Truthfully Speaking, Dr Addo-Kufuor is a Political Nuisance!
By Kwame Okoampa-Ahoofe, Jr., Ph.D.I have studiously followed his shameless scheming for some six-and-half years now, and so yours truly is not surprised that Dr. Kwame Addo-Kufuor, the younger brother of the substantive and beloved Ghanaian president, Mr. John Agyekum-Kufuor, would be ineffectually attempting to poison the credibility of Ghana’s fledgling democratic culture, against all reason and political pragmatism, by running for the presidential nomination of the ruling New Patriotic Party (NPP) come December 2007, and the presidency exactly a year later.
Needless to say, what is limpidly in operation here is “sibling rivalry.” And the latter, ordinarily mild canker, or illness, emanates from the bare fact that Kwame Addo-Kufuor has, evidently, been playing second-fiddle to his elder brother, Kofi Diawuo, all his life; thus for the British-trained pediatrician, even as his elder brother is also a British-trained barrister, this is his last chance to prove to himself and to the rest of the world that, indeed, Brother John merely arrived on the earth just a little sooner than Brother Kwame, not that the former has any corner or edge over the latter.
The obvious problem here, however, is that national politics is a wholly different ball game, as it were, on a wholly different terrain with a wholly different set of rules and judgment calls. And it sadly appears that in his vaulting ambition to replace his elder brother – a sort of “political-hand-me-down” – Dr. Kwame Addo-Kufuor seems to have readily and deliberately forgotten the salutary rule of “tactical distancing,” particularly where popular perception may not exactly gibe with either the constitutionality or his right to gun for the presidency more than a year before his elder brother vacates it. And for a longsuffering people who have just recently emerged out of a traumatic two protracted decades of ethnic-cleansing and ethnic-minority rule, both by the raw force of arms and pseudo-elections, it is highly unlikely to matter much to the electorate whether Article 62 of Ghana’s Fourth Republican Constitution permits him to legitimately gun for the presidency on the hot-heels of his elder brother, or that he is eminently qualified to seek the coveted Osu Castle Job, just like all the other aspiring presidential nominees of the ruling New Patriotic Party (NPP). It is also at once both interesting and disturbing that Dr. Addo-Kufuor would ravenously capitalize on his “service” as Ghana’s Minister of Defense for the past six-and-half years as his overriding claim to clinching the presidential nomination of the NPP and ultimately the Ghanaian presidency itself. On the preceding score, this is what Dr. Addo-Kufuor has to say: “After maintaining tranquility and stability in Ghana as Minister of Defense, I know what is good for the nation and would never act contrary to the laws of the country. I candidly believe in democracy and will always act accordingly” (see “Stop Projecting Ethnic Biases – Addo-Kufuor” Ghanaweb.com 6/28/07).
First of all, if, indeed, the former Defense Minister firmly believes that he was singularly responsible for the prevailing placid political climate in the country, he must be deceiving himself. For there is only one political figure in the country at the moment who could justifiably make such a sweeping claim or assertion, and that person is Mr. John Agyekum-Kufuor, the substantive president of the Republic of Ghana and the man who appointed his younger brother Ghana’s Minister of Defense, the first of such appointment in a half-century of postcolonial Ghanaian political history. But, perhaps, what is even more significant to underscore is the fact that it takes more than Ghana’s Minister of Defense, whoever the portfolio holder may be, to facilitate or maintain “tranquility and stability” in the country. In our especial case, for example, there is Mr. Francis Poku, Ghana’s National Security Adviser, a coordinate – or co-equal – cabinet portfolio whose holder is widely credited with the kind of “tranquility and stability” that Dr. Addo-Kufuor would rather have the Ghanaian electorate believe are his especial and singular brainchild or breastwork, as it were. Then, of course, there is also the Chief of Defense Staff, a non-cabinet but indispensable executive affiliate over whose portfolio, as past political experiences have indicated, the Minister of Defense may not necessarily control.
Further must be highlighted the fact that it takes a synergistic orchestration of the activities of such cabinet coordinate portfolios as Finance and Economic Planning; Employment, Manpower and Labor; Interior; Justice – in effect a panoply of cabinet portfolios to induce a salutary state of “tranquility and stability” in any nation worth its functional label.
What is disturbing about Dr. Addo-Kufuor’s chosen route to the presidency regards the fact that the former Defense Minister was reported to have been among the very first of the 8 key cabinet appointees to have resigned from his own brother’s government. Interestingly, Dr. Addo-Kufuor was also the only key cabinet appointee who was allowed to retain the same portfolio for all the six-and-half years that he served in his brother’s cabinet; and in case the reader is tempted to impute such “service stability” to sheer competence, well, s/he might want to think again. For even cryptically speaking, it is quite certain that Dr. Addo-Kufuor, a career pediatrician, though these days he jauntily claims to be more comfortable in the suit of a veteran politician, was definitely not the best man for the job.
And regarding his shameless scheming, yours truly has watched Dr. Addo-Kufuor tour Manhyia and Asante-Akropong constituencies loudly lecturing constituents on government labor statistics and the National Youth Employment Program (NYEP), a subject-area that squarely falls under the administrative purview of either the Minister of Labor or that of the Interior. And what is even more bizarrely interesting is the fact that nobody appears to have publicly challenged him. And believe yours truly, the only way and reason that Dr. Kwame Addo-Kufuor was able to get away with such brazen and patently unprofessional turf-poaching has quite a lot to do with exactly who sits in Mr. Kofi Antubam’s Chair. And so, all this poppycock about Dr. Addo-Kufuor gunning for the NPP presidential nomination purely and solely on his own merit is far beyond me, to say the least. Indeed, nearly seven years ago when he was bizarrely appointed Ghana’s Minister of Defense, yours truly was among the first Diaspora Ghanaian journalists to question the judgment of our beloved President. Back then, yours truly poignantly observed that if national governments were to be run exclusively on familial basis, or even on the basis of clan affiliation, I could, perhaps, assemble the best cast of cabinet operatives in the country, given the opportunity, that is. One only has to take a cursory look at the front of any of the re-denominated Ghanaian Cedi notes, the so-called Kufuor Dollars, to vindicate or contradict yours truly.
On a lighter note, the Kufuors may be quite elated to learn that this missive is purely an open and frank familial conversation, since this writer’s mother, Adwoa Attaa-Anin(i)waa Sintim, deceased, is also of the august Aduana Clan, historically from Akyem-Nkronso through Akwamufie to Kumawu. In sum, this is the kind of last resort, or last-minute, chamber-talk held before the apocalyptic descent of the proverbial wolf.
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