By Awura Esi Johnson

It’s rather unfortunate that the delegates of the NPP have been asked to reject Alan’s bid to lead the party into 2016 election. To do so before the man, Alan has had the chance to announce his interest to run is a sign of how intolerance and divisive our party has become. It shows how vicious we are as a party. The man has not even announced his interest to run and yet he has been condemned already. The sad part of it all is that, these same people who are pushing this nonsense are the same people who support people like Sir John; the CEO of the party who has openly thrown his support for Nana Addo’s third coming. Instead of building and promoting unity in the party, he and other executives are talking and behaving as Nana’s campaign managers.

Throughout the world, there have been instances where politicians have even crossed carpets from one side of the political spectrum to the other and have gone on to do well for their new parties. Just to mention a few, President Reagan started out as a registered Democrat and campaigned for candidates on tickets of the Democrats party against Republican candidates. He switched sides in 1962 to become a Republican. He went on to become the president of the United States as a Republican. Wendell Willkie, sought the Democratic presidential nomination in 1932 and lost to Franklin Roosevelt. In 1939, he joined the Republican Party, winning the presidential nomination in 1940. Here in Ghana, Major Courage Quashigah, a leading member of the PNDC government was made a cabinet minister in Kuffour’s NPP government. If politicians can move from one party to another to seek the number one position of that party, then I find no issues at all with one leaving and rejoining his own party after a few months. Many marriage couples have left their matrimonial homes due to various problems in their marriages and have re-united after some years and the marriages have gotten even stronger than before.

The argument that Alan did not support Nana Addo’s 2012 campaign is grossly misleading mischievous. In politics, the onus is on the winner to build bridges to unite. It was never true that Nana wholeheartedly supported Kuffour’s campaign in 2000. And let’s agree for argument sake that he did, that could have been made possible because Kuffour being magnanimous offered Nana a role in his campaign as he did in his government. No one would just get up and start campaigning for another without an invitation and a well-defined role. Bill Clinton of all, could not on his own go out and vigorously campaign for Al Gore, his own vice-president for eight years until he was assigned specific tasks at the dying days of Gore’s campaign. Yet, the same Bill Clinton, campaigned vigorously for Obama even though he, Obama had just come out of one of the most acrimonious primaries with Mr. Clinton’s wife. He did so because he was invited with specific tasks to perform. And on Obama’s part, he did not consider Hillary Clinton as a threat to his presidency. Neither did he dwell on the events of the primaries as reason to shun her. Nana Addo could have been magnanimous and done the same. He DID NOT.

Instead, Nana Addo and his team, for all intent and purposes saw Alan as a tower that would over-shadow Nana if he was brought closer to him. To avoid that, Nana and his team purposely sidelined him. What campaign roles were given to those who contested against Nana? And what would you have done if you were Alan? Gordon Yeboah, do you know the kind of treatment that people all over the world who were perceived as Alan supporters were put through?

What happened to Dr. Bawumia after the 2008 election? Did he not leave the country to take up an appointment in Canada and Zimbabwe only to be brought back in 2012 as vice-presidential candidate? It is also true that just after the 2012 election and whilst the court case was taking shape, we found out that he, Dr. Bawumia had taken a job offer in Ethiopia. If we can allow Dr. Bawumia, a relatively new comer in the party a free pass to move in and out, then, I question why anyone would put a block in Alan’s path should he decides to run for the leadership of the party.

Gordon, we are not only looking for a presidential candidate. We have had a few of them. We are looking for a president. Therefore, the best advice to the delegates is for them to choose a person who can bring us to power in 2016. For now, at least, we know who has not been able to do that. So, if there is a need for a process of elimination to decide who becomes our leader then it should start there.