*....Cigar Popping Son To Takeover Dome-Kwabenya *

The Second Deputy Speaker has subtly confirmed reports making the rounds within the New Patriotic Party (NPP) and even Parliament House that Nana Akufo Addo, has penciled and indeed, promised him the position of a Speaker of Parliament, should the latter win the 2012 Presidential Election.

Last Wednesday, Prof. Aaron Michael Ocquaye, who is the Member of Parliament for Dome-Kwabenya, was captured in the media as joining a tall list of veteran Politicians who will not seek re-election as Members of Parliament.

Daily Guide Newspaper owner and ex-First Deputy Speaker, Freddie Blay, was once tipped for the same position by the same NPP presidential candidate in 2008. Mr. Blay’s name has popped up twice already for the position.

First, during the second term of the Kufour Presidency, when the late Peter Ala-Adjetey was booted out. The second time his name came up again, was when he last the Ellembelle Constituency seat to the NDC, and Nana Addo wanted to compensate him.

“A time comes when you must give way to younger people,” Prof. Mike Ocquaye said, “but I am the type of person who will still be contributing to the work of Parliament,” he said to the Accra-based Joy FM.

Shockingly, however, his cigar-popping-fun-loving son, Lawyer Mike Ocquaye Jnr., is lacing his boots to take over from him. He is expected to meet a fierce competition from another privileged and also inexperience daughter of Apostle Kwadjo Sarfo of the Christo Asafo Church, Miss. Adjoa Sarfo, a lawyer also.

Dome-Kwabenya is one of the strongholds of the NPP in the Greater Accra Region, and whoever emerges winner of the primaries stands a greater chance to retain the seat for the NPP than the ex-Information Minister, Mrs. Zita Okaikoi of the National Democratic Congress.

Signals picked ahead of the primaries, indicate that both privileged children are not on the ground. While Mike Ocquaye Jnr will be riding on his father’s record, Ms. Sarfo who contested the incumbent MP in 2008, has no record at all to run on, accept her membership of the party and a recent GHc10, 000 donation she recently made to the NPP.

The speakership of Mike Ocquaye is likely to pose a problem as he is described as “too too partisan for the position”. Indeed, a prominent member of the House, told The Herald that he will not vote for him should Nana Addo win the 2012 election and Mike Ocquaye nominated as Speaker of Parliament.

Mike Ocquaye Jnr has, in recent times, been seen in Parliament perhaps trying to acquaint himself with the stairs of the House. At least, The Herald, last week saw him greeting almost everybody at sight in Parliament.

What is likely to cause Mike Ocquaye Jnr’s downfall is an unconfirmed report that his father, as Minister Communications, got a $20 million from telecom giant Areeba now MTN, for water project at Taifa, but nothing was seen, as the Taifa people are still grappling with water difficulty till date.

Mike Ocquaye, ex-Minister of Energy and Ghana High Commissioner to India, would be remembered for always trying to score cheap political points at the least opportunity.

Recently, operatives of the National Security Secretariat, on the orders of President Mills, went to the Dome Market to tidy up the place for sellers. When the MP was told, he dashed to the market in an apparent attempt to portray himself as the brain behind the job.

Again, he was engaged in a heated verbal exchange with Tourism Minister Zita Okaikoi over who has the power to distribute relief items after dozens of residents left homeless following a downpour which caused havoc there.

Aide to former President Rawlings Kofi Adams recently described Prof. Ocquaye, as opportunistic for his criticism of the celebration of the 31st December Revolution and yet extolling the coup in his book.

According to him, Prof Ocquaye in his book “Politics in Ghana”, praised the revolution, and said it was necessary. Prof Ocquaye, in reaction, said: “I have never praised any military coup in the country.

According to him, his book, Politics in Ghana 1972 to 1979, published in 1980, talked about Acheampong and Akuffo era and a small part about the AFRC, and explained that the book he wrote about the PNDC era was Politics in Ghana: 1982 to 1992, in which he published what happened during the Revolution.