That Is Why She Would Not Endorse Him

The NPP Presidential candidate, Nana Akufo Addo clearly exhibited his true desperation during his final campaign rally at the Efua Sutherland Children’s Park this Wednesday, when he lied to his supporters that the former first lady, Nana Konadu Agyamang Rawlings endorsed him for the elections and urged NDP members to vote for him. However, few hours after this anno uncement, the spokesperson of Nana Konadu issued a press release, denying the claim of Nana Addo.

It is very glaring that, after the failure of Nana Konadus’s NDP, which was masterminded and bankrolled by Nana Addo and the NPP to form a splinter party, in a bid to block the electoral chances of the NDC, Nana Addo still thinks that, it is only if he garners the support of the former first lady that, he could win the elections.

Nana Konadu may have sat down and rendered a sober reflection, on the true colors of the person and party in dire need of her support, and the sort of hell she and her husband went through, during the first and second regime of the NPP-in which Nana Akufo Addo was very instrumental. He was even the brain behind the idea of freezing various courtesies and privileges that she and her husband used to enjoy. Not to mention the stressful and nerve-wrecking legal tussle that the first couple had to be subjected to at the court, with unfounded allegations of causing financial lost to the state. Having seen and heard her husband, former President Jerry Rawlings’ endorsement of H. E. Excellency President John Dramani Mahama, and watched the various mammoth rallies of the NDC nations wide, with the party leading in majority of the polls and above all, the ever soaring and surging affection and popularity of the President-which is superseding and overriding her own husband’s popularity, in spite of consistent attacks by the NPP, she thought it more expedient to leave herself in such a catch-22 or dilemma situation-to be neither here nor there.

She would have changed her decision and rejoined her former party, the NDC, as it happened to Dr. Obed Asamoah, who defected from the NDC and came back later and was embraced. But she is reluctant to do so, out of guilty consciousness and disappointment for her expectation to be given Vice-Presidential slot, after the demise of the late President Mills, whom she contested at the primaries and lost, in 2011.

But is obvious that, as her husband saw and endorsed President Mahama on Monday, Nana Konadu is pessimistic about the victory of Nana Addo, hence she would not want to experience a ‘double’ defeat-first, of her disqualification by the Electoral Commission and second, the very likelihood of NPP losing today. The fact is, if she was optimistic of his victory, she would have endorsed him. Because she herself knows that, her own NDP memebers-who were ‘rented’ members of the NDC, have resolved to vote for H. E. President Mahama and the NDC parliamentary candidates today.

So my fellow NDP members and the undecided voters, Nana Konadu knows clearly that, President Mahama is the best candidate, with the best policies and programs to leap-frog Ghana’s economy to a commanding height and make the country outstanding among the committee of nations, but due to the reasons mentioned above she is reluctant to come back to our fold. So folks, vote for H.E. John Dramani Mahama today for better Ghana.

Husseini Y. BabalWaiz, Press Secretary, NDC New York