By Kwame Okoampa-Ahoofe, Jr., Ph.D.
Garden City, New York
August 27, 2014
E-mail: [email protected]
His epic desperation to be elected flagbearer of the New Patriotic Party (NPP) fascinates me in no small measure. It fascinates me becase when he snubbed the elders of the party and noisily walked out, resignation letter at the ready, claiming that his objectives and aspirations no longer synched with those of the New Patriotic Party, I thought Alan John Kwadwo "Quitman" Kyerematen was on the verge of founding a new party.
And then, evidently as sure as hell, reality sunk in and forced him to scurry back to his own vomit which he has been ravenously and shamelessly licking ever since. I also don't think that Mr. Kyerematen fully appreciates what it means for any politician or leader to be envisaged as a "unifier." But give it to the man, at least in this context he has been bold and honest enough to offer one precondition under which he would be willing to slap his globally renowned unifying magic touch to the pates and prats of the rank-and-file membership of the New Patriotic Party.
On the latter score, Alan Cash, as Mr. Kyerematen is popularly known, wants the flagbearership of the party to be handed to him on a golden stool. And if that were to happen, you darn well know as well as yours truly who is likely to have his butts burnt beyond recognition. How I wish coronation ceremonies had been written into the NPP's Constitution, in much the same way that those odious and infamous Indemnity Clauses were deviously inserted into the country's Fourth-Republican Constitution.
And for good measure, the anatomical specifics and physical stature and size of who qualifies to be considered for and elected flagbearer of the New Patriotic Party could also have been appended thereof. You see, playing a unifying role in any reputable political organization goes well beyond the purely superficial and personal; it ought not necessarily to come about only in times of great stress and crises; it is something that has to be done on a daily basis, if that political organization is to achieve anything worthwhile.
In almost every one of the instances cited by Alan Cash, in which he would have his back patted sonorously, the bone of contention was purely personal, often with the former Kufuor Trade and Industry Minister attempting to give a big party cheese the proverbial run for his money, at least as poetically captured in the prodigious imagination of our protagonist. Well, let's take this reading in which The Handsome Giant narcissistically preens his feathers: "In 1992, as the Chairman of the Young Executive[s] Forum, we supported the party financially. In 1996, the Forum sponsored me to contest as a presidential aspirant against former Prez Kufuor, J. H. Mensah, Kwame Pianim and the likes. I was approached by some party members who asked me to step down because they thought I was young and had more years ahead of me. I listened and made that supreme sacrifice for the sake of party peace and unity" (See " 'I Can Build a New United NPP' - Alan K" Starrfmonline.com / Ghanaweb.com 8/27/14).
Undoubtedly, this is the most insufferably haughty and arrogant statement to hear and read from Mr. Kyerematen yet; and it makes me wonder why I had not abrasively gone after the man sooner than I did. And for those of our citizens who have in the past accused Nana Akufo-Addo of harboring a presumptuous sense of entitlement to the presidency, Mr. Kyerematen's above-quoted statement ought to come with shocking sobriety. I mean, what makes Alan Kyerematen arrive at the flagrantly flabbergasting conclusion that his being aptly put in his place was tantamount to a "supreme sacrifice" or political suicide of unprecedented and epic proportions?
Now, I am beginning to fully appreciate why Mr. Kyerematen has been consistently and roundly rejected by the New Patriotic Party delegates in two presidential primaries, and may well be poised to being apocalyptically rejected for the third time around. Needless to say, if Mr. Kwadwo Kyerematen really believes that he has any peers or classmates among the politically frontline likes of Messrs. Agyekum-Kufuor, J. H. Mensah, Jones Ofori-Atta, Adu-Boahen and Kwame Pianim, then, no doubt, he forensically confirms my long-held suspicion of him being pathologically afflicted with clinical dementia.
Suffice it, at any rate, to conclude by pointedly observing that in nearly each and every one of the cases in which he was either directly or indirectly forced to back down in a leadership contest, Mr. Kyerematen clearly had absolutely no chance of winning. His intellectual and generational superiors know this. Party delegates, members, supporters and sympathizers know this. Yes, about the only person who has been willfully too blind to realize this practical reality is our star-gazing protagonist. And this is tragically pathetic!
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