…Says 1,200 Delegates Will Thumb-Print Him Into Office

Jacob Nii Lantei Otanka Obetsebi-Lamptey, stands some six feet tall, draped with the colours red, white and blue and having carried the full weight of three ministries on his massive shoulders, now wants to be President of the republic of Ghana.

A master craftsman of slogans who learnt the tricks of the advertising and communications trade back in the day at LINTAS WEST AFRICA LIMITED, Jake has readied his war-cry with a beat of the gong-gong already with the clarion call, HE DID IT FOR JAK, INSHA ALLAH HE WILL DO IT FOR JAKE. Perhaps the similarity and infectious melody of JAK and JAKE should send a certain premonition as to what is to come by Saturday night on December 22, 2008 when God would have finally spoken on the delicate subject of who leads NPP.

Back in the day in 1963 when still a teenager, daddy Emmanuel Odarkwei Obetsebi-Lamptey of the famous BIG SIX’S parting words in a letter he wrote to Jake and his kid brother Afadi still rings a bell; “DO NOT LET OUR SACRIFICE BE IN VAIN”.

And so with a clever head on massive shoulders and a fine repertoire of achievements in administration both at LINTAS and in government stretching across three Ministries, Jake Nii Lantei Otanka Obetsebi-Lamptey marches to NPP war with his medals boldly decorated on his breast-plate. In 2000 he had been an invaluable member of the NPP when his brainwork helped extensively, to get campaign songs and advertisements settling a little too deep on the minds of the electorate.

Seven odd years after, Jake takes the field himself with a stake to the highest office of the NPP en route to the presidency for after all, which of the more focused lieutenants does not want to be a general?

Ghanaians of Fanti stock who rejected their own kinsman, Prof. John Evans Atta Mills, put the phrase in a nicer perspective each time they fly the question; WHO DOESN’T LOVE SNAILS? Certainly not Jake!

“Each time I wake up from bed, the first thing I do is to thank God Almighty for my health, my family and much more importantly Ghana and its wonderful people,” Otanka Obetsebi-Lamptey shot across the plush office table separating him from THE SUN’s SPOTLIGHT TEAM.

And so with his nomination papers filed and the millions paid, the big man has come thundering in with the pursuance of his dream; the presidency.

Otanka is counting on his punchy deliveries in the advertising trade to nick the prize away from his other folks, and the Ghanaian political world ought to clean the wax in its ears and remove the speck in its eyes in readiness for those infectious and danceable tunes and messages.

Advertising dictates schooled him years ago on building the capacity to having a vision, good and encouraging enough to make Team Ghana buy into it. Over here, Jake pledges rather strategically to involve one and all, for the fact of all-inclusiveness is not lost on him where delivery is concerned.

“I think quite honestly that I have a vision for Ghana and I believe I have that tremendous capacity to deliver. My stewardship in three areas of government where I brought in lots of innovations should stand me in good stead,” Otanka Obetsebi-Lamptey says with those staring and glassy eyes that look beyond the Osu Castle, December 22, 2008, to the new Flag Staff House presidency where he figures he will be.

With a foundation he had helped to build with team captain, President J. A. Kufour, Jake plans to get everyone else to help pull the cart in the same direction such that, jobs would be available for all.

The advertising capo does not remember the last time he played the tribal card and wants it put on record that aside corruption, deceit, violence and laziness the next detestable thing he hates most, is the ethnic thing.

“By my vast experience as an advertiser, one of the things I have under wraps is the cherished client and as to where a person comes from is grossly immaterial,” Jake says with cock certainty.

He figures that Ghana ought to celebrate its differences rather than bother to split wide, the tremendous store of varied traditions and customs. “Nowhere is this demonstrated better than the NPP which is at the present time showcasing a wealth of talent, comprising 19 or so aspirants for just one slot,” he pointed out rather confidently.

JAKE AS CHIEF OF STAFF He was responsible for all ministries as Chief of Staff then, and so came out with a system to make the work easier. Jake implemented a team of advisers to ensure political direction and continuity in government business, till all appointments were over and done with through Parliamentary grills.

Note ought to be taken that he took over at a very sensitive time, when the departing NDC government had allowed parts of the Osu Castle to fall in ruins. Jake worked assiduously to revive Canadian support for the optimization of the office of the President.

Vehicles and equipment were either in a state of needed repair, or had been carted away by the NDC and the administrative system was on the verge of collapse. But with a clever head over strong shoulders and a clever brain upstairs in his temple area, Jake joined hands with his team to correct the anomaly in good time.

He held the first Chief of Staff’s durbar with Castle workers at the Workers Canteen, and that was magical enough. Those who had hitherto been treated as the backside of the game that need not be added to the soup, now felt they belonged.

“They worked like bulls to get things going,” the big man acknowledged. Pretty soon he was organizing Ministerial Team-building Programmes at GIMPA, with His Excellency the President in attendance.

He also factored in the District Chief Executives’ breakfast meetings with chief directors on several important national policy initiatives, including the Public Sector Reform Project, implemented through the National Institutional Renewal Project.

Yet again he implemented measures to fulfill the President’s vision by operationalising the office of the President’s Special Initiatives (PSI), identifying and establishing contacts with large scale textile manufacturers; starting the first pilot cassava project and organizing the Homecoming Summit.

By close of 2001, Jake had implemented one of the most important administrative tools ever undertaken at the office of any Ghanaian President, which was the installation of a network and a secure digital file transfer system with independent interest connectivity.