Paa Kwesi Nduom is a Pariah in his own Party

By Kwame Okoampa-Ahoofe, Jr., Ph.D.

About the time that he began flirting with the idea of gunning for the presidency on the ticket of the Convention People’s Party (CPP), I politely admonished Dr. Paa Kwesi Nduom that his neo-liberal political temperament, as well as his professional profile, eloquently attested to the fact that he was a Danquah-Busia Traditionalist, or scion, at heart. It was, of course, quite understandable that the man felt nostalgic, even outright passionate, about the African Show Boy because, after all, Paa Kwesi had grown up swearing by the gospel according to Nkrumaism, as a Young Pioneer Movement recruit.

Still, that was way back in the 1960s, when the now-Presidential Candidate of the rump-Convention People’s Party was barely into his teens. I had also added the fact that had he been an adult and as professionally successful as he currently is, a socialist-oriented African Show Boy would have punitively tagged him as a capitalist cormorant, and Paa Kwesi Nduom may well have ended up in one of the condemned cells at the Nsawam Medium-Security Prison.

Interestingly, in an E-mail note addressed to me on Ghanaweb.com, the now-besieged rump-CPP Presidential Candidate jested that in due course, I would repent of my wayward ways and rejoin the Nkrumaist fold “as one of us.” The sad reality, though, is that now Paa Kwesi finds himself fighting for his own political life, his reputation and his redemption among the ranks of the nowhere-going rump-CPP stalwarts. His major problem may have almost absolutely nothing at all to do with his alleged shady dealings with the State Enterprises Commission (SEC). And as the CPP Presidential Candidate has himself convincingly and eloquently attested, he was cleared quite awhile before he opted to serve with the government of the ruling New Patriotic Party for some six long years!

And so, in essence, the fact of him having been granted parliamentary clearance to serve in a ministerial position under President Kufuor, in of itself, ought to have since long ago definitively put paid to any vicious rumors that his detractors continue to inexorably peddle about the Komenda-Edina-Eguafo-Abirem CPP-Member of Parliament. Paa Kwesi has even mentioned Dr. John Evans Atta-Mills, then-Commissioner of the Internal Revenue Service (IRS), as the man who cleared him of any wrongdoing vis-à-vis the CPP Presidential Candidate’s dealings with the State Enterprises Commission (SEC). And, needless to say, one could not get a better clearance witness than the Asomdwoehene – the King-of-Peace – himself. And so, perhaps, Paa Kwesi’s best bet may be to have Prof. Atta-Mills publicly put in the proverbial “good word” for him. But whether the man would consent to doing just that while the African Show Boy’s faux-incarnation – or avatar – plays prime spoiler between the perennial P/NDC Presidential Candidate and the redoubtable and indomitable New Patriotic Party (NPP) Presidential Candidate, Nana Addo-Dankwa Akufo-Addo, remains moot.

In the meantime, Paa Kwesi has no other alternative but to slug it out on two fronts, first, with his own ideological fellow journeymen and women and, second, with the rest of the outside Ghanaian political world. This, no doubt, is bound to be an uphill political battle, one out of which the star player, or protagonist, is highly unlikely to emerge unscathed. Even without any internal political wrangling, Paa Kwesi did not have a proverbial china -man’s chance against either of the two major presidential candidates, namely, the inimitably eloquent and firebrand executive-activist of the NPP, Nana Akufo-Addo, and the patently lackluster and largely languid and theatrically self-effacing Prof. Atta-Mills, contrary to what the Deloitte and Touche business executive would have his supporters and sympathizers believe.

Still, Paa Kwesi Nduom has the palpably face-saving pretext of having such formidable internal detractors as Mr. F. A. Jantuah, a stalwart member of the original Convention People’s Party, being hot on his trail. Recently, for instance, Mr. Jantuah issued a public call for the resignation of Paa Kwesi, and one very much doubts whether this porcupine of an old guard took lightly Dr. Nduom’s avowed intention to forgiving his detractors. In all likelihood, Mr. Jantuah might have taken such seemingly conciliatory gesture as a raw-fleshed affront, as, indeed, the behavior of a clinically insolent son up to cavalierly upstaging his elders and ideological forebears.

The question here, though, regards one of trust. Ever since Dr. Nduom expediently opted to play the trans-ideological statesman, in the exact same manner that President John Agyekum-Kufuor opted to do with Flt.-Lt. Jeremiah John Rawlings, in the wake of the ousting of the constitutionally elected Dr. Hilla Limann, and the latter’s Nkrumah-leaning People’s National Party (PNP), his associates among the ranks of the rump-CPP have never trusted him. And the reason is simply and precisely that Paa Kwesi acted too smartly for the liking of his largely ideologically frozen and palpably ossified fellow travelers on the long-grounded and hulking Nkrumaist gravy train. Furthermore, where his fellow journeymen and women only envisaged wisdom in pseudo-socialist fanaticism, Paa Kwesi saw prime opportunity to concretely and constructively boost his resume; in the process, he volleyed himself, strategically, over and above any serious potential rivals for the presidential candidacy of the rump-CPP. Unfortunately, that was just about as far as his vaulting ambition could carry him.

For now, Paa Kwesi also has to contend with the inescapable fact that any attempt to impugn the relatively sterling performance of the ruling New Patriotic Party, also stands to call his own political judgment and personal integrity into question. And so for now, insidious party infighting or not, the Edina native is caught between the proverbial rock and a hard place.

On Sunday (6/22/08), Mr. Ekow Nelson, a diehard rump-Cii-Pii-Pii propagandist, writing from his cozy perch in London, presumed to retributively impugn the integrity of Mr. Jantuah by registering the following challenging observation: “The father of our party[,] the great Dr. Kwame Nkrumah[,] was on various occasions accused falsely by his detractors of smuggling gold bars out of the country and I don’t remember Mr. F. A. Jantuah or Ms. Anin asking him to clear his name in relation to these allegations before the 1964 elections. We are told that there is damning tape in existence that shows Michelle Obama with Louis Farrakhan on stage mouthing the word ‘whitey.’ If such a tape surfaces, it could indeed be damaging to Senator Obama and the Democrats. Does that mean [that] the Senator should resign and clear his wife’s name? This is absurd and ridiculous” (see “This is Madness” Ghanaweb.com 6/22/08).

First of all, it needs to be promptly pointed out, in no uncertain terms, to Mr. Ekow Nelson, that in 1964, Mr. Kwame Nkrumah was the substantive President of Ghana, not a mere presidential candidate of the so-called Convention People’s Party. In fact, just a year later, in 1965, the African Show Boy would use his party’s parliamentary majority to name himself Ghana’s “President-for-Life.” Secondly, in the 1964 elections, President Nkrumah, with the cronyistic assistance of local party executives, literally, handpicked almost every one of the candidates allowed to stand on the ticket of the Cii-Pii-Pii (see Dennis Austin’s Politics in Ghana). And to hear Mr. Jato Kaleo tell it, even parliamentarians who did not belong to the then-ruling CPP were given the coercive option of either running on the ticket of the CPP or, in the case of Mr. Kaleo, opting for a prison sentence! So where does Mr. Nelson come by such nonsense as any member of the CPP, including Mr. Kosi Dedey’s “True Big Six,” mustering the temerity – or chutzpah – to impugn either the political or personal integrity of “Osagyefo Kantamanto” Kwame Nkrumah?

To be certain, by 1961, about the only Ghanaian citizen who could boldly and valiantly call out the African Show Boy on any semblance of administrative account, was Dr. J. B. Danquah, Dr. Busia having scurried out of the country, for personal safety, in exile, with the active complicity and assistance of Mr. Krobo Edusei. And don’t we all know exactly the fate that befell the Doyen of Gold Coast and Ghanaian Politics?

Thirdly, what is really the point, on the part of Mr. Ekow Nelson, of comparing apples to kenkeys, by alluding to the devious and vicious U.S. Republican Party attempt to make a rabid racist out of Mrs. Michelle Obama, wife of the presumptive nominee for Presidential Candidate of the Democratic Party since, unlike Dr. Paa Kwesi Nduom, Mr. Obama has, himself, not been personally accused of making any racially charged “whitey” remark? Maybe Mr. Nelson would do his readers and himself much better by asking Mr. Jantuah about the reaction of Mr. Krobo Edusei – one of the “True Big Six” – to the 1966 coup that effectively and auspiciously ended the extortionate political career of Mr. Kwame Nkrumah, as the de facto Dictator and Tyrant of Ghana. In the final analysis, what needs to be boldly confronted by Dr. Paa Kwesi Nduom and his desperate supporters and sympathizers, is that the CPP Presidential Candidate is effectively a man without a following, and thus, practically speaking, a candidate without a party. Indeed, had he remained at his NPP ministerial post and gracefully and honestly crossed over, Paa Kwesi would likely now be a potentially formidable Presidential-Candidate-in-Waiting, favorably vying with the next tier of the NPP leadership after the exit of Nana Akufo-Addo. Alas, just like his hero, the African Show Boy, Dr. Paa Kwesi Nduom is a man in too much of a hurry to become President and in the process has sorrowfully and tragically come to envisage political expediency to be the shortest, easiest and the most convenient path to the Flagstaff House.

*Kwame Okoampa-Ahoofe, Jr., Ph.D., is Associate Professor of English, Journalism and Creative Writing at Nassau Community College of the State University of New York, Garden City. He is the author of 17 books, including “Dr. J. B. Danquah: Architect of Modern Ghana” (Atumpan Publications/lulu.com, 2008). E-mail: okoampaahoofe@aol.com. ##################################