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

At the time of this writing (2/13/14), I had not bothered to check the upshot of his ambition to be elected Asante Regional Chairman of the New Patriotic Party (NPP). But it was quite certain that somebody else had clinched the job. I am, of course, referring to Mr. Kwame Osei-Prempeh, the former Deputy Attorney-General under the Kufuor administration and Member of Parliament for Nsuta-Kwamang-Beposo.

Mr. Osei-Prempeh's beef is that some of the contestants for the coveted job of NPP's Asante Regional Chairman are trying to buy their way cheaply with money, and that delegates ought to be smart enough to choose a competent candidate over an also-run. The problem with this cynical bitching is that it takes a lot of competence and discipline for anybody to be able to acquire considerable monetary wealth, and then be able to keep most of it and even make it grow exponentially.

Besides, it takes both competence and considerable capital resources to run a viable political party and, indeed, the affairs of the people at large. It may well have been a mature and pragmatic and savvy recognition of this fact that prompted Mr. Jake Obetsebi-Lamptey, the National Chairman of the New Patriotic Party, to offer his unreserved endorsement to those among the ranks of the party's membership who were going out of their way to "sacrificially" use some of their own capital resources to either oil their own campaign machinery or, better yet, boost the candidacies of contestants whom they deemed to best represent the needs and aspirations of the party.

Personally, I feel leery of candidates who desperately and immaturely resort to bitterly complaining about the electioneering strategies of their competitors, instead of retooling and/or re-designing their own strategies to stay afloat, relevant and viable. The very notion that, somehow, "competence" is a raw commodity capable of flying on its own is a chimera. Anybody who believes in such theoretical bunk ought not to be running for public office; and it is quite certain that were any auditors worthy of such designation to conscientiously scrutinize the means by which Mr. Osei-Prempeh got himself elected as Member of Parliament for Nsuta-Kwamang-Beposo, it would become glaringly clear that the complainant had actually suavely bought his way into our august National Assembly.

I also strongly suspect that as of this writing (2/14/14), Mr. Osei-Prempeh had resoundingly lost his NPP regional chairmanship bid to a man more courageous and willing to, literally, put his money where his mouth is. Indeed, had he any widespread support among the party membership strewn across the entire region, Mr. Osei-Prempeh would not have been so much in the jitters - he would have been laughing all the way to the bank and relishing every bit of the act, as many a New Yorker is wont to say. In sum, whiners and bitchers are invariably loser-jockeys not worth betting one's proverbial bottom-dollar on.

That Mr. Bernard Antwi-Boasiako, aka "Chairman Wontumi," had been willing to donate a decent office complex for the party's perpetual use, in exchange for having his regional chairmanship aspiration resoundingly endorsed by party delegates, is a vintage part of what it means to be a committed and an air-tight party loyalist. The Akan have a proverb approving of this kind of savvy political game plan - and that maxim goes as follows: "If you hear that Mr. Life is selling an antidote for strength and longevity, sell all your personal belongings and buy some. And then you will be able to supremely fight your way back into a higher and wealthier station in life."

It is also worth noting that Chairman Wontumi is not the first aspiring NPP candidate for office to have donated real-estate or landed property to the party. In the lead-up to Election 2008, Mr. Hackman Owusu-Agyemang, an MP from New Juaben and a former Kufuor cabinet appointee, gambled with his personal property in much the same mode. Back then, Mr. Owusu-Agyemang was desperately seeking to be nominated as the NPP Presidential Candidate in order to face off with the now-late and then Candidate John Evans Atta-Mills.

Well, Mr. Owusu-Agyemang landed exactly where party delegates thought he deserved to be - on his prats in Alajo's jumbo-gutter with broken ribs. I am quite certain that Chairman Wontumi was well aware of this debacle when he decided to put up his landed property for the perennial use of the party.

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*Kwame Okoampa-Ahoofe, Jr., Ph.D.
Department of English
Nassau Community College of SUNY
Garden City, New York
Feb. 14, 2014
E-mail: okoampaahoofe@optimum.net
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