“I want to put on record that I am not a candidate or being considered for any such position,” he told the Daily Graphic.

Mr Botwe,  however, assured party members that he would work very hard  to ensure the party’s victory in 2016, saying “based on my past record in the party as a former youth leader, Director of Operations and Research in 1996 and 1998, and General Secretary in 1998 and 2005 and currently as Member of Parliament,  I do not need any new title to work effectively for the party”.

“Right from  today, any constituency, regional or national executives who organise party programmes and need my services in whatever form , I will be there and ever ready to support at my own expense,” he assured.

Mr Botwe’s political experience spans almost a generation, a period more than  half his age, making him a perfect combination of the dynamism and modernity that comes with youth, and the rich and measured decision-making that comes with age. As national secretary of the National Union of Ghana Students (NUGS) for the 1982-1983 academic year, his exemplary display of courage, tact and dynamism, formed the fulcrum of the altercations that the universities and other tertiary institutions had with the Provisional National Defence Council (PNDC) regime. 

 The politically active liberal democrat that he is, he was among the foremost to brave the political environment in the late eighties and the early nineties to assist in the formation of the Danquah-Busia Club which eventually was transformed into the NPP. 

In clear appreciation of his commitment and dedication to the party, he was appointed the National Treasurer of the Youth Wing of the party. In 1996, he was made the Director of Operations and Research at the National Headquarters. 

It must be noted that the NPP constitution had no place for the position of a national organiser at the time, therefore, he had to combine the duties of these two offices; a responsibility he discharged with exceptional dispatch.