By Kwame Okoampa-Ahoofe, Jr., Ph.D.
Garden City, New York
August 17, 2014
E-mail: okoampaahoofe@optimum.net

He knows that strictly speaking, he is aptly what might be called a political dead-wood; and so Mr. Alan John Kwadwo "Quitman" Kyerematen has resorted to taking cheap shots at Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo, the most winsome and tested and mature among the seven aspirants contesting for the presidential candidacy of the main opposition New Patriotic Party (NPP). Mr. Kyerematen is also the only presidential aspirant among the seven who has never competed for any recognizable elective public office of national significance.

He and his followers also like to brag about Alan Cash's having served as Trade and Industry and PSI (or Presidential Special Initiatives) Minister; but the fact of the matter is that Mr. Cash was handpicked for the job, he was not elected to serve in government by the people. What the foregoing means is that he is not a popular candidate for even a parliamentary seat, let alone the most significant and powerful elective position in the land. He has only his overweening pride and crass arrogance to commend him to the job. It is also rather pathetic, albeit characteristic, for Alan Cash, as he is popularly known, to presume to impugn the electability and popularity of Nana Akufo-Addo.

Appearing before some party delegates in the Northern Regional Capital of Tamale recently - the Daily Guide informs us that most of the delegates boycotted Mr. Kyerematen's pre-scheduled campaign bragging session - Alan Cash had the temerity to advise the delegates not to vote for "a candidate that only NPP people want" (See "Alan Fires [At] Akufo-Addo" Ghanaweb.com 8/11/14). In brief, the comical suggestion here is that Mr. Kyerematen is a crossover candidate who is popular among both New Patriotic Party (NPP) members, supporters and sympathizers as well as non-party affiliated potential and eligible voters.

Well, that is Alan's one great lie. The epic truth is that Mr. Kyerematen is a candidate without any coherent and critical mass of following. He is a textbook politician; he has no constituency or any identifiable stronghold. He is a hobo. He only has his big mouth - pun intended - as his most reliable constituency. Whatever else he has achieved in life appears to be largely fit for decorating one's curriculum vitae, that is a professional novice's and nothing else.

But, of course, Election 2016 is squarely about practical experience and palpable results, not trophies that one may hang up the wall of one's office or living room to sate one's vanity and pat oneself on the back and smile about. Managing-Director of UAC at 22 years old? Come on, let's get serious. At any rate, who shopped at UAC in the late 1970s and early 1980s? As far as I know, GNTC was the way to go! We are also not talking 9-year-old Common Entrance prodigies here; I have my own 8-year-old who started reading music and playing the violin at 6 years old. No, we are talking about the governance of a "giant" frontline nation on the African continent!

There is also this popular Akan barroom song a portion of whose lyrics runs as follows: "We are drinking hard stuff, and here you come talking 'shirt'." The dear reader may put his/her own spin on the internally quoted riff of "shirt." And that is precisely my point - Alan Cash is talking "SHIRT"! He may also do himself a lot of good by recalling the globally tired maxim of "Charity begins at home." The fact of the matter is that he inexcusably insults the intelligence of party delegates when he claims to be far more popular both within and outside the New Patriotic Party than the man who twice handily defeated him at the party's presidential primaries. And I don't suppose that it does Mr. Kyerematen any good to facilely presume that every Ghanaian voter who cast his/her ballot for Nana Akufo-Addo is also bound to cast his/her vote for him.

You see, this goes to show you, the dear reader, how childishly arrogant and presumptuous the man is. Then also, the man vacuously claims to have absolute command and control of some "300,000 floating voters" whose support eluded Nana Akufo-Addo in two consecutive elections. But, once again, the fact of the matter is that outside of party presidential primaries, Mr. Kyerematen is a decidedly unknown quantity. He has no spine to walk chest-out on, let alone sturdy feet to stand on. His only comedy-circuit "supporters" are diehard Mahama National Democratic Congress (NDC) backers who appear to have thoroughly fooled him into believing that he has crossover appeal. Behind closed doors, these NDC apparatchiks merely envisage the "Handsome Giant" as a pansy, a dupe.

After all, haven't they hosted Alan lackeys at the Helen Ntoso-occupied regional minister's residence at Ho, the Volta Regional Capital? And just what has been the experiential record of both the NPP and its parliamentary candidates in the Volta Region? In sum, Alan Cash is living a pipe-dream. The pity, however, is that he thinks everybody is living the same smoke-screen dream with him! We also learn that Alan's Tamale delegates conference was a big flop. And the commonsensical reason was that the bulk of the delegates believed that their time would be far better spent monitoring the Electoral Commission-sponsored limited voters' registration exercise - of first-time voters - than hobnobbing with an incurably cynical campaign AWOL and a rampant and pathological quitter and liar.

If, indeed, as he self-righteously claims, Mr. Kyerematen was sidelined by the 2012 Akufo-Addo Presidential Campaign, this was definitely because going into Election 2008, Alan Cash had built an indelibly neagtive reputation for himself that he couldn't be trusted to work harmoniously with seasoned party movers and shakers, let alone presume to represent the New Patriotic Party in an epic presidential election bordering on the destiny and heart and soul of our beloved motherland, and fatherland as well.

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