...No campaigning till after March 6
President J. A. Kufuor has repeated his lame warning to Ministers aspiring to succeed him, which has gone unheeded, with a March 6 deadline!

He first issued the directive two years ago, telling serving Ministers with presidential ambitions to desist from campaigning for the presidential ticket of the party while serving as Ministers.

This time round, according to Chronicle Castle sources, the President has warned that he would not tolerate any acts on the part of any of the serving Ministers who flouts his orders by attempting to covertly or overtly further their presidential ambitions at the expense of their Ministerial duties.

That leaves Vice President, Aliu Mahama and other aspirants, who are also running for the slot a clear two-month handicap, even though there are growing sentiments among party insiders that they are not too keen on Ministers who are aspirants because they ‘showed them for the six years that they have been in power’.

The warning was issued by the president at the Castle during the last Cabinet meeting for 2006, during which he indicated his dissatisfaction with the desperation with which some of his serving Ministers have been touring the country canvassing for support under the guise of performing official duties.

The president told the Ministers that it was necessary for all of them to contribute towards the celebration of the 50th anniversary celebration of the nation’s independence and openly warned that Ministers who would flout the ultimatum would be doing so at their own risk as he would not hesitate in firing such recalcitrant Ministers.

While the president’s warning got some Ministers trembling and gasping for little confidence and courage to air their views, 60-year-old Tourism and Diasporan Relations Minister, Jake Obetsebi Lamptey, found the occasion as the opportune venue and time to make his presidential ambition openly known to the President and his cabinet colleagues.

Jake’s declaration, is said to have been a shocker to the Ministers, as it was obvious that such an action required the mastering of a rare sense of courage.

The President is said to have applauded the Minister’s courage and openness and told him that he had no problem with his ambitions but again warned that he could only campaign after March 6, when the independence celebration would have been over.

Sources close to the Tourism Minister have told the paper that before making his ambitions known to the President, Jake had made a lot of moves in Accra, aimed at consolidating his support base in the Greater Accra Region, which is his home region.

The Minister is the immediate past Chairman of the region and many are of the view that he commands a lot of support in the region. The Minister recently hosted Greater Accra constituency executives at a Christmas party at his official residence.

After the dinning and winning the party executives were presented with a bag of rice and a piece of cloth each.

Already the Minister is said to have got some influential party men in his camp. Business magnate and Member of Parliament for Assin North, Mr. Kennedy Agyepong, who donated about ¢1.5billion to charity in December is said to have pledged to support the campaign team of Jake by clearing the way for him.

The source said Ken would be responsible for the launching of Jake’s campaign in the Northern Region because he is the conscience of the rank and file of the party.

According to him most of the people in the campaign team of Jake a.k.a the Field Marshals are mostly party executives and therefore going by the ground rules, it would not be appropriate to disclose their identities.

The source said though the issue of Jake not having any educational certificate may crop up it would not hold because reformists like John Major and Winston Churchill in the United Kingdom were all not academicians but were able to bring remarkable changes in British politics.

He argued that the success Jake had chalked in the party alone as the former Campaign Manager of the party was well enough to take him to victory.

The source said Jake’s team had already sent out scouts to almost all the regions with the exception of the Western Region, to canvass for the votes of the NPP delegates, adding that the scouts that went to the Eastern and Central regions had returned on Tuesday with encouraging news.