Of Monarchical Butterflies, Loose Cannons And Trump Copy-Cats (Part II) | Features

In Part I of this article, I argued that Alan has absolutely no reason for leaving the NPP except his desire to be on a presidential ballot. He has come to the conclusion that the NPP no longer offers him any hope of getting on a presidential ballot.

Secondly, after the abysmal performance of August 26th, 2023, there was no way any sponsor or donor was going to invest in the Alan Presidential Project. And let’s face it, even though the NPP expanded the electoral college from over 2,000 people to over 200,000 with the aim to reduce the influence of money in its internal elections, what it has also done is that it has put an extra financial burden on contestants. Contestants certainly require more resources to meet with 200,000 people than they required to meet 2,000 people. And so, the money factor or the lack of it certainly played a role in Alan’s exit.

So much for Alan. Now to the Trump copy-cat. And I mean Ken Ohene Agyapong. To say that Ken has delusions of grandeur is an understatement. I don’t know at what point Ken nurtured the ambition to be president. His behaviour for all his years in politics never gave an indication of a person who had the ambition to be president- from throwing tantrums in public, through engaging in fisticuffs and vulgarity in parliament to living in gutters with Afia Schwarzenegger, his behaviour has been everything but complimentary.

A few weeks ago, an ardent NPP enthusiast on facebook alluded to Ken’s temperament as the reason why he does not qualify to be president. In response, one of his supporters argued that “we do not eat temperament.” That is pedestrian thinking. Temperament is certainly at the heart of human existence. The other name for temperament is character.

It is also called emotional intelligence. And on a scale of 1-10, Ken will rank 2 in terms of emotional intelligence. For some of his supporters who may not understand what is meant by emotional intelligence, let me illustrate.

A typical example of a lack of emotional intelligence is his outburst of 26th August 2023. Ken heard that an Alan supporter had been manhandled in Nalerigu. And without seeking to verify the facts or wait for further clarification, Ken immediately goes into a public rant, purportedly speaking to the Vice President on phone and promising him and the president a “show down.”

First of all, Ken wasn’t talking to the Vice President. Indeed, he may not have been talking to anybody at all on the phone in that rant. It was all staged to show him as a “man.” But in all these years that Ken has sought to present himself as the bravest man in Ghana, he has no record of a fight with anybody not to talk of winning it. He just talks.

The rush and unnecessary rant that he engaged in that day shows him as devoid of emotional intelligence. What an emotionally intelligent person would have done was to verify the claims. And in this case, a simple phone call to his agents in the North-East Region would have better informed him.

In being president, three factors are key in your character- sobriety, reflection and temperance. His rant of August 26th 2023, his descending in the gutters with people like Afia Schwarzenegger and his penchant for lies and exaggeration show that he has no sobriety, no reflection and certainly, zero temperance.

There is a book that I will recommend to every student of politics. It is titled, “Presidential Character” by James David Barber. In this book, Barber details the character of American presidents going back for decades and shows how their character reflected their performance when they got the opportunity to inhabit the White House.  I am asserting that character has a direct relationship with leadership and performance. I have heard Ken deny that he is a Trump copy-cat.

Well, but everybody certainly thinks that he is a reflection of Trump and the Trump character. And we saw Trump’s performance is the White House- it was certainly less than commendable. I am therefore asserting that Ken does not have a presidential character and will lose on November 4, 2023. And he knows it.  

So, to mitigate his pending doom, he has started making threats about “let nobody cheat” and “let nobody steal” and “let them not dare me” and such balderdash.  His agents will be at all the polling stations and he will lose. His desperation and threat to the people of Central Region has exposed his naivety and lack of temperance. He will lose in the Central Region and I also dare him to take a whip and go round after that and whip all the people in the polling stations where he will lose.

He was here in Yendi a few days ago to see the Ya Na. I am happy the Ya Na told him to get off the ethnic politics that he is engaged in. I am surprised that he came to Yendi or any part of the north to campaign. After seeking to disparage the northern claim to the presidency, he has the nerves to come and ask for our votes- “he’s got nerves.”

How does any presidential candidate become president without the northern vote? For generations, the UP tradition has suffered the rather unfortunate tag of “Akan Party.” Those of us from the north who have stuck with this tradition, have suffered the indignity of this tag for generations and we are determined to rid the party of this tag with the election of Bawumia as presidential candidate.

I know that Alan, Ken and people who reason like them are pained by the fact that a person of northern extraction is going to lead the party. Indeed, Hopeson and some of Alan’s supporters asserted in the run-up to August 26th, 2023, that the party has had a standing arrangement where a person of southern extraction led and a person of northern extraction became running mate. And they argued for keeping that arrangement. There was no such arrangement.

It was just an accident of history, that we didn’t have a person of the calibre of Bawumia contesting in previous presidential primaries. So, the time is here and we shall rid the NPP of the Akan tag forever. With the election of Bawumia on November 4, 2023, minority ethnicities in the NPP will have hope of a brighter future in the party and this will really cement the national character of the NPP. There are three political traditions in Ghana today-the Nkrumah, the Rawlings and the Danquah-Dombo-Busia tradition.

The Nkrumah tradition has produced a president in Hilla Limann. The Rawlings tradition has produced a president in John Mahama. I think that the Danquah-Dombo-Busia tradition should produce a president to cement its national character.

I shall return.