Why Akufo-Addo will win

The most popular and formidable leader among the Magnificent 17

Kasoa was for much of Sunday the national centre for flutter and trumpetting, ego-fanning and pantomime cheers, synthetic, sound and fury that took some diligent decipherment to tell the actual popularity of most of the men on the performance stage.

If the contest was about T-shirts, banners and posters others could easily claim they outperform him. But when he spoke he spoke like the leader-in-waiting and if the ovation he received from the thousands of party supporters (majority of whom were not wearing his T-shirts) at the Kasoa rally of the New Patriotic Party was any indication of his popularity, then Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo is the overwhelming choice of the NPP rank and file as their 2008 flagbearer.

On the previous day on Joy FM's newsfile, even Koku Anyidoho, Communications Director of Prof Mills' campaign team, could not resist admitting that in terms of both national and international stature, Nana Akufo-Addo, 63, stands the tallest among the Magnificent 17 vying to compete with his candidate in the 2008 presidential elections for the NPP.

For the April 20, 1996 congress candidate John Agyekum Kufuor promised "to provide good political leadership based on my 30 years of accumulated experience in politics."

Today, after 30 years on the frontline of Ghana’s political leadership, Akufo-Addo is arguably the most formidable and popular living Ghanaian politician of this era after Presidents Kufuor and Rawlings.

But, the actual endorsement or rejection of this view would be evident when about 2,330 party delegates meet at the University of Ghana, Legon, in 19 days time. Candidates and their schemers are criss-crossing the country in hope of influencing the selection of delegates process one way or the other.
But, information that this paper is picking across the constituencies is that the party’s mind is made up on who best fits the bill and no amount of last minute carrots can make them chew over the matter once again.

Nana Akufo-Addo is simply seen as the "most complete and formidable politician" within the line-up to take over after President John Agyekum Kufuor. It is not for nothing that virtually every candidate in the presidential nomination says "the contest is between me and Akufo-Addo."

So why is this the case?

According to Victor Newman, a highly regarded NPP strategist, who also serves as Head of Research for Akufo-Addo’s campaign, "Nana has not only served the Party with distinction, he has the leadership qualities to win that big electoral challenge in December 2008. He is the complete candidate."

Mustapha Hamid, Akufo-Addo’s spokesperson, adds: "Nana is the only candidate who is admired, respected and at the same time, feared by the NDC. He is bold, intelligent and decisive. He would not stand for injustice or unfairness. It is a principle that the friends he grew up with in Swalaba, Accra Central, Nima and went to school with at Legon all remember him for."

His adult life in Ghana is a chronology of selfless political sacrifice for the national good. 30 years ago, Nana Akufo-Addo, as General Secretary of the PMFJ, led the 'No’ campaign against Gen I K Acheampong’s referendum on the ‘Union Government’ proposal.

25 years ago, he was the leading counsel in Tuffuor and Attorney-General, a landmark case which fully established the doctrine of separation of powers, preventing the President from removing the Chief Justice.

20 years ago, he was the founder and first Chairperson of the Ghana Committee on Human and Peoples Rights, which was set up under the PNDC military dictatorship to protect and promote the civil liberties of Ghanaians high and low.

15 years ago, he was the first national organiser of the NPP and campaign manager of the party’s first presidential candidate, Albert Adu Boahen.

10 years ago, after leading the ground-breaking Kume Preko demonstrations of the AFC, Nana Akufo-Addo fought off NDC/EGLE Party rigging machine to become Abuakwa MP and Minority Spokesman on Legal & Constitutional Affairs. 5 years ago, he drafted and championed the National Reconciliation Act, (Act 611) which established the NRC as a necessary mechanism for healing the wounds of victims of human rights abuses in Ghana.

In the last five years, Nana Akufo-Addo has not only been internationally exposed, he has, more importantly, attained the kind of international recognition that puts him miles ahead of his competitors both within the NPP and for the 2008 presidential race.

Though a calm, composed, articulate and astute diplomat par excellence, Nana is never intimidated by the traditional powers of the world; a leadership quality very uncommon on our continent today.
His patriotism, Pan-Africanism, towering confidence, wisdom, eloquence, bi-lingual prowess and top-class leadership qualities make him a potential world leader who can push both the Ghanaian and African agenda to heights Ghanaians probably stopped imagining after President Kwame Nkrumah some 40 years ago.
After 30 years of political leadership, Akufo-Addo is on course to be elected as the next presidential candidate of the NPP.
First, all indicators point to a two-horse race between Akufo-Addo and Alan Kyerematen. The feeling within the party seems to be that an Akufo-Addo win on December 22 will be a lot easier for the vast majority of supporters of the other candidates to accept than a victory for his closest rival.
His advice to NPP congress delegates is: "Don’t play with the power that our Party Constitution has given to you. You are the ones on the ground; in constant touch with the voters in your polling areas. You know what Ghanaians want. You know who you can market with ease and zeal and win. Therefore you must make the decision yourselves for your constituencies, choose wisely and choose for Ghana."
Both party and country will see his victory as a truer reflection of the popular sentiment, with the delegates voting not as free agents but in the true sense of their designation. This means that the healing process within the NPP will be a lot quicker, in time for the party to pick its collective self up for the crunch national contest in 12 months time. Akufo-Addo proved after coming second to candidate Kufuor in 1998 that he is indeed an active unifier and mobiliser.
Among the Magnificent 17, Akufo-Addo and, to some extent, Kofi Konadu Apraku are the only candidates who have a record of being a unifying force at this competitive level within the NPP. In the October 24, 1998 NPP national congress, Candidate Kufuor got 1,286 votes (65%), Akufo-Addo had 628 votes cast (32%) and Dr Apraku, 52 votes.
Though the party was virtually split between a Kufuor camp and an Akufo-Addo camp, the runner-up galvanised his defeated supporters to rally behind the winner and play a leading role in the party’s successful 2000 campaign.
Of course, the work of Dan Botwe as General Secretary and Jake Obestebi-Lamptey as campaign manager also took some excellent skills in unification and mobilisation of forces. Akufo-Addo is a true blue party man. Same, in varying degrees, can be said of Hackman Owusu-Agyemang, Yaw Osafo-Maafo, Dr Apraku, Dan, Jake, and the others who rolled up their sleeves to build the NPP.
Yet, Akufo-Addo was prominent in every aspect of party formation and growth - formulating its constitution, setting up structures, financing it, creating democratic space for it through the law courts and promoting it.
What many people forget is that he set up The Statesman in May 1992 to become the effective mouthpiece of the NPP, especially after the opposition boycotted the first Parliament of the Fourth Republic. The paper has since grown, but maintains its ideological links with the party.
Besides the generated media noises, exaggerated claims, stagey shouts of some of his contestants, and pantomime attempts to bring him down, in the minds of millions of Ghanaians, both young and old, the next leader is Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo – the man who believes in Ghana.