Former president John Dramani Mahama
I read Nana Kwadwo Akwaa’s softheaded “Let’s Pretend” analysis with great amusement verging closely on contempt, because this otherwise quite likable “Kweku Ananse” storyteller displays a woefully inadequate appreciation of what invariably informs the Ghanaian electorate of what political party to massively “sell” their votes to, for the most part (See “A-Plus and Mahama’s Political Strategy Behind ‘TPP’” Modernghana.com 10/6/19).
You see, A-Plus, aka Kwame Asare Obeng, is going absolutely nowhere with his so-called The People’s Project political action group, because the latter is primarily informed by the selfish and cynical interests of the protagonist.
In sum, A-Plus decided to cross over to the tribalism-informed Mahama-led National Democratic Congress (NDC) because some of the key operatives of the ruling New Patriotic Party (NPP), at both the NPP’s Kokomlemle Headquarters and Jubilee House had thoroughly and perfectly seen through the inescapable fact that besides satisfying his own ego of snooty self-importance and the ability to freeload on both the NPP and the Ghanaian people, Mr. Asare Obeng has absolutely no constructive development agenda to offer the Akufo-Addo-led government of the New Patriotic Party.
It is also an open-secret that A-Plus parted ways with the leadership of the Danquah-Busia-Dombo school of neoliberal nation-builders because he could not have his way. Well, even as the fire-spitting Mr. Kwame Baffoe, aka Abronye DC, the Bono Region’s Chairman of the New Patriotic Party, aptly intimated recently, besides his bought-and-paid-for jingle which he contributed towards the electioneering campaign of the then-Candidate Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo, the foulmouthed Hip-Life artist has absolutely nothing meaningful or formidable to contribute to either the policy initiatives of the party or the progressive implementation of the same. Going into Election 2020, Mr. Asare Obeng may very well need to convince his TPP followers and associates precisely what plans or agenda he has for moving the nation socioeconomically to a much higher ground than President Akufo-Addo has done so far.
Even more importantly, the TPP leaders need to convince the entire Ghanaian electorate, and not just floating voters or neutral eligible and potential voters, that in former President John Dramani Mahama, Ghanaians have a better alternative in progressive leadership than they presently have in the leadership of President Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo.
Thus far, short of Mr. Asare Obeng’s scandalous attempts to convince himself that the man who effectively collapsed more privately owned medium- and large-sized businesses than any Fourth-Republican leader, there is absolutely no other critical mass of Ghanaian voters on which the immodestly ambitious Mr. Asare Obeng can unload his veritably self-serving electioneering-campaign poppycock and slime-mongering.
You see, Ghanaians have come too far on the ladder towards meaningful political decision-making to be so facilely hoodwinked by political hustlers and opportunists like Mr. Asare Obeng and his abjectly nonsensical communistic peddling of wishful long-term development plans.
Needless to say, if he wants to be taken even half as seriously as he appears to be presently, then A-Plus and his Abongo Boys of desperate scam-artists and faux politicians had better present their own viable economic development agenda, rather than merely pretending that they could facilely push their wishes and desires down the throats of the Ghanaian electorate, whom they very well appear not to respect the least bit.
Else, they would already be conducting opinion surveys in order to solicit suggestions and proposals for the formulation of an alternative agenda for the development of the country.
Instead, what we see here are a shamelessly desperate gang of hustlers who want to be taken seriously but without remarkably using their brains and whatever talents they may have to formulate any viable agenda for the development of the country.
At best, the TPP is composed of power-hungry political and intellectual toddlers and teenagers who knee-jerkily suppose that they can intimidate an unprecedently progressive and visionary President Akufo-Addo to carry out their stillborn and quarter-baked ideas. Good luck!
*Visit my blog at kwameokoampaahoofe.wordpress.com Ghanaffairs
By Kwame Okoampa-Ahoofe, Jr., PhD
English Department, SUNY-Nassau
Garden City, New York
E-mail: [email protected]