By Kwame Okoampa-Ahoofe, Jr., Ph.D.
Garden City, New York
Nov. 26, 2015
E-mail: okoampaahoofe@optimum.net

In the wake of the virulent prevention of Mr. George Boateng, the Oyarifa National Democratic Congress’ Youth Organizer, from contesting President John Dramani Mahama in the party’s presidential primary, the NDC leader sent his deputy and Ghana’s Vice-President, Mr. Kwesi Bekoe Amissah-Arthur, to pick his nomination forms from the party’s headquarters for him. If that was not a resounding endorsement of Mr. Amissah-Arthur’s candidacy as Mr. Mahama’s running-mate for Election 2016, then I don’t know what else was. For those who have been studiously observing NDC politics, it was quite clear that Mr. Mahama intended to effectively put to rest any doubts that any ambitious party operatives with designs on the number two slot of the presidential ticket might have harbored.

In the recent past, rumors have swirled over the purported freeze in relations between Messrs. Amissah-Arthur and Mahama. Indeed, so palpable appeared to be such rumors that even former President Jerry John Rawlings once had occasion to bump Ms. Hanna Tetteh, the Foreign Minister, off a program in which the latter was scheduled to address a conference of large-city African mayors. Mr. Rawlings’ quite sound argument was that diplomatic protocol required that the Vice-President pinch-hit for the incumbent who was widely reported to be preoccupied with other equally pressing official matters. Ms. Tetteh, very likely out of conniption and feeling slighted, reportedly stormed out of the conference center. She would later complain that he abrupt departure ought not to have occasioned the level of media publicity that it did.
In the past, the President has also been widely rumored to have been romantically involved with his Foreign Minister. Ms. Tetteh has also been forced to publicly deny that she was in the running for the vice-presidency, although she has also noted at one time that she would not be averse to being selected to partner President Mahama in the lead-up to Election 2016. Interestingly, the Mayor of Accra, Dr. Oko Vanderpuije, was also at one time rumored to be in the running for the vice-presidential slot of the NDC. Here also, Dr. Vanderpuije vehemently denied ever flirting with any such idea, although he is currently vying for a parliamentary seat and a possible cabinet appointment.

Calls by such hard-nosed party machinists as Messrs. Kofi Portuphy and Johnson Asiedu-Nketia, National Chairman of the NDC and General-Secretary, respectively, for Mr. Mahama to name his 2016 running-mate are decidedly sheer formality. Even when in October Mr. Mahama said that he could not just as yet reveal either the name or identity of his running-mate for Election 2016, this was unmistakably taken to mean that the name and identity of his running-mate was already known to the overwhelming majority of the Ghanaian electorate, even if it was not yet a household name. Those of us avid watchers of the NDC political scene are well aware of the fact that there is not much that is either progressive or innovative about the way things are done in the Rawlings-minted juggernaut of a faux-socialist political organization. I shall come to it very soon, but I was quite amused to see a poster in which the NDC parliamentary candidate for Akyem-Ofoase was convincingly accused of having “fashionably plagiarized” an earlier poster designed and published by the campaign team of Mr. Kojo Oppong-Nkrumah, the renowned young media operative turned politician.

At any rate, I sincerely don’t believe that adequate preparation by key operatives at party headquarters for the 2016 Mahama Presidential Campaign significantly depends on promptly naming the running-mate of the incumbent. It is a sheer formality; and his decision to promptly announce the name of his running-mate may very much be reflective of the need for some element of suspense, even a cheap and tawdry and wholly predictable one, because even the former Rawlings Communications Minister realizes that NDC political culture is rather boring and tedious. There is absolutely nothing politically exciting or even worthwhile on this side of Ghana’s two major ideological divides. The National Democratic Congress appears to thrive best on such quality-of-life annoyances as Dumsor or erratic power supply and the abysmally poor quality of environmental hygiene.

It is also in these areas of our national life that the main opposition New Patriotic Party (NPP) has a decisive chance of making a significant dent among the staunch supporters of the National Democratic Congress. In other words, for Nana Akufo-Addo and his associates, Election 2016 is inescapably a referendum on the abjectly poor performance of the Mahama regime in the areas of economic development, employment, health, education and agriculture, among a plethora of others.