By Kwame Okoampa-Ahoofe, Jr., Ph.D.
Garden City, New York
March 12, 2016
E-mail: okoampaahoofe@optimum.net

When he lost the first officially scheduled Klottey-Korle parliamentary election on the ticket of the main opposition New Patriotic Party (NPP), I advised Mr. Philip Addison to desist from following through with his decision to have the primary election rerun, on the dubious grounds that the time and day scheduled for the election had not favored his supporters. I also warned him that any narcissistic attempt to use the courts to strong arm the party’s leadership to turn the tables in his favor would only end up splitting NPP support in the constituency whose coveted seat was presently held by Nii Armah Ashitey of the ruling National Democratic Congress (NDC).

Mr. Ashitey, the former Greater-Accra Regional Minister, is himself in a bitter and fierce battle with Dr. Zanetor Agyeman-Rawlings, the eldest foreign-educated daughter of former President Jerry John Rawlings and his wife and partner-in-crime Nana Konadu Agyeman-Rawlings. In sum, all is not well and peaceful in the Klottey-Korle Constituency of Central Accra. I have already written and published quite extensively about the Rawlings-Ashitey battle for the soul and parliamentary candidacy of the NDC in the Klottey-Korle Constituency, and so presently intend to focus on the Addison-Nortey political slugfest.

The alleged decision by Mr. Nii Noi Nortey to go independent, after the former NPP Chairman of the Klottey-Korle Constituency lost the court-ordered rerun of the party’s parliamentary primary to Mr. Philip Addison, would have been perfectly legitimate if the loser of the rerun had not consented to fully and actively participating in the same. In other words, in consenting to participate in the rerun of the Klottey-Korle NPP parliamentary primary in the lead-up to Election 2016, it clearly appears that a cocksure Mr. Nortey had in principle accepted the decision by the court to summarily invalidate the originally scheduled parliamentary primary, which as far as most of us observers are concerned, had been won fair and square by the presently aggrieved Mr. Nortey.

For the foregoing reason, if the party’s constituency executives so desired, they could actually go back to court to prevent Mr. Nortey from contesting even as an Independent Candidate within the Klottey-Korle Constituency. For Mr. Nortey has clearly become a nuisance who could also be legitimately sued in court for a full refund of whatever moneys may have been invested in organizing the parliamentary primary rerun by both the NPP and the Electoral Commission (EC). Put in simple terms, Nii Noi Nortey has taken his party and the EC on a wild-goose chase. The Greater-Accra Chairman of the NPP, Mr. Ishmael Ashitey is equally right to observe that “Nii Noi Nortey is a human being who can always change his mind.”

What is not true, unfortunately for Mr. Nortey, is the fact that he has absolutely no inalienable right to presume that he can play fast-and-loose with the laid-down rules of political engagement of both the NPP and, in particular, the legitimately constituted court of the land. If Mr. Ashitey is able to convince Nii Noi Nortey to change his mind that would, of course, be a laudable stroke of genius. It would also redound to the benefit of the aggrieved Mr. Nortey in the long run, as he would then be able to retain his remarkably high standing within the party and be poised to giving Mr. Addison the proverbial run for his money come Election 2020. What is even more refreshing is the fact that there is absolutely no guarantee that Mr. Addison would be able to handily defeat either Nii Armah Ashitey, the Klottey-Korle parliamentary incumbent, who is himself locked in a fierce Armageddonian battle with the Dr. Rawlings, as hinted at the beginning of this column, or the readily recognizable Dr. Rawlings herself.

At any rate, even if Mr. Addison should emerge triumphant in the upcoming November parliamentary election, absolutely nothing prevents Mr. Nortey from contesting Mr. Addison four years from now. At that time, if the party’s leadership decides to blindly and conveniently throw its weight behind an incumbent Mr. Addison, Mr. Nortey could then decide to go independent and win the massive support and sympathy of those who watched him play decently by the rules the season before.

Frankly speaking, and I have already said this before, should Dr. Zanetor Rawlings be afforded the nod by the mainstream of the National Democratic Congress leadership to run on the ticket of the ruling party, I have absolutely no doubt in mind that Mr. Addison would decidedly be toast, as New Yorkers are wont to say. To be certain, even ranged against the fast-aging Mr. Ashitey, the disturbingly overweight Mr. Addison is highly unlikely to hold his own. The Akufo-Addo lead attorney in the 2012 presidential-election petition has a far better chance of patiently waiting in the wings for a plum cabinet portfolio from a highly likely Akufo-Addo presidency come January 2017.

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