Opinions of Monday, 3 July 2023

Columnist: Iddrisu Abdul Hakeem

Assin North by-election outcome: A clear sign of NDC's 2024 victory, the cause of Akufo Addo's freudian slip

Fellow Ghanaians, finally, God has decided to show us mercy and to restore our hope, prosperity and development with a very clear sign that, our lives won’t continue to be in this state of jeopardy, anomy, and comatose as those presently at the helm of our affairs would soon be halted in tightening their grip of economic ramshackle, kleptocratic proclivity, and feeding fat upon us.

Since the Assin North By-election, political scientists and social commentators have been theorising and predicting what the outcome of the 2024 general elections shall look like. For majority of political prophets and fortune tellers, the National Democratic Congress, NDC, shall win that all important
general elections, and their victory shall as well serve as a bulwark against the New Patriotic Party possible win of any election ever, at least for decades if the party doesn’t get dismantled into smithereens post 2024. But few doubting Thomas' believe it's still too early and premature to dabble into that hypothesis.

It's however obvious that the governing New Patriotic Party, NPP, has itself already thrown in the towel since their defeat at the Assin North By-election. At least, they have lost all hope about the 2024 election.

Perhaps, it was this inevitably hanging and hovering defeat that compelled president Akufo Addo to make his anti-habeas corpus statement – the infamous 'jail bound' statement.

Whichever school of thought you choose to belong to, it's as clear as crystal, that no level-headed citizen at this critical juncture of our national annihilation and humiliation, would wish this state of finifugal
economic 'bumfuzzlement' and hogwash to continue. It's sickening. There's a shouting need for a change, and politicians and pampers they say have one thing in common; they must all be changed, and for the same reason.

And indeed, there are few compelling indicators that strongly confirm that a
change of political party in government come 2024 is looming – the victory of the NDC in the Assin North by-election. These indicators are ranging from economic, political, scientific, psychological, spiritual or even superstitious perspectives and factors.

In the first instance, the two-terms barrier has been a palpable indicator that the NPP must go. The party’s hogwash of breaking of the eight years or two terms has been uncalculated nonsense and empty talk.

Since this fourth republic, each of the major political parties have had to hand over the baton of leadership to the other. And that happened at the time each of the outgoing president and party had the economy in good shape, but handed it over to the next political party. It’s therefore an insult, a shame, and complete stupidity for Ghanaians to allow a party whose concept of good governance doesn’t go beyond the blowing of sirens in streets, disobeying traffic light, and who have mastered the art of causing huge sums of public funds to disappear into thin air, to break the two-terms barrier.

The NPP seems however to have anchored their hopes in the most recent Nigerian election, which, if true, makes the NPP worse than a stain on the political under pant of life. Because they are seriously chasing their own tail.

The example of Nigeria has been quite different because, the PDP that lost power to the APC in 2015 had ruled Nigeria for sixteen good years since Nigeria’s return to civil rule in 1999.

The APC was a coalition of about four political parties including other minor parties that cross-fertilized their resources and members to form the APC. They included Buhari’s CPC, Bola Ahmed Tinubu’s (the current president) ACN, Chief Edwin Ume-Ezeoke’s ANPP who earlier served as a running mate to Buhari in the 2007 general election of Nigeria. Some factions of APGA and even the PDP also
decamped to join the APC before and even after the victory of the APC in 2015.
Buhari as a former head of state since 1984, it was agreed, was to be made the Flagbearer of the coalition of these parties – APC – and other parties’ leaders would share the other key portfolios in government.

For instance, ACN led by Tinubu was to serve as running mate, ANPP would produce a Speaker of the Senate, and APGA member to be made Chief Justice. However, a Muslim-Muslim ticket was a bad idea for the embryonic party of APC at the time. So, Tinubu who was supposed to vice Buhari, instead, looked for a Christian to represent him in the person of Professor Yemi Osinbajo, with the hope that after the eight years of Buhari’s CPC side of the coalition, his party, the ACN led by him would become the Flagbearer of the APC.

This was what basically broke “the eight” in Nigeria. It wasn’t therefore surprising because the PDP who handed over to the APC had also ruled for sixteen years under presidents Obasanjo, Umar Yar’dua and Goodluck Jonathan.

Clearly, the NPP’s coalition of so-called Busia-Dambo-Danqua- tradition is the most useless and biased coalition and no match for the APC when some factions are relegated to the Vice President position always. And they would be peddling offensive nonsense if they are to use that as a basis to mimicking the example of Nigeria of breaking any eight amidst this unfortunate economic meltdown
in Ghana.

Cosmopolitanism played a key role in the Nigerian example, something that is never in the spirit of the NPP. They are simply the Ghanaian version of the Ku Klux Klan of the United States of America in the 19th century.

Fast forward, as for president Akufo Addo's anti habeas corpus campaign message, skepticism about the legal pedigree of the president has been wagged on many tongues of Ghanaians in respect of whether he has genuine qualifications for that title. That is, is he a real 'learned fellow', or he is being dressed in
borrowed robes? Indeed, believe what you want, such skeptics skepticism is coming to the fore quicker than expected.

His obvious lack of capacity to be a real and genuine lawyer with the required legal mind, luminary and astuteness of the law doubted by many citizens appears to have been confirmed in the president's recent layman's comment on the James Quayson so-called criminal case.

The concept of Habeas Corpus as a legal procedure and respect for the rule of law is a household knowledge among even the laziest student of law. It's a legal principle that ensures freedom of citizens especially the so-called guilty ones until they are proven guilty by a competent court of jurisdiction.

It therefore beats anybody's intelligence and imagination, that a former Attorney General of the Republic who eventually ascended to the highest office of the land, could simply disregard the principle and writ of Habeas Corpus, or has been unaware of it. Habeas corpus has been an act of parliament since 1964: (Act 224). For a sitting president to have churned out such legal infantilism, was indeed a watershed and scandalizing.

Apparently, careful observation suggests President Akufo Addo's 'jail bound' statement made during that by-election campaign of ballyhoo, was beyond ignorance of the law. Instead, it could have stemmed from either political malice and mischief, or accumulated electoral-cum-political fraud, stress,
and outright hopelessness.

You see, it is the good master and teacher, Jesus Christ, who teaches that out of abundance of the heart the mouth speaketh. What the president said was a classic example of a Freudian slip. It exposed the ill- will under the sleeve of the president. Perhaps, due to the inevitable defeat that awaits the NPP which
was revealed in that by-election at Assin North.

As stated earlier, some of the indicators which made the victory of that by-election as victory for the NDC in 2024, include the economic dynamics which is the obvious and most fundamental indicator. The people of Ghana, inter alia, have lost a great deal of confidence in the current government.

For the first time in our history, our economy has been ranked as the worst of all economies in the whole wide world with our currency the most depreciated and worst performing currency in the whole world, and the economic situations and conditions of the citizens have been speaking volumes to this reality.

It's simply hell living in Ghana today due to economic and political failure and the collapse of these two has been quite scientific a proof of the NDC's victory that no man, in any capacity, unless a madman, can do propaganda about it.

The second indicator is based on the psychological effects and impact the By-election had on the NPP before, during, and after it. From the word go, it was clear the NPP had been too jittery, and that necessitated certain defeatist attitude and comments.

Among which the majority leader, Kyei Mensa Bonso said the NPP was going to narrowly win the by-election. The spiritual element is perhaps the most significant aspect which sent a strong message to the NPP that God has said enough is enough' to their eight years of economic conundrum and evil governance
unleashed upon innocent Ghanaians. And that has to do with the very day that by-election was organized.

It was on Tuesday and Arafa day of the Muslims; a very powerful day. Spiritually, Tuesdays have been very hard days within the mystical dimension of Islam, including in many cultures, and Tuesdays had been used in the olden days to prepare and wage wars against stronger enemies by Kingdoms.

Many of the wars Kingdoms like Gonja, Dagbon, and even Asantes prepared and waged by Muslim clerics, were done on Tuesdays according to Ivor Wilks, Nehemiah Levtzion, Adu Boahen, and other scholars of the Asante, Dagbon, and Gonja Kingdoms.

The Dagbani people had a Mallam called Sabali Yarna Yaamusah who was a friend to the Overlord of the Dagbon Kingdom, Naa Tutugri, the father of Naa Zangina; the Asantehene, Osei Bonsu, had a Mallam called the Parsha or Basha in the person of Muhammad al-Gamba; The Overlord of Gonja, Maura alias Ndewura Jakpa, had a Mallam who founded the Sakpare Muslims in the Gonja Kingdom led initially by
Fatigi Morokpe. All this Mallams prepared and waged wars against enemies of these kingdoms spiritually before the physical war, on Tuesdays.

This means that, to have slated that by-election on such a powerful day was literally a preparation for a greater election - the 2024 general elections. And the winner of that by-election shall certainly become the winner of the major election.

Finally, the political and electoral history and demographics of that Constituency, Assin North, attested to this political fortune telling, prophecy, and prediction. That the winner of that by-election shall win the 2024 presidential election. And the NDC shall win the 2024 general elections and shall form the next government in 2025. In Sha Allah.

From the angle of these electoral demographics of the Constituency, in my first article on the Assin North By-election which I titled, "Assin North By-election: the Good, the Bad, and the Ugly", I pointed out how that Constituency has been a key factor and determiner of a presidential election in Ghana and the general election at large.

I revealed that, since 1992, the political party that wins the Assin North is the eventual winner of the presidential election. Unless in strange situations where pork barrel politics dictated the winner, like the case of Kennedy Agyapong in 2008. The NDC won the presidential election but the NPP won the Assin North because of the apparent vote buying tactics.

However, with the constituents now knowing how to take money without voting for vote buyers, the NPP must kiss goodbye to that Constituency come 2024. And certainly the recent NDC victory in the by- election is an attestation to what is to come 2024. Victory in advance for the NDC.

Fellow Ghanaians, in his Tribute to Bandana alias Shatta Wale, Mr. Logic paraphrased a local wisdom in our Ghanaian street parlance, that "what elders can see sitting down, little boys cannot see standing up".

Thus, the old man Akufo Addo had seen the defeat of his party coming with full force. For me, only a bunch of thick skulls and sickening minds can mess up a government on this huge and dangerous scale and still hoping that by crook or by crook (because there's no fairness in this) they should be left in government.
In Dagbani it is said that "if the road has no turns and curves, the travelers on it would certainly see each others' occiputs". This literally means that if there's life, posterity is enough as a judge between rival groups.

Posterity has indeed come to judge Akufo Addo as the last 'saint' standing as we all thought. And so far, it’s not so good as the mantra of former President Kufuor suggested; under Akufo Addo, it’s so far, so evil; it’s so far, so terrible; it’s so far, so bad, and indeed, it’s so far, so dangerous.

There's therefore a crying, and agitating need for a political and leadership Messiah in the person of former President Mahama to help rescue our sinking ship and nation, in order to marshal it in the right direction. Hence, the victory of the NDC in advance as a hope to a hopeless nation for seven years.