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Opinions of Tuesday, 11 December 2012

Columnist: AlWaiz, Husseini Y Baba

The People have Spoken

…We have been Vindicated!!!
“The willingness of the loser to accept defeat gracefully and the victor to show respect for the losing side is one of the hallmarks of a stable democracy” --- Kofi Annan, former Secretary General of the United Nations

Coincidentally, true to the advocacy above by the most eminent and prominent Ghanaian diplomat, Mr. Kofi Annan, we heard and saw H. E. President Mahama on the other side of the Atlantic on a live JOY TV broadcast, upon winning and declaration of the results by the Electoral Commission, really “ showed respect for the losing side…” when he urged NDC members not to over celebrate in order not to get the losing NPP members and supporters aggravated and expressed his commitment to be a “father to all” and willing to establish all-inclusive government. It is now time for the “loser (Nana Addo) to accept defeat gracefully”, thereby fulfilling the other part of Mr. Annan’ s wisdom.
In fact, the rate of confidence and optimism by Nana Addo and the NPP was more than necessary. He even went to the extent of forming his list of cabinet-as we were made to understand, it was dominated by the ‘Akyem-kyebi’ Mafia who are mostly his family members and close relatives. This was after adopting some ‘innovative’ political measures out of desperation for power, such as; the bizarre meeting with our founder, former President Jerry Rawlings-whom Nana regards hitherto, an enemy, since the early days of the revolution. Another strategy that never worked out was his ability to convince Nana Konadu, the former first lady to form a party, the NDP, whose congress was bankrolled by him and his party in a bid to split the votes of the great Akatamanso party. However, that also failed to succeed, after she was disqualified by the EC. Eventually, the straw that broke the camel’s back was when he lied at their last rally in Accra that, Konadu has endorsed him and urged NDP members to vote for him. But her spokesperson came our instantly and instantaneously to rubbish his claim, which forced him to render an apology. That was the title of my last article before the elections, “Konadu knows Nana Addo will lose…That is why she would not endorse him.”
One would always wonder why should a party, who claims to believe in the principles of democracy and good governance, should refuse to concede defeat, which is glaring. In fact, it was a history repeating itself, because same thing happened during the 2008 elections, when Nana Addo and his aggressive and arrogant NPP memebers refused to concede defeat. They rather took the EC to court, restraining them from announcing the results. But rather than their false and unfounded allegations of rigging the elections, the NPP should concede defeat and congratulate the President. Then organize a crisis meeting among their entire national executives, to deliberate and do a sole search of what is responsible for their two times political predicament, as to what is making it impossible for them to get ‘hired’ by the discerning Ghanaian electorates. It is suicidal for them to continue to win only two out of ten regions of the country with a relatively small margin.
Some of these factors that we know are, their arrogance and pomposity, which is seen not only in Nana’s sense of demeanor alone, but virtually all his gurus and surrogates, such has Ken Agyapong of “Akans should attack Ewes and Gas” fame, Ursula Owusu, a ‘bed warmer’ to Nana Addo, that caused her marriage, whose recent statement, “…For the free education they had, Northerners would still have been herdsmen(rearing cattle), have aggravated a lot of even their supporters in the north and voted against them. What is even more interesting was the ‘numerical tsunami’ that the President caused in their ‘strongholds’; such as the Eastern and Ashanti regions. While we yielded almost 30% of their entire votes in Ashanti region, we almost took half of Nana Addo’s home region votes, the Eastern region, when we garnered 43% of the total votes in the region. The voting pattern in our ‘”Florida”, or stronghold Volta region is amazing-while the NPP struggled with a mere less than 15%, we ‘swallowed’ a whopping over 84% percentage point.
From all indications, as I have stated in my various articles, since the active beginning of the campaign activities that, it is unfortunate for Nana Addo and the NPP to have been fighting a losing battle. Because it is never possible to fight and win against someone like President Mahama-who was born to lead. So when he unexpectedly surfaced on the political campaign scene, he completely transformed the political dynamics, by virtue of his God-given charisma, charm, handsomeness, eloquence, tolerance, humility, honesty, integrity, magnanimity and many more. Hence it was very unfortunate for Mr. Freebies, Nana Addo whose character is diametrically opposed to the President’s to unseat him. I strongly believe that, even a lot of senior statesmen, Professionals, Civil Servants and members of the Academia did not vote for him-because, educated people would not want to deal with arrogant leaders, having realized that, President Mahama is characterized by extra-ordinary and outstanding sense of humility. Finally, one of the lessons the NPP has to learn is that, gone are the days, where they would insult other tribes and undermine them and yet, wishing to attract their votes. And unless they shed-off their “Yen Akanfuo” ethnocentric mantra of superiority complex and the ‘Akyem-Kyebi’ Mafia or confederacy-thinking they are more deserve to be leaders of this country-while letting the Fantis, Ewes, Gas and Northerners play the second fiddle, they would continue to be in opposition and would never test power again, till thy kingdom comes. And my next article will center on a litmus test for the NPP to see if they will vote for Dr. Bawumia, at their primaries, only time will tell when we approach the next elections.
Husseini Y. Baba AlWaiz, Press Secretary, NDC New York