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Opinions of Saturday, 22 April 2023

Columnist: Ebo Buckman

NPP breaking the 8 in 2024: Only market-based strategy can make it possible

The NPP flag The NPP flag

Sammi Awuku says what again after his uninspiring sermon on sacrifice? That the Vice President made us understand Ghana’s electoral process so we should let him lead the party in 2024? Oh Sammy, how laughable and insulting!

Is Sammi Awuku telling us that, as a political party, we didn’t understand Ghana’s electoral process and it was Dr. Bawumia who taught us? Well, it must have been through a miracle that we won power in 2000 and 2004 since we were a bunch of ignoramus patriots who didn’t understand Ghana’s electoral process.

Why wouldn’t Gideon Boako, Veep’s spokesperson, tell us Bawumia is the god of NPP? Even in the face of a blatant economic quagmire on his watch, as EMT head, and the public backlash thereof, some of you shamelessly continue to create the impression that he is the best thing that has ever happened to our great party. How insulting! Soon, you guys would tell us that, during creation, he was with God when He said “Let there be light”.

With all due respect to all those government appointees who are being fed very well by the establishment to move from one fm station to another to project a particular candidate, you guys are getting everything wrong! You talk as if on the 4th of November, the party is going to elect a national chairman of the party.

You guys seem not to understand that, since we are going to elect a candidate to be sold in a market, the most important thing to consider first when strategizing to win the 2024 election, isn’t the candidate. It is the market that will help you to determine the right candidate to produce for it. So, the market is first before the candidate.

Knowing, for instance, that a market is dominated by Jews or Muslims, is what will help you to know that producing pork steak, bacon, and ham to sell in the market will be highly imprudent and unprofitable.

As I have always pointed out to you guys, the marketability of a product depends more on the nature of the market in which it would be sold than even the quality of the product itself.

That’s why for some time now, I have been focusing more on the political market analysis than the credentials of my preferred candidate to establish the fact that he is the most marketable.

If you want to know how good cassava is, what do you do? You put it on fire! In the same vein, if you want to know how good a candidate is, you juxtapose him with the market. It is that simple! But, because your candidate appears very weak when juxtaposed with the Christian-dominated market, you guys don’t want to hear anything about the market.

One doesn’t have to be Einstein to know that it would be a great political error to analyze the electoral strength of a candidate, without situating the analysis in the context of the market in which he or she would be sold.

When I predicted that the Nigerian Vice President, Yemi Osinbajo, was going to be rejected by APC delegates, I was aware of his background as a Professor of law who has achieved a lot in his public and private life and has done a lot for his party. But, I knew those credentials meant nothing to the market.

My analysis of his chances was purely in respect of the nature and recent dynamics of the Nigerian political market. I’m a Christian alright, but I predicted strongly that Alhaji Ahmed Tinubu would win against the Christian Vice President, and subsequently predicted his win over Obi, another Christian. You see, objectivity has no religious creed.

So, when, on the basis of the Ghanaian political market analysis, I postulate that it would be politically imprudent and suicidal to present a non-Christian candidate against a formidable Christian opponent in a very competitive election in a country of about 72% Christians, it isn’t because I’m a religious bigot. No!

And, when I argue that having a candidate like Alan Kyerematen against John Mahama, would help the party to maximize its advantage in the Akan regions, particularly in Ashanti Region, to have the numbers to win, it doesn’t also make me a tribal bigot. No! It wasn’t a coincidence that Tinubu, a Yoruba man, won in all the Yoruba-dominated States except Lagos. Market-based strategy is the way to go!