Akufo-Addo is, finally, set to Govern

On Thursday, March 13, 2008, the Presidential Candidate of the ruling New Patriotic Party (NPP) inaugurated his presidential campaign team. And as had been widely expected, Nana Addo-Dankwa Akufo-Addo's team reflected a representative cross-section of the nation at large. But what was even more remarkable was the NPP flagbearer's demonstration of leadership flair by including almost every key player in the ruling party, particularly the seventeen other former aspirants to the NPP presidential candidacy who spiritedly contested against the Abuakwa-South member of the Ghanaian parliament.

Also edifying are the four thematic pillars upon which Nana Akufo-Addo intends to predicate his presidential campaign, namely, the continuing consolidation of Ghanaian democracy, the rapid modernization of Ghanaian society at large, the structural transformation of a still-largely neocolonialist and rudimentary economy, as well as the full engagement of the country in the fervid process of regional and continental integration.

Regarding the latter pillar, those of us avid students of Fourth-Republican Ghanaian politics would rather have had Nana Akufo-Addo emphasize the need to massively boost our national-security apparatus in order to ensure a palpable reduction in both the local and national crime wave. For, needless to say, while the salutary necessity of both regional and continental integration cannot be gainsaid, still, the primary mandate of the NPP government, as resoundingly accorded the latter by the Ghanaian electorate, is to ensure, above all else, the protection of human life and property. And here also must be echoed Dr. Danquah's observation (some sixty-odd years ago) that the relevance of Ghana's independence on the African continent, and elsewhere, must be primarily predicated upon making our country worthy of emulation (see Danquah's papers on the Gold Coast Youth Conference).

Needless to say, it was his lopsided focus on continental African integration, at the damnable expense of the rapid and organic development of Ghana, that partly precipitated the overthrow of the Convention People's Party (CPP). Of course, the primary cause of Mr. Nkrumah's overthrow was the CPP Life-Chairman's pathological inability to appreciate the rapid and creative modernization of Ghana through democratic governance. And it is the latter phenomenon that makes the Danquah-Busia Tradition (DBT) an irreproachable standout in postcolonial Ghanaian politics.

It was also quite edifying, as well as refreshing, to hear Nana Akufo-Addo sternly warn political mischief-makers – an obvious allusion to the blood-thirsty Rawlings Corporation, otherwise known as the National Democratic Congress (NDC) – against any dastardly attempt to primitively and regressively derail Ghana's fast-evolving democratic culture. To the foregoing effect, Nana Akufo-Addo tersely and unmistakably observed: “There will be no justification for any group of people to disturb the hard-won peace of our country and to instigate the shedding of even a single drop of Ghanaian blood.”

Earlier on, the NPP presidential candidate had exhorted the Electoral Commission, as the Afari-Gyan institution has creditably done in the past, to ensure that the credibility of the 2008 general elections becomes unimpeachable.

Indeed, Nana Akufo-Addo might aptly well have added that while Ghana would continue to exert its sterling leadership in continental African affairs, nevertheless, regional neighborliness strictly prohibited the massive movement of certified and pathological criminals across our national borders, and that Ghanaian security forces and agencies would steadily and vigorously pursue and extirpate any inimical attempts by potential nation-wreckers – both externally and internally – to wreak mayhem on law-abiding Ghanaian citizens.

On a related level, Nana Akufo-Addo ought to likewise have highlighted the need to set in place a viable process for thoroughly disarming the P/NDC-minted Commando Forces, a paramilitary terrorist institution introduced by Messrs. Rawlings and Atta-Mills, to summarily freeze the creative Ghanaian imagination as well as perpetually abrogate postcolonial Ghanaian democracy.

As usual, the National Chairman of the ruling New Patriotic Party minced no words in cautioning the Rawlings Corporation against any suicidal attempt to nullify the country's hard-won democratic culture: “We have taken note of the fact that leaders of the NDC have started a campaign [whose sole and flagrant objective inheres in] accusing the NPP of setting out to rig the [2008] elections. We [members of the NPP] have no iota of doubt that the NDC has prepared a [sinister] game plan [whose intention is to] discredit and demonize the Electoral Commission by feeding [blatant and despicable] lies to the public.”

And on the preceding score, it goes without saying that Mr. Mac Manu knows precisely what the NPP national chairman is talking about. For to-date, nearly two years after having been unilaterally appointed presidential candidate a la Mr. Rawlings' infamous Swedru Declaration, short of crass accusations and the peddling of outright lies to NDC sympathizers and potential Ghanaian voters, Prof. John Evans Atta-Mills has yet to either articulate or promulgate any constructively comprehensive agenda for the country's development during the course of the next four years.

*Kwame Okoampa-Ahoofe, Jr., Ph.D., is Associate Professor of English and Journalism at Nassau Community College of the State University of New York, Garden City. E-mail: [email protected].