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Opinions of Saturday, 9 May 2015

Columnist: Appiah, Papa

Breaking The Revolving Cycle Of Doom – Time for Paa Kwasi Nduom

Has anyone wondered at the impunity with which President Mahama and his men are so nonchalantly destroying the country and yet blaming everyone else but themselves for it? Have you wondered why a twat like Fiifi Kwetey can look your grandmother in the eye and describe her as a kindergarten kid needing to be caned? Are you not surprised, that in the midst of dumsor, when companies are struggling to do any business at all, our president has the audacity to cast aspersions on their intelligence? Is it not strange that our president can continue to beat his chest and simply lie through his teeth about dumsor and yet lack the decency to apologise?


I will tell you why. And please stop reading if you are an NPP fanatic, because you are not going to like what I’m going to say. It is because they know what all of us do know but which some are just not prepared to accept, that Nana Akuffo Addo will never win a presidential election in Ghana! If Akuffo-Addo was ever going to be president, he would have won the 2008 election when, with government machinery behind him, he launched one of the finest election campaigns in our democratic history against a not-too-impressive Prof. Atta Mills and …lost!


Everybody knows Nana Akuffo Addo has a fanatical, almost cult-like following of some forty-five per cent of Ghanaians. Unfortunately the numbers do not favour him. He needs the five per cent, consisting mainly of people like me, who was a Rawlings admirer but voted for Agyekum Kuffour in 2000, because I saw in him a unifier who would take Ghana forward in a different direction after so many years of PNDC/NDC. And he is not going to get it!


Nana Akuffo Addo will never get the floating voters in Ghana; not after all the water that has passed under the bridge. It does not matter how much he hollers about dumsor or the economy. In the polling boot, the floating voter will remember all-die-be-die, which by the way, Nana has finally admitted was what caused him the elections in 2012 rather than some fictitious serial numbers. Mind you, he is yet to apologise for it. He has merely finally recognised, that it was not the wisest thing to have said at the time.


One simply cannot defend the indefensible. Anywhere in the developed world, Osaafo Maafo would have been suspended from the party pending further investigations and the leader would have immediately released a statement dissociating himself from the sentiments expressed. Nana’s long silence was more deafening than the remarks of Osaafo Marfo. But then again, are we not daily noticing a trend when Nana Akuffo Addo poses as a democrat while quietly nudging others to do his dirty work.


Floating voters in the polling boot will look at the divisions and backstabbing and in fighting within his own party and wonder whether this man has what it takes to unify a whole nation. And basically, they will not vote for him because he lacks a certain charisma and though he may be a good man, he does not come across as one and perception is everything in politics.


So believe it or not, there is a serious leadership crisis in Ghana. We are being taken for a ride a by a hopeless government that does not see any credible president -in -waiting trying to take their job and it is time for Ghanaians to rise up and say “enough is enough!!” We need a “democratic revolution” to break this revolving cycle of doom and, even if for only one term, to prove to the big parties, that they can no longer take us for granted.


And who better to lead this than Paa Kwesi Nduom, whose credentials I do not need to belabour. And if you think a man who got only sixty thousand votes in the last election cannot win, just remember what Obama did in the primaries. Through donations mainly from students rather than big businessmen; a dollar here, five dollars there, he managed to generate the biggest campaign pot, come the presidential elections.


If you feel the same way I do, let’s start by visiting www.pppghana.org and then clicking the top right hand corner to donate anything you can. Tell others about it. Spread it on all social media. You will be surprised at the momentum we can generate. And together, we will help kick out the misfits occupying the seat in Ghana through one big democratic revolution.

Papa Appiah